Tag: indochina

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Education Reading Vietnam War

Latest Read: The Eagle Weeps

The Eagle Weeps by Lieutenant colonel Keith Honaker offers stunning lessons from his deployment to Vietnam in February 1952. He arrived in Saigon as a member of the US Military MAAG Vietnam program. His experience illustrates the repeated failures of France to defeat the Viet Minh.

the eagle weeps by Lt. Col Keith Honaker

At the same time, Lieutenant colonel Honaker invited his family to join him in Saigon. Only a select few American officers brought their families to Vietnam. Shockingly his wife Wilma was abducted by Viet Minh agents during a trip to Hanoi. Only a French officer saved her from departing a safe zone around Hanoi. Can you imagine if Wilma had been taken prisoner or killed by the Viet Minh? Certainly shocking to read 65 years later.

During his deployment, France was seeking to remove American officers from the field. Lieutenant colonel Honaker and his fellow American officers in Saigon were not even informed of the French plans for the Dien Bien Phu until after the airlift began.

Likewise there are additional moments in the book that reveal a deep misunderstanding to the early American MAAG mission. As Lieutenant colonel Honaker describes in the opening chapters, his arrival in Vietnam was like landing in another world. His experiences are very foretelling to the next for next 23 years for America.

Surprisingly, as we would later learn, the Viet Minh were preparing a very strong defense of their country. A mature network of spies including those who served American military families as house servants greeted the Honaker family upon their arrival.

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Education Reading Vietnam War

Latest Read: Replacing France

Replacing France: The Origins of American Intervention in Vietnam by Kathryn Statler. This book vividly illustrates failures by France and America in determining a free and democratic Vietnam. Kathryn directly addresses America’s tenuous relationship with France, watching as the French consistently flailed at war in Vietnam.

replacing france by kathryn statler

Kathryn sheds much needed light across a very complicated 10 year relationship (1950-60) at the dawn of the cold war. Her research helps fill gaps between US support for France and where we took over the war. The timeline begins stumbling forward in the late 1940s. Her scholarship is elevated by recently released archival materials from the US and Europe.

This is a much longer book review than normal. Even with multiple references, below simply I cannot fully address the deep impact of Kathryn’s research in a single post. This should be required reading for any college history class on the American war in Vietnam.

France made every effort to re-enter Indochina, patiently waiting for any chance to re-enslave the peoples of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Britain also fought to regain colonial control over Malaya at the end of World War II.

Since 1887, every aspect of Vietnamese society was under French control. This colonial monster had 80 years to metastasize across every aspect of Indochinese life. Among my Dien Bien Phu retrospective, this book helps answer how the tumultuous relationship between of France brought America into the war.

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Cyberinfrastructure Education Google Network Reading Technology Vietnam War

Latest Read: Surveillance Valley

Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet by Yasha Levine. This book is an amazing and enlightening deep dive into the history of the US military-driven internet. Google and Facebook have become today the major players of a corporate DARPA.

Surveillance Valley

The message of Surveillance Valley is twofold: the US military has held the key, foundational role of today’s internet. After all, ARPANet, the initial ‘internet’ went into production in 1966.

The second message is the evolution of counterinsurgency from signals intelligence to Google Chrome. This will surprise many. This can be a very interesting read for our times.

At first glance this story is about Google and law enforcement surveillance within the City of Oakland. Yet, Yasha takes the reader all the way back to the Vietnam War. For instance, he lays the foundation for today’s internet to Project AGILE, an early clandestine effort to aid the French to recolonize Indochina after World War II. Likewise we did not learn from their failures.

This highly secret project launched under Truman as the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), and rebranded Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Those early cyclical electronic counterinsurgency efforts in the mid-1950s failed.

In other words, the opening chapters actually provide a very detailed history lesson regarding Presidents Truman and Eisenhower. Data harvesting, aka “counterinsurgency” was flourishing in the Cold War. The impact of Sputnik and French defeats in Vietnam drove counterinsurgency efforts.

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Education Reading Vietnam War

Latest read: The Irony of Vietnam

The Irony of Vietnam: The System Worked by Leslie Gelb is a review that American bureaucratic institutions prevailed across the Vietnam War.

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara appointed Leslie Gelb, following the death of John McNaughton to discover the history of American involvement in Vietnam. This top secret project Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force began in 1967 and became known as The Pentagon Papers after Dan Ellsberg leaked the study to the New York Times. 

The Irony of Vietnam: The System WorkedUnderstanding Gelb’s views and insights of the war you must acknowledge Gelb worked on CINCPAC OPLAN 37-64 known as Operation Rolling Thunder.

Readers should be well versed in the pre-World War II history of Indochina including American efforts via financially support in the French desire post-1946 to re-enslave the peoples of Indochina.

Gelb’s efforts well document the lost years of the American war 1966 to 1968. Interesting how Gelb viewed LBJ not finding consensus among his advisors on how to proceed …. victory was clearly understood as not achievable by 1965. Yet General Westmoreland could not convince LBJ that 480,000 more men would swing the tide of the war.

Gelb’s opinion of Operation Marigold brought refreshed insights that I did not easily recall from the Papers. The backdrop of a secret tunnel to establish peace via the Polish embassy detailed how intense the effort was in the White House set against the Air Force commitment to Gelb’s own Operation Rolling Thunder clipped any real chance at peace by December 1966. The war would continue for almost ten more years.

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Education Reading Vietnam War Watergate

Latest read: The Vietnam War: An Intimate History

The Vietnam War: An Intimate History by Geoffrey Ward and Ken Burns have authored one of the finest efforts to address the war from multiple perspectives and is perfect for Gen X and Millennials. This compliments Burns’ highly acclaimed 2017 PBS series.
The Vietnam War: An Intimate HistoryMany already recognize that Ken Burns is a gifted storyteller mixing media together to produce: The Civil War (1990), Baseball (1994), Jazz (2001), The War (2007), The National Parks: America’s Best Idea (2009), Prohibition (2011), and The Roosevelts (2014).

Prior to the PBS 10-part series, I knew Burns would deliver another great experience. For the book release, Ward and Burns do not disappoint. Their detailed stories and personal testimonials from soldiers and their families are deeply moving. Many young and old will more accurately understand a very tumultuous period in our nation’s history.

Burns’ access to newly released interviews and declassified materials from both sides show greater insights that inject confusion to long-held beliefs. This will lead many to question truths on all sides, from past government leaders to military generals.

Burns and Ward offer a number of key revelations:

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