Where the Domino Fell - America And Vietnam 1945-1995

by James S. Olson

  In a 1991 Rolling Stone interview, journalist David Breskin asked Oliver Stone if he felt like a great artist. “I never doubted it, from day one,” Stone replied. “When I was eighteen, I just felt like I had a call... And living up to that call has been the hardest part.” From the first, Vietnam was an integral part of that calling. As a nineteen year old, he began a long, sprawling manuscript entitled “A Child’s Night Dream.” As a twenty-three-year-old film student at NYU, his first picture was entitled Last Year in Vietnam. At the age of forty, his first great commercial success as a director was Platoon. The circle closed eleven years later when A Child’s Night Dream, heavily edited and slimmed down, was published by St. Martin’s Press. The link between the nineteenyear-old would-be Hemingway and the fifty-one-year-old established artist was a passion for America’s involvement in Vietnam: why we went, how we fought, what were the results and the implications.

  In the process of becoming an artist, Stone also became the most successful and controversial historian of the war. For him, the past had an irresistible pattern, one woven with lost opportunities, conspiracies, fallen heroes, personal biographies, and impersonal forces. “I’m looking for a very difficult pattern in our history,” he said. “What I see in 1963, with Kennedy’s murder at high noon in Dallas, to 1974, with Nixon’s removal, is a pattern.” It is a pattern of promise and betrayal, vision and death, from John and Robert Kennedy to Martin Luther King, Jr., and Richard Nixon. “These four men came from different political perspectives, but they were pushing the envelope, trying to lead America to new levels. We posit that, in some way, they pissed off what we call ‘the Beast,’ the Beast being a force (or forces) greater than the presidency.”

  Stone’s burden is to be history’s witness. For him, the past is a very real, painful, and unresolved phenomenon. Like William Faulkner, he believes that “the past is never dead.” In fact, “it’s not even past.” But Stone’s view of history contains inherent problems. It indicts an entire culture but suggests that certain members of that culture can make a lasting difference. For example, in Born on the Fourth of July, Stone contends that a martial culture packed Ron Kovic off to Vietnam, but in JFK he argues that Kennedy would have ended the war and that his promise died with him. On a higher level, Stone realizes that the duty of the historian is to keep the past alive. It is the tension between his desire to teach and entertain and his desire to be taken seriously as an arbiter of the past that makes Stone such a controversial figure. Always reluctant to accept the work of popular historians (which Stone certainly is), academics have resisted embracing his vision of the past. And yet, his Vietnam films seem to have touched a nerve in the American public. To his credit, as his fame has grown, he has consistently adopted more sophisticated methods of exploring the past. Beginning in 1986 with an insulated, autobiographical view of history, Stone has expanded his analysis to incorporate the broader themes and movements that lay behind his own experience in Vietnam. In doing this, he uses the methods of a professional historian, going so far as to issue footnotes to accompany his work. Still, Stone remains true to his vision above all else; the details must be subservient to the big picture, the facts must support the conclusion. As Stone wrote, “Elie Wiesel reminds us that survivors are all charged with a sacred mission: to serve as witnesses and teachers of what they suffered, thereby preventing such catastrophes from occurring again.” It is this goal, this quest for relevance, that drives Oliver Stone’s pursuit of the past, separates his work from that of academic historians, and forces Americans to decide which is more important: a truthful rendition of the facts, or facts rendered in such a way as to illustrate the truth.

  Bibliography

  Writing about Vietnam continues in high gear as the year 2006 dawns. Some of the best or most useful recent books include David Mariness on the pre-Tet Offensive time, They Marched into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America October 1967 (2002); see also George B. Smith, The Siege at Hue (1999). An important study of the usefulness of tactical air support for ground troops is Craig Hannah’s Striving for Air Superiority: The Tactical Air Command in Vietnam (2002). A new account of the war that stretches even neoconservative imaginations is Michael Lind, The Necessary War (2000); consult also the more balanced Lewis Sorley: A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Years in Vietnam (1999). Henry Kissinger had revived debate about Nixon’s attempts to extricate himself from Vietnam in Ending the Vietnam War: A History of American’s Involvement and Extrication from the Vietnam War (2003); see also Larry Berman, No Peace No Honor: Nixon, Kissinger, and Betrayal in Vietnam (2001) and Jeffrey P. Kimball’s Nixon’s Vietnam War (1998). A surprisingly and perhaps deservedly generous account of President John F. Kennedy’s misgivings about the course of the war, and his willingness to explore its de-escalation and even withdrawal, may be found in Robert Dallek’s An Unfinished Life: John F Kennedy, 1917–1963 (2002).

  William Duiker’s Ho Chi Minh (2000) will long be the standard biography of the Vietnamese leader; see also Peter G. McDonald, Giap (1993). Recent books that retrace but expand previous studies include William Head, ed., The Tet Offensive (1996) and James J. Wirtz, The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War (1991). The Vietnamese insurgency continues to attract historians. Robert Mann’s A Grand Delusion: America’s Descent into Vietnam (2001) holds to the consensus that the war was a misguided blunder. See also Ken Post, Revolution, Socialism and Nationalism in Vietnam (1989); William Duker, Sacred War: Nationalism, Intervention, and the Lessons of Vietnam (1966), and Military History Institute of Vietnam, Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1946–1975 (2002). The critical junction of 1963 to 1965, when United States policymakers grappled with the challenges of Vietnam and ultimately decided on a military solution, continues to fascinate historians. See H. R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam (1977), Frederick Legevall, Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam (1999), and David E. Kaiser’s pro-Kennedy American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War (2000). The antiwar movement of the 1960s and 1970s dominated much of the political era, and historians are still examining its effect and meaning. See Tom Wells, The War Within: America’s Battle Over Vietnam (1966) and Rhodri Jeffrey Jones, Peace Now! American Society and the Ending of the Vietnam War (1999). A new compendium on Vietnam is Spencer C. Tucker, ed. The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, & Military History (2000), and see the interesting Dana Sachs, The House on Dream Street: Memoirs of an American Woman in Vietnam (2000). Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, has in recent years developed one of the country’s best archives devoted to the Vietnam War.

  Among the most recent monographs on Vietnam are Robert Buzzanco, Masters of Deceit (1997), Marita Sturkan, Tangled Memories (1997), Arnold A. Isaacs, Vietnam Shadows: The War, Its Ghosts, and Its Legacy (1997), Fred Turner, Echoes of Combat: The Vietnam War in American Memory (1996), Karen Gottschang Turner with Phan Tham Hao, Even the Women Must Fight (1998), Keith Beattie, The Scar that Binds: American Culture and the Vietnam War (1998), and Jerry Lembeke, The Spitting Image: Image, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam (1998).

  Long before Americans ever heard of Vietnam—indeed long before the United States even existed—the people of Indochina had been struggling to secure their place in the world. Keith Weller Taylor’s The Birth of Vietnam (1983) surveys the ancient period. For general surveys, see Joseph Buttinger, The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam (1958) and George Coedes, The Making of Southeast Asia (1964). The nineteenth-century presence of China in Vietnam is the subject of Henry McAleavy’s Black Flags in Vietnam: The Story of the Chinese Intervention (1968). Van-Kiem Thai’s Viet Nam Past and Present (1956) provides a Vietnamese perspective. An excellent bibliography is Richard Dean Burns and Milton Leitenberg, The Wars in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, 1945–1982 (1983). Two useful
encyclopedias are James S. Olson, ed., Dictionary of the Vietnam War (1988) and Harry G. Summers, Jr., Vietnam War Almanac (1985).

  There are a number of important works on Vietnamese culture. A good survey is F. Raymond Iredell, Vietnam: The Country and the People (1966). Danny J. Whitfield’s Historical and Cultural Dictionary of Vietnam (1976) is an encyclopedia of Vietnamese historical figures, geography, and customs. For a discussion of religion in Vietnam, see Gustave Dumoutier, Annamese Religions (1955) and Pierro Gheddo, The Cross and the Bo-Tree: Catholics and Buddhists in Vietnam (1970). The best work on the Montagnard people is Gerald C. Hickey’s Free in the Forest: An Ethnohistory of the Vietnamese Central Highlands, 1954–1976 (1982) and his Sons of the Mountains: Ethnohistory of the Vietnamese Central Highlands to 1954 (1982).

  The seminal event in the nineteenth century is the arrival of the French. John Cady’s The Roots of French Imperalism in Asia (1954) looks at the early penetration of Indochina by French missionaries and entrepreneurs. Milton E. Osborne, The French Presence in Cochinchina and Cambodia: Rule and Response 1859–1905 (1969) looks at the nineteenth century. Raymond F. Betts’s Assimilation and Association in French Colonial Theory (1961) analyzes the policy implications of French racial attitudes. For an indigenous look at French imperialism, see Ngo Vinh Long, Before the Revolution: The Vietnamese Peasants under the French (1973). Nguyen Khac Vien’s Tradition and Revolution in Vietnam (1974) shows that Vietnamese nationalism long predated the arrival of the French, although French rule sharpened it. Joseph Buttinger’s Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled, volume 1, From Colonialism to Vietminh (1967) is a masterful survey of French colonialism and the Vietnamese reaction to it. Ellen J. Hammer’s The Struggle for Indochina (1954) is a good supplement. David G. Marr’s Vietnamese Anticolonialism 1885–1925 (1971) and Vietnamese Tradition on Trial 1920–1945 (1981) describe the political resistance to the French among the Vietnamese. Also see William Duiker, The Rise of Nationalism in Vietnam, 1900–1941 (1976). For a Marxist perspective on Vietnamese nationalism, see Thomas Hodgkin, Vietnam: The Revolutionary Path (1981).

  The leading Vietnamese nationalist was, of course, Ho Chi Minh. Charles Fenn’s Ho Chi Minh: A Biographical Introduction (1973) is the memoirs of an OSS officer who knew Ho Chi Minh during World War II. For two highly readable biographies, see Jean Lacouture, Ho Chi Minh: A Political Biography (1968) and David Halberstam, Ho (1971). For Lacouture’s recollections, see Ho Chi Minh and His Followers: A Personal Memoir (1968). Also see William Warbey, Ho Chi Minh and the Struggle for an Independent Vietnam (1972). Some of Ho Chi Minh’s own writings are also illuminating, especially Selected Works (1960–1962) and Prison Diary (1966). For descriptions of other Vietnamese leaders, see Bernard B. Fall, The Viet-Minh Regime (1956) and Huynh Kim Khanh, Vietnamese Communism 1925–1945 (1982). Joseph Buttinger’s portraits can be found in Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled, volume 2, Vietnam at War (1967). Two good but not very accessible reference works are the CIA’s Who’s Who in Vietnam (1969) and the U.S. State Department’s Who’s Who in North Vietnam (1972). Also see Robert J. O’Neill, General Giap: Politician and Strategist (1969). Truong Chinh’s Primer for Revolt: The Communist Takeover in Vietnam (1963) is an excellent first-hand account. A good deal can also be learned from Tran Van Dinh, This Nation and Socialism Are One: Selected Writings of Le Duan (1977).

  Anti-French nationalism culminated in the first Indochina War. For the history of French politics, see Alexander Werth, France 1940–1954 (1956). Ellen Hammer’s The Struggle for Indochina (1954) and Donald Lancaster’s The Emancipation of French Indochina (1961) are both useful surveys. So is Robert F. Turner’s Vietnamese Communism: Its Origins and Developments (1975). Bernard Fall, a leading journalist who observed the first Indochina War and died in the second, describes Vietnamese insurgency in Street Without Joy: Insurgency in Vietnam, 1946–1963 (1963). David G. Marr’s Vietnamese Tradition on Trial explains how the Vietminh displaced the other Vietnamese nationalist groups. Vo Nguyen Giap’s People’s War, People’s Army (1962) is an anthology of his writings about the French war. Lucien Bodard’s The Quicksand War (1967) provides a good description of the war from 1946 to 1950. The best account of the war is Giap’s Unforgettable Days (1978). On the battle at Dienbienphu, see Jules Roy, The Battle of Dien Bien Phu (1965) and Bernard Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu (1966). For the Geneva Conference, see Robert F. Randle, Geneva 1954 (1969) and Philippe Devillers and Jean Lacouture, End of a War: Indochina 1954 (1969).

  The best writing on Vietnam remains the property of journalists, not historians. Stanley Karnow, who spent years in Vietnam as a reporter, wrote Vietnam: A History in 1983. It is full of anecdotal material about the leading figures in the war. David Halberstam, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his early reporting of the war, subsequently wrote The Making of a Quagmire (1964), a book that proved prophetic in its prediction of the outcome of the war. Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest (1972) is outstanding in its description of leading American policymakers. The best book of all is Neil Sheehan’s The Bright and Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (1988), a devastating critique of United States policy. Peter Arnett, a former AP reporter in Vietnam, and Michael Maclear wrote The Ten Thousand Day War (1981).

  There are also a number of general works by historians. One of the most recent is George Donelson Moss, Vietnam: An American Ordeal (1989). Also see Philip Davidson, Vietnam at War: The History, 1945– 1975 (1988). An early history which romanticizes the communists is Frances FitzGerald’s Fire in the Lake (1972). Chester Cooper’s The Last Crusade: America in Vietnam (1970) is well-informed by its author’s policy-making role in the war, as is Paul Kattenburg’s The Vietnam Trauma in American Foreign Policy, 1945–1975 (1980). Guenter Lewy’s America in Vietnam (1978) is a revisionary work which seeks to justify the United States involvement. Norman Podhoretz’s Why We Were in Vietnam (1982) follows a similar vein. Two of the best surveys are George C. Herring’s America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975 (1986) and William S. Turley’s The Second Indochina War: A Short Political and Military History, 1954–1975 (1986). Turley is especially good in his discussion of Vietcong and North Vietnamese politics. Also see William J. Duiker’s Sacred War (1995).

  The reasons behind the American commitment to Southeast Asia have been the focus of intense debate. President Franklin D. Roosevelt flirted with the idea of trusteeship for Indochina, but he was merely expressing a concern rather than developing a policy; see Christopher Thorne, Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain, and the War Against Japan, 1941–1945 (1978) and William Roger Louis, Imperialism at Bay: The United States and the Decolonization of the British Empire (1978). One school argues that the United States became involved because of its fear of Soviet expansionism in Europe. For that point of view, see George C. Herring, “The Truman Administration and the Restoration of French Sovereignty in Indochina,” Diplomatic History 1 (1977), 97–117. Richard J. Barnet’s Roots of War (1972) argues that the United States simply defined its national interests too broadly. Leslie H. Gelb and Richard K. Betts, in The Irony of Vietnam: The System Worked (1978), claim that American politicians were unable, because of the realities of domestic politics, to withdraw without committing political suicide. A more recent argument attempts to integrate complex economic and political factors in Europe, Japan, and Southeast Asia. See Robert M. Blum, Drawing the Line: The Origin of the American Containment Policy in East Asia (1982); Andrew J. Rotter, The Path to Vietnam: Origins of the American Commitment to Southeast Asia (1987); and Gabriel Kolko, Anatomy of a War (1985).

  For information on the growing commitment in the 1950s, see Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower, volume 2, President and Elder Statesman, 1952–1969 (1984) and Townsend Hoopes, The Devil and John Foster Dulles (1973). Also see Stephen Jurika, Jr., ed., From Pearl Harbor to Vietnam: The Memoirs of Admiral Arthur W. Radford (1980). The decision whether or not to intervene at Dienbienphu in 1954 is the subject of John Prados’s The
Sky Would Fall: Operation Vulture: The U.S. Bombing Mission in Indochina, 1954 (1983) and Matthew B. Ridgway, Soldier: The Memoirs of Matthew B. Ridgway (1956). Robert Shaplen’s The Lost Revolution (1966) is an especially good survey of the period.

  For discussions of events inside South Vietnam during the 1950s, see Edward G. Lansdale, In the Midst of Wars (1972) and J. Lawton Collins, Lightning Joe: An Autobiography (1979). The early role played by the United States military is described in J. Lawton Collins, The Development and Training of the South Vietnamese Army, 1950–1972 (1975); Robert H. Whitlow, U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Advisory and Combat Assistance Era, 1954–1964 (1976); Ronald H. Spector, United States Army in Vietnam: Advice and Support: The Early Years (1985); and Edwin Hooper et al., The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict: The Setting of the Stage to 1959 (1976). Denis Warner’s The Last Confucian (1963) and Anthony Bouscaren’s The Last of the Mandarins: Diem of Vietnam (1965) describe the Diem regime.

  Good general surveys on communist insurgency can be found in Frances FitzGerald’s Fire in the Lake and in the second volume of Joseph Buttinger’s Vietnam. For the connection between North Vietnam and the southern communists, see P. J. Honey, Communism in North Vietnam (1963). Also see King C. Chen’s “Hanoi’s Three Decisions and the Escalation of the Vietnam War,” Political Science Quarterly 90 (1975). One of the earliest scholarly works on the insurgency was Douglas Pike’s Viet Cong (1966). Also see Pike’s The Viet Cong Strategy of Terror (1970). William Henderson’s Why the Vietcong Fought: A Study of Motivation and Control in a Modern Army (1979) is a psychological portrait of the guerrillas. William Duiker’s The Communist Road to Power is firstrate. A number of books look at insurgency on the local level. See William R. Andrews, The Village War: Vietnamese Communist Revolutionary Activities in Dinh Tuong Province, 1960–1964 (1973); Stuart Herrington, Silence Was a Weapon (1982); and Jeffrey Race, War Comes to Long An: Revolutionary Conflict in a Vietnamese Village (1972). For Vietcong memoirs, see Nguyen Thi Dinh, No Other Road to Take (1976) and Truong Nhu Tang, A Vietcong Memoir (1985). An outstanding oral history is David Chanoff and Doan Van Toai, Portrait of the Enemy (1986). Also see Kate Webb, On the Other Side: 23 Days with the Viet Cong (1972).