Part Three
II-C. General Publications -World War II and the First Indochina
War, 1945-1954
d'Argenlieu, Thierry. Chronique d'Indochine. Paris: Albin Michel,
1985.
Admiral d'Argenlieu was French High Commissioner in
Indochina, 1945-1947.
Arnold, James R. The First Domino: Eisenhower, the Military, and
America's Intervention in Vietnam. New York: Morrow, 1991.
This mostly deals with the Eisenhower administration,
but stretches into other periods to some extent.
Bao Dai. Le dragon d'Annam. Paris: Plon, 1980.
Memoirs of the former emperor.
Bergot, Erwan. Commandos de choc en Indochine. Grasset, 1975.
Covers the period 1945-54; the author commanded the 1st
Foreign Legion Airborne Heavy Mortar Company at Dien Bien
Phu.
Bergot, Erwan. 2eme classe a Dien Bien Phu. Paris: La Table
Ronde, 1964.
Bergot, Erwan. La bataille de Don{g?} Khe. Paris: Presses de la
Cite, 1987.
Bergot, Erwan. Bigeard. Perrin, 1989.
Bergot, Erwan. Les 170 jours de Dien Bien Phu. Paris: Presses
de la Cite, 1979.
Bernier, Jean-Pierre. G.M. 100. Paris: Presses de la Cite, 1978.
Bigeard, General Marcel. Pour une parcelle de gloire. Paris:
Plon, 1975.
Bigeard commanded a parachute battalion.
Billings-Yun, Melanie. Decision Against War. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1988. 199 pp., but the actual text ends on
p. 160.
About Eisenhower's 1954 decision not to put U.S. forces into
combat in Indochina.
Blanchet, M.T. La naissance de l'Etat associe du Vietnam
Librairie. de Medicis, 1954.
Bodard, Lucien. The Quicksand War. Boston: Little, Brown, 1967.
Bodard, Lucien. La Guerre d'Indochine. 4(?) vols. L'Enlisement,
L'Humiliation, L'Aventure~, and L'Epuisement. Paris:
Gallimard, 1963, 1965, 1967, ?
Bonnecarrere, Paud. Par le sang verse. Paris: Fayard, 1968;
reprinted Marabout, 1985.
Cable, James. The Geneva Converence of 1954 on Indochina. St.
Martin's.
By a member of the British delegation at the
conference.
By a member of the British delegation at the
conference.
Catroux, General Georges. Deux actes du drame indochinois. Hanoi
1940. Dien Bien Phu 1954. Paris: Plon, 1959.
Charton, Col. Pierre. RC4, Indochine 1950: la tragedie de
l'evacuation de Cao Bang. Editions Albatros, 1975.
Chassin, General Lionel M. Aviation Indochine. Paris:
Amiot-Dumont, 1954.
Dalloz, Jacques. The War in Indochina, 1945-54. New York:
Barnes & Noble, 1990. French original `La guerre d'Indochine
1945-1954. Paris: Le Seuil, 1987.
Dang Van Viet. Highway 4: The Border Campaign (1947-1950).
Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1990.
The author commanded a PAVN regiment.
Dannaud, Jean-Pierre. Guerre morte. Saigon: Societe Asiatic
d'Editions, 1954. Reprinted Paris: Pensee Moderne, 1973.
Darcourt, Pierre. Bay Vien, le maitre de Cholon. Paris:
Hachette, 1977.
Darcourt, Pierre. De Lattre au Vietnam. Paris: La Table Ronde,
1965.
Decoux, Pierre. A la barre de l'Indochine. Paris: Plon, 1959.
Delpey, Roger. Soldats de la boue. vol. 1, la bataille de
Cochinchine, and vol. 2, la bataille du Tonkin. Paris:
Grancher, 1965.
Delpey served in Indochina; vol. 1 covers the period
1947-1950, and vol. 2 the period 1951-1954.
Dennis, Peter. Troubled Days of Peace: Mountbatten and Southeast
Asia Command, 1945-46. St. Martin's. 270 pp.
de Pirey, Philipe. Operation Waste. 2d ed. Arco Publications
Ltd, 1954.
Account by a man who served in the Colonial Commando
Parachutists in Indochina, early 1950's.
Despuech, Jacques. Le trafic des piastres. Paris: Editions
Deux Rives, 1953; reprinted Paris: La Table Ronde, 1974.
Devillers, Philippe. Histoire du Viet-Nam de 1940 a 1952.
Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1952.
Devillers, Philippe and Jean Lacouture. End of a War. New York:
Praeger, 1969. French original La fin d'une guerre:
Indochine, 1954. Paris: Le Seuil, 1960.
Dinfreville, J. L'Operation Indochine. Ed. Internationale,
1953.
Dinfreville, J. Le roi Jean. Paris: La Table Ronde, 1964.
Doyon, Jacques. Les soldats blancs de Ho Chi Minh. Paris:
Fayard, 1973.
Drachman, Edward R. United States Policy Toward Vietnam, 1940-
1945. Farleigh Dickinson, 1970.
Dunn, Peter M. The First Vietnam War. London: C. Hurst & Co.,
1985.
The British intervention in Vietnam in 1945.
Ely, General Paul. L'Indochine dans la tourmente. Paris: Plon,
1964.
Fall, Bernard. Street Without Joy. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole,
1961. 4th edition, revised, 1964.
A pretty good overall account of the War.
Fall, Bernard. Hell in a Very Small Place: The Seige of Dien
Bien Phu. Philadelphia: J.J. Lippincott Company, 1967.
The battle of Dien Bien Phu (1954), which helped to
persuade the French that they had lost the war.
Ferrandi, Jean. Les officiers francais face au Vietminh. Paris:
Fayard, 1966.
Friang, Brigitte. (trans. by James Cadell). Parachutes and
Petticoats. London: Jarrolds, 1958. 224 pp.
By a French war correspondent. French original Les
fleurs du ciel. Paris: Robert Laffont, 1955.
Gardner, Lloyd C. Approaching Vietnam: From World War II through
Dienbienphu. New York: Norton, 1988. 440 pp.
Gras, General Yves. Histoire de la guerre d'Indochine. Paris:
Plon, 1977; revised and enlarged edition. Paris: Denoel,
1992.
Grauwin, Paul. Doctor at Dien-Bien-Phu. London: Hutchinson,
1955; New York: John Day, 1955.
French version, published Paris: France-Empire, 1956,
listed variously (possibly two different books?) as `J'etais
medecin a Dien Bien Phu~ and `Seulement medecin.
Hammer, Ellen. The Struggle for Indochina. Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1954. expanded edition 1966.
A pretty good overall account, with a lot of coverage
of the political aspects of the war.
Hayes, Samuel P., ed. The Beginning of American Aid to Southeast
Asia: The Griffin Mission of 1950. Heath, 1971.
Hess, Gary R. The United States' Emergence as a Southeast Asian
Power, 1940-1950. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987.
Isoart, Paul. Le phenomene national vietnamien: de
l'independance unitaire a l'independance fractionnee.
Paris: Librairie Generale de Droit et de Jurisprudence,
1961.
Jacquin, General Henri. Guerre secrete en Indochine. O. Orban,
1979.
Joucelain, Francis. Le Parti communiste francais et la premiere
guerre d'Indochine. Paris, 1973.
A critique of Communist Party policy, from a left-wing
viewpoint.
Joyaux, Francois. La Chine et le reglement du premier conflit
d'Indochine (Geneve 1954). Paris: Sorbonne, 1979.
Kaplan, Lawrence S., Denise Artaud, & Mark R. Rubin, eds. Dien
Bien Phu and the Crisis of Franco-American Relations, 1954-
1955. Wilmington, DE: SR Books, 1990. 286 pp.
A brief skim suggests that this book describes the US
government viewpoint without analysis of the fallacies of
that viewpoint.
Koburger, Charles W., Jr. The French Navy in Indochina: Riverine
and Coastal Forces, 1945-54. New York: Praeger, 1991. 160
pp.
Lacouture, Jean. De Gaulle. New York: Norton, 1990.
Vols. II and III of the French original were very
heavily abridged to make the second volume of the two-volume
English translation
Lancaster, Donald. The Emancipation of French Indochina.
London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1961.
Laniel, Joseph. Le drame indochinois, de Dien Bien Phu au pari
de Geneve. Paris: Plon, 1957.
de Lattre, Jean. {Jean-Marie de Lattre de Tassigny}. La ferveur
et le sacrifice: Indochine 1951. Edited by Jean-Luc Barre;
preface by Pierre Schoendoerffer. Paris: Plon, 1988.
Leffler, Melvyn P. A Preponderance of Power: National Security,
the Truman Administration and the Cold War. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Le Page, Colonel. Cao Bang: La tragique epopee de la colonne Le
Page. Nouvelles Editions Latines, 1981.
Leroy, Colonel Jean. Fils de la riziere. Paris: Robert Laffont,
1977.
Lockhart, Greg. Nation in Arms: The Origins of the People's Army
of Vietnam. Sydney, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1989.
Excellent work.
Lyne, Stephen R. The French Socialist Party and the Indo-China
War, 1944-54. PhD. diss., Stanford University, 1965.
Marchand, General Jean. Dans le jungle moi. Peyronnet, 1951.
Marchand, General Jean. Le drame indochinois. Peyronnet, 1954.
Marchand, General Jean. L'Indochine en guerre. Paris: Les
Presses Modernes, 1954.
Mire, Henri Le. Epervier, le 8e Choc a Dien Bien Phu. Paris:
Albin Michel, 1988.
Mordal, Jacques. Marine Indochine. Amiot-Dumont, 1953.
Muelle, Raymond. Le 1er Bataillon de choc en Indochine, 1947-
1948. Paris: Presses de la Cite, 1985.
Muelle, Raymond. Berets rouges en Indochine. Paris: Presses de
la Cite, 1986.
Mus, Paul. Viet-Nam: Sociologie d'une guerre. Paris: Editions
du Seuil, 1952.
Navarre, General Henri. L'agonie de l'Indochine. Paris: Plon,
1956.
Nguyen Lien Van {order?}. American Perceptions of the Chinese
Role in Vietnam, 1946-1954. Ph.D. diss, University of South
Carolina, 1978.
Nordell, John R., Jr. The Undetected Enemy: French and American
Miscalculations at Dien Bien Phu. College Station: Texas
A&M University Press, 1995 (forthcoming). 224 pp.
Patti, Archimedes. Why Vietnam? Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1980.
Patti was a U.S. intelligence officer who negotiated
U.S. cooperation with Ho Chi Minh around the end of World
War II. His account of these events is excellent.
Pedroncini, Guy and Philippe Duplay, eds. Leclerc et
l'Indochine, 1945-1947: quand se noua le destin d'un empire.
Paris: Albin Michel, 1992.
Prados, John. The Sky Would Fall. New York: Dial, 1983.
The story of how the U.S., which was providing the
French with a lot of military assistance, seriously
considered sending the U.S. Air Force in to provide direct
combat support to the French forces during the battle of
Dien Bien Phu.
Rice-Maximin, Edward. Accommodation and Resistance: The French
Left, Indochina and the Cold War, 1944-1954. Westport:
Greenwood, 1986.
A good survey, very short but with plentiful source
notes.
Riesen, Rene. Jungle Mission. (trans. by James Oliver).
Hutchinson, 1955.
Memoir of anti-VM operations among highland minorities
in Vietnam. French original Mission speciale en foret moi.
Paris: France-Empire, 1955.
Rotter, Andrew J. The Path to Vietnam. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press.
Covers the development of U.S. involvement, roughly
1948-3.
Roy, Jules. The Battle of Dien Bien Phu.
Ruscio, Alain. Les communistes francais et la guerre
d'Indochine, 1944-1954. Paris: Harmattan, 1985.
Ruscio, Alain. Dien Bien Phu: la fin d'une illusion. Paris,
1986.
Sainteny, Jean. Histoire d'une paix manquee. Paris: Plon, 1952.
Shipway, Martin. The Road to War: France and Vietnam, 1944-1947.
Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1996 (forthcoming).
Simpson, Howard R. Dien Bien Phu: The Epic Battle America Forgot
McLean, VA: Brassey's, 1994. 181 pp.
By an eyewitness.
Tanham, George K. Communist Revolutionary Warfare: The Vietminh
in Indochina. New York: Praeger, 1961.
Tonneson, Stein. The Outbreak of War in Indochina 1946. Oslo:
International Peace Research Institute, 1984; PRIO Report
3/84. Doctoral diss., Department of History, University of
Oslo, Norway, Fall 1982.
Tonneson, Stein. 1946: Declechement de la guerre d'Indochine:
les vepres tonkinoises du 19 decembre. Paris: l'Harmattan,
1987.
Tran Tam Tinh. Dieu et Cesar. Paris: Sudestasie, 1978.
Trinquier, Roger. Le premier bataillon des Berets rouges:
Indochine 1947-1949. Paris: Plon, 1984.
Van kien dang ve khang chien chong thuc dan Phap. (Party
documents regarding the war of resistance against French
colonialism). vol. I (1945-1950) and vol. II (1951-1954).
Hanoi: Nha xuat ban su that, 1986 and 1988.
Zasloff, Joseph J. The Role of the Sanctuary in Insurgency:
Communist China's Support to the Vietminh, 1946-1954. Santa
Monica, CA: Rand Corporation Memorandum RM-4618-PR, May
1967.
II-D. General Publications - Temporary Peace and Renewed War,
1954-1964
Anderson, Joseph J. Trapped by Success: The Eisenhower
Administration and Vietnam, 1953-1961. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1991.
A brief skim indicates that the author very seriously
misunderstands the process by which the Second Indochina War
began; this does not bode well for the book as a whole.
Andrews, William R. The Village War: Vietnamese Communist
Revolutionary Activities in Dinh Tuong Province, 1960-1964.
Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1973.
Boudarel, Georges. Cent Fleurs Ecloses dans la Nuit du Vietnam:
Communisme et Dissidence, 1954-1956. Paris: Jacques
Bertoin, 1991. 436 pp.
Bouscaren, Anthony T. Last of the Mandarins: Diem of Vietnam.
Duquesne University Press, 1965.
Browne, Malcolm. The New Face of War. Indianapolis:
Bobbs-Merrill, 1965.
A good account of the war around the years 1963-64 in
general, and of the fall of Ngo Dinh Diem in particular, by
an American journalist who was there.
Chaffard, Georges. Indochine: dix ans d'independance. Paris:
Calmann-Levy, 1964.
Dooley, Thomas A. Deliver Us from Evil: The Story of North Viet
Nam's Flight to Freedom. New York: Farrar, Straus and
Cudahy, 1956.
This very influential book by a US Navy doctor who had
been involved in the 1954-55 evacuation of Catholics from
North Vietnam contained lurid accounts of Viet Minh
atrocities against the Catholics. Its accuracy has been
questioned. James T. Fisher, working on a biography of
Dooley, wrote an article "Tom Dooley's Many Lives",
Commonweal, May 21, 1993, pp. 67, stating that Dooley's book
had presented a "largely fabricated version of recent
history". Presumably the biography when finished will give
further details. Jim Winters, "Tom Dooley: The Forgotten
Hero", `Notre Dame Magazine~, May 1979, pp. 1017, says that
US personnel who worked in Haiphong with Dooley in 1954 and
1955 say he exaggerated Communist atrocities.
Halberstam, David. The Making of a Quagmire. New York: Random
House, 1964. Rev. ed. New York: Knopf, 1988.
Account of how the US got involved in Vietnam in the
early 1960's, by a man who was there as a reporter for the
New York Times. The US government didn't much like what he
was reporting at the time, but a lot of officials later
decided he had been right after all.
Hammer, Ellen J. A Death in November: America in Vietnam, 1963.
New York: E.P. Dutton, 1987. 373pp.
Higgins, Marguerite. Our Vietnam Nightmare. New York: Harper &
Row, 1965.
By a hawkish war correspondent.
Hoang Van Chi. From Colonialism to Communism: A Case History of
North Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1964.
A very unreliable study, by a refugee from North
Vietnam, of the transformations brought about in North
Vietnam by the Communists in the 1950's. Some of the
mistranslations of Communist documents in this book have
become famous.
Lacouture, Jean. Vietnam: Between Two Truces. New York:
Vintage, 1966.
Pretty good account by a left-wing French journalist.
Maneli, Mieczyslaw. War of the Vanquished. New York: Harper &
Row, 1971. 228 pp.
Maneli was originally from Poland. He was a member of
the International Control Commission set up to enforce the
Geneva Accords of 1954, serving in Vietnam in the mid 1950's
and again in the mid 1960's. He defected to the United
States in the late 1960's, and published in the U.S. this
book about his experiences in Vietnam.
Mecklin, John. Mission in Torment. New York: Doubleday, 1965.
318 pp.
Pretty good account of the period when Ngo Dinh Diem
was overthrown, by a senior official in the U.S. Embassy,
Saigon.
Meyer, Harold J. Hanging Sam: A Military Biography of General
Samuel T. Williams from Pancho Villa to Vietnam. Denton,
TX: University of North Texas Press, 1990.
Moise, Edwin E. Land Reform in China and North Vietnam:
Consolidating the Revolution at the Village Level. Chapel
Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1983.
The land reform of 1953-56 in North Vietnam, which
distributed the land of rich landlords to the poor peasants
as private property, was botched in an astonishingly stupid
and brutal fashion. The mess was cleaned up very
skillfully, but until the cleanup was just about finished
(1958), the authorities in North Vietnam had very little
attention to spare for events in South Vietnam.
Murti, B.S.N. Vietnam Divided: The Unfinished Struggle. New
York: Asia Publishing House, 1964.
Murti was an Indian member of the International Control
Commission.
Newman, John M. JFK and Vietnam: Deception, Intrigue, and the
Struggle for Power. New York: Warner, 1992.
One reviewer says that Newman, making a case that JFK
was essentially a dove on Vietnam, ignores rather than
really explaining the plentiful evidence of hawkish
attitudes in Kennedy's record.
Nolting, Frederick. From Trust to Tragedy. New York: Praeger,
1989. Approximately 160pp.
A memoir, supplemented by some research in documents,
by the man who was U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam from
1961 until early in 1963. He was a strong supporter of Ngo
Dinh Diem, and he feels that the abandonment of Diem, which
occurred shortly after the end of his term as ambassador,
was a dreadful mistake.
Osborne, Milton. Strategic Hamlets in South Vietnam. Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 1965.
Pike, Douglas. Viet Cong: The Organization and Techniques of the
National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. Cambridge, MA:
The M.I.T. Press, 1966.
Race, Jeffrey. War Comes to Long An. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1972.
A superb study, one of the few indispensible books on
Vietnam, which traces the development of the Vietcong in
South Vietnam in general, and Long An province (a little
southwest of Saigon) in particular, up to about the mid
1960's.
Republic of Vietnam. The Problem of Reunification of Vietnam.
Saigon: Ministry of Information, 1958.
Rust, William J. Kennedy in Vietnam. New York: Scribners, 1985.
Scigliano, Robert. South Vietnam: Nation Under Stress. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1963.
Thayer, Carlyle A. The Origins of the National Front for the
Liberation of South Viet-nam. (Ph.D. diss, Australian
National University, 1977).
University Microfilms order no. 78-03838.
Thayer, Carlyle A. War by Other Means: National Liberation and
Revolution in Viet-Nam, 1954-60. Cambridge, MA: Unwin
Hyman, 1989.
Probably the best summary now available of how the end
of the First Indochina War in 1954 led to the beginning of
the Second in 1959 and 1960.
Tregaskis, Richard. Vietnam Diary. New York: Holt, 1963.
Warner, Denis. The Last Confucian. New York: Macmillan, 1963.
Pb Baltimore: Penguin, 1964.
Book about Ngo Dinh Diem and the government he headed,
by an Australian journalist.
Zasloff, Tela. Saigon Dreaming: Recollections of Indochina Days.
New York: St. Martin's, 1990.
Ms. Zasloff was in Saigon in 1964 because her husband
(presumably Joseph Zasloff) was doing research on the
insurgency.
II-E. General Publications - The Tonkin Gulf Incidents, 1964.
Alvarez, Everett, Jr. and Anthony S. Pitch. Chained Eagle. New
York: Fine, 1989.
Alvarez was one of the pilots who flew air cover over
the destroyers during the Second Tonkin Gulf Incident. The
following day, during air strikes at Hon Gai, he was shot
down; he was the first pilot captured by the DRV.
Austin, Anthony. The President's War. New York: Lippincott,
1971.
A quite detailed account of the Tonkin Gulf incidents,
and the internal processes by which the United States
Government dealt with them.
Bouchard, Joseph F. "Uses of Naval Force in Crises: A Theory of
Stratified Crisis Interaction." Ph.D. diss, Stanford
University, 1989. 1236 pp.
When Bouchard later published this as a book, he had to
cut it to a much smaller size. Tonkin Gulf was one of the
things that got cut.
Cogar, William B., ed. New Interpretations in Naval History:
Selected Papers from the Eighth Naval History Symposium.
Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1989.
Contains papers on Tonkin Gulf by Edward Marolda and
Edwin Moise, and comments on them by James A. Barber, Jr.
Edwards, Steve. "Stalking the Enemy's Coast", Proceedings 118:2
February 1992. pp. 56-62.
A very unreliable account.
Galloway, John. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Rutherford:
Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1970.
The actual text is rather short, but this volume has
long useful appendices, including the complete official
transcripts (classified material deleted) of crucial Senate
committee hearings on the Gulf of Tonkin incidents, held
August 6, 1964 and February 20, 1968. Note that some of the
deleted passages have now been released by the government
(see under Congressional documents).
Goulden, Joseph. Truth is the First Casualty. Chicago: Rand
McNally, 1969.
Halpern, Samuel E., M.D. West Pac '64. Boston: Branden Press,
1975.
By the medical officer of the Maddox.
Kurland, Gerald. The Gulf of Tonkin Incidents. Charlotteville,
NY: Sam Har Press, 1975.
Morton, Sen. Thurston. article (title unknown), Saturday Evening
Post (date unknown).
"The 'Phantom Battle' that Led to War", U.S. News & World
Report, July 23, 1984.
A good retrospective study of the Tonkin Gulf Incidents
of August 1964, with a lot of information from interviews
with participants.
Rosenthal, Harry F., and Tom Stewart, "Tonkin Gulf" (AP
dispatch), Arkansas Gazette, July 16, 1967, reprinted in
Congressional Record, February 28, 1968, p. 4582.
Schmidt, John W. The Gulf of Tonkin Debates, 1964 and 1967: A
Study in Argument. Ph.D. thesis, Speech, University of
Minnesota, 1969. 290 pp.
Stockdale, Jim and Sybil. In Love and War. New York: Harper &
Row, 1984.
Memoirs of a senior U.S. Navy pilot and his wife,
important for the pilot's account of the Tonkin Gulf
Incidents (Stockdale was in the air above the Maddox both
August 2 and August 4, 1964, and commanded one of the
retaliatory strikes against the North August 5), and also
for the POW issue (Stockdale was a prisoner from 1965 to
1973; his wife was a leader of the League of POW/MIA
families). A substantially expanded edition was published in
1990(?).
Stone, I.F. "McNamara and Tonkin Bay: The Unanswered Questions",
`The New York Review of Books, March 28, 1968, pp. 512.
Windchy, Eugene G. Tonkin Gulf. New York: Doubleday, 1971.
The best book I have seen on this topic.
Wise, David. "Remember the Maddox!", Esquire, April 1968, pp.
123-127, 56-62.
II-F. General Publications - The Big War, 1964-1972.
Andrade, Dale. Trial by Fire. New York: Hippocrene, forthcoming
(1994 or 1995). 510 pp.
The 1972 Easter Offensive.
Boyle, Richard. Flower of the Dragon: The Breakdown of the U.S.
Army in Vietnam. Foreword by Rep. Paul N. McCloskey. San
Francisco: Ramparts Press, 1972.
Cable, Larry. Unholy Grail: The US and the Wars in Vietnam,
1965-8. New York: Routledge, 1991.
Cash, John A., John Albright, and Allan W. Sandstrum. Seven
Firefights in Vietnam. New York: Bantam, 1985; reprint of
1970 U.S. Army publication.
"Cincinnatus" (Cecil B. Currey). Self-Destruction: The
Disintegration and Decay of the United States Army During
the Vietnam Era. Norton, 1981.
The way the author, Cecil B. Currey, claimed to have
had closer contact with the problems he was discussing that
was actually the case, when he published this book under a
pseudonym, has tended to discredit it.
Colvin, John. Twice Around the World: Some Memoirs of Diplomatic
Life in North Vietnam and Outer Mongolia. London: Leo
Cooper, 1991.
Colvin was British Consul General in Hanoi during 1966
and 1967. He was very critical of the hesitancy of U.S.
bombing.
Colvin, John. "Hanoi in My Time." The Washington Quarterly.
Spring 1981, pp. 138-54.
Flood, Charles Bracelen. The War of the Innocents. New York:
McGraw Hill, 1970; pb Bantam, 1991.
By a journalist who was in Vietnam from late 1966 to
late 1967, covering both air and ground operations,
particularly in Phu Yen province.
Garms, David J. With the Dragon's Children. Exposition Press,
1973.
The author was an AID worker with the amnesty program
for Vietcong.
Gibson, James. The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam. Boston:
Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986. Pb titled The Perfect War:
The War We Couldn't Lose and How We Did. New York: Vintage,
1988.
Glasser, Ronald J., M.D. 365 Days. New York: George Braziller,
1971.
A book by a U.S. Army doctor about what he was told
about the war by wounded men who passed through the hospital
where he served.
Herr, Michael. Dispatches. New York: Knopf, 1977. pb New York:
Avon, 1978.
Herr went to Vietnam as a reporter for Esquire in 1967.
Hughes, Larry. You Can See a Lot Standing under a Flare in the
Republic of Vietnam. New York: Morrow, 1969. 340 pp.
Hughes was an Army Information Specialist in Vietnam
from 1966 to 1967.
Knoebl, Kuno. Victor Charlie: The Face of War in Viet-Nam
New York: Praeger, 1967. Original, in German, published 1966.
Lewis, Jack, ed. Dateline: Vietnam. North Hollywood, CA:
Challenge Publications, 1966.
Accounts by USMC combat correspondents.
McAulay, Lex. The Battle of Coral: Vietnam Fire Support Bases
Coral and Balmoral, May 1968. pb: London: Arrow Books,
1990.
The 1st Australian Task Force. (Originally published in
Australia 1988?)
Mahler, Michael D. Ringed in Steel: Armored Cavalry, Vietnam
1967-68. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1986.
Mangold, Tom and John Penycate. The Tunnels of Cu Chi: The
Untold Story of Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1985.
Excellent account of the tunnel complex northwest of
Saigon, which contained the Vietcong headquarters for
activities directed against Saigon. Based on extensive
interviews both with Vietcong who served in the tunnels, and
with American "tunnel rats" who fought to dig the Vietcong
out.
Means, Howard. Colin Powell: Soldier/Statesman -
Statesman/Soldier. Fine, (1993?).
Powell arrived in Vietnam an LT1 advisor to the ARVN
1st Division in December 1962, and as a Major to serve as a
battalion XO, later division G-3, in the Americal starting
June 1968.
Nolan, Keith W. Death Valley: The Summer Offensive, I Corps,
August 1969. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1987 (pb Dell
1988).
Nolan, Keith W. Into Cambodia: Spring Campaign, Summer
Offensive, 1970. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1990 (pb New York:
Dell, 1991).
Nolan, Keith W. Into Laos: The Story of Dewey Canyon II/Lam Son
719; Laos 1971. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1986.
The ARVN effort to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail by an
invasion of the Laotian panhandle in 1971, and the U.S.
operation in the northwest corner of South Vietnam that
supported the ARVN effort.
Nolan, Keith W. The Magnificent Bastards: The Joint Army-Marine
Defense of Dong Ha, 1968. 1994.
2/4 Marines and 3/21 Infantry against 320th PAVN
Division.
Nolan, Keith W. Operation Buffalo: USMC Fight for the DMZ.
Novato, CA: Presidio, 1991.
A bloody battle that began July 2, 1967.
Nolan, Keith W. Sappers in the Wire: The Life and Death of
Firebase Mary Ann. Texas A&M University Press, (1995?).
Battle involving the 1/46 Infantry (Americal), March
1971, Quang Tin province.
Portisch, Hugo. Eyewitness in Vietnam. Chester Springs, PA:
Dufour, 1967.
(German original probably published 1966). Portisch
was editor of Kurier, the largest (by circulation) newspaper
in Austria.
Prillaman, Richard L. "Vietnam Update." Infantry, May-June 1969,
pp. 18-19.
Schell, Jonathan. The Military Half: An Account of Destruction
in Quang Ngai and Quang Tin. New York: Knopf, 1968.
Military operations in central Vietnam near the height
of the war.
Serong, Brigadier F.P. The 1972 Easter Offensive. Southeast
Asian Perspectives, no. 10. New York: American Friends of
Vietnam, 1974. 63 pp.
Spector, Ronald. After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam. New
York: The Free Press, 1993.
Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: U.S.
Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965-1973. Novato, CA: Presidio,
1985.
Steinbeck, John IV. In Touch. New York: Dell, 1970.
The first part of this book describes Steinbeck's
service June 1966 to June 1967 with Armed Forces Radio and
Television in Saigon, Qui Nhon, and Pleiku.
Thies, Wallace. When Governments Collide: Coercion and Diplomacy
in the Vietnam Conflict, 1964-1968. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1980.
Turley, Col. Gerald H. The Easter Offensive. Novato, CA:
Presidio, 1985.
Col. Turley was caught up in the North Vietnamese
offensive across the DMZ in the spring of 1972. This very
useful account is based on more research in written sources
than most officers bother with when writing their memoirs,
but it is still limited to the portion of the fighting in
which Turley was actually involved: the opening period of
the Easter Offensive, in Quang Tri Province only.
Zaffiri, Samuel. Hamburger Hill: May 11-20, 1969. Novato, CA:
Presidio Press, 1988.
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