A Bright Shining Liarnby Russ Braleyn’To be engaged in opposing wrong affords but a slender guarantee for being right.”nA Bright Shining Lie: John PaulnVann and America in Vietnamnhy Neil SheehannNew York: Random House;n861 pp., $24.95nAquarter century has gone by sincenDavid Halberstam, foreign correspondentnfor The New York Times,nwon a Pulitzer Prize that he saidnshould have gone to his friend andnmentor in Vietnam, Neil Sheehan. Inn1964’s spring of mourning, Halberstamnshared the Pulitzer with MalcolmnBrowne of AP’s Saigon bureaunand also won most other awards.nSheehan, of UPI, won a consolationnprize from the Sigma Delta Chi journalismnfraternity. Halberstam went onnRuss Braley is the author of BadnNews: The Foreign Policy of ThenNew York Times (Regnery Gateway).nHe was foreign correspondent fornThe New York Daily News for overn20 years, and now works at thenWashington Times.nto wealth and influence with a series ofnbest-sellers.nNow Sheehan has caught up. His AnBright Shining Lie: John Paul Vannnand America in Vietnam shot up thenbest-seller lists last winter and won then1988 National Book Award. Sheehannsays he toiled on it for 16 years.nThe book received extraordinarynpromotion. The Washington Postnmagazine devoted a whole issue tonSheehan, extolling his lonely ordealnthat produced “a masterpiece.” ThenNew Yorker serialized the book. HarrisonnE. Salisbury was cited as saying, “Inhave never read such a book and nevernexpected to.” (It was not all that tough.nSheehan received a steady stream ofnfellowships —$10,000 here, $30,000nthere; at least five of them —andnmounting advances from RandomnHouse until he owed the publishern$250,000. No wonder the promotion;nthe company had to get that moneynback.)nMost of the volume reports thenfearless but ethically untidy life ofnAgency for International Develop­nnn— William Ewart Gladstonenment officer Vann, who received anhero’s burial in Arlington Cemeterynafter his 1972 death in a helicopternaccident in Vietnam. Sheehan reportsnVann’s battles and skirmishes in exhaustivendetail, including 64 pages onnthe 1963 battle of Ap Bac, a VietnCong victory that Sheehan had covered.nThen-Lieutenant Colonel Vann,nwho was stationed only 30 miles fromnSaigon, fed the reporters candid criticismnof US military methods and becamentheir source for negative storiesnon the war’s progress. Sheehan considersnhim “the one authentic (American)nhero of this shameful period.” ButnVann “lied to Halberstam and deceivednhim.” The reporters had worriednabout damaging Vann’s career,nbut “all the time he was deceiving usnhe knew he had no career to ruin.”nVann had barely escaped court-martialnfor statutory rape by learning to tricknthe lie detector. Sheehan deploresnVann’s prodigious woman-chasingn(which he did sometimes in the companynof Daniel Ellsberg), but worsenMAY 1989/29n