THE UNITED STATES AND VIETNAM

A Personally Selected and Subjectively Annotated Bibliography, Lawrence C. Jorgensen, 1972.

"A people without history is like the wind on the buffalo grass." -- from an Indian historian

CAUTIONS:

Be reminded that, as always, you read at your own risk! If you have not been, nor are yet, in the habit of exposing yourself to scholarship and views which differ from those pushed by your government, the newspapers, the television networks and commentators, most of your elementary, secondary and college instructors, perhaps this is not the place to start.

Be on guard for brainwashing, indoctrination, propaganda, subversion, perversion and truth. Feel free to report examples of same to your local office of the FBI, LAPD, Professors Watchers of America, or your neighborhood anti-intellectual church group – all of which, no doubt, have campus representatives, just ask around.

Also, remember those words of that great American patriot: Bolshevism is knocking at our gates. We can’t afford to let it in. We have got to organize against it and put our shoulders together and hold fast. We must keep America whole and safe and unspoiled (mine). We must keep the worker away from Red literature and Red ruses; we must see to it that his mind remains healthy. -- Al Capone, in a letter from Alcatraz Prison, 1935. From The Bootleggers. Kenneth Allsop, Hutchison (London, 1961), 337.

And lastly, the United States’ war in Vietnam will never make any sense if studied in isolation. Presidents simply do not wake up one morning and say "Let’s go to war today." The Vietnam war makes sense only in relation to American foreign policy in general, especially the fifty-year struggle called the "cold war." And a great power’s foreign policy makes sense only in relation to the society of which it is a symptom. Win, lose or draw, in Vietnam – in Greece – in Latin America (or wherever), we will continue to be the same sort of people, with the same sort of government, doing the same sort of things wherever and whenever we are able.

The essential question, therefore, is not "How did the United States get involved in Vietnam." Rather, the important inquiry concerns the determination of how the American people get to be the way they are ... and how to get them to change. An understanding of history, consequently, remains a prerequisite for that determination. So start reading ...’cause that’s where it’s at.

Burchett, Wilfred G. Vietnam: Inside Story of the Guerilla War. New York: International Publishers, 1965.

This well known and well traveled Australia correspondent has spent much time in Vietnam with the National Liberation Front. In 1963 and in 1964, Burchett was the only western newspaperman to be allowed to move freely through those areas of South Vietnam then in the hands of the "Viet Cong." For an "inside story" of the philosophy, tactics and goals of the National Liberation Front – and how they viewed the American effort to defeat them, do not be frightened off by this "leftist" writer. After all, how much can words harm you? And, who knows, you may learn something!

Carver, George A. "The Real Revolution in South Viet Nam." Foreign Affairs. Vol. 43. No. 3 (April, 1965). 387-408

While possessing certain obvious defects, this article is still about the best available on the history and the role of Vietnamese Catholicism – in regard to the French period of occupation; opposition by many of the Roman Catholics to the Communists; and the role of the Catholics from Northern Vietnam, after 1954, in the particularly to non-Catholics, no doubt, will be the detailed account of the Diem regime’s militant Catholicism in a country not only overwhelmingly non-Catholic, but in a country where for many decades Catholicism was identified with the foreign occupier – the French. Obviously, Diem was not pro-French and the United States mistook this anti-French sentiment for a legitimate Vietnamese nationalism. However, Diem – and his American created and supported regime – was too Roman Catholic to be truly representative of the aspirations of the millions of Vietnamese Buddhists, animists and others for whom he claimed to speak. How do you suppose the American people would like a militant Hindu for president?

Corson, William Lt. Colonel, United States Marine Corp. The Betrayal. Norton, 1969.

After twenty-five years in the Marine Corps, Corson was probably the Vietnam War’s most prestigious intellectual defector. Arguing that "for more than twenty years we have been on the emotional jag of messianic anti-communism," this book details the brutality of the American "pacification" program, which more than once he calls "genocide." Corson is no longer a member of the Marines, needless to say.

Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. (Revised Edition) New York: Praeger, 1964.

Dedicated to "The Valiant and Long-Suffering Vietnamese – North and South," Bernard Fall devoted the last fifteen years of his life in the vain attempt to tell Americans (among others) of the realities of the Vietnamese struggle. While hardly a partisan of the Communists, as even a cursory reading of The Two Viet-Nams will disclose, only the most obdurate could read this book and continue to accept United States statements of intentions in Indo China without qualms of conscience – always assuming, of course, that an American conscience continues to exist.

I suppose that if you have time to read but one book on the background to the current American effort in Vietnam, then Fall’s account of Vietnamese history, with special emphasis upon the period of the Second World War to 1962, ought to be your choice.

Gettleman, Marvin E. Viet Nam: History, Documents and Opinions on a Major Crisis. Fawcett Premier Book, 1965.

Includes many of the primary sources, documents, etc., of the period through 1964, as well as comments and observations by various world (including U.S.) figures.

Goodwin, Richard N. Triumph or Tragedy: Reflections on Viet Nam. Vintage, 1966.

Includes some of the important documents, including the Geneva Accords of 1954; the United States Fourteen Points for Peace; Hanoi’s Four Points; and others.

Halberstam, David. The Making of a Quagmire. New York: Random House, 1964.

Halberstam, the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter, so offended John F. Kennedy’s illusions that the president attempted to have the New York Times publisher transfer Halberstam out of Vietnam. Almost alone of the Vietnam correspondence, David Halberstam struggled against the increasing management of the press and the news pioneered, in our time, by the Kennedy administration – led, incidentally, by Pierre Salinger, the head of the Kennedy press staff.

Halberstam, David. "Mistakes and Illusions – the U.S. Impalement in Vietnam." Los Angeles Times. "Opinion" Section, May 21, 1972. 7.

For a most recent comment and observation from the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter (the one that Kennedy tried to have silenced), do not miss this brief but most pertinent article. Halberstam goes directly to the fundamental mistakes of judgment that the current, Nixon-Kissenger, Vietnam policy is based upon. The current batch of errors, curiously enough, are really not so different from those which motivated the Kennedy-Johnson policy. Consequently, the results are running just about the same – disastrous. Oh well ... "different bottles, but the same old wine," someone once said concerning the alleged distinctions between our two political parties.

Hammer, Ellen J. The Struggle for Indo China, 1940-1955: Viet Nam and the French Experience. Stanford, California: Stanford U. Press, 1966.

As the title indicates, this is an extensive account of the years of French struggle with Vietnamese independence. Even an anti-communist writer like Ellen Hammer was forced to admit, after her exhaustive study of these years, that only the communist – led Viet Minh provided the anti-French nationalist movement with honest and consistent leadership. The author’s account of the negotiations at Geneva, in 1954, and the eventual failure of the agreements reached there ought to provide some instruction for those among you who wonder why the Hanoi government "just doesn’t trust us."

Horowitz, David. The Free World Colossus: A Critique of America Foreign Policy in the Cold War. New York: Hill and Wang, 1971.

One of the first comprehensive studies of the cold war from a revisionist point of view, the value of this work lies in its over-all perspective. Chapter nine, "Intervention in Vietnam," though briefly treated, does place the American war in Vietnam in the global framework of American policy considerations – where, or course, it belongs.

For those among you who have yet to be exposed to a radical interpretation of American foreign policy – and I suspect that means most of you, LIVE A LITTLE. The life you save may be mine!

Johnson, Lyndon. "Address to the American Bar Association, August 12, 1964." Department of State Bulletin, LI (August 31, 1964), 299.

For the then president’s statement that "For the years, through the Eisenhower Administration, the Kennedy Administration, and this Administration, we have had one consistent aim – observance of the 1954 Geneva Agreements..." And in the same speech, that these "Agreements guaranteed the independence of South Vietnam."

You know, it would be a most simple matter, for those of you who simply cannot bring yourselves to believe that the president of the United States would out-and-out lie to the American people, to check this out for yourselves. Did the 1954 Geneva Agreement provide for an independent South Vietnam ... or did it not?

Johnson, Lyndon. "White House Statement, March 25, 1965." Department of State Bulletin, LII (April 12, 1965), 527.

For the then president’s statement that praised the Geneva Agreements of 1954, calling them a "reliable agreement to guarantee the independence and security of all ... Southeast Asia."

Kahin, George and Lewis, John W. "The United States in Vietnam." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. June, 1965.

This closely packed, seven-page article argues most persuasively that U.S. policy in Vietnam closely parallels that of the French – who were, of course, also unsuccessful. Documented from Vietnamese and Chinese sources, as well as the more conventional western, the authors analyze explicit and implicit American objectives and their likelihood of realization, regardless of the military power the United States chooses (in 1965) to utilize. Particular emphasis is placed upon the chances of a negotiated settlement (and the chances have not altered much during the intervening years), with the readers’ attention directed to the Geneva Agreements and Accords of 1954 and the United States’ unwillingness to abide by them. "Tis a pity that no one in authority in 1965 – or 1972 – apparently bothered to read this. Well, "you can lead a horse to water..." and all that!

Kolko, Gabriel. The Roots of American Foreign Policy. Boston: Beacon Press, 1969.

While this entire, brief, book deserves careful consideration, chapter four, "The United States in Vietnam, 1944-1966," is of particular interest. Kolko has the rare ability (rare for historians and political scientists) to place the specific in its proper, general, framework. That is, the American involvement in Vietnam, from 1944 onward, is discussed from the United States’ global – and particularly European – foreign policy needs and objectives. The United States began assisting the French in Vietnam in order to enable France to play a more meaningful role in the United States’ North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Back to Truman, again!

Kolko, Gabriel. The Politics of War: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1943-1945. New York: Random House, 1969.

In his most meticulous and massive study, this American historian amply demonstrates that the United States, from as early as 1943 and continuing through the concluding years of the Second World War, consciously plotted and acted to deprive European and Asian leftist movements of any meaningful role in the governments of their respective countries. As long as the war-time needs to defeat the Axis powers of Germany, Italy and Japan were paramount, these various movements were supported by the allied governments of Great Britain and the United States. However, as soon as their aid was no longer required for the defeat of the Axis, these groups became obstacles to the establishment of an Anglo-American hegemony.

The significance of this work lies in the comparison of American policy in regard to the resistance movements of Italy, Belgium, France, Netherlands, and Denmark, with Asian resistance movements in countries such as Vietnam. United States policy makes sense – to the perverse, perhaps, but sense nonetheless – only when viewed in its global context. And herein is the great value of this work.

La Feber, Walter. America, Russia and the Cold War, 1945-1966. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1968.

For an excellent survey of the years 1945-1966 from the point of view of one of the new "revisionist" American historians, this entire book deserves attention. Chapters nine and ten are directed to the Vietnam policies of the United States; but these policies are kept in their global, "cold war" perspective.

Linton, Ralph. The Study of Man. New York. 1945.

Useful anthropology for an understanding of the various peoples of Southeast Asia – who they are and from whence they came.

Morrock, Richard. "Revolution and Intervention in Vietnam." Containment and Revolution. Horowitz, David. (ed.) Boston: Beacon Press, 1967. 218-249.

This brief monograph covers the years 1941 to 1964 and the so-called "Gulf of Tonkin Incident." Written from a "radical" (whatever that means, nowadays) point of view, Morrock argues that the United States intervention in Vietnam has, from the beginning, been consistently opposed to the Vietnamese attempt to create a socialist country closed to western, or capitalist, or American (and to them, all three look alike – and I wonder why?) control.

For a brief record of western, or capitalist or American duplicity and hypocrisy (that is, the distance between what we "say" and what we "do"), take a chance ... expose yourself. You can always burn the silly book later in righteous indignation – if you are "in" to book-burning.

One caution: written over six years ago, much more information concerning these years has since become available; consequently, Morrock’s essential argument could be stated, and supported, with considerably more strength today.

McNamare, Robert. "New Conference, December 21, 1963." Documents on American Foreign Relations, 1963. Richard Stebbins, editor. New York, 1964. 298.

For the then Secretary of Defense (the Republican president of the Ford Company appointed to the Cabinet by John Kennedy) statement that the Geneva Agreements of 1954 provided for the emergence of an "independent entity" – the state of South Vietnam.

Nixon, Richard. "Needed in Vietnam: The Will to Win." Reader’s Digest. August, 1964. 37-43.

In which is contained the charge that the United States was responsible for the murder of Diem in November, 1963. Surely, you are not afraid to look into the Reader’s Digest ...? And would a future president lie?

Osborne, Milton E. The French Presence in Cochinchina and Cambodia: Rule and Response, 1859-1905. Ithica: Cornell U. Press, 1969.

The author makes use of English, French, Cambodian and Vietamese sources, including archival material. Mostly a history of the French conquest, the author describes the beginnings of French political rule – and the "native" response – Cochin China and Cambodia, southern Indochina.

Of special interest is the description of the way in which many of the Vietnamese embraced French culture (and Catholicism) in order to satisfy the ego needs of the conquerors – and not out of any sincere convictions. Many other Vietnamese embraced the white man’s ways as the most expedient manner by which to eventually liberate their country from his control.

Roberts, Charles. L.B.J.’s Inner Circle. Delacorte, 1965.

Written by the acting chief of Newsweek’s Washington Bureau, and White House correspondent since 1954, the charge is here made that ol’ Lyndon Johnson (remember him? He was the president that made famous those words, "My fellow Americans," and who we were urged by the Democrats of 1963-1968 to support: "After all, he is the president"), told Roberts that he, the president, made the decision to bomb North Vietnam in October, 1964 – right in the middle of the presidential campaign. For those of you who were too young to remember, in the 1964 presidential campaign, those of you who were too young to remember, in the 1964 presidential campaign, Lyndon Johnson pinned the label of "trigger happy" on his opponent, Barry Goldwater.

Also, one month before the so-called "Gulf of Tonkin incidents," the Joint Chiefs of Staff had been arguing for an extension of the war into the north because we were losing in the south. All this was kept secret until after the election so that people like this author could be led to believe that Johnson was the "peace candidate." Oh Boy!

Roberts, Chalmers M. "The Day We Didn’t Go to War." The Reporter. CI (September 14, 1954), 31-35.

Written by the then Chief for the National News Bureau of the Washington Post, herein is contained an account of the famous meeting in Washington at which John Foster Dulles, the then Secretary of State, attempted to convince key Congressional leaders (among whom were Senator Knowland of California and somebody called Johnson from a place called Texas) that the United States ought to send massive aid (including troops, and even nuclear weapons) to the embattled French in Vietnam. "The Day We Didn’t Go to War" was postponed for the time, because the "key" Congressional leaders opposed a unilateral American commitment.

Rusk, Dean. "Commencement Address: Williams College, June 14, 1964." Department of State Bulletin, LI (July 6, 1964), 5.

For the then Secretary of State’s statement that "all that is needed (to bring peace to Vietnam) is compliance with the agreements" of 1954.

Scheer, Robert. "How the United States Got Involved in Vietnam." A Report to the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, Santa Barbara, California, 1965.

For a detailed account of how certain leading Roman Catholics in the United States, a Cardinal and a future president included, teamed up with anti-Communists "leftists" and liberals, in a covert grouping financed by the C.I.A. through Michigan State University to place the Diem regime in power in southern Vietnam, Read This small pamphlet.

Also for those of you too young to remember the "snow job" put forward by the United States government in the early 60s about the great democratic changes being instituted in southern Vietnam by "our boy" Diem. Read This small pamphlet.

Snow, Edgar. China, Russia and the U.S.A.: Changing Relations in a Changing World. New York: Margani and Munsell, 1962.

Reproduced from his book The Other Side of the River: Red China Today (1961), the late Edgar Snow ably demonstrates why he must be ranked as America’s greatest China reporter (though actually, he was also almost our only one).

In Vietnam in 1945, when the country was united for a brief time, Snow witnessed the attempts by the Vietnamese to establish and maintain and independent and viable nation. His account of those days – and the relation of the Vietnamese to the Chinese, Communist and anti-Communist, has a most saddening ring today. The Snows of the World cared for those about whom they wrote; if only the French, to 1954, and the Americans since had cared a tenth as much. If only ... if only ... if only.

Starobin, Joseph R. Eyewitness in Indo-China. New York: Greenwood Press, 1954.

The author made extensive travels throughout Northern Vietnam in 1952, interviewing Ho Chi Minh and General Giap – the first interviews granted an American during the French-Viet Minh War (1946-1954). In addition, Starobin describes the day-to-day existence of the Viet Minh guerrilla, and the "unique strategy they employed in their struggle with the French." Being an expert, Starobin warned, in 1954, against United States involvement in the Vietnamese struggle. Needless to say (especially to the over 50,000 dead Americans), his advice went unheeded.

Walton, Richard J. Cold War and Counter-Revolution: The Foreign Policy of John F. Kennedy. New York: The Viking Press, 1972.

The ever growing Kennedy legend will no doubt require more than one factual analysis before the man and his policies will be reduced to something approximating reality. However, Walton’s account is a most excellent place to start – particularly for those of you already somewhat enticed by the rhetoric, the style, the image, of those years in comparison to the boorishness, the crassness, the obsceneness, of those which have followed.

The United States government’s policies of the early 60s – Laos, the Boy of Pigs, the Berlin Crisis of 1961, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and of course, Vietnam – are all critically examined by one neither impressed by the image, nor excited by the substance.

Chapter nine details the responsibility of President Kennedy and his chief advisors for the war in Vietnam that his successor later escalated. But to understand that decision – the reasoning and the frame of reference behind it – it is necessary to view the Kennedy administration and the formulation of foreign policy as a whole. Walton’s most persuasive argument (and as well documented as the public record will permit in a country where secrecy and suppression of documentation is becoming increasingly the rule) is that John F. Kennedy’s policies logically evolved from his fundamental commitment to a world-wide status quo in which American values and American considerations would be paramount. In other words, J.F. K. was every much the "cold war warrior" as was John Foster Dulles – though Kennedy was perhaps less dogmatic in the implementation of the policies designed to insure the continued reign of pax americana.

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