The Vietnam War: Vietnamese and American Perspectives

Description

This volume derives from an unprecedented seminar held at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs in November 1990. At the seminar, leading Western diplomatic and military historians and Vietnam scholars met with prominent Vietnamese Communists to reflect on the Vietnam War. The book contains four parts: The Vietnamese Revolution and Political/Military strategy; the war from the American side; the war in the South and Cambodia; and retrospective and postwar issues. In addition to Jane Werner and Luu Doan Huynh, the contributors are Mark Bradley, William Duiker, David Elliott, Christine White, George Vickers, James Harrison, George Herring, Ronald Spector, Paul Joseph, Jeffrey Clarke, Ngo Vinh Long, Benedict Kiernan, Marilyn Young, Keith Taylor, and Tran Van Tra. General Tra was Commander of the People's Liberation Armed Forces of South Vietnam from 1963 to 1975. His eye-opening analysis of the Tet Offensive has never before been available in English. Contents The Contributors Acknowledgments Introduction: The Vietnam War: Vietnamese and American Perspectives • Jayne Werner and Luu Doan Huynh Part One: The Vietnamese Revolution and Political/Military Strategy 1. An Improbable Opportunity: America and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam's 1947 Initiative • Mark Bradley 2. Waging Revolutionary War: The Evolution of Hanoi’s Strategy in the South, 1959-1965 • William Duiker 3. Tet: The 1968 General Offensive and General Uprising • General Tran Van Tra 4. Hanoi’s Strategy in the Second Indochina War • David W.P. Elliott 5. Love, War, and Revolution: Reflections on the Memoirs of Nguyen Thi Dinh • Kristin Pelzer Part Two: The War from the American Side 6. U.S. Military Strategy and the Vietnam War • George R. Vickers 7. History’s Heaviest Bombing • James P. Harrison 8. The Strange “Dissent” of Robert S. McNamara • George C. Herring 9. “How Do You Know If You’re Winning?”: Perception and Reality in America’s Military Performance in Vietnam,1965-1970 • Ronald H. Spector 10. Direct and Indirect Effects of the Movement against the Vietnam War • Paul Joseph Part Three: The War in the South and Cambodia 11. Civil-Military Relations in South Vietnam and the American Advisory Effort • Jeffrey Clarke 12. The Seven-Point Proposal of the PRG (July 1, 1971) and the U.S. Reaction • Luu Doan Huynh 13. Post-Paris Agreement Struggles and the Fall of Saigon • Ngo Vinh Long 14. The Impact on Cambodia of the U.S. Intervention in Vietnam • Ben Kiernan Part Four: Retrospective and Postwar Issues 15. The War That Should Not Have Been • General Tran Van Tra 16. The American War in Vietnamese Memory • Luu Doan Huynh 17. The Vietnam War in American Memory • Marilyn B. Young 18. The Antiwar Movement after the War • David Hunt 19. China and Vietnam: Looking for a New Version of an Old Relationship • Keith W. Taylor Index