BEST OUT OF PRINT VIETNAM WAR BOOK THAT YOU'VE PROBABLY NEVER READ

Howard Simpson, Tiger in the Barbed Wire: An American in Vietnam 1952-1991 (Kodansha, 1992). Simpson was an (unwelcome) American advisor to the French colonial government. His basic contention is that the Americans were too proud to take any serious lessons from the French experience in Indochina; after all, we had helicopters and they didn't. Simpson is an excellent writer -- he also wrote a fantastic account of the seige of Dien Bien Phu (Powell's has a copy here) -- and he recounts crisply and with humor his criticial observations of American policy toward the French and various corrupt South Vietnamese leaders. Amazon has a few copies here, and Powell's has one here. Probably obscure enough not to have been read by Vietnam war history buffs (unfortunately). And it's out of print and the reprint edition is out of stock at Amazon, so a gift of Simpson's book will demonstrate your superior book sleuthing skills. See also here for what looks like a reprint edition.