The Columbia History of the Vietnam War

598 Pages·2010·3.1 MB·English

by  David L. Anderson

The Columbia History of the Vietnam War
The Columbia History of the Vietnam
War
Edited, with an introduction, by David L. Anderson
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW YORK
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex cup.columbia.edu
Copyright © 2011 Columbia University Press All rights reserved
E-ISBN 978-0-231-50932-9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Columbia history of the Vietnam War /
edited, with an introduction, by David L. Anderson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-231-13480-4 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-231-50932-9 (e-book) 1. Vietnam War,
1961–1975. 2. Vietnam War, 1961–1975—Influence. 3. Vietnam War, 1961–1975—Social
aspects. 4. Vietnam War, 1961–1975—Political aspects—United States. I. Anderson, David L.,
1946– II. Title: Columbia history of the Vietnam War.
DS557.7.C64 2011
959.704'3—dc22
2010018853
A Columbia University Press E-book.
CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at cup-
[email protected].
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nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since
the manuscript was prepared.
CONTENTS
Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction:
The Vietnam War and Its Enduring Historical Relevance
David L. Anderson
PART I. Chronological Perspectives
1. Setting the Stage:
Vietnamese Revolutionary Nationalism and the First Vietnam
War
Mark Philip Bradley
2. “Dealing with a Government of Madmen”:
Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Ngo Dinh Diem
Richard H. Immerman
3. South Vietnam Under Siege, 1961–1965:
Kennedy, Johnson, and the Question of Escalation or
Disengagement
Gary R. Hess
4. Lyndon Johnson and the Bombing of Vietnam:
Politics and Military Choices
Lloyd C. Gardner
5. Turning Point:
The Vietnam War’s Pivotal Year, November 1967–November
1968
Robert J. McMahon
6. Richard M. Nixon and the Vietnam War:
The Paradox of Disengagement with Escalation
Jeffrey P. Kimball
PART II. Topical Perspectives
7. American Strategy in the Vietnam War
John Prados
8. The Village War in Vietnam, 1965–1973
Eric Bergerud
9. Fighting for Family:
Vietnamese Women and the American War
Helen E. Anderson
10. Vietnamese Society at War
Robert K. Brigham
11. “Hey, Hey, LBJ!”:
American Domestic Politics and the Vietnam War
Melvin Small
12. Cambodia and Laos in the Vietnam War
Kenton Clymer
PART III. Postwar Perspectives
13. The Legacy of the Vietnam War
Robert D. Schulzinger
14. The Vietnam Syndrome
George C. Herring
Contributors
Index
PREFACE
More than thirty-five years have passed since the Paris Peace Accords
ended the U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War, followed two
years later by the end of the war within Vietnam among the Vietnamese.
Since those closing events of a long and costly conflict, an entire
generation of Americans and Vietnamese who had no personal
encounter with the war have grown to adulthood. Over this period, too,
the Cold War ended. Thus many of the personal and ideological tensions
that shaped debate over the Vietnam War in earlier years should have
lessened. In fact, however, the Vietnam War has spawned thousands of
books and articles that in various ways continue to reexamine and,
indeed, to refight the war.
Although the subject still touches emotional and intellectual nerves, the
Vietnam War is now history. The war has made the generational move
away from experience into what historian Paul Cohen has called event or
myth. In his book History in Three Keys, Cohen advances the notion that
there are three keys to history: event as narrated or explained by
historians, experience as remembered and recounted by participants,
and myth as later generations use the past for their own purposes.1
Vietnam veteran, journalist, and screen writer (China Beach and Flags of
Our Fathers) Bill Broyles has written: “The real Vietnam War ended in
1975. Everything about it since then has been a war story—which means
it’s been made up, wrested from stubborn memory, shaped by
imagination, and transformed by the stories already told.”2
This book recognizes the variety of experiences that shape the subject
and the myths that surround the Vietnam War. It strives to be an
authoritative narration and explanation of this still controversial event.
Although there are good general histories of the war by such respected
authors as George Herring, Robert Schulzinger, Stanley Karnow, and
John Prados, this book is the collective effort of some of the leading
experts on the war. It reflects recent scholarship but also the well-
considered thoughts of historians who have long examined the subject.
The study of the war, as the thousands of titles on the subject
demonstrate, does not now and may never approach a level of
intellectual agreement that can be labeled definitive, but this collection of
essays is designed to provide a reliable reference on a contentious
subject.
Not only have the passage of years and the great depth and breadth of
writing on the war made the time right for a thorough stocktaking on the
Vietnam War, but the Iraq War, which began in March 2003, also
presents the need for serious reiteration and review of the lessons and
legacy of the Vietnam experience. The United States failed to achieve its
objective of an independent South Vietnam, but America was not a
defeated nation after the Vietnam War. Its global strength and its
international security interests remained great, and the questions of how
to use that strength and how to define those interests continued to
challenge America’s leaders. Despite declarations by officials of the
George W. Bush administration before the Iraq War that the United
States was not embarking on nation building, as it had attempted to do in
South Vietnam, the difficulties of restoring civil society in Iraq brought
forth old rhetoric about “winning hearts and minds” and establishing
“credibility” that echoed the Vietnam War experience. This book aims to
provide a reliable historical perspective on the Vietnam War to advance
accurate scholarship and sound policymaking.
Following the introduction, which is an extended essay highlighting
some of the major historical themes presented by the Vietnam War,
fourteen chapters probe more deeply into some of these themes. The
individual essays present clear, well-documented, and provocative
arguments, and the entire book comprises a critical approach to the study
of the war. The debate over the past thirty years has too often revolved
around simple labels, such as liberal and conservative or hawk and dove.
The interpretations in these essays strive to avoid stereotypes on the one
hand and abstract theory on the other.
The chapters by the contributors are divided into three parts. The
essays in part I provide chronological coverage of the war. Mark Philip
Bradley begins with an examination of the emergence of Vietnamese
revolutionary nationalism that was the impetus for the Vietminh-led war
against French colonialism. Richard Immerman surveys the period
between the French war and the American war during which the
Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations sought to build a nation in
South Vietnam around Ngo Dinh Diem. The beginning of the American