Buddha's Child (8 audio cassettes; unabridged; 12 hours)

Though famed in his time for his playboy image, all purple scarves and modish hairdo, former South Vietnamese prime minister Ky proved over time to have been a man of substance. In this revealing autobiography Ky recounts his rise to and fall from power and the errors great and small that led to his nation's defeat. "Corruption," Ky writes, "permeated every corner of the Vietnamese social order." Ky used his office to root out corruption and carve an independent path, often clashing with the likes of William Westmoreland and Nguyen Van Thieu in the bargain. Proudly relating those struggles, Ky also defends figures whom history has treated harshly, including Lyndon Johnson and General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, "the rarest of Vietnamese birds, the honest cop," who will forever be remembered for executing a Vietcong suspect before Eddie Adams's camera. "My biggest mistake was allowing the wrong man the opportunity to lead a guaranty of defeat. For this I beg forgiveness of those who fled into exile, of those who remained, and from those then unborn." So Ky closes this memoir, a work of considerable interest to students of and participants in Vietnam's long war. --Gregory McNamee

Nguyen Cao Ky was the Prime Minister of South Vietnam for three years, until he wrote himself out of office by penning his nation's first constitution. The intimate of Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Bob McNamara, and other American leaders, he has lived in the US for 25 years. Marvin J. Wolf, who photographed Ky for the US Army in Vietnam in 1965, is the author of nine books, including the bestselling biography of American Indian leader Russell Means, Where White Men Fear To Tread (1995).