Remembering Heaven's Face: A Moral Witness in Vietnam

In 1967 the author, fresh out of Harvard, declared himself a conscientious objector, joined the International Voluntary Services and launched a series of emotion-laden and often dangerous ventures in Vietnam. They included retrieving the body of a colleague, who was probably an early victim of the CIA's Phoenix Program, and getting wounded in the Tet Offensive. As a member of the Committee of Responsibility he arranged for the evacuation of several war-injured children to hospitals in the U.S. despite obstacles thrown up by American and Vietnamese authorities. In 1989, 16 years after the fall of Saigon, he returned to Vietnam to teach at the University of Hue and look up the war-injured civilians he had helped. His self-deprecatory approach notwithstanding (referring to himself as ``a little do-gooder,'' for instance), this talented author was an aggressive, resourceful and effective activist whose sympathy for innocent victims of the war runs deep. This beautifully written memoir presents a sid e of the war rarely addressed. Photos. (June)