Telltale Hearts

More than two decades after the end of the Vietnam war, America's wounds have yet to heal. Still there is one conviction that most hawks and doves, then and now, share: that for better or worse, the Vietnam antiwar movement played an important role in turning American opinion against the war, limiting and ultimately ending US military activity in Southeast Asia. In reality however, this article of faith is quite wrong, as Telltale Hearts convincingly demonstrates. The antiwar movement, even at its radical height, was of marginal value and at times actually proved counterproductive to stopping or limiting the war. The movement unwittingly helped prolong the carnage, and more people on both sides were killed as a result. Telltale Hearts shows that the movement's impact on decision-making during the war was, in the end, just not very important compared to other factors, such as the contours of normal electoral politics, the ebb and flow of battle, and the devastating misjudgments made by a series of American civil and military leaders.
Antiwar activists thus deserve far less credit or blame for how the war ended than they have been accustomed to receiving, or to according themselves and each other. While Telltale Hearts shows how minor the influence of the antiwar movement really was during the actual fighting, it then follows the movement into the present to create a convincing picture of its much greater, and much underestimated, postwar influence. Adam Garfinkle takes us on a remarkable journey from the Sixties into the Nineties, searching out Vietnam as metaphor and template, memory and icon. Telltale Hearts sets a new standard for serious critical discussion of the antiwar movement and its times, even as it addresses our own.