The Nightingale's Song

Robert Timberg weaves together the lives of Annapolis graduates John McCain, James Webb, Oliver North, Robert McFarlane, and John Poindexter to reveal how the Vietnam War continues to haunt America. Casting all five men as metaphors for a legion of well-meaning if ill-starred warriors, Timberg probes the fault line between those who fought the war and those who used money, wit, and connections to avoid battle. A riveting tale that illuminates the flip side of the fabled Vietnam generation — those who went.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [500]-516) and index.

Robert Timberg graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1964 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps. He served with the First Marine Division in South Vietnam from March 1966 to February 1967.

Timberg has been a newspaper reporter for the past twenty-five years. From 1973 to 1981 he worked for the Baltimore Evening Sun. In 1981 he joined the Washington bureau of the Baltimore Sun. From 1983 to 1988 he was the Sun's White House correspondent. In 1986 he was awarded the Aldo Beckman Award, given annually by the White House Correspondents Association for excellence in covering the White House. He is currently deputy chief of the Sun's Washington bureau.

Timberg holds a master's degree in journalism from Stanford. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard and a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.

In addition to daily reporting, Timberg has contributed articles to Esquire, the Washington Journalism Review, and Nieman Reports.

He lives with his wife, Kelley Andrews, a federal government official, and youngest son, Sam, in Bethesda, Maryland. He has three older children, Scott and Craig, both newspaper reporters, and Amanda, a senior in college.

CONTENTS

Prologue

Book I. IHTFP

Introduction

I. Halos and Horns

2. Imagination Is Funny

3. Showdown

Book II. Fields of Fire

Introduction

4. Fire at Sea

5. Music Bingo, Dummy Math, and Gamma Rays

6. Welcome to the Gallant Marines

7. The Crown Prince

8. The Bloody Filter

9. Do You Want to Go Home?

10. The Cherry Boy

11. The Natural

12. Trusting the System

13. 'Tis the Season to Be Jolly

14. Stranger in a Strange Land

15. The Reasonable and Honest War Criminal

16. Long Tall Sally

17. The Water Walker

18. Adult Education

19. A Tutorial with the Greats

20. Reentry

21. A Change of Heart

22. Pug Henry

23. Women Can't Fight

24. Guerrilla Warfare

25. Garlic in a Crowded Elevator

Book III. The Nightingale's Song

Introduction

26. Ollie, Bud, and John

27. The Candidate from Hanoi

28. Scorpions in a Jar

29. Noble Cause Redux

30. The Doubters

31. The Presbyterian Climax

32. Put 'Em Up, Put 'Em Up

33. Remember Yamamoto

34. An Alien Presence

35. I Don't Have Any Life

36. The White Tornado

37. The Biggest Hawk and the Biggest Dove

38. Where Was Al Krekich When We Needed Him?

39. Chinatown

Epilogue

A Note on Research Methods

Notes

Bibliography

Interviews

Acknowledgments

Index