Anderson_00FM 5/3/02 9:25 AM Page i The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War COLUMBIA GUIDES TO AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURES Anderson_00FM 5/3/02 9:25 AM Page ii Columbia Guides to American History and Cultures Michael Kort, The Columbia Guide to the Cold War Catherine Clinton and Christine Lunardini, The Columbia Guide to American Women in the Nineteenth Century David Farber and Beth Bailey, editors, The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960s Anderson_00FM 5/3/02 9:25 AM Page iii The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War David L. Anderson columbia university press new york Anderson_00FM 5/3/02 9:25 AM Page iv Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex Copyright © 2002 Columbia University Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Anderson, David L., 1946– The Columbia guide to the Vietnam War / David L. Anderson. p. cm. — (Columbia guides to American history and cultures) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–231–11492–3 1. Vietnamese Conflict, 1961–1975. I. Title. II. Series. DS557.5 .A54 2002 959.704Ј3—dc21 2002020143 ∞ Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Anderson_00FM 5/3/02 9:25 AM Page v contents Introduction xi List of Abbreviations xiii part i Historical Narrative 1 1. Studying the Vietnam War 3 2. Vietnam: Historical Background 7 Roots of the Vietnamese Culture and State 7 The Impact of French Colonialism 10 The Rise of Vietnamese Nationalism 11 The Origins of Vietnamese Communism 12 3. United States: Historical Background 15 Idealism and Realism in U.S. Foreign Relations 15 The United States and the Open Door in Asia 16 The World Wars: The Legacies of Wilson and Munich 18 The Origins of the Cold War 20 Anderson_00FM 5/3/02 9:25 AM Page vi vi Contents 4. The French War in Vietnam 22 The August Revolution 23 Outbreak of the Franco-Vietminh War 24 U.S. Support of France in Indochina 25 Dienbienphu and the Geneva Conference 27 5. The Diem Years: Eisenhower 30 The Decision to Back Ngo Dinh Diem 31 The Non-election of 1956 32 The Illusion of Nation Building 33 NLF: Rise of the Southern Insurgency 34 6. The Diem Years: Kennedy 37 Counterinsurgency Warfare 38 The Buddhist Crisis 39 The Diem Assassination 40 What If Kennedy Had Lived? 41 7. The American War in Vietnam: Escalation 43 The Gulf of Tonkin Incident 45 Rolling Thunder 46 Johnson Decides on a Land War in Asia 46 Theories of Causation 48 8. The American War in Vietnam: Strategy 55 The Draft 56 Attrition Strategy and Body Count 57 Humpin’ It: The American Soldier 58 The Air War 59 Anderson_00FM 5/3/02 9:25 AM Page vii Contents vii Diplomacy 60 The Resilient Enemy 61 9. The American War in Vietnam: The Limits of Power 63 The Tet Offensive 63 The Antiwar Movement and the Media 65 Johnson’s Decision to Stop Escalation 67 The Presidential Election of 1968 68 10. The American War in Vietnam: De-escalation 70 Vietnamization and More Bombing 71 Cambodia and Kent State 72 Negotiations and the Paris Peace Accords 73 DRV Victory in 1975 75 11. The War That Will Not Go Away 78 The Postwar Wars in Southeast Asia 79 American Vietnam Veterans 81 Films, Fiction, and Poetry 83 Postmortems 84 part ii The Vietnam War from A to Z 87 part iii Chronology 177 part iv Resource Guide 195 Anderson_00FM 5/3/02 9:25 AM Page viii viii Contents 1. General Works 197 Bibliographies and Historiographical Essays 197 Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, and Atlases 198 Surveys and Syntheses 199 Document Collections 202 Biographies 203 Memoirs 205 Oral Histories 207 2. History of Southeast Asia and U.S. Foreign Relations 209 General History of Vietnam 209 History of U.S. Foreign Relations 210 The French Indochina War 211 Laos and Cambodia 213 3. The Diem Years 215 4. North Vietnam and the Vietcong 217 5. Escalation of the American War 219 The Gulf of Tonkin Incident 219 Lyndon Johnson’s Decisions for War 219 6. The American Way of War 223 Military Operations and Overviews 223 My Lai Massacre 226 Pacification and Counterinsurgency 226 International Setting 227 Anderson_00FM 5/3/02 9:25 AM Page ix Contents ix 7. The Limits of American Power 230 Antiwar Movement 230 American Politics and Economy 232 Television and the Press 233 The Tet Offensive 234 8. The End of the American War 235 Richard Nixon’s War and Diplomacy 235 The End of South Vietnam 236 9. The Legacy of the Vietnam War 238 Lessons and Postmortems 238 Literature, Movies, and Music 241 American Cultural Myths and National Identity 243 10. Films and Documentaries 244 11. Electronic Resources 247 part v Appendices 249 Appendix 1. Documents 251 Appendix 2. Statistics 286 Index 293 Anderson_00FM 5/3/02 9:25 AM Page x Anderson_00FM 5/3/02 9:25 AM Page xi introduction This guide is intended to make the history of the Vietnam War accessible to contemporary readers and applicable to their concerns. The guide is divided into five parts. Part I, “Historical Narrative,” offers an overview of the Vietnam War that provides a chronological frame of reference. Within that chronicle, key issues and questions for each period are articulated, and often these issues have produced arguments that comprise both the historical and continuing de- bate over the war. In chapter 7 of part I, the “Theories of Causation” section summarizes various schools of historical interpretation of the war. Names and terms that appear in boldface upon first reference in part I are more fully iden- tified and discussed in part II. There are also cross-references in part I to docu- ment excerpts found in appendix 1. Part II, “The Vietnam War from A to Z,” is a mini-encyclopedia with descriptions and analyses of individuals, events, units and groups, military operations, and specialized terms. Part III is a chronology of key events listed by year, and also by month and day where appropriate. Part IV is an annotated guide to resources for studying the war. It is arranged topically. In addition to various kinds of printed works, the resources include theatrical films, documentaries, CD-ROMs, and Internet URLs. The Internet sources are primarily government and university sites that are reliable and likely to remain online. Part V contains two appendices. Appendix 1 presents a collec- tion of excerpts from historical documents, and appendix 2 lists statistical data on such things as troop levels, casualties, bombing tonnage, and expenditures. Anderson_00FM 5/3/02 9:25 AM Page xii xii Introduction Readers may use this guide in several ways. The historical overview in part I can be read as a brief, interpretive history of the entire war. If there is interest in one particular aspect of the war, the reader can consult the relevant subsections of the narrative. Additional details on subjects discussed in the narrative can be found in part II, “The Vietnam War from A to Z.” The chronology in part III provides another way to place events in historical perspective or to focus on a particular point in time. The topical arrangement of the resources in part IV ba- sically parallels the organization of the subheadings in part I, and hence further reading on the issues raised in part I can be found in the corresponding section of part IV. The documents and statistics in part V supplement the information in the other sections. Since the information in parts II, III, IV, and V is arranged in standard alphabetical, bibliographical, and tabular form, the reader may use the book as a dictionary or almanac to look up isolated facts. The index also di- rects the reader to main entries and to many additional items mentioned briefly in the narrative and mini-encyclopedia. This guide is intended to be both a reference resource and an aid to unravel- ing the tangled web of the Vietnam War. The goal is to provide the reader with a versatile, objective, and reliable way to understand the intense and significant debate over the war. Anderson_00FM 5/3/02 9:25 AM Page xiii abbreviations AFV American Friends of Vietnam APC Armored Personnel Carrier ARVN Army of the Republic of Vietnam CALCAV Clergy and Laity Concerned About Vietnam CIA Central Intelligence Agency CIDG Civilian Irregular Defense Groups CORDS Civilian Operations and Revolutionary Development Support COSVN Central Office for South Vietnam CPK Communist Party of Kampuchea DMZ Demilitarized Zone DRV Democratic Republic of Vietnam ICP Indochinese Communist Party JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff MAAG Military Assistance Advisory Group MACV Military Assistance Command, Vietnam NLF National Liberation Front NVA North Vietnamese Army PAVN People’s Army of Vietnam PLAF People’s Liberation Armed Forces POW/MIA Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Anderson_00FM 5/3/02 9:25 AM Page xiv xiv Abbreviations PRC People’s Republic of China PRG Provisional Revolutionary Government PTSD Post-traumatic Stress Disorder RF/PF Regional Forces/Popular Forces RVN Republic of Vietnam SEATO Southeast Asia Treaty Organization SRV Socialist Republic of Vietnam SDS Students for a Democratic Society VCI Vietcong Infrastructure VNQDD Vietnam Quoc Dan Dang (Vietnam Nationalist Party) VVAW Vietnam Veterans Against the War Anderson_00FM 5/3/02 9:25 AM Page xv Anderson_00FM 5/3/02 9:25 AM Page xvi Anderson_00FM 5/3/02 9:25 AM Page xvii Anderson_00FM 5/3/02 9:25 AM Page xviii Anderson_00FM 5/3/02 9:25 AM Page xix The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War Anderson_00FM 5/3/02 9:25 AM Page xx Anderson_01 5/3/02 9:27 AM Page 1 part i Historical Narrative Anderson_01 5/3/02 9:27 AM Page 2 Anderson_01 5/3/02 9:27 AM Page 3 Chapter 1 studying the vietnam war To study the Vietnam War one must be prepared to struggle with ambiguity.