The Vietnam Wars, 1945-79
Multiple Choice Questions
Exam Questions
Discussion Questions
How did events in the Second World War set the stage for conflict in Indochina after 1945?
To what extent did the United States support the French in Indochina up to 1954?
Account for the breakdown of the peace agreement in Geneva in 1954 down to 1963.
Compare and contrast the experience of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam in the period 1954-1980.
What is meant by the “Americanization” of the Vietnam War?
How did America’s NATO allies feel about US involvement in Vietnam in the 1960s?
What role did China play in the conflicts in Indochina 1945-1980?
Why didn’t the Paris Peace Accords of 1973 resolve the Vietnam conflict?
Why did Vietnam end up fighting China in 1979?
How have the successor states of Indochina fared since 1975?
Exam Questions
Why was the situation in Vietnam unresolved after 1954 while the Korean War remains frozen since that time?
Why did America become increasingly involved in Vietnam from the 1950s?
How did the superpowers influence the outcome of conflicts in Vietnam, 1945-1975?
Weblinks
http://www.emersonkent.com/speeches/address_to_the_nation_johnson.htm – text and audio of Lyndon Johnson speech declaring he won’t run for second term in midst of Tet Offensive
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/tonkin-g.asp – text of Johnson’s Gulf of Tonkin speech in Congress in 1964
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/warpower.asp – text of 1963 War Power’s Resolution
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/documents/episode-11/06.pdf – text of 1965 US planning document warning of quagmire in Vietnam
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/documents/episode-11/09.pdf – text of 1967 US planning document for war in Vietnam
http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v13p2/d887 – record of US meeting on Vietnam 1954
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/war-and-society-part-4-vietnam-war/query/war+and+society – newsreel coverage of Vietnam War
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB101/vn10.pdf – 1963 US memorandum on situation in Vietnam
https://famous-trials.com/mylaicourts – documents relating to 1970 court martial trial of William Calley following My Lai massacre
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB121/index.htm – 1969 secret State Department report on situation in Vietnam
Bibliography
Bradley, Mark Philip, Vietnam at War, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).
Brigham, Robert K., Reckless: Henry Kissinger’s Responsibility for the Tragedy in Vietnam (Public Affairs, 2018).
Catton, Philip E., “‘It Would Be a Terrible Thing if We Handed These People over to the Communists’: The Eisenhower Administration, Article 14(d), and the Origins of the Refugee Exodus from North Vietnam,” Diplomatic History 39:2 (2015) 331-358.
Hhue Dieu Do, “Comrades at Enmity: Pyongyang-Hanoi Split after the Fall of Saigon”, Cold War History 22:2 (2022) 173-194.
Nguyen-Marshall, Van, Between War and the State: Civil Society in South Vietnam, 1954-1975 (Cornell University Press, 2023).
Shao Ziao & Ziaoming Zhang, “Reassessment of Beijing’s Economic and Military Aid to Hanoi’s War, 1964-74”, Cold War History 19:4 (2019) 549-567.
Stewart, Geoffrey C., Vietnam’s Lost Revolution: Ngo Dinh Diem’s Failure to Build an Independent Nation 1955-1963, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2017).
Stur, Heather Marie, “‘Hiding behind the Humanitarian Label’: Refugees, Repatriates, and the Rebuilding of America’s Benevolent Image after the Vietnam War,” Diplomatic History 39:2 (2015) 223-244.
Stur, Heather Marie, Saigon at War: South Vietnam and the Global Sixties (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020).
Trieu Huy Ha, “‘Fighting While Talking’: The Republic of Vietnam and the Negotiations with Hanoi and Washington, 1972”, International History Review 45:2 (2023) 391-415.