One Man's War

THE GREEN BERETS by Robin Moore. 341 pages. Crown. $4.95.

"Wear the beret proudly," John F. Kennedy enjoined the U.S. Army's Special Forces in 1962. "It will be a mark of distinction and a badge of courage in the fight for freedom." It was Kennedy who gave the elite corps back its jaunty green berets, after the brasshats had removed them and reduced the highly trained counterinsurgency fighters to a less independent role. And despite their distinguished record in Viet Nam, controversy over the Special Forces still sputters in the Pentagon.

Their cause will not be helped by Green Berets, which purports to tell in fictional form "the previously untold stories of a group of true-life heroes." Its author, a Sheraton Hotel executive who had previously written a book about gunrunning in the Caribbean, was allowed to take the Special Forces guerrilla warfare course at Fort Bragg and then went to South Viet Nam as an accredited correspondent. He was unusually privileged, and saw the war at uncommonly close quarters. Though newsmen are noncombatants, Moore carried a Special Forces M-16 automatic rifle, dressed in regulation jungle fatigues, fought in more than a dozen actions, was credited with several kills.

Cloak & Boudoir. After four months, Author Moore returned to the U.S., offered to submit what he claimed was a novel to the Pentagon for clearance, and was told--according to his version of the story--that "they don't read fiction." They should. For when Pentagon officials did get to read the book, they charged that Moore had not only distorted the role of the Special Forces but had also succeeded in conveying the impression that Green Berets is based solidly on fact. What is more, said Defense Department officials, the book contains 16 security violations. At their insistence, the dust jacket now carries a yellow band announcing lamely:

FICTION STRANGER THAN FACT.

Anyway, Green Berets should be good for recruiting. Moore's Special Forces men seem to spend little time on the humdrum public health and education programs and antiguerrilla training that are among the SF's major responsibilities. Instead, they recruit pretty girls to lure Viet Cong officers to their bedrooms--to be captured, naked and panting, by the SF. They hire Cambodian bandits to ambush Viet Cong units in Cambodia, train Meo tribesmen to fight against the Communist Pathet Lao in neutral Laos.

Infiltration Training. The most sensational section deals with a Special Forces raid deep into North Viet Nam to destroy bridges and to kidnap or assassinate Communist leaders. The Pentagon insists that the SF has never gone into North Viet Nam. Moore explains that he "projected" the episode after being forced down in a shot-up plane at a top-secret base where SF units were training in what he took to be infiltration techniques. Moore also said that he visited a warehouse in Saigon where the SF collected foreign-made weapons for use by infiltrators, so that the equipment could not be traced to the U.S.

The author clearly intended to show that the Special Forces are largely made up of brave and dedicated men who have the right formula for victory in Viet Nam. It seems likely, as he says, that the book reveals "not a single thing that the Communists didn't already know." But it certainly seems to reveal many things the ordinary American didn't know. That is the trouble. Though Moore's novel is well-paced and passably written, its sly commingling of fact and fiction becomes in the end an insult to the intelligence of the reader.

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