A shattering report by the CIA's Chief Strategy Analyst in Saigon. This is the book that provoked the US government to bring against the author an unprecedented law-suit which questions the basic principles of American democracy. Coming from inside the CIA, it is widely considered in the United States to be the most devastating analysis of American involvement in Vietnam. Throughout the last turbulent months of the Vietnam War, Snepp, CIA analyst and operative for the US Embassy in Saigon, accurately forecast each twist and turn of the screw. Yet when the end came in April 1975 the Ambassador and Kissinger's State Department were caught dangerously off guard. Only the heroism of a few young Embassy officers and the ingenuity of the Defence Attache saved the final American evacuation from total disaster, and even then thousands of Vietnamese who had faithfully served the Americans were abandoned. Snepp charges the very highest officials, including Ambassador Martin and Henry Kissinger, with bungling the 1975 evacuation from Vietnam. Here for the first time is the story of what happened, from the daring efforts of the young officers who salvaged the evacuation, to the duplicity and subterfuge of the French, the Soviets and the Hungarians who helped to blind the Ambassador and top CIA officials to the meaning of the intelligence. Never before has the subtle interplay of espionage and decision-making in an evolving crisis been so fully and tellingly explored...