Crusade or La noche de Tlatelolco

Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War

Author: Rick Atkinson

This definitive account of the Gulf War relates the previously untold story of the U.S. war with Iraq in the early 1990s. The author follows the 42-day war from the first night to the final day, providing vivid accounts of bombing runs, White House strategy sessions, firefights, and bitter internal conflicts.

Publishers Weekly

Atkinson ( The Long Gray Line ) here writes an engrossing account of the actions and utterances of those who directed and fought in the Persian Gulf War. He also provides a thorough analysis of diplomatic and political aspects of the conflict. Rich in pertinent details, the powerful narrative leaps nimbly from Washington to Riyadh, from Baghdad to Kuwait City, and to various battle sites across the sands. Expectedly, the book's dominant personality is General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, whose operatic rages are here shown to be an integral element of his command style. Atkinson defends the much-maligned VII Corps commander, Gen. Fred Franks, against Schwarzkopf's ``unfair and unwarranted'' criticism. The basic tactical decisions are all here, but the author also addresses the broader issues such as the true effectiveness of the air war, what role the Vietnam War played in Desert Shield/Desert Storm (``For Norman Schwarzkopf and his lieutenants, this war lasted not six weeks but twenty years''), and passes judgment on the reality-testing of the U.S. Army AirLand Battle doctrine. Photos. 75,000 first printing; first serial to the Washington Post; History Book Club main selection; author tour. (Oct.)

Library Journal

This interesting account of the 1991 Persian Gulf War by a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter features a number of original observations about the conduct of the war. For example, Atkinson discloses that the Bush administration allowed navy warships to fire cruise missiles covertly over Iran against Iraqi targets. Among his other disclosures are the use of napalm and fuel air explosives on Iraqi infantry positions and the suggestion by Air Force Brig. Gen. Buster Glosson to use small nuclear weapons against Iraqi targets. Atkinson is extremely critical of Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf's behavior. Although Schwarzkopf is credited with being an accomplished military strategist, he is portrayed as someone who abused and publicly denigrated his subordinates and who appeared to be in a near-constant state of rage. Recommended for general readers. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/93.-- Nader Entessar, Spring Hill Coll . , Mobile, Ala.

Kirkus Reviews

Exhaustive, albeit consistently absorbing, record of the 42- day Gulf War that offers fresh, often startling, perspectives on the planning and conduct of what the author characterizes as "a brilliant slaughter." Focusing almost entirely on military operations, Pulitzer- winning Washington Post correspondent Atkinson (The Long Gray Line, 1989) provides a chronological account of how the US-led coalition liberated Kuwait. In the course of doing so, he discloses that Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf could be an imperious martinet given to volcanic rages that not only cowed subordinates but also disturbed superiors (including Defense Secretary Richard Cheyney), who considered relieving him. The author also includes new details on, among other matters, how Washington persuaded Israel to eschew retaliation for Scud strikes; the aerial assault on Baghdad's Al Firdes bunker (which killed over 200 civilians and led to restrictions on strategic bombing); the hit-or-miss efforts of allied navies to clear mines from important waterways; disputes between intelligence agencies as to damage assessments; secret routes flown by US missiles on their way to enemy targets; the command decision to halt a rout short of annihilation; and the post-ceasefire action that decimated a fleeing Republican Guard division. Atkinson's episodic narrative also affords a coherent log of the successful air/sea/land campaign to oust Saddam from Kuwait. He recounts the contributions of the hang-loose French and British contingents, and unobtrusively puts crucial Gulf engagements in clearer context with allusions to feats of arms from the distant and recent past. Nor does Atkinson fail to point out that the professionalismdisplayed in achieving a deliberately limited triumph at a modest cost in casualties all but erased the stigma left by US involvement in Vietnam. Military history of a very high order. (Photos and maps—not seen) (First printing of 75,000; first serial to The Washington Post; Main Selection of the History Book Club)

Interesting book: Der Persönliche Berufschef: Das Geschäft, Geschäfte als ein Persönlicher Chef Zu machen

La noche de Tlatelolco: Testimonios de historia oral (Massacre in Mexico)

Author: Elena Poniatowska

During the 1968 Olympic games in Mexico City, 10,000 students gathered in a residential area called Tlatelolco to peacefully protest their nation's one-party government and lack of political freedom. In response, the police and the military cold-bloodedly shot and bayoneted to death an estimated 325 unarmed Mexican youths. Now available in paper is Elena Poniatowska's gripping account of the Tlatelolco tragedy, which Publishers Weekly claimed "makes the campus killings at Kent State and Jackson State in 1970 pale by comparison." "This is a story that has not been effectively told before," said Kirkus Reviews. "Call it the grito of Tlatelolco, a cry of protest and the subjective manifesto of Mexico's suppressed, potentially explosive, middle-class dissenters." In this heartbreaking chronicle, Elena Poniatowska has assembled a montage of testimony drawn over a three-year period from eyewitness accounts by surviving students, parents, journalists, professors, priests, police, soldiers, and bystanders to re-create the chaotic optimism of the demonstrations, as well as the terror and shock of the massacre. Massacre in Mexico remains a critical source for examining the collective consciousness of Mexico. As Library Journal so aptly stated, "While the 'Tlatelolco Massacre' is the central theme of this study, the larger tragedy is reflected, and we see a nation whose government resorts to demagoguery rather than constructive action while it maintains and protects the privileged position of the new 'revolutionary' elite." Octavio Paz's incisive introduction underscores the inability of the Mexican government to deal with the socio-economic realities of the Mexican nation. Students and scholars of Mexican culture, historians, sociologists, and others who seek to interpret aspects of that country's national reality will find this book to be invaluable.

Publishers Weekly

Poniatowska reports on the massacre of 325 unarmed Mexican students who were peacefully protesting police repression one week prior to the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. PW called this ``heartbreaking. . . . A massive chronicle that builds to the night of the Tlatelolco massacre in an accumulation of skillfully crosscut eyewitness accounts.'' Photos. (Dec.)

Criticas

Essential reading for those interested in the Tlatelolco massacre or state repression in Latin America, this 1971 journalistic account by the award-winning novelist reports on the massacre of 325 unarmed Mexican students, workers, and teachers who were peacefully protesting police repression one week before the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Poniatowska (1932- ) skillfully constructs the buildup to the night of the massacre through compelling firsthand accounts of those who witnessed one of the worst cases of Mexican state repression. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Booknews

A reprint of the Viking edition of 1975 (which was a translation of La Noche de Tlateloco, Mexico. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)