Notes
Notes PREFACE Epigraph: The reflections of a former North Vietnamese solider, Bao Ninh, author of the poignant antiwar novel The Sorrow ofWar. Bao Ninh, The Sorrow of War (Hanoi, 1993), 193. 1. Standard Vietnam War historiography generally divides historians into three groups. As Robert Divine points out, historical interpretation immediately after an American war normally emphasizes the positive aspects of the war and its widespread support. In time, revisionists challenge many of the orthodox assumptions. Then comes a post-revisionist stage where various aspects of the earlier interpretations are combined to achieve a crude consensus. In the case of the Vietnam War, however, the initial works emphasized the inability ofthe United States to prevail in the quagmire or stalemate ofVietnam and concluded that the war was unwinnable. Later, with the emergence of neo-conservatism in the 1980s, a new group of historians , some of whom had participated as military officers and civilian officials in the war, offered new interpretations. Many of them argued that the war had been winnable and that the failure to persevere to victory constituted a political and moral failing on the part of the civilian leadership of the United States. Others claimed that the U.S. military blundered in Vietnam due to its inability to comprehend the political dimensions of the struggle and tailor a strategy to support the political goals. Still others scored the strategy and tactics chosen by General William C. Westmoreland, some criticized organizational and structural changes in the U.S. Army implemented during the 1950s, while another group argued that excessive civilian control and interference led to defeat. Recently, the historiography has begun to enter the post-revisionist stage, highlighted by the work of scholars attempting to assess the war by examining internal, indigenous factors in Vietnam. See Divine, "Vietnam Reconsidered." 2. "Vietnam Shifts Since '63," New York Times (June 13, 1965): 7. 3. George Kahin, interview by the author, Ithaca, New York, September 1996. Notes from this and all of the interviews conducted for this work remain on file in the author's office at Eastern Kentucky University. 4. Herring, America's Longest War, 157. 5. Charles Mohr, "Buddhists Insist Ky Junta Must Go," New York Times (May 28, 1966): 1. 6. Charles Mohr, "Questions in Vietnam," New York Times (May 31, 1966): 10. 153 Notes to Pages x-5 7. For a discussion of this, see Herring, "Peoples Quite Apart." 8. Mole, Vietnamese Buddhism; and "Buddhism and the Buddhist Programming of the Asia Foundation in Asia," The Asia Foundation (San Francisco, 1968), 17-20. INTRODUCTION Epigraph: Thich Nhat Hanh, address to Kyoto Conference on Religion and Peace, October 16-21, 1970. 1. Mole, Vietnamese Buddhism; and "Buddhism and the Buddhist Programming of the Asia Foundation in Asia," The Asia Foundation (San Francisco, 1968), 17-20, 110-20. 2. David Halberstam, "Buddhists Mourn Vietnam Victims," New York Times (May 29, 1963): 5. 3. Buddhists in Saigon Mark May 8 Clash with Regime, New York Times (May 22, 1963): 3; and Saigon Replaces Three in Dispute, New York Times (June 2, 1963): 2. 4. Thich Thien-An, Buddhism and Zen in Vietnam; and David Halberstam, "Diem Asks Peace in Religious Crisis," New York Times (June 12, 1963): 7. See chapter five for a more detailed discussion of self-immolation. 5. "Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam," July 2, 1963, U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: Vietnam, 1961-63, volume 4, Aug.-Dec. 1963, (Washington, 1991), 443-44 (hereafter cited as FRUS: Vietnam); David Halberstam, "Diem Regime under Fire," New York Times (July 7, 1963),4:5; and "Telegram from the Embassy in Vietnam to the Department of State," August 14, 1963, FRUS: Vietnam, 1963, vol. 4, 565-67. 6. "Buddhists Seized," New York Times (August 21, 1963): 1. 7. Hammer, Death in November, 168-98; and Rusk, As I Saw It, 440. 8. David Halberstam, "Ranking Saigon Buddhist and 2 Aides Flee into American Embassy," New York Times (September 2, 1963): 1; "Telegram from the Embassy in Vietnam to the Department of State," September 9, 1963, FRUS: Vietnam, 1963, vol. 4, 136-37; and "U.S. to Refuse Saigon Plea," New York Times (September 3, 1963),3. 9. "Memorandum of a Conversation, White House, Washington," (September 11, 1963), FRUS: Vietnam, 1963, vol.4, 188-90; and Hammer, Death in November, 280-311. 10. "Telegram from the Embassy in Vietnam to the Department of State," November 3, 1963, FRUS: Vietnam, 1963, vol. 4...
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