Summary:
The war was not going well. The surprisingly effective Tet Offensive in late January 1968 had humbled and embarrassed the South Vietnamese and their American allies. It had sent a powerful message to the folks back home that this Vietnam thing was not going to be over anytime soon. The half million troops that the Lyndon Johnson administration had poured into this tiny Southeast Asian nation seemed to the world impotent, as their inability to subdue an outmanned and outtechnologied adversary became increasingly apparent.
To make matters worse for Johnson, the US war effort was getting bad press on the home front. Some news sources reported that the war was not being waged effectively. Others argued that it should not be waged at all, at least not with US personnel. Americans in general were wearying of its intrusion into their living rooms every evening on the six o’clock news.
Meanwhile in Bangkok, Thailand, less than five hundred miles away from the battleground, the special agents assigned to the 187th Military Intelligence Detachment, the US Army’s counterespionage arm, are dealing with the war and its implications for the rest of Southeast Asia in their own way. They dress in civilian clothes and carry credentials while performing counterintelligence investigations and surveillance of suspected enemy agents. As a group, they are an unruly and undisciplined lot whose often humorous attempts to carry out their duties and stay out of trouble rarely succeed.
This is satire at its best!
Link – https://amzn.to/3VUx2nZ
Review:
Apricots never make an appearance in Apricot Marmalade and the Edmondson Transmittal by Lon Orey. What ensues instead is a hilarious tale of dysfunctional alphabet intelligence agencies operating in Vietnam-era Thailand. Ed Reynolds, the protagonist, is a reluctant warrior serving out his military stretch as an intelligence officer in a United States Army Military Intelligence unit. MI, as it is known, competes with the CIA, the Thai government intelligence agency known as the AFSC, and other assorted acronym agencies to gather intelligence about Soviet spies and the Thai communist party.
Reynolds and his fellow MI officers are led by Colonel Morgan, perhaps one of the most ill-suited intelligence agents ever to grace the pages of a spy novel. Morgan, along with his second in command Major Harris, a Doctor Strangelove type whose existence consists of washing his beloved red Mercedes and a desire to use nuclear weapons to solve all problems, seek to uncover the meaning of the mysterious Edmondson transmittal. The transmittal is the work of Agent Edmondson, who later encounters untoward circumstances. Finding and decoding the transmittal is the centerpiece of the conflict, as the MI team work to uncover a deadly plot that threatens their existence.
Written in a comedic, satirical style reminiscent of Catch 22, Apricot Marmalade and the Edmonson Transmittal is populated by intelligence agents who give truth to the oxymoron “military intelligence.” Orey populates the story with characters such as Trooper Cooper, a hypochondriac who internalizes every discussion about disease states, and Irv Bonner, an agent with an irrational fear of snakes who works in a country filled with poisonous ones. There is also Sargent Barnett, who takes up residence in a tent in the center of the city park so as to be better prepared should the unit have to go live in the jungle. This is a gang that can’t shoot straight, and one comic endeavor after another ensues. The scenes featuring Morgan attempting to bug his CIA counterpart’s office and the hilarious prisoner exchange with the Soviets are worth the price of admission alone.
The novel presents the reader with a realistic sense of place, as Thailand’s steaming, snake-infested jungles and humid cities set the backdrop for the action. The characters are all unique, with believable foibles and weaknesses. This is not the stuff of a James Bond movie, rather it presents the realism and comedy inherent in the human condition of mediocre intelligence agents struggling with the meaning of their work against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. As to the apricot marmalade of the title? I will leave its meaning to the reader to uncover.
About the Author:
Lon Orey served for three years in Military Intelligence for the US Army during the late sixties. Much of that time was spent in Thailand, with the Vietnam conflict raging practically next door. While this is a work of fiction, the framework within which the story is told reflects his real-world observations of the country and the various intelligence services operating there, including the CIA and the KGB. The story is very much a satire, written with tongue planted firmly in cheek.