Where the Domino Fell - America And Vietnam 1945-1995 (56 page)

The watershed event in the war was the Tet offensive of 1968
.
Don Oberdorfer’s
Tet!
(1971) is a highly readable account by a journalist who was there. Also see his
Tet: The Turning Point of the War
(1983). Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas in
The Wise Men
provide excellent descriptions of the frustration in Washington. For the political implications of Tet, see Herbert Y. Schandler,
The Unmaking of a President: Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam
(1977). Peter Baestrup’s
Big Story
(1977) criticizes the press for its reporting of Tet. For histories of two key battles, see Keith W. Nolan,
Battle for Hue: Tet, 1968
(1983) and Robert Pisor,
The End of the Line: The Siege of Khe Sanh
(1982). In
The Viet Cong Tet Offensive
(1969), Pham Von Son and Le Van Duong provide a local perspective. Ronald H. Spector’s
After Tet
(1993) is especially illuminating.

For a survey of the antiwar movement, see Nancy Zaroulis and Gerald Sullivan,
Who Spoke Up? American Protest Against the War in Vietnam, 1963–1975 (
1984). Also see Thomas Powers’s two books,
The War at Home: Vietnam and the American People
(1973) and
Vietnam, the War at Home: The Antiwar Movement, 1964–1968
(1984). On the issue of draft resistance, see Lawrence M. Baskir and William A. Strauss,
Chance and Circumstance: The Draft, the War, and the Vietnam Generation
(1978) and David S. Surrey,
Choice of Conscience: Vietnam Era Military and Draft Resisters in Canada
(1982). For two recent books on the antiwar movement, see Kenneth Heineman,
Campus Wars
(1993) and Tom Wells,
The War Within: America’s Battle over Vietnam
(1994).

The available sources on the Nixon administration are more limited than for Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson. For Richard Nixon’s perspective, see his memoirs,
RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon
(1978) and
In the Arena
(1990)
.
Also see his
No More Vietnams (1985).
Kissinger’s point of view is expressed in his memoirs,
White House Years
(1979) and
Years of Upheaval
(1983). Also see William Safire,
Before the Fall
(1975); U. Alexis Johnson,
The Right Hand of Power
(1984); John Ehrlichman,
Witness to Power
(1982); and H. R. Haldeman,
The Ends of Power
(1978). For an evenhanded version of Nixon’s early years, see Stephen E. Ambrose
Nixon: The Education of a Politician, 1913–1962
(1987). Nixon’s approach to foreign policy is explained in C. L. Sulzberger,
The World and Richard Nixon
(1987) and Robert S. Litwack,
Detente and the Nixon Doctrine: American Foreign Policy and the Pursuit of Stability, 1969–1976
(1984). For a highly sympathetic view of Henry Kissinger, see Marvin Kalb and Bernard Kalb,
Kissinger
(1974). Contrast it with Seymour M. Hersh,
The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House
(1983). Also see Robert D. Schulzinger,
Henry Kissinger: Doctor of Diplomacy
(1989); Roger Morris,
An Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy
(1977); and John Stoessinger,
Kissinger: The Anguish of Power
(1976)
.

Vietnam as an international issue is surveyed in R. B. Smith,
An International History of the Vietnam War,
volume 1
, Revolution versus Containment, 1955–61
(1983) and volume 2
, The Kennedy Strategy (1985).
Also see Paul M. Kattenburg’s
The Vietnam Trauma in American Foreign Policy.
Douglas Pike’s
Vietnam and the Soviet Union: Anatomy of an Alliance
(1987) analyzes Soviet foreign policy, as does Leif Rosenberger’s
The Soviet Union and Vietnam
(1986). For the impact of the Vietnam War on China, see Robert G. Sutter,
Chinese Foreign Policy after the Cultural Revolution: 1966–1977
(1978) and Ray Hemen,
China’s Vietnam War
(1983). Also see Daniel S. Papp,
Vietnam: The View from Moscow, Peking, and Washington
(1981). Two books deal with Canada: Douglas A. Ross,
In the Interests of Peace: Canada and Vietnam, 1954–1973
(1984) and Charles Taylor,
Snow Job: Canada, the United States and Vietnam, 1954–1973
(1984). For the Japanese perspective, see Thomas R. H. Havens,
Fire across the Sea: The Vietnam War and Japan 1965–1975
(1987). On the British, see George Rosie,
The British in Vietnam
(1970). For the Australians, see Peter King,
Australia’s Vietnam
(1983). Also see Robert Larsen and James Lawton Collins, Jr.,
Allied Participation in Vietnam
(1975).

A number of books deal with the end of the war. For negotiations leading to the Paris agreements of 1974, see the memoirs of Nixon and Kissinger as well as Gareth Porter’s
A Peace Denied: The United States, Vietnam, and the Paris Agreement
(1975). Allan Goodman’s
The Lost Peace
(1978) is critical of the treaty. On the Christmas bombing of 1972, see Mark Clodfelter,
The Limits of Air Power,
as well as Martin F. Herz,
The Prestige Press and the Christmas Bombing
(1980). For the offensive that inspired the bombing campaign, see G. H. Turley,
The Easter Offensive: Vietnam, 1972
(1985). Ngo Quang Truong,
The Easter Offensive of 1972
(1980) provides a Vietnamese perspective. Also see A.J.C. Lavelle, ed.,
Airpower and the 1972 Spring Invasion
(1976).

P. Edward Haley’s
Congress and the Fall of South Vietnam and Cambodia
argues that Congress severely limited the effectiveness of Presidents Nixon and Ford. Two works highly critical of the settlement are William F. LaGro,
Vietnam from Cease-Fire to Capitulation
(1981) and Stuart A. Herrington,
Peace with Honor?
(1983). A.J.C. Lavelle’s
Last Flight from Saigon
(1978) describes the hectic final hours at the end of April 1975. John Pilzer’s
The Last Day
(1976) is highly readable. For a scathing attack on Ambassador Graham Martin’s failure to anticipate the communists’ final offensive, see Frank Snepp,
Decent Interval: An Insider’s Account of Saigon’s Indecent End
(1977). Three books deal with the spring 1975 offensive: Alan Dawson,
55 Days: The Fall of South Vietnam
(1977); Tiziano Terzani,
Giai Phong! The Fall and Liberation of South Vietnam
(1977); and David Butler,
The Fall of Saigon
(1985)
.
Stephen T. Hosmer’s
The Fall of South Vietnam
(1980) consists of interviews with former South Vietnamese officials. See Cao Van Vien’s
The Final Collapse
(1982) for another South Vietnamese account. Tran Van Tra’s
Ending the Thirty Years War
and Van Tien Dung’s
Our Great Spring Victory
(1977) give the communist view.

Laos and Cambodia have also received considerable attention. Charles Stevenson offers a highly critical account in
The End of Nowhere: American Policy Toward Laos Since 1954
(1973). For histories of the 1971 invasion of Laos, see Nguyen Duy Hinh,
Lam Son 719
(1981) and Keith William Nolan,
Into Laos: The Story of Dewey Canyon/Lam Son 719
(1986). An outstanding look at communist insurgency in Laos is MacAlister Brown and Joseph J. Zasloff,
Apprentice Revolutionaries: The Communist Movement in Laos, 1930–1985
(1986). Perala Ratnam’s
Laos and the Super Powers
(1980) summarizes the diplomatic issues. The catastrophe in Cambodia is the subject of David P. Chandler’s
A History of Cambodia
(1983)
.
For the background to the struggle, see Wilfred Burchet,
The China-Cambodia-Vietnam Triangle
(1982) and Michael Leifer,
Cambodia: The Search for Security
(1967). The 1970 invasion is covered in Shelby L. Stanton’s
The Rise and Fall of an American Army
and Tran Dinh Tho,
The Cambodian Incursion
(1979). Arnold Isaacs deals with the fall of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge in
Without Honor,
as does Craig Etcheson in
The Rise and Demise of Democratic Kampuchea
(1984). Also see Michael Vickery,
Cambodia, 1975–1982
(1984). For a critique of American policy, see William Shawcross,
Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia
(1979). Several books deal with the Khmer Rouge’s genocidal assault on Cambodia in the late 1970s. See William Shawcross,
The Quality of Mercy: Cambodia, Holocaust, and the Modern Conscience
(1984); George Hildebrand and Gareth Porter,
Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution
(1976); and Francois Ponchaud,
Cambodia: Year Zero
(1978). For the most recent books on the holocaust in Cambodia, see Usha Welarafua,
Beyond the Killing Fields
(1993) and David A. Chandler,
Brother Number One: A Biography of Pol Pot
(1992).

The steady decline of Vietnam after the final victory is the subject of Nguyen Van Canh’s
Vietnam under Communism, 1975–1982
(1983) and Nguyen Long’s
After Saigon Fell
(1981). William Duiker describes the state of Vietnam in the late 1970s in
Since the Fall of Saigon
(1980). For post–1975 conflict in Indochina, see Ray Hemen,
China’s Vietnam War.
Also see David P. Elliott, ed.,
The Third Indochina Conflict
(1981). The best general survey is Nayan Chanda,
Brother Enemy: The War after the War
(1986).

The legacy of the Vietnam War for Americans continues to generate interest and debate. One survey of the topic is James F. Veninga and Harry A. Wilmer, eds.,
Vietnam in Remission
(1985). Several books deal with the impact of the war on American culture. See Philip D. Beidler,
American Literature and the Experience of Vietnam
(1982) and John Hellman,
American Myth and the Legacy of Vietnam
(1986) for the part played by Vietnam in recent literature. Also see W. D. Ehrhart, ed.,
Carrying the Darkness: American Poetry of the Vietnam War
(1985) and Timothy J. Lomperis,
Reading the Wind: The Literature of the Vietnam War
(1986). James C. Wilson’s
Vietnam in Prose and Film
(1982) surveys the films of the 1970s. Also see Andrew V. Martin, “Critical Approaches to American Cultural Studies: The Vietnam War in History, Literature, and Film,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Iowa, 1987. For the war’s impact on foreign policy, see Anthony Lake, ed.,
The Legacy of Vietnam: The War, American Society and the Future of American Foreign Policy
(1976). Also see Earl C. Ravenal,
Never Again: Learning from America’s Foreign Policy Failures
(1978) and Ole R. Holsti and James N. Rosenau,
American Leadership in World Affairs: Vietnam and the Breakdown of Consensus
(1984). Several books deal with the question of American identity. See Walter H. Capps,
The Unfinished War: Vietnam and the American Conscience
(1982) and Myra MacPherson,
Long Time Passing
(1984).

Finally, there is an increasing volume of documentary source material becoming available to scholars. The starting place, of course, is the Pentagon Papers. Neil Sheehan and several other scholars and journalists wrote an early introduction to the papers which is still useful; see
The Pentagon Papers as Published by the New York Times
(1971). The best edition of the papers is U.S. Congress, Senate, Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds,
The Pentagon Papers,
The Senator Gravel Edition, 4 vols. (1971). Also see George H. Herring, ed.,
The Secret Diplomacy of the Vietnam War: The Negotiating Volumes of the Pentagon Papers
(1983). Gareth Porter’s two-volume documents collection—
Vietnam: The Definitive Documentation of Human Decisions
(1979)—is very useful. Less useful, because of how it is organized, is the 12-volume
Department of Defense, U.S.–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967
(1971). During the last several years the State Department, National Security Council, and CIA have released a series of research reports and classified reports through the “Indochinese Research Collections” of University Publications of America. For the U.S. military side of the conflict, scholars should consult Records Group 338 (Vietnam War: MACV/USARV Records) at the Washington National Records Center in Suitland, Maryland. There is also a valuable oral history collection called the Senior Officer Oral History Program, at the U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, which contains the reminiscences of major American army officers.

For those individuals interested in the policy debates taking place in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, there are invaluable resources at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston, Massachusetts and the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas. At the JFK Library, scholars should look at the Presidential Office Files, particularly the sections on Counterinsurgency, on Vietnam, and on Vietnam Security. They should also see the National Security Files, especially the Vietnam section. At the LBJ Library, the most revealing materials on the policy debates can be found in the National Security File and the White House Central Files. There are also oral histories at the LBJ Library by William Bundy, George Christian, Clark Clifford, Chester Cooper, Alain Enthoven, W. Averell Harriman, Lyndon B. Johnson, Cyrus Vance, Paul Warnke, and William Westmoreland.

Documentary sources for the communists are far more limited. Cornell University maintains a microfilmed
Catalog of Viet Cong Documents,
while the Library of Congress has on microfilm a series of
Communist Vietnamese Publications.
At the Center for Research Libraries in Chicago, there is a very useful
Documents of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam
on microfilm. Finally, there is the State Department’s
Working Paper of North Viet-Nam
’
s Role in the War in South Viet-Nam
(1968).