Tag: Vietnam War

The Vietnam War

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Education Vietnam War

MadMen’s Vietnam

Madmen finished a rather interesting season. I only found interest in the season premier when Don sat at a bar in Hawaii and had a drink with a US Soldier on leave from the war.  Many have written about Chevrolet was their “Vietnam” for the season.
madmen vietnam
Other segments throughout this season seemed tied into the cultural change the war took on American society. For example, the necklace of ears segment was rather interesting as the horror of war not only hit home but required the firm to change their advertising strategies.

Did you think their pot smoking scene or the death of a firm’s sibling (killed in Vietnam) reach the audience?  Many didn’t seem to think so — maybe they were not looking deep enough?

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Education Reading Vietnam War

Latest read: A Vietnam War Reader

While spending almost two years reading the Pentagon Papers I found a number of credible resources that pointed to this college textbook as an excellent overview of our long war, A Vietnam War Reader: A Documentary History from American and Vietnamese Perspectives.

A Vietnam War Reader

This book is written by Michael H. Hunt, emeritus professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Hunt has also written “Lyndon Johnson’s War: America’s Cold War Crusade in Vietnam, 1945-1968” and “Arc of Empire: America’s Wars in Asia from the Philippines to Vietnam.”

Hunt’s book presented in chronological order our long conflict throughout Indo-China. The perspectives from are from leaders in the US, South Vietnam and communist North Vietnam. Wars have been traditionally told from the perspective of the winner, its a somewhat awkward view to read the perspectives of noted NVA military and communist party leaders.  Lessons certainly sting.  And they should indeed sting our national conscious.

Hunt provides a full perspective to the war. The most noted was the last chapter “Outcomes and Verdicts” that include the famous confrontation between Robert McNamara and Vo Nguyen Giap and Nguyen Co Thach in 1995.

The focus of French colonialism opens the book stretching back to 1861 and the coming rise of independence and revolution against French colonial rule throughout Indo-China. Hunt appears to have leveraged the resources also presented in the Pentagon Papers to tell an accurate story of our 30 year war in Vietnam.

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Education Reading Vietnam War

The Pentagon Papers: US-Vietnam Relations 1945-1967

In the summer of 2011 the National Archives released the Pentagon Papers. The 47-volume report officially titled “United States-Vietnam Relations 1945-1967” was an amazing research effort led by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.
Pentagon PapersSomewhat fittingly today (Memorial Day 2013) I have finished the final volume.

This has been a rather involved “process” to say the least. At times the reports left me frustrated, curious, shocked, empathetic and even enraged. All 47 volumes remain freely available to download in Adobe Acrobat format and total 7,919 pages. This top secret report forever changed America’s view of this long and tragic war.

Robert McNamara appointed a TaskForce of select military, RAND staff members and academic researchers to write the report. Those who contributed included Daniel Ellsberg who would later leak the Papers to Neil Sheehan at the New York Times.

The US conflict in Vietnam, America’s longest war spanned over 30 years. A full generation of soldiers dedicated to our country, democracy and freedom served, fought and died throughout French Indo-China. I am deeply moved by those brave men who gave their lives in battle.

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Education Reading Vietnam War

Roosevelt and Stalin discussed a French-free IndoChina

Many of the secret documents in the Pentagon Papers reveal America’s role Asian politics before entering World War II. Its interesting to see Roosevelt and Stalin discussed a French-free IndoChina at the Tehran Conference.

Pentagon Papers
The Pentagon Papers Volume 33 Part V-B1 reveals a series secret documents regarding a steady stream of communications between World War II allies leading up to the Tehran Conference in early December 1943 where Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt met to plan a second European front against Hitler’s Germany.

I think its important to view the timeline regarding French aims regarding a postwar IndoChina. The memorandum below was between Stalin and Roosevelt at Tehran as the Allies were planning D-Day.

Can the irony be any stronger for French demand’s that American support reclaiming their lost colonies while the war in Europe was still raging on just the eastern front?

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Education Reading Vietnam War

US supported French territories after WWII

The Pentagon Papers Part V-B1 reveals a series of secret documents written during World War II regarding French demands the US supported French territories after the war.

President Roosevelt did not want France to reclaim IndoChina but had to capitulate to de Gaulle’s demands in Europe against Soviet Russia. Today its amusing de Gaulle threatened France would fall under communist influence after the war.

Pentagon PapersAfter both Roosevelt and Truman administrations, President Eisenhower found himself lending support to another French request regarding their colonial empire in IndoChina when France asked the United States to drop 3 atomic bombs at Dien Bien Phu on the tenth day of the month long siege.

Its surprising to see Eisenhower actually kept this request on the table, indicating his serious support for dropping multiple atomic bombs on a single battlefield.  Only until the British ambassador objected to the outcome of such an action did Eisenhower refuse. Was the US destined to be drawn to Vietnam only to support the France’s desire to restart it’s aging empire?

United States Position With Respect to French Territory After the War

During the past three years there have been a number of public pronouncements, as well as unpublished statements, by the President, the Secretary of State, and other high ranking officials of this Government regarding the future of French territory after the war, The most important of these pronouncements and statements are set forth below,

1. In a statement issued on August 2, 1941, concerning the agreement entered into between the French and Japanese Governments regarding French Indochina, the Secretary of State said:

“This Government, mindful of its traditional friendship for France, has deeply sympathized with the desire of the French people to maintain their territories and to preserve them intact. In Its relations with the French Government at Vichy and with the local French authorities in French territories, the United States will be governed by the manifest effectiveness with which those authorities endeavor to protect these territories from domination and control by those powers which are seeking to extend their rule by force and conquest, or by the threat thereof.”
(Department of State Press Release No. 374)

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