What was for the United States a struggle against creeping Communism in Southeast Asia was for the people of North Vietnam a ""great patriotic war"" that saw its eventual victory against a military Goliath. The story of that conflict as seen through the eyes-and the ideology-of the North Vietnamese military offers readers a view of that era never before seen. Victory in Vietnam is the People's Army of Vietnam's own account of two decades of struggle, now available for the first time in English. It is a definitive statement of the Vietnamese point of view concerning foreign intrusion in their country since before American involvement-and it reveals that many of the accepted truths in our own histories of the war are simply wrong. This detailed account describes the ebb and flow of the war as seen from Hanoi. It discloses particularly difficult times in the PAVN's struggle: 1955-59, when Diem almost destroyed the Communist movement in the South; 1961-62, when American helicopter assaults and M-113 armored personnel carriers inflicted serious losses on their forces; and 1966, when U.S. troop strength and air power increased dramatically. It also elaborates on the role of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the Communist effort, confirming its crucial importance and telling how the United States came close to shutting the supply line down on several occasions. The book confirms the extent to which the North orchestrated events in the South and also reveals much about Communist infiltration-accompanied by statistics-from 1959 until the end of the war. While many Americans believed that North Vietnam only began sending regular units south after the U.S. commitment of ground forces in 1965, this account reveals that by the time Marines landed in Da Nang in April 1965 there were already at least four North Vietnamese regiments in the South. Translator Merle Pribbenow, who spent several years in Saigon during the war, has sought to render as accurately as possible the voice of the PAVN authors, retaining much of the triumphant flavor of the text in order to provide an uncensored feel for the Vietnamese viewpoint. A foreword by William J. Duiker, author of Ho Chi Minh: A Life and other books on Vietnam, puts both the tone and content of the text in historical perspective.

This work is a cultural history of the Vietnam War and its continuing impact upon contemporary American society. The author presents an investigation of how myths about the war evolved and why people depend on them to answer the confusing questions that have become the legacy of the war. Memories change and reconstruct the past, and in this text, the author argues that the American memory of Vietnam has left fact and experience behind so that what remains is myth and denial.

This concluding volume of The Vietnam War and International Law focuses on the last stages of America's combat role in Indochina. The articles in the first section deal with general aspects of the relationship of international law to the Indochina War. Sections II and III are concerned with the adequacy of the laws of war under modern conditions of combat, and with related questions of individual responsibility for the violation of such laws. Section IV deals with some of the procedural issues related to the negotiated settlement of the war. The materials in Section V seek to reappraise the relationship between the constitutional structure of the United States and the way in which the war was conducted, while the final section presents the major documents pertaining to the end of American combat involvement in Indochina. A supplement takes account of the surrender of South Vietnam in spring 1975. Contributors to the volume--lawyers, scholars, and government officials--include Dean Rusk, Eugene V. Rostow, Richard A. Falk, John Norton Moore, and Richard Wasserstrom. Originally published in 1976. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Professor Havens analyzes the efforts of Japanese antiwar organizations to portray the war as much more than a fire across the sea" and to create new forms of activism in a country where individuals have traditionally left public issues to the authorities. This path-breaking study examines not only the methods of the protesters but the tightrope dance performed by Japanese officials forced to balance outspoken antiwar sentiment with treaty obligations to the U.S. Originally published in 1987. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This searching analysis of what has been called America's longest war" was commissioned by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to achieve an improved understanding of American participation in the conflict. Part I begins with Truman's decision at the end of World War II to accept French reoccupation of Indochina, rather than to seek the international trusteeship favored earlier by Roosevelt. It then discusses U.S. support of the French role and U.S. determination to curtail Communist expansion in Asia. Originally published in 1986. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This concluding volume of The Vietnam War and International Law focuses on the last stages of America's combat role in Indochina. The articles in the first section deal with general aspects of the relationship of international law to the Indochina War. Sections II and III are concerned with the adequacy of the laws of war under modern conditions of combat, and with related questions of individual responsibility for the violation of such laws. Section IV deals with some of the procedural issues related to the negotiated settlement of the war. The materials in Section V seek to reappraise the relationship between the constitutional structure of the United States and the way in which the war was conducted, while the final section presents the major documents pertaining to the end of American combat involvement in Indochina. A supplement takes account of the surrender of South Vietnam in spring 1975. Contributors to the volume--lawyers, scholars, and government officials--include Dean Rusk, Eugene V. Rostow, Richard A. Falk, John Norton Moore, and Richard Wasserstrom. Originally published in 1976. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Issues of the war that have provoked public controversy and legal debate over the last two years--the Cambodian invasion of May-June 1970, the disclosure in November 1969 of the My Lai massacre, and the question of war crimes--are the focus of Volume 3. As in the previous volumes, the Civil War Panel of the American Society of International Law has endeavored to select the most significant legal writing on the subject and to provide, to the extent possible, a balanced presentation of opposing points of view. Parts I and II deal directly with the Cambodian, My Lai, and war crimes debates. Related questions are treated in the rest of the volume: constitutional debate on the war; the distribution of functions among coordinate branches of the government; the legal status of the insurgent regime in the struggle for control of South Vietnam; prospects for settlement without a clear-cut victory; and Vietnam's role in general world order. The articles reflect the views of some forty contributors: among them, Jean Lacouture, Henry Kissinger, John Norton Moore, Quincy Wright, William H. Rhenquist, and Richard A. Falk. Originally published in 1972. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Drawing on a wealth of new evidence from all sides, Triumph Forsaken, first published in 2007, overturns most of the historical orthodoxy on the Vietnam War. Through the analysis of international perceptions and power, it shows that South Vietnam was a vital interest of the United States. The book provides many insights into the overthrow of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963 and demonstrates that the coup negated the South Vietnamese government's tremendous, and hitherto unappreciated, military and political gains between 1954 and 1963. After Diem's assassination, President Lyndon Johnson had at his disposal several aggressive policy options that could have enabled South Vietnam to continue the war without a massive US troop infusion, but he ruled out these options because of faulty assumptions and inadequate intelligence, making such an infusion the only means of saving the country.

For many Americans during the Vietnam era, the war on the home front seemed nearly as wrenching and hardfought as the one in Southeast Asia. Its primary battlefield was the news media, its primary casualty the truth. But as William Hammond reveals, animosity between government and media wasn't always the rule; what happened between the two during the Vietnam War was symptomatic of the nation's experiences in general. As the "light at the end of the tunnel" dimmed, relations between them grew ever darker.

"Reporting Vietnam" is an abridgment and updating of Hammond's massive two-volume work issued by the Government Printing Office. Based on classified and recently declassified government documents--including Nixon's national security files--as well as on extensive interviews and surveys of press war coverage, it tells how government and media first shared a common vision of American involvement in Vietnam. It then reveals how, as the war dragged on, upbeat government press releases were consistently challenged by journalists' reports from the field and finally how, as public sentiment shifted against the war, Presidents Johnson and Nixon each tried to manage the news media, sparking a heated exchange of recriminations.

Hammond strongly challenges the assertions of many military leaders that the media lost the war by swaying public opinion. He takes readers through the twists and turns of official public affairs policy as it tries to respond to a worsening domestic political environment and recurring adverse "media episodes." Along the way, he makes important observations about the penchant of American officials for placing appearance ahead of substance and about policy making in general.

Although Richard Nixon once said of the Vietnam war, "Our worst enemy seems to be the press," Hammond clearly shows that his real enemies were the contradictions and flawed assumptions that he and LBJ had created. Reporting Vietnam brings a critical study to a wider audience and is both a major contribution to an ongoing debate and a cautionary guide for future conflicts.

Ho Chi Minh is one of the towering figures of the twentieth century, considered an icon and father of the nation by many Vietnamese. Pierre Brocheux's biography of Ho Chi Minh is a brilliant feat of historical engineering. In a concise and highly readable account, he negotiates the many twists and turns of Ho Chi Minh's life and his multiple identities, from impoverished beginnings as a communist revolutionary to his founding of the Indochina Communist Party and the League for the Independence of Vietnam and ultimately to his leadership of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and his death in 1969. Biographical events are adroitly placed within the broader historical canvas of colonization, decolonization, communism war, and nation building. Brocheux's vivid and convincing portrait of Ho Chi Minh goes further than any previous biography in explaining both the myth and the man, as well as the times in which he was situated.

This fourth volume of a five-part policy history of the U.S. government and the Vietnam War covers the core period of U.S. involvement, from July 1965, when the decision was made to send large-scale U.S. forces, to the beginning of 1968, just before the Tet offensive and the decision to seek a negotiated settlement. Using a wide variety of archival sources and interviews, the book examines in detail the decisions of the president, relations between the president and Congress, and the growth of public and congressional opposition to the war. Differences between U.S. military leaders on how the war should be fought are also included, as well as military planning and operations.

Among many other important subjects, the financial effects of the war and of raising taxes are considered, as well as the impact of a tax increase on congressional and public support for the war. Another major interest is the effort by Congress to influence the conduct of the war and to place various controls on U.S. goals and operations. The emphasis throughout this richly textured narrative is on providing a better understanding of the choices facing the United States and the way in which U.S. policymakers tried to find an effective politico-military strategy, while also probing for a diplomatic settlement.

Originally published in 1995.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This searching analysis of what has been called America's longest war" was commissioned by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to achieve an improved understanding of American participation in the conflict. Part II covers the period from Kennedy's inauguration through Johnson's first year in office.

Originally published in 1986.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Failed strategy and reality collide in Peter Fey's descriptive narration of air craft carrier USS Oriskany's three deployments to Vietnam with Carrier Air Wing 16 (CVW-16). Its tours coincided with the most dangerous phases of Operation Rolling Thunder, the ill-fated bombing campaign against North Vietnam, and accounted for a quarter of all the naval aircraft lost during Rolling Thunder-the highest loss rate of any carrier air wing during Vietnam. The Johnson Administration's policy of gradually applied force meant that Oriskany arrived on station just as previous restrictions were lifted and bombing raids increased. As a result, CVW-16 pilots paid a heavy price as they ventured into areas previously designated "off limits" by Washington DC. Named after one of the bloodiest battles of the Revolutionary War, the Oriskany lived up to its name. After two years of suffering heavy losses, the ship caught fire-a devastating blow due to the limited number of carriers deployed. With only three months allotted for repairs, Oriskany deployed a third and final time, losing more than half of its aircrafts and more than a third of its pilots. The valor and battle accomplishments of Oriskany's aviators are legendary, but the story of their service has been lost in the disastrous fray of the war itself. Fey resurfaces the Oriskany and its heroes in a well-researched memorial to the fallen of CVW-16 in hopes that the lessons learned from such strategic disasters are not forgotten in today's sphere of war-bent politics.

This book examines the events that led up to the day--March 31, 1968--when Lyndon Johnson dramatically renounced any attempt to be reelected president of the United States. It offers one of the best descriptions of U.S. policy surrounding the Tet offensive of that fateful March--a historic turning point in the war in Vietnam that led directly to the end of American military intervention.

Originally published in 1983.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.