Vietnam: The War and its History
HIST—UA 737 & EAST-UA 737
Spring 2015
Monday 3:30-6:10
7E12 Room LL33
Instructor: James Peck
Jlp2143@nyu.edu
This course focuses on the American War in Vietnam – its origins, development and the ways it was fought.
It examines how and why American geo-political and military strategies led to, and shaped, the course of the
war. Historical accounts will be regularly supplemented with a reading of parts of the Pentagon Papers and an
oral history of those involved in the Vietnam War as told from all sides.
The course begins by examining Vietnamese cultural and national identity and the impact of French
colonialism. We will then examine in greater detail the following topics: the war from 1946-1954 between
the French and the Viet Minh; the early American OSS links with Ho Chi Minh and the reasons for the
Truman administration’s deepening commitments to the French; the policies of the Eisenhower
administration – from Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva Conference in 1954 to the decision to back Ngo Dien
Diem; the deepening commitment of the Kennedy administration; the escalating war of the Johnson years;
and the end of the war under Nixon and Ford. We shall conclude by discussing the legacies of the war and
interpretations of them. The US government documents in the Pentagon Papers will be discussed to decipher
their meaning and language, while carefully assessing the arguments used to justify American policy.
Each class will combine discussions of the assigned readings and audio-visual materials.
There is a course packet that you can purchase at New University Copy & Graphics Center on Waverly Place
between Greene Street and University Place right across from Silver.
Course requirements: one interpretive paper (on David Halberstam’s BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST of 6-8
pages) and a final paper (10-12 pages) due the last week of class. There are no exams. You will have a
response paper due at the end of each class discussion of 1 or 2 pages.
Week 1: January 25
Introduction to the course and the BBC documentary film on the OSS [the predecessor of the CIA] and
Ho Chi Minh.
Week 2: February 1
Background to the War: French Colonialism and Vietnamese Resistance: Selected readings
Video: on Ho Chi Minh’s life
Read: William J. Duiker, Ho Chi Minh: A Life. (assigned pages)
Discussion of Ho’s Writings in Course Packet.
Week 3: February 8
U.S. Policy and the Vietnamese war against the French before the Korean War
Introducing the Pentagon Papers and their significance.
a. Letter of Transmittal of the [Pentagon Papers] Study & excerpts from Pentagon Papers
b. Intelligence Estimate, CIA,” Indochina: Current Situation and Probable Developments,” December
29, 1950.
c. Marilyn Young, The Vietnam Wars, chapter 1 & chapter 2.
1
Film and discussion: The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
February 15 -- President’s Day -- no class
Week 4. February 22
U.S. Involvement from the Korean War to the 1954 Geneva Conference
Video: Fall of Dienbienphu
a. “NSC 68: United States Objectives and Programs for National Security,” April 14, 1950, course packet.
b. “Dominoes” in course packet
c. Geneva Conference, Final Declaration & analysis in Pentagon Papers
d. Marilyn Young, chapter 2 and 3.
e. Lansdale Team’s Report on Covert CIA Saigon Mission, Course Packet.
Week 5: February 29
The American War begins in the South
a. National Intelligence Estimate, “Post-Geneva Outlook in Indochina, August 3, 1954 – course packet.
b.
Pentagon Papers “Origins of the Insurgency in South Vietnam, 1954-1960,” course packet.
c. US Ambassador Durbrow’s Analysis of Threats to Saigon Regime, course packet, pp. 65-67.
Read: Marilyn Young, chapter 4.
Chris Appy, Patriots, 4-59.
Week 6: March 7: Kennedy’s War in Vietnam
a. Chronology from Pentagon Papers – course packet.
b. Justifications/views on US involvement in Vietnam, course packet.
Read and Discuss: David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest through chapter 16.
SPRING BREAK March 14
Week 7: March 21
A. The Coup against Diem and Assessing Kennedy’s Vietnam Policies
Video on the coup
Course Packet Documents on Assassination of Diem.
Read: Marilyn Young, Chapter 5.
Week 8. March 28
Overview of LBJ’s war
a. Finish Best and the Brightest for the Johnson Years
b. McNamara’s Memo for President, March 16, 1964, course packet.
c. Tonkin Gulf Resolution, course packet.
d. New York Times, “Vietnam Study, Casting Doubts, Remains Secret,” October 31 2005. Course
packet.
e. Excerpt from NSA study – “Skunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds, and the Flying Fish, the Gulf of Tonkin
Mystery, 2-4 August 1964” – course packet.
Week 9. April 4
2
a. Noam Chomsky “The Backroom Boys” & FOG OF WAR Film (McNamara)
b. Patriots, 150-155 (Anne Morrison)
Week 10. April 11
Waging the War
a. Bundy Urges Sustained Reprisal, course packet 121-125.
b. McNaughton Memo’s course packet, 126-128.
c. Marilyn Young, chapters 6-10.
d. “Cutting Our losses in South Vietnam,” Establishment Dissent, George Ball & J. William
Fulbright (excerpts from The Arrogance of Power)
e. Patriots, 121-123, 118-121 (“You Want Me to Start World War III?”)
HALBERSTAM PAPER DUE – April 11
Week 11: April 18: Fighting the War from the US side
Video of American troops in action
a. Propaganda Leaflets – by the US and the NLF – course packet
b. Conversations with Enemy Soldiers in Late 1968/Early 1969: A Study of Motivation and Morale,
Rand Corporation, excerpts, - course packet.
c. “A Study of Viet Cong Use of Terror” by United States Mission in Saigon, March 1967, course
packet.
d. Read & discuss: Jonathan Schell, The Military Half
Week 12 April 25.
The TET Offensive and the War in America
a. McNamara Memo on the war, May 19, 1967 in course packet pp. 229-240.
b. Film: MLK: A Call to Conscience [on the making of Martin Luther King’s ‘Beyond Vietnam”
Speech.]
c. “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,” Martin Luther King Jr. – course packet.
d. “Vietnam Veterans against the War Statement by John Kerry to the Senate Committee of
Foreign Relations, April 23, 1971. Course packet & video.
Week 13 May 2
The Nixon Years
Video: The fall of Saigon
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Nixon’s Vietnamization Policies. (Assigned readings)
Fall of Saigon: Patriots, (selected interviews).
The withdrawal of American Forces from Vietnam, 1969-1972.
Allied Troop Levels – Vietnam 1960-1973, course packet.
Henry Kissinger’s discussions with Zhou Enlai, course packet.
Week 14: MAY 11 Interpretations of the War
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May 6 Read: Light at the End of the Tunnel, (Essays by Frances FitzGerald, James C.
Thomson, Jr., Noam Chomsky, Norman Podhoretz)
b.
James Peck, Amnesty International Keynote Speech, “Ideal Illusions & Human Rights,” The
Hague, March 2012, Course Packet.
c. May 8: Read and discuss Graham Greene’s The Quiet American
Movie clip from The Quiet American
“A Bomb Makes a Shambles of a Sunny Saigon Square,” course packet, pp.274-275.
“New York Times, Reds’ Time Bombs Rip Saigon Center,” course packet, p. 276.
a.
Second Paper due May 11
Books used in the course include. The following. (They will also be on reserve in the library and most of
them will be at the NYU book store. All are in stock on barnesandnoble.com and amazon.com.)
Christian Appy, Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered From All Sides
(Penguin: New York, 2004)ISBN 0142004499 (pkb)
William J. Duiker, Ho Chi Minh: A Life (Hyperion, New York) ISBN: 0-7868-8701-X (pkb)
Graham Greene, The Quiet American (Penguin, New York) ISBN 0-14-200138-4 (pkb)
David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York, Ballantine Books). 0449908704 (pbk)
Andrew Rotter, Light at the End of the Tunnel (New York, St Martin’s Press).
Jonathan Schell, The Real War: The Classic Reporting on the Vietnam War
(Da Capo Press) ISBN 0306809265
Marilyn Young, The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990
(New York, Harper Collins, 1991) ISBN 0-06-092107-2 (pbk)
Noam Chomsky, “The Backroom Boys.”
Course Packet
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