FROM ENEMY TO FRIEND: A North Vietnamese Perspective on the War, by Bui Tin, November 2002, Naval Institute Press, ISBN 1-55750-881-X, Chronology, Index. For us who were part of it, the Vietnam War remains a dull ache, softened only by the passage of time. It was one of the two Hot Wars within the so-called Cold War, and quite valid in purpose and intent, as Bui Tin confirms. Having been inundated with tendentious, breast-beating, self-justifying etc. reporting (e.g. former SecDef McNamara springs to mind -- I shall withhold commentary), one approaches books about the war with caution. This one is straight-forward -- the opponent's view. Bui Tin, a Colonel in the North Vietnam Army, makes his points in simple, direct language. I found it interesting reading, particularly on key points such as the amazement of the Communists of why we did not move up the Ho-Chi-Minh trail in Laos, leaving Laos and Cambodia exclusively for use by the North Vietnamese invaders; and their delight that we were so constrained by our fears of a Soviet or Chinese reaction to escalation, keeping us imprisoned by rules of our own making dictated from Washington (some of them truly stupid). There may have been more to all this than Bui Tin could know, but his assessments, representing the Hanoi government, are useful. As James Webb notes in a perceptive "foreword,' Bui Tin does not address the ubiquitous communist atrocities typical of a communist regime, but this does not detract from his narrative. In the end he became disgusted with the repressive policies of the Northern regime in South Vietnam, and he saw the Hanoi government for what it was, what some of us who fought there knew, a repressive Stalinist-Communist government. Not a book for fellow-travelers, but one I recommend. (Jonkers)