Read complete books and articles on: Vietnam War

Vietnam War - conflict in Southeast Asia, primarily fought in South Vietnam between government forces aided by the United States and guerrilla forces aided by North Vietnam. The war began soon after the Geneva Conference provisionally divided (1954) Vietnam at 17° N lat. into the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). It escalated from a Vietnamese civil war into a limited international conflict in which the United States was deeply involved, and did not end, despite peace agreements in 1973, until North Vietnam's successful offensive in 1975 resulted in South Vietnam's collapse and the unification of Vietnam by the North.

Causes and Early Years

In part, the war was a legacy of France's colonial rule, which ended in 1954 with the French army's catastrophic defeat at Dienbienphu and the acceptance of the Geneva Conference agreements (see Vietnam). Elections scheduled for 1956 in South Vietnam for the reunification of Vietnam were canceled by President Ngo Dinh Diem. His action was denounced by Ho Chi Minh, since the Communists had expected to benefit from them. After 1956, Diem's government faced increasingly serious opposition from the Viet Cong, insurgents aided by North Vietnam. The Viet Cong became masters of the guerrilla tactics of North Vietnam's Vo Nguyen Giap. Diem's army received U.S. advice and aid, but was unable to suppress the guerrillas, who established a political organization, the National Liberation Front (NLF) in 1960.

U.S. Involvement

In 1961, South Vietnam signed a military and economic aid treaty with the United States leading to the arrival (1961) of U.S. support troops and the formation (1962) of the U.S. Military Assistance Command. Mounting dissatisfaction with the ineffectiveness and corruption of Diem's government culminated (Nov., 1963) in a military coup engineered by Duong Van Minh; Diem was executed. No one was able to establish control in South Vietnam until June, 1965, when Nguyen Cao Ky became premier, but U.S. military aid to South Vietnam increased, especially after the U.S. Senate passed the Tonkin Gulf resolution (Aug. 7, 1964) at the request of President Lyndon B. Johnson.

In early 1965, the United States began air raids on North Vietnam and on Communist-controlled areas in the South; by 1966 there were 190,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam. North Vietnam, meanwhile, was receiving armaments and technical assistance from the Soviet Union and other Communist countries. Despite massive U.S. military aid, heavy bombing, the growing U.S. troop commitment (which reached nearly 550,000 in 1969), and some political stability in South Vietnam after the election (1967) of Nguyen Van Thieu as president, the United States and South Vietnam were unable to defeat the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces. Optimistic U.S. military reports were discredited in Feb., 1968, by the costly and devastating Tet offensive of the North Vietnamese army and the Viet Cong, involving attacks on more than 100 towns and cities and a month-long battle for Hue in South Vietnam.

U.S. Withdrawal

Serious negotiations to end the war began after U.S. President Lyndon Johnson's decision not to seek reelection in 1968. Contacts between North Vietnam and the United States in Paris in 1968 were expanded in 1969 to include South Vietnam and the NLF. The United States, under the leadership of President Richard M. Nixon, altered its tactics to combine U.S. troop withdrawals with intensified bombing and the invasion of Communist sanctuaries in Cambodia (1970).

The length of the war, the high number of U.S. casualties, and the exposure of U.S. involvement in war crimes such as the massacre at My Lai (see My Lai incident) helped to turn many in the United States against the war. Politically, the movement was led by Senators James William Fulbright, Robert F. Kennedy, Eugene J. McCarthy, and George S. McGovern; there were also huge public demonstrations in Washington, D.C., as well as in many other cities in the United States and on college campuses.

Even as the war continued, peace talks in Paris progressed, with Henry Kissinger as U.S. negotiator. A break in negotiations followed by U.S. saturation bombing of North Vietnam did not derail the talks, and a peace agreement was reached, signed on Jan. 27, 1973, by the United States, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the NLF's provisional revolutionary government. The accord provided for the end of hostilities, the withdrawal of U.S. and allied troops (several Southeast Asia Treaty Organization countries had sent token forces), the return of prisoners of war, and the formation of a four-nation international control commission to ensure peace.

End of the War

Fighting between South Vietnamese and Communists continued despite the peace agreement until North Vietnam launched an offensive in early 1975. South Vietnam's requests for aid were denied by the U.S. Congress, and after Thieu abandoned the northern half of the country to the advancing Communists, a panic ensued. South Vietnamese resistance collapsed, and North Vietnamese troops marched into Saigon Apr. 30, 1975. Vietnam was formally reunified in July, 1976, and Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City. U.S. casualties in Vietnam during the era of direct U.S. involvement (1961–72) were more than 50,000 dead; South Vietnamese dead were estimated at more than 400,000, and Viet Cong and North Vietnamese at over 900,000.

Bibliography

For a general introduction, see D. L. Anderson, The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War (2002). See also F. FitzGerald, Fire in the Lake (1972); D. Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (1972); G. Lewy, America in Vietnam (1978); R. Komer, Bureaucracy at War (1985); W. S. Turley, The Second Indochina War (1986); B. Diem, In the Jaws of History (1987); R. B. Smith, An International History of the Vietnam War (2 vol., 1987); N. Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie (1988); O. Lehrach, No Shining Armor (1992); J. L. Plaster, SOG: The Secret Wars of America's Commandos in Vietnam (1997); M. Lind, Vietnam: The Necessary War (1999); F. Logevall, Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam (1999); R. S. McNamara et al., Argument without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy (1999); L. Sorley, A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam (1999); A. J. Langguth, Our Vietnam: The War, 1954–1975 (2000); C. G. Appy, ed., Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered From All Sides (2003).

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16 of the Best Books and Articles on: Vietnam War

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

The Vietnam War, 1956-1975 » Read Now
by Andrew Wiest. 95 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

America entered the Vietnam War certain of its moral mission to save the world from the advance of communism. As this title explains, however, the war was not at all what the US expected. Outnumbered and outgunned the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces resorted to a guerrilla war.
2.

A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941-1975 » Read Now
by Robert D. Schulzinger. 404 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

"...Schultzinger takes a fresh look at the Vietnam War by drawing on newly-opened archival materials and utilizing the already extensive bibliography on the war. His narrative is free from the passions of the day which continue to influence the works of many scholars."--BookReviews Even after two...
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"...Schultzinger takes a fresh look at the Vietnam War by drawing on newly-opened archival materials and utilizing the already extensive bibliography on the war. His narrative is free from the passions of the day which continue to influence the works of many scholars."--BookReviews Even after two decades, the memory of the Vietnam War seems to haunt our culture. From Forrest Gump to Miss Saigon, from Tim O'Brien's Pulitzer Prize-winning Going After Cacciato to Robert McNamara's controversial memoir In Retrospect, Americans are drawn again and again to ponder our long, tragic involvement in Southeast Asia. Now eminent historian Robert D. Schulzinger has combed the newly available documentary evidence, both in public and private archives, to produce an ambitious, masterful account of three decades of war in Vietnam--the first major full-length history of the conflict to be based on primary sources. In A Time for War, Schulzinger paints a vast yet intricate canvas of more than three decades of conflict in Vietnam, from the first rumblings of rebellion against the French colonialists to the American intervention and eventual withdrawal. His comprehensive narrative incorporates every aspect of the war--from the military (as seen in his brisk account of the French failure at Dienbienphu) to the economic (such as the wage increase sparked by the draft in the United States) to the political. Drawing on massive research, he offers a vivid and insightful portrait of the changes in Vietnamese politics and society, from the rise of Ho Chi Minh, to the division of the country, to the struggles between South Vietnamese president Diem and heavily armed religious sects, to the infighting and corruption that plagued Saigon. Schulzinger reveals precisely how outside powers--first the French, then the Americans--committed themselves to war in Indochina, even against their own better judgment. Roosevelt, for example, derided the French efforts to reassert their colonial control after World War II, yet Truman, Eisenhower, and their advisers gradually came to believe that Vietnam was central to American interests. The author's account of Johnson is particularly telling and tragic, describing how president would voice clear headed, even prescient warnings about the dangers of intervention--then change his mind, committing America's prestige and military might to supporting a corrupt, unpopular regime. Schulzinger offers sharp criticism of the American military effort, and offers a fascinating look inside the Nixon White House, showing how the Republican president dragged out the war long past the point when he realized that the United States could not win. Finally, Schulzinger paints a brilliant political and social portrait of the times, illuminating the impact of the war on the lives of ordinary Americans and Vietnamese. Schulzinger shows what it was like to participate in the war--as a common soldier, an American nurse, a navy flyer, a conscript in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, a Vietcong fighter, or an antiwar protester. In a field crowded with fiction, memoirs, and popular tracts, A Time for War will stand as the landmark history of America's longest war. Based on extensive archival research, it will be the first place readers will turn in an effort to understand this tragic, divisive conflict.
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3.

The War for South Viet Nam, 1954-1975 » Read Now
by Anthony James Joes. 176 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...the second World War, Catholics comprised...tenth of the entire Vietnamese population, and fully...of the first World War created a sizeable...European-educated Vietnamese...
4.

A Grand Delusion: America's Descent into Vietnam » Read Now
by Robert Mann. 824 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

A Grand Delusion is the first comprehensive single-volume American political history of the Vietnam War. Spanning the years 1945 to 1975, it is the definitive story of the well-meaning, but often misguided, American political leaders whose unquestioning adherence to the crusading, anti-Communist...
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A Grand Delusion is the first comprehensive single-volume American political history of the Vietnam War. Spanning the years 1945 to 1975, it is the definitive story of the well-meaning, but often misguided, American political leaders whose unquestioning adherence to the crusading, anti-Communist Cold War dogma of the 1950's and 1960's led the nation into its tragic misadventure in Vietnam.
At the center of this narrative are seven political leaders -- Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, J. William Fulbright, Mike Mansfield, and George McGovern. During their careers, each occupied center-stage in the nation's debate over U.S. policy in Vietnam.
This is a piercing analysis of political currents and an epic tragedy filled with fascinating characters and antagonisms and beliefs that divided the nation.
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5.

Into the Quagmire: Lyndon Johnson and the Escalation of the Vietnam War » Read Now
by Brian VanDeMark. 268 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

In November of 1964, as Lyndon Johnson celebrated his landslide victory over Barry Goldwater, the government of South Vietnam lay in a shambles. Ambassador Maxwell Taylor described it as a country beset by "chronic factionalism, civilian-military suspicion and distrust, absence of national spirit...
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In November of 1964, as Lyndon Johnson celebrated his landslide victory over Barry Goldwater, the government of South Vietnam lay in a shambles. Ambassador Maxwell Taylor described it as a country beset by "chronic factionalism, civilian-military suspicion and distrust, absence of national spirit and motivation, lack of cohesion in the social structure, lack of experience in the conduct of government." Virtually no one in the Johnson Administration believed that Saigon could defeat the communist insurgency--and yet by July of 1965, a mere nine months later, they would lock the United States on a path toward massive military intervention which would ultimately destroy Johnson's presidency and polarize the American people. Into the Quagmire presents a closely rendered, almost day-by-day account of America's deepening involvement in Vietnam during those crucial nine months. Mining a wealth of recently opened material at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and elsewhere, Brian VanDeMark vividly depicts the painful unfolding of a national tragedy. We meet an LBJ forever fearful of a conservative backlash, which he felt would doom his Great Society, an unsure and troubled leader grappling with the unwanted burden of Vietnam; George Ball, a maverick on Vietnam, whose carefully reasoned (and, in retrospect, strikingly prescient) stand against escalation was discounted by Rusk, McNamara, and Bundy; and Clark Clifford, whose last-minute effort at a pivotal meeting at Camp David failed to dissuade Johnson from doubling the number of ground troops in Vietnam. What comes across strongly throughout the book is the deep pessimism of all the major participants as things grew worse--neither LBJ, nor Bundy, nor McNamara, nor Rusk felt confident that things would improve in South Vietnam, that there was any reasonable chance for victory, or that the South had the will or the ability to prevail against the North. And yet deeper into the quagmire they went. Whether describing a tense confrontation between George Ball and Dean Acheson ("You goddamned old bastards," Ball said to Acheson, "you remind me of nothing so much as a bunch of buzzards sitting on a fence and letting the young men die") or corrupt politicians in Saigon, VanDeMark provides readers with the full flavor of national policy in the making. More important, he sheds greater light on why America became entangled in the morass of Vietnam.
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6.

On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War » Read Now
by Harry G. Summers Jr. 226 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
7.

Vietnam: Strategy for a Stalemate » Read Now
by F. Charles Parker IV. 260 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...Stanford University says, "No Vietnam War in Central America." The motion...Thornton, "Soviet Strategy and the Vietnam War," Asian Affairs , No. 4, March...Papers, The...
8.

Friendly Fire: American Images of the Vietnam War » Read Now
by Katherine Kinney. 221 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Hundreds of memoirs, novels, plays, and movies have been devoted to the American war in Vietnam. In spite of the great variety of mediums, political perspectives and the degrees of seriousness with which the war has been treated, Katherine Kinney argues that the vast majority of these works share a...
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Hundreds of memoirs, novels, plays, and movies have been devoted to the American war in Vietnam. In spite of the great variety of mediums, political perspectives and the degrees of seriousness with which the war has been treated, Katherine Kinney argues that the vast majority of these works share a single story: that of Americans killing Americans in Vietnam. Friendly Fire, in this instance, refers not merely to a tragic error of war, it also refers to America's war with itself during the Vietnam years. Starting from this point, this book considers the concept of "friendly fire" from multiple vantage points, and portrays the Vietnam age as a crucible where America's cohesive image of itself is shattered--pitting soldiers against superiors, doves against hawks, feminism against patriarchy, racial fear against racial tolerance. Through the use of extensive evidence from the film and popular fiction of Vietnam (i.e. Kovic's Born on the Fourth of July, Didion's Democracy, O'Brien's Going After Cacciato, Rabe's Sticks and Bones and Streamers), Kinney draws a powerful picture of a nation politically, culturally, and socially divided, and a war that has been memorialized as a contested site of art, media, politics, and ideology.
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9.

Legacy of a War: The American Soldier in Vietnam » Read Now
by Ellen Frey-Wouters, Robert S. Laufer. 438 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...toward VC/NVA, by Support for Vietnam War 339 5.1 Feelings...Unlawful Acts, by Sup port for Vietnam War among Nonveterans 373...like Vietnam, by Attitude toward Vietnam...
10.

Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam » Read Now
by Christian G. Appy. 365 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Working-Class War explores the experience and attitudes of the 2.5 million American enlisted men who served in Vietnam, painting a compelling portrait of the war as it was lived by the troops who fought it.
11.

The Rise and Fall of an American Army: U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965-1973 » Read Now
by Shelby L. Stanton. 418 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
12.

The Tet Offensive » Read Now
by Marc Jason Gilbert, William Head. 288 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

The Tet Offensive of 1968 was perhaps the key incident in the War for Vietnam. But the debate surrounding the offensive continues: Was it a failed last-gasp effort by the defeated North Vietnamese and their Viet Cong allies? Or was it part of a larger plan that led to victory for the North...
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The Tet Offensive of 1968 was perhaps the key incident in the War for Vietnam. But the debate surrounding the offensive continues: Was it a failed last-gasp effort by the defeated North Vietnamese and their Viet Cong allies? Or was it part of a larger plan that led to victory for the North Vietnamese and their allies? The essays in this volume are among the very first to seek to dispel the wishful thinking, analytical dogmas, and political agendas that have obscured past efforts to master this key turning point in Vietnamese and American history. They reveal that we can look at the truth--and learn from it.
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13.

Vietnam and the American Political Tradition: The Politics of Dissent » Read Now
by Randall B. Woods. 324 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
14.

Ending the Vietnam War: The Vietnamese Communists' Perspective » Read Now
by Ang Cheng Guan. 198 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Ang Cheng Guan is Associate Professor at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
15.

The Economic Consequences of the Vietnam War » Read Now
by Anthony S. Campagna. 162 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

The consequences of the Vietnam War on the United States' economy is the subject of this work. Campagna provides a chronological study of the war's identifiable costs and benefits, beginning with the pre-war economy of the 1950s, through the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and culminating with...
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The consequences of the Vietnam War on the United States' economy is the subject of this work. Campagna provides a chronological study of the war's identifiable costs and benefits, beginning with the pre-war economy of the 1950s, through the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and culminating with Nixon's handling of the war and its aftermath. Both the short-term impact, including contemporary government and administration policies, and the long-term effects are examined, as Campagna describes the change in the basic economic structure that the war has been responsible for.
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16.

The American War in Vietnam: Lessons, Legacies, and Implications for Future Conflicts » Read Now
by Lawrence E.Grinter, Peter M.Dunn. 166 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

"The lessons, legacies, and implications for future conflicts are the purpose of this collection of work on The American War in Vietnam. This is an assemblage of ten superb papers which outline why America failed in Vietnam. . . . Military readers will find the section on How the War Was Fought...
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"The lessons, legacies, and implications for future conflicts are the purpose of this collection of work on The American War in Vietnam. This is an assemblage of ten superb papers which outline why America failed in Vietnam. . . . Military readers will find the section on How the War Was Fought especially interesting in that the authors suggest that had we pursued a more exhaustive air campaign against the North early in the war, then it could have been won. . . . This book is for serious students of the Vietnam War, for historians looking for a complete picture, it has a superb bibliography, and the authors have outstanding credentials." Armor
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