Where the Domino Fell - America And Vietnam 1945-1995 (55 page)

For information on the growing commitment in the 1950s
,
see Stephen E. Ambrose,
Eisenhower,
volume
2, President and Elder Statesman, 1952–1969
(1984) and Townsend Hoopes,
The Devil and John Foster Dulles
(1973). Also see Stephen Jurika, Jr., ed.,
From Pearl Harbor to Vietnam: The Memoirs of Admiral Arthur W. Radford
(1980). The decision whether or not to intervene at Dienbienphu in 1954 is the subject of John Prados’s
The Sky Would Fall: Operation Vulture: The U.S. Bombing Mission in Indochina, 1954
(1983) and Matthew B. Ridgway,
Soldier: The Memoirs of Matthew B. Ridgway
(1956). Robert Shaplen’s
The Lost Revolution
(1966)
is
an especially good survey of the period.

For discussions of events inside South Vietnam during the 1950s, see Edward G. Lansdale,
In the Midst of Wars
(1972) and J. Lawton Collins,
Lightning Joe: An Autobiography
(1979). The early role played by the United States military is described in J. Lawton Collins,
The Development and Training of the South Vietnamese Army, 1950–1972
(1975); Robert H. Whitlow,
U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Advisory and Combat Assistance Era, 1954–1964
(1976); Ronald H. Spector,
United States Army in Vietnam: Advice and Support: The Early Years
(1985); and Edwin Hooper et al.,
The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict: The Setting of the Stage to 1959
(1976). Denis Warner’s
The Last Confucian
(1963) and Anthony Bouscaren’s
The Last of the Mandarins: Diem of Vietnam
(1965) describe the Diem regime.

Good general surveys on communist insurgency can be found in Frances FitzGerald’s
Fire in the Lake
and in the second volume of Joseph Buttinger’s
Vietnam.
For the connection between North Vietnam and the southern communists, see P. J. Honey,
Communism in North Vietnam
(1963). Also see King C. Chen’s “Hanoi’s Three Decisions and the Escalation of the Vietnam War,”
Political Science Quarterly
90 (1975). One of the earliest scholarly works on the insurgency was Douglas Pike’s
Viet Cong
(1966). Also see Pike’s
The Viet Cong Strategy of Terror
(1970). William Henderson’s
Why the Vietcong Fought: A Study of Motivation and Control in a Modern Army
(1979) is a psychological portrait of the guerrillas. William Duiker’s
The Communist Road to Power is
firstrate. A number of books look at insurgency on the local level. See William R. Andrews,
The Village War: Vietnamese Communist Revolutionary Activities in Dinh Tuong Province, 1960–1964
(1973); Stuart Herrington,
Silence Was a Weapon
(1982); and Jeffrey Race,
War Comes to Long An: Revolutionary Conflict in a Vietnamese Village
(1972). For Vietcong memoirs, see Nguyen Thi Dinh,
No Other Road to Take
(1976) and Truong Nhu Tang,
A Vietcong Memoir
(1985). An outstanding oral history is David Chanoff and Doan Van Toai,
Portrait of the Enemy (1986).
Also see Kate Webb,
On the Other Side: 23 Days with the Viet Cong
(1972).

For an even-handed history of the Kennedy years, see Herbert Parmet’s
JFK: The Presidency of John F. Kennedy
(1983). Bruce Miroff’s
Pragmatic Illusions: The Presidential Politics of John F. Kennedy
(1976) is a New Left critique. Two works that specialize on Kennedy and Vietnam are R. B. Smith,
An International History of the Vietnam War,
volume 2
, The Kennedy Strategy
(1985) and William J. Rust,
Kennedy in Vietnam
(1985). Among the books by administration officials, see George T. Ball,
The Past Has Another Pattern
(1982) and Roger Hilsman,
To Move a Nation: The Politics of Foreign Policy in the Administration of John F. Kennedy
(1967). Also see Walt W. Rostow,
The Diffusion of Power, 1957–1972
(1972); Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.,
The Storm Has Many Eyes: A Personal Narrative
(1973); and Maxwell D. Taylor,
Swords and Ploughshares
(1972). Warren Cohen’s
Dean Rusk (1980)
looks at the secretary of state. For the events in South Vietnam during the Kennedy years, see Mieczyslaw Maneli,
War of the Vanquished
(1971) and John Mecklin,
Mission in Torment: An Intimate Account of the US. Role in Vietnam
(1974). Joseph Buttinger’s second
Vietnam
volume is also good, as is David Halberstam’s
The Making of a Quagmire.
Frederick Nolting, the United States ambassador to South Vietnam in the early 1960s, wrote
From Triumph to Tragedy: The Political Memoirs of Frederick Nolting
(1988)
.
For the events leading up to Diem’s assassination, see Ellen J. Hammer,
A Death in November: America in Vietnam, 1963
(1987). Also see John Newman,
John F. Kennedy and Vietnam
(1992).

A number of books look at counterinsurgency. The best survey is Larry E. Cable,
Conflict of Myths: The Development of American Counterinsurgency Doctrine and the Vietnam War
(1986). Douglas S. Blauburg’s
The Counterinsurgency Era: U.S. Doctrine and Performance 1950 to the Present
(1977) is also excellent. Robert W. Komer discusses how badly the United States underestimated the insurgency in
Bureaucracy Does Its Thing
(1972). Milton E. Osborne’s
Strategic Hamlets in South Vietnam
(1965) is an early study of that disaster. Sir Robert Thompson discusses his role in
Defeating Communist Insurgency
(1966) and
Peace Is Not at Hand
(1974). For a look at the Marine Corps pacification programs, see Michael E. Petersen’s
The Combined Action Platoons: The U.S. Marines’ Other War in Vietnam
(1989). Shelby L. Stanton’s
Green Berets at War
(1985) and Charles M. Simpson III’s
Inside the Green Berets: The First Thirty Years
(1983) provide descriptions of Special Forces pacification efforts. Andrew F. Krepinevich’s
The Army and Vietnam
(1986) has an excellent chapter on army counterinsurgency.

Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision to escalate the war, of course, enjoys a voluminous literature. Although flawed by a self-serving defensiveness, Johnson’s
The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969
(1971) is a necessary starting point. Vaughn Robert’s
The Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson
(1983) is the best history of the administration. For a revealing portrait of Johnson, see Doris Kearns,
Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream
(1976). Robert Caro’s
The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power
(1982) and
The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of Ascent
(1990) are a savage critique. For the events surrounding the Gulf of Tonkin incident, see John Galloway,
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
(1970) and Eugene C. Windchy,
Tonkin Gulf
(1971). There are several excellent books that describe the decision-making process in Washington. Especially good are Henry Graff’s interviews with administration officials, published as
The Tuesday Cabinet: Deliberation and Decision on Peace and War under Lyndon B. Johnson
(1970)
.
Equally good are two books by Larry Berman—
Planning a Tragedy: The Americanization of the War in Vietnam
(1982) and
Lyndon Johnson
’
s War: The Road to Stalemate in Vietnam
(1989). Also see Henry Brandon,
Anatomy of Error: The Inside Story of the Asian War on the Potomac, 1954–1969
(1969). There is no really good biography on McNamara, but see Henry L. Trewhitt,
McNamara: His Ordeal in the Pentagon
(1971). Alain Enthoven and K. Wayne Smith provide an inside look at McNamara in
How Much Is Enough? Shaping the Defense Program, 1961–1969
(1971). Gregory Palmer’s
The McNamara Strategy and the Vietnam War: Program Budgeting in the Pentagon, 1960–1968
(1978) is highly critical of the secretary of defense. For the role played by such elder statesmen as Dean Acheson and W. Averell Harriman, see Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas,
The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made
(1986). David Di Leo’s
George Ball, Vietnam, and the Rethinking of Containment
(1991) is excellent. Also see Robert McNamara,
In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam
(1995)
.

The question of strategy remains highly controversial. David Richard Palmer’s
Summons for a Trumpet
(1978) argues that the attrition strategy was hopelessly inadequate, while Guenter Lewy’s
America in Vietnam
claims that the United States should have focused on pacification.

Andrew F. Krepinevich argues in
The Army and Vietnam
that United States military policy should have focused on light infantry formations, firepower restraint, and solving political and social problems, not conventional warfare. The best survey of the army effort is Shelby L. Stanton,
The Rise and Fall of an American Army: U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1973
(1985). For arguments that the American command and control function during the war was badly designed, see Robert L. Gallucci,
Neither Peace Nor Honor: The Politics of American Military Policy in Vietnam
(1975) and George S. Eckhart,
Command and Control, 1950–1969
(1974)
.
Another school of thought argues that the United States should have isolated North Vietnam from South Vietnam. See Harry G. Summers, Jr.,
On Strategy: The Vietnam War in Context
(1981) and Bruce Palmer, Jr.,
The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam
(1984). Finally, some argue that the United States did not apply enough firepower. This point of view is clearly expressed in two memoirs: William Westmoreland,
A Soldier Reports
(1976) and Ulysses S. Grant Sharp,
Strategy for Defeat: Vietnam in Retrospect
(1978). Also see William Colby and Alexander Burnham,
Lost Victory
(1990)
.
Wilbur Morrison summarizes this argument in
Vietnam: The Winnable War
(1990). Also see H. G. Moore and Joseph Galloway,
We Were Soldiers Once and Young
(1992); Christian Appy,
Working-Class War
(1993); and Eric Bergerud,
Red Thunder, Tropic Lightning: The World of a Combat Division in Vietnam
(1993).

The literature on American women in Vietnam is just beginning to grow. For a look at the role played by nurses in the war, see Dan Freedman and Jacqueline Rhoads,
Nurses in Vietnam: The Forgotten Veterans
(1987) and Elizabeth Norman,
Women at War
(1990). Also see Lynda Van Devanter,
Home before Morning: The Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam
(1983). The best oral history is Kathryn Marshall’s
In the Combat Zone: An Oral History of American Women in Vietnam, 1965–1975
(1987)
.
Also see Shelley Saywell,
Women in War
(1985); Keith Walker,
A Piece of My Heart: The Stories of 26 American Women Who Served in Vietnam
(1985); and Patricia Walsh,
Forever Sad the Hearts
(1982). For a more recent description of American women in Vietnam, see Winnie Smith,
American Daughters Gone to War
(1992)
.

The effectiveness of the air war over Vietnam is quite controversial. For general surveys see Raphael Littauer and Norman Uphoff, eds.,
The Air War in Indochina
(1972) and Bernard C. Nalty et al.,
The Air War over Vietnam
(1971). William Momyer’s
Air Power in Three Wars
praises the air force from an insider’s perspective. In a similar vein is John B. Nichols and Barrett Tillman,
On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War over Vietnam
(1987). William A. Buckingham, Jr.’s
Operation Ranch Hand: The United States Air Force and Herbicides in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1971
(1982)
is
important reading. Criticisms of the air war can be found in James Clay Thompson,
Rolling Thunder: Undertaking Policy and Program Failure
(1980) and Mark Clodfelter,
The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam
(1989).

For the Vietnamese perspective on the American military effort, there are a number of valuable works. Jon M. Van Dyke’s
North Vietnam’s Strategy for Survival
(1972) describes how North Vietnam adjusted to the strategy of attrition. Also see Patrick J. McGarvey, ed.,
Visions of Victory: Selected Vietnamese Communist Military Writings, 1964–1968
(1969), which describes North Vietnamese debates over military strategy. William Duiker’s
The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam is
excellent. North Vietnam’s official history of the conflict is entitled
The Anti-U.S. Resistance for National Salvation 1954–1975
(1980). For discussions of communist strategy, see Vo Nguyen Giap’s
Big Victory, Big Task
and
Banner of People’s War: The Party’s Military Line
(1970). Tran Van Tra’s
Ending the Thirty Years War
(1982) is also revealing. Douglas Pike’s
PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam
(1986)
is
an outstanding portrait of the North Vietnamese army. An excellent survey of the war from the communist perspective is Nguyen Khac Vien,
The Long Resistance 1958–1974
(1975). Nguyen Thi Dinh’s
No Other Road to Take
(1976) describes the efforts of the People’s Liberation Army of Vietnam. For descriptions of South Vietnamese politics, see Charles A. Joiner,
The Politics of Massacre
(1974) and Allen E. Goodman,
Politics in War
(1973). The best survey of South Vietnam is the book by Anthony James Joes,
The War for South Viet Nam, 1954–1975
(1989)
.
The best series of oral histories collected from ordinary people in South Vietnam is Don Luce and John Sommer,
Vietnam: The Unheard Voices
(1969). For Vietnamese recollections, see Cao Van Vien and Dong Van Khuyen,
Reflections on the Vietnam War
(1980); Hoang Ngoc Lung,
The General Offensives of 1968–69
(1981); Tran Van Don,
Our Endless War
(1978); and Nguyen Cao Ky,
Twenty Years and Twenty Days
(1976).