Indochina 1945-1967
Key issues
French colonial government in Indochina; Ho Chi Minh and the rise of the Viet Minh; the battle of Dien Bien Phu (1954); the Geneva Conference 1954 and the division of Vietnam; Eisenhower’s policies towards Indochina; Diem’s government of South Vietnam (1955–1963), its relations with Hanoi; formation of the NLF (1961), its impact; Kennedy’s policies towards Indochina (1961–1963), Diem’s assassination (1963); Johnson’s policy: the Gulf of Tonkin resolution (1964), start of US escalation of forces in Vietnam (1965); start of Operation Rolling Thunder (1965).
French colonial government in Indochina; Ho Chi Minh and the rise of the Viet Minh; the battle of Dien Bien Phu (1954); the Geneva Conference 1954 and the division of Vietnam; Eisenhower’s policies towards Indochina; Diem’s government of South Vietnam (1955–1963), its relations with Hanoi; formation of the NLF (1961), its impact; Kennedy’s policies towards Indochina (1961–1963), Diem’s assassination (1963); Johnson’s policy: the Gulf of Tonkin resolution (1964), start of US escalation of forces in Vietnam (1965); start of Operation Rolling Thunder (1965).
This section is closely linked with the next session (Wars in Vietnam and Cambodia), and many resources are intended for both.
Selected topics Dien Bien Phu French involvement in Vietnam and Dien Bien Phu (a set of videos) Ngo Dinh Diem The South Vietnamese Coup against Ng. Đ.nh Diệm (1963): a CBS news broadcast. Recent opinions have started to challenge the "traditional" view that Diem was nothing more than a US puppet, and that his government was both corrupt and unpopular.
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Internet Resources (also for the next section: wars in Vietnam and Cambodia) Recent books (overview and with balance)
Online bibliography
Books on the Vietnam War from the U.S. Army centre of military history |
NLF(Viet Cong), villages in the South, and US counter-insurgency
- John C. Donnell & Gerald C. Hickey, “The Vietnamese ‘Strategic Hamlets’, A Preliminary Report (RAND, 1962).
- Jeffrey Race, War Comes to Long An (1972).
A comprehensive study of villages in South Vietnam, and how many of them served as bases for the Viet Cong. Race served in Vietnam, and later noticed the lack of academic work on this topic, leading him to conduct this research himself. - Troung Nhu Tang, A Viet Cong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath (1986).
- Thomas L. Ahern, Jr., Undercover Armies: CIA and Surrogate Warfare in Laos (CIA, 2006).
- Nicole Sackley, “The Village as Cold War Site: Experts, Developments, and the History of Rural Reconstruction,” Journal of Global History 6.3 (2011).
- Matthew Adam Kocher, Thomas B. Pepinsky, Stathis N. Kalyvas, “Aerial Bombing and Counterinsurgency in the Vietnam War,” American Journal of Political Science (2011).
For a more pop-culture focused view, see John Wayne's 1968 film The Green Berets.
Some primary documents
- U.S. Involvement in the Franco-Viet Minh War, 1950-1954 (declassified document)
- Final declaration of the Geneva Conference, July 21, 1954
- CIA, Information Report Telegram, The Strategic Hamlet Program, 3 July 1962
- Declaration on the Neutrality of Laos, 23 July 1962 (UN treaties No.6564)
Internet Resources
(also for the next section: wars in Vietnam and Cambodia) Milestones, Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of States:
Vietnam War from Warfare History Network. Teaching Resources Vietnam War records in the U.S. National Archives, also an exhibition (2017-2019) there: Remembering Vietnam New York Times Lesson Plans Teaching the Vietnam War With Primary Sources From The New York Times |
Primary source collections (U.S.) Wilson Center Digital Archive collections:
CIA Electronic Reading Room National Intelligence Council (NIC) Vietnam Collection: this collection of declassified estimative products is the first such release by the Central Intelligence Agency of documents exclusively on the Vietnam war. Vietnam Histories: this release consists of six declassified histories volumes and describes the CIA's role in Indochina during the Vietnam War. The MSU Vietnam Group Archives includes roughly 80,000 pages of digitized documents, maps, and images. Most of these materials date from 1955-1962, when Michigan State University led a range of US-funded technical assistance programs in South Vietnam for the purpose of producing a stable non-Communist ally in Southeast Asia. Vietnam Project (National Security Archive, George Washington University). It also has a huge collection of online documents. Guide to Sources on Vietnam, 1969-1975, Foreign Relations of the United States, U. S. Department of State Internet History Sourcebooks (Fordham University) on the Vietnam War |
Education about Asia (EAA) archives, search by country: Vietnam. Among the results, the followings are of particular interests
U.S. military and intelligence experiences, and quagmire
Perspectives from the USSR and China
US media and propaganda
The U.S media played an important role in framing the images of war, helping to shape American perceptions and public opinion back home. American public opinion shifted throughout the conflict, from being generally supportive at the war's outset to staunchly opposing the army's presence in Vietnam (especially after the Tet Offensive).
[Primary source news reports]
AND
- Ronald S. Spector, U.S. Army in Vietnam: Advice and Support – The Early Years,1941-1960.
- George L. MacGarrigle, Combat Operations: Taking the Offensive, October 1966 to October 1967.
- James A. Galbraith, Exit Strategy (Boston Review, 2003).
- Yukiko Ochiai, U.S. Intelligence and the Origins of the Vietnam War, 1962-1965 (2011).
Perspectives from the USSR and China
- US State Department, The Record of North Vietnam's Campaign to Conquer South Viet-Nam (1965)
- Mari Olsen, Soldarity and National Revolution: the Soviet Union and the Vietnamese Communists, 1954-1960 (1997).
- Yang Kuisong, Changes in Mao Zedong’s Attitude towards the Indochina War, 1949-1973, CWIHP Working Paper No. 34 (2002).
- Pierre Asselin, Hanoi’s Road to the Vietnam War 1954-1965 (2013); and an H-Diplo Roundtable on this book.
US media and propaganda
The U.S media played an important role in framing the images of war, helping to shape American perceptions and public opinion back home. American public opinion shifted throughout the conflict, from being generally supportive at the war's outset to staunchly opposing the army's presence in Vietnam (especially after the Tet Offensive).
[Primary source news reports]
- The United States Army Presents, The Big Picture: The Hidden War in Vietnam (1963)
- CBS News: The Battle of La Drang Valley (1965).
- The United States Army Presents, The Big Picture: The Unique War (1966)
- ABC News Report, This is Saigon (1967)
- CBS News: Vietnam Special [Con Thien Battle](1967)
AND
- William H. Hammond, The U.S. Army in Vietnam – Public Affairs: Military and the Media, 1962-1968.
Internet Resources
(also for the next section: wars in Vietnam and Cambodia)
Memoir, oral history, first-person accounts
(also for the next section: wars in Vietnam and Cambodia)
Memoir, oral history, first-person accounts
- Fred Branfman, Voices from the Plain of Jars (1972).
- Edward G. Lansdale, In the Midst of Wars: An American’s Mission to Southeast Asia (1972).
- Vo Nguyen Giap, How We Won the War (1976).
- Frank Snepp, Decent Interval: An Insider’s Account of Saigon’s Indecent End (1977).
- David Chanoff and Doan Van Toai, Portrait of the Enemy: The Other Side of the War in Vietnam Told through Interviews with North Vietnamese, Former Vietcong and Southern Opposition Leaders (1986).
- Bui Diem (with David Chanoff), In the Jaws of History (1987).
- Le Ly Hayslip, When Heaven and Earth Changed Places (Tie-in) (1989).
- Duong Van Mai Elliott. The Sacred Willow: Four Generations In The Life Of A Vietnamese Family (1995, 1999).
- Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (1995).
- Warner Smith, Covert Warrior: Fighting the CIA’s Secret War in Southeast Asia and China, 1965-67: The Vietnam Memoir of Warner Smith (1996).
- Bui Tin, Following Ho Chi Minh: The Memoirs of a North Vietnamese Colonel (1999).
- Robert S. McNamara, Argument without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy (1999).
- Gayle Morrison, Sky is Falling: An Oral History of the CIA’s Evacuation of the Hmong from Laos (1999).
- George W. Allen, None so Blind: A Personal Account of the Intelligence Failure in Vietnam (2001).
- John F. Sullivan, Of Spies and Lies: a CIA Lie Detector Remembers Vietnam (2002).
- Kao Kalia Yang, The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir (2008).
- Dang Thuy Tram, Last Night I Dreamed of Peace (2009).