Introduction

In a city full of monuments, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC stands apart. Compared with the majestic structures around it, this memorial appears simple and understated. Its central feature is a long, low wall of black granite that is set into the earth and stands only ten feet high at its apex. However, the simplicity of “the wall” belies its extraordinary emotional power. Its reflective panels display the names of more than 58,000 American military personnel who died or went missing while serving in Indochina (the countries of Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos) between 1959 and 1975. Every year, around three million people visit the memorial. Many of them come to find a particular name, or to remember a friend, loved one, or fallen comrade-in-arms. Others come to reflect on questions about war, peace, and America's place in the world.

On the other side of the world from Washington, another memorial stands in the city of Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is located on the edge of Ba Dinh Square, part of an elaborate collection of monuments built by the Vietnamese state and its ruling Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP). Although the tomb is less visually dramatic than the nearby mausoleum of VCP founder and hero Ho Chi Minh, it features a strikingly beautiful archway, similar in some respects to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Unlike many other monuments to unknown soldiers, this one does not contain any human remains. This is because it is dedicated to the uncounted “nameless” (vô danh) Vietnamese soldiers who died in the fight against the United States, and whose final resting places remain unknown even today. In Hanoi and throughout Vietnam, these soldiers are remembered as “martyrs” who sacrificed themselves on behalf of Vietnam's national struggle against American imperialism.

Back across the Pacific Ocean, in the city of Westminster in southern California, stands a third monument to fallen soldiers. Known simply as the Vietnam War Memorial, it was constructed mostly with funds donated by Vietnamese Americans and dedicated in 2003. In contrast to its counterparts in Washington and Hanoi, this memorial explicitly honors the wartime service of both Americans and Vietnamese. Its central element is a statue that depicts a US soldier standing back-to-back with a soldier of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), the main military force of the anti-communist state of South Vietnam.

Although separated by thousands of miles, the three memorials in Washington, Hanoi, and Westminster are all part of the complex historical legacy of the conflict known as the Vietnam War. Even in comparison to other twentieth-century wars, the Vietnam War was bloody and costly. Over nearly two decades, it claimed perhaps as many as three million lives and consumed billions of dollars. But mere statistics alone cannot reveal the larger historical forces that gave rise to the war, or capture the diverse human experiences that it produced.

For people in Vietnam and the adjacent countries of Cambodia and Laos, the Vietnam War was part of the ongoing process of decolonization in Indochina. As they saw it, the war was a continuation of the political and military conflicts that began in Indochina during the century-long period of French colonial rule. Following the dismantling of the colonial state in 1954, the most obvious axis of conflict within Indochina was the rivalry between communist North Vietnam and anticommunist South Vietnam. However, the communist–anticommunist divide was not the only fault line running through Vietnamese society. Other points of friction had to do with region, religion, social class, and ethnic identity, as well as deep disagreements over what kind of postcolonial nation Vietnam ought to be. Vietnamese therefore perceived the Vietnam War as a civil war, despite the massive involvement of the United States and other foreign powers in the conflict.

For most Americans, the Vietnam War was something rather different. Americans initially perceived the conflict not as a war of decolonization but as an episode in the larger geopolitical clash known as the Cold War. Then, over the course of the 1960s, the war evolved into a bitter struggle on the US home front – indeed, it divided Americans as no issue had since the US Civil War a century earlier. For both supporters and opponents, the war in Vietnam became a touchstone issue not only in debates about US foreign policy, but also in clashes over politics, culture, and morality at home. By the late 1960s, the controversy over the war had provoked acrimonious arguments over whether or not the United States was a “sick” society that had lost its moral bearings.

This documentary reader uses primary sources to explore the history of the Vietnam War from diverse perspectives. Unlike many other books on the war, this volume does not focus only or even primarily on American experiences and viewpoints. Instead, it uses American-authored materials (including government documents, photographs, memoirs, songs, and speeches) in conjunction with other sources authored by Vietnamese and people of other nationalities. My decision to include these non-American sources is not intended to promote a particular interpretation of the war; nor do I seek to provide definitive, unambiguous answers to the enduring questions about the wisdom and morality of the war. Instead, the main objective of this book is to furnish students with the means to craft their own interpretations and to formulate their own answers to these important historical questions. By incorporating both American and Vietnamese primary sources into the study of the war, we can gain new insight into the origins, evolution, and consequences of the conflict. We can also begin to understand why the memory of the war remains so controversial and so fiercely contested today, among Vietnamese and Americans alike.

From Dai Viet to Vietnam

Since the early twentieth century, it has been common for Vietnamese nationalists – both communists and non-communists – to refer to Vietnam as an “ancient nation.” Many nationalist writers have traced the origins of this national identity to the period of the Hung Kings (Hùng Vương) who are said to have ruled a kingdom based in the Red River Delta of northern Vietnam for more than 2000 years. This kingdom fell to an invading army from Southern China in 207 BCE, inaugurating a millennium-long era of Chinese “domination” of Vietnam. However, despite this lengthy period of subordination, Vietnamese nationalists insist, the residents of the Red River Delta maintained their identity as a separate nation and people. This identity was said to have manifested itself in local rebellions against their Chinese overlords, leading eventually to the re-establishment of independence and the founding of a new Vietnamese monarchy in 939 CE. For the next nine centuries, a succession of dynasties ruled a kingdom known as Dai Viet from its capital at Thanh Long (present-day Hanoi). Meanwhile, Vietnamese settlers and administrators were gradually expanding southward, toward the fertile lands of the lower Mekong river delta. In the early nineteenth century, this “southern advance” culminated in the establishment of the Nguyen dynasty, the first royal house to rule over all of Vietnam's present territory. According to Vietnamese nationalists, this centuries-long process of territorial defense and state consolidation made Vietnamese determined to resist any future foreign invaders—no matter if they were Chinese, French, or American.

In recent years, historians have questioned some aspects of this nationalist historical narrative. One problem has to do with the narrative's anachronistic qualities – that is, its projection of modern-day notions of nationhood backwards onto earlier times. It is doubtful that the ordinary farmers and merchants of Dai Viet ever thought of themselves as members of a Vietnamese nation; they felt much more loyalty to local communities and patrons than to any emerging sense of nationhood. Indeed, the name “Viet Nam” was itself coined only in the early nineteenth century, during a diplomatic exchange between Nguyen officials and the Chinese imperial court in Beijing.

Another problem with the nationalist version of Vietnamese history has to do with its overemphasis on military conflict. Although Dai Viet endured occasional Chinese invasions after becoming an independent polity in the tenth century CE, these attacks were relatively few and far between. Moreover, in the long intervals between wars, Vietnamese engaged in extensive diplomatic, economic, and cultural exchanges with China. Vietnamese politics were therefore defined less by any external rivalry with China than by the fierce internal competitions among Vietnamese elites. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, for example, the territory of Dai Viet was split in two, with one noble house in control of Hanoi and the Red River Delta and another faction ensconced in the provinces around the city of Hue on the central coast.

The nationalist narrative is further undermined by the inconvenient fact that Vietnamese were not always the victims of foreign aggression. Indeed, as the historical record demonstrates, Vietnamese could also play the role of invaders and overlords. This is particularly apparent in the history of the “southern advance,” which required the conquest and subordination of...