THE RISE OF THE VULCANS

This book by James Mann provides some interesting background to Fredo's war cabinet. From the WaPo book review:

"...the remarkable influence of a group of military and foreign relations officials who established control over international policy early in 2001 and moved it decisively in a direction determined by their own fervently held beliefs.

These are the people whom James Mann, a writer in residence at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, describes as the "Vulcans" in this informative, well-researched and largely nonjudgmental book. Mann offers brief biographies and intellectual profiles of six of the most important of these Vulcans: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Richard Armitage, Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz. In doing so, he reveals both the complex web of relationships, some of them stretching back more than 30 years, that bound these policymakers together and the powerful assumptions they came to share about America's role in the world."

Mann lets us know that Armitage was a heroic, "can-do" person during the Vietnam War (pp.52-3):

What followed over the following week amounted to an epic denouement to Armitage's service in South Vietnam. Near Con Son, the South Vietnamese navy had assembled about ninety ships. They were occupied by at least twenty thousand South Vietnamese fleeing their country, most of them naval personnel and their families, including Vice Admiral Cang. The ships had little food or water, and some of them were barely seaworthy. Armitage was the U.S. Navy's sole representative to the Vietnamese in the flotilla.43

Armitage decided to try to sail the ships and the refugees to the Philipines, a distance of about a thousand miles. Most of the ships weren't sea-worthy enough to make the voyage. At least sixty of the vessels were scuttled, in some cases with the help of gunfire. The 20,000 Vietnamese were packed into thirty-two boats; three boats originally used by the U.S. Coast Guard, each of which usually carried a crew of 170, were loaded with 1,500 Vietnamese apiece. Armitage sent urgent cables to the Defense Department, which succeeded in getting food and water brought to the boats. From May 2 to May 7 Armitage's Vietnamese convoy, pro rected by three American ships, sailed to Subic Bay in the Philippines Amid the overcrowding, fights and even gunfire broke out on board.

When the ships approached Subic Bay, President Ferdinand Marco: and his Philippine government tried to stop the vessels, still carrying South Vietnamese flags, from entering Philippine waters. Once again Armitage played intermediary and translator in a flurry of negotiations involving American and Philippine officials and the Vietnamese refugees. Finally, on May 8, a solution was reached: In formal ceremonies that Armitage helped arrange, the ships took down their Vietnamese flags and hoisted American ones. They then sailed into Subic Bay. For Armitage, after more than seven years, the Vietnam War was finally over.


Mann also lets us know that Armitage has little patience for gasbags (p.366):

As the war in Iraq drew to a dose, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich launched a public campaign against Powell's State Department, accusing it of undermining the president's policies and of failing to win support for the United States overseas. "America cannot lead the world with a broken instrument of diplomacy," declared Gingrich, who enjoyed long-standing ties to both Cheney and Rumsfeld. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage offered a memorably savage response: Gingrich, he said, was "off his meds and out of therapy."°