Nightingale's Song

Robert Timberg weaves together the lives of Annapolis graduates John McCain, James Webb, Oliver North, Robert McFarlane, and John Poindexter to reveal how the Vietnam War continues to haunt America. Casting all five men as metaphors for a legion of well-meaning if ill-starred warriors, Timberg probes the fault line between those who fought the war and those who used money, wit, and connections to avoid battle. A riveting tale that illuminates the flip side of the fabled Vietnam generation — those who went.

Publishers Weekly

Looking at the lives and careers of five Naval Academy graduatesamong them John Poindexter and Oliver Northfellow alumnus Timberg probes the connections between the legacy of the Vietnam war and the Iran-Contra scandal. (Oct.)

Robert Timberg is the author of The Nightingale's Song and John McCain, An American Odyssey. He served with the First Marine Division in South Vietnam from March 1966 to February 1967. He has worked at The Baltimore Sun for three decades as a reporter, editor and White House correspondent. Currently deputy chief of the Sun's Washington bureau, he lives in Bethesda, Md.