There's more than one lesson to be learned from Ward Just's profound and powerful novel, A DANGEROUS FRIEND (published by Houghton-Mifflin).

Not that this is a didactic saga - in fact, just the opposite. A DANGEROUS FRIEND brings us back to Viet Nam, circa mid-1960's. A group of Americans are gathered near Saigon as part of a benevolently intentioned private foundation. This is not unlike the Rand Institute or a multitude of other prestigious institutions whose relationship with government agencies is often cloudy and sometimes covert.

Never has it been so clearly stated why such political/military strategies as we had in Southeast Asia are doomed for failure. The Vietnamese language, culture, the history of the people, are literally worlds away from ours. We never grasped their needs, dreams, or expectations. They weren't ours. Mr. Just draws a picture that reveals that we were saving them from something from which they did not need shielding. There seems to be an atavistic aspect of the Vietnamese that eluded our strategies. We were talking domino theory, and they were protecting their culture.

At the center of A DANGEROUS FRIEND is, newly arrived to Viet Nam, an American named Sydney Parade. He's at personal crossroads in his life and he becomes immediately enmeshed in the quizzical and seemingly duplicitous diplomatic maneuvers around Saigon. An American military officer, the nephew of a Congressman, is missing and that becomes a priority for the military grunts and the foundation diplomats to do Washington's work.

You can only wonder what similar stories are unfolding around our Kosovo manipulations. What political ambitions and military justifications are formulated, evolving into daily dramas? We read of three American soldiers captured at the Kosovo border and they were given hero welcomes back in the USA, while the dead bodies or collateral damage of Kosovo's natives is nearly anonymous.

A DANGEROUS FRIEND made me want to join a book discussion group not only so I could air my feelings about its content, but also to hear other Americans reflect on our Vietnam past and our current military posturing. This book provokes me to ask many questions.

So instead of joining a book club, I'll interview Mr. Ward Just.