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Vietnam War

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Two Vietnamese women mourn their relatives on April 29, 1975, at Bien Hoa military cemetery.

US Defeat in Vietnam Was the Right Outcome for an Unjust War

The US invasion of Vietnam was catastrophic for the Vietnamese people, resulting in millions of deaths. Fifty years ago, the US-backed regime finally collapsed.
by Michael G. Vann via Jacobin on April 30, 2025
Helicopter, soldiers, and civilians at the fall of Saigon.
partner

How We Oversimplified the History of the Vietnam War

Popular memory of the war in both the U.S. and Vietnam tends to cast the fall of Saigon as inevitable.
by Andrew Bellisari via Made By History on April 30, 2025
American soldiers in Vietnam.

If You’ve Watched Ken Burns’ Vietnam Documentary, Do You Need Netflix’s?

I, a historian of the Vietnam War, have watched the Turning Point treatment. I have some notes.
by Scott Laderman via Slate on April 30, 2025
A group of U.S. Marines crossing a rice paddy in Vietnam.

‘Commonweal’ and the Vietnam War

In 1964, Commonweal supported the Vietnam War. In 1966, the magazine condemned it in blunt, theological terms. What changed?
by Peter Steinfels via Commonweal on February 22, 2025
Exhibit

Vietnam in American Memory

America's involvement in Vietnam remains a contested historical landscape: how should the conflict be remembered, and who has the right to tell the stories?
A French soldier bandaging a wounded Vietnamese comrade.

How the Vietnam War Came Between Two Friends and Diplomats

Bill Trueheart's battles with friend and fellow Foreign Service officer Fritz Nolting illustrate the American tragedy in Southeast Asia.
by Timothy Noah via Washington Monthly on June 24, 2024
Sera Koulabdara and four members of a Laos demining team scanning the ground in grassy area.

Fifty Years of Living with America’s Unexploded Bombs

Laos was collateral damage in the U.S.' secret war. The wounds are visible in the land and in generations still waiting on justice.
by Sera Koulabdara via Zócalo Public Square on December 21, 2023
Photographer shooting Henry Kissinger on Air Force One.

Notes From the Front

Henry Kissinger’s Vietnam diary shows that he knew the war was lost a decade before it ended.
by Thomas A. Bass via The American Scholar on December 4, 2023
US Marines marching in Da Nang, Vietnam, 1965.

How Israel Is Borrowing From the US Playbook in Vietnam

Justifying civilian casualties has a long history.
by Branko Marcetic via The Nation on November 14, 2023
Soldiers of the 9th Infantry Division disembark from a helicopter during the Division's withdrawal from Vietnam.

The Many Ends of the Vietnam War

When do wars end, and who gets to decide? These deceptively simple questions are actually quite difficult to answer.
by Amanda C. Demmer via Process: A Blog for American History on April 25, 2023
Vietnam solider exhibit at the Nixon Library.
partner

The Nixon Library's Vietnam Exhibition Obscures the Truth About the War's End

The Nixon White House Tapes tell a different story.
by Brian Robertson via HNN on March 19, 2023
U.S. Air Force plane dropping bombs
partner

After 50 Years, the Truth About the Vietnam Peace Agreement Remains Elusive

The Pentagon's official history says that a heavy bombardment by B-52s in 1972 pushed the North Vietnamese to return to negotiated peace. What are the facts?
by Arnold Isaacs via HNN on October 23, 2022
Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara in a Cabinet meeting.

Juxtaposing Liberal Nationalism and International Politics: Lyndon Johnson on Vietnam War

How and why did Johnson consider American military involvement in Vietnam a worthwhile cause that would benefit American interests and American lives?
by Zachary Clary via Journal of the History of Ideas Blog on April 4, 2022

‘The Temperature in Saigon Is 105 and Rising’

What I learned about American power watching the U.S. leave Vietnam — and then Afghanistan decades later.
by Phil Caputo via Politico Magazine on August 21, 2021
A helicopter hovers over a building.
partner

The U.S. Failed to Learn the Lesson of Vietnam. Will it Learn From Afghanistan?

The U.S. can’t win wars for countries.
by Andrew Wiest via Made By History on August 16, 2021
Guard checking pockets of American soldier prisoners

Prisoners of War

During the war in Vietnam, there was a notorious American prison on the outskirts of Saigon: a prison for American soldiers.
via Radio Diaries on August 12, 2021
Henry Kissinger with North Vietnamese negotiators Le Duc Tho (left) and Xuan Thuyin in 1973.

How the U.S. Departure From Afghanistan Could Echo Kissinger's Moves in Vietnam

The way America is ending its War in Afghanistan is comparable to how it pulled out of the conflict in Vietnam.
by David E. Kaiser via TIME on February 6, 2019
The April 1966 cover of “Ramparts," featuring a caricature of Madame Nhu dressed as a Michigan State University cheerleader

The University That Launched a CIA Front Operation in Vietnam

A Vietnamese politician and an American academic led Michigan State University into a nation-building experiment and pulled America deeper into war.
by Eric Scigliano via Politico Magazine on March 25, 2018
Lyndon Johnson with advisors including Robert McNamara and Dean Rusk.

How the Tet Offensive Undermined American Faith in Government

Fifty years ago, the January 1968 battle laid bare the way U.S. leaders had misled the public about the war in Vietnam.
by Julian E. Zelizer via The Atlantic on January 15, 2018

What the Press and 'The Post' Missed

Leslie Gelb supervised the team that compiled the Pentagon Papers. He explains what Steven Spielberg's new film gets wrong.
by Brooke Gladstone, Leslie Gelb via WNYC on January 12, 2018

The Ghosts of My Lai

In the hamlet where U.S. troops killed hundreds of civilians, survivors are ready to forgive the most infamous American soldier.
by Shaun Raviv via Smithsonian on January 6, 2018
A crowd of Vietnamese civilians stare at fires burning in the distance.

I Guess I’m About to Do a Highly Immoral Thing

On "The Vietnam War."
by Richard Beck via n+1 on December 1, 2017

The Ken Burns Vietnam War Documentary Glosses Over Devastating Civilian Toll

The PBS series by Burns focuses on soldiers' stories, with scant attention to the immense number of Vietnamese civilians who suffered and died.
by Nick Turse via The Intercept on September 28, 2017

The Vietnam War Transcript Trump Needs to Read

The PBS documentary on America’s most futile conflict is missing one explosive document. Every president should absorb its chilling lessons.
by Jeff Greenfield via Politico Magazine on September 27, 2017
Billy Graham at a speaker's podium (Photo by Ninian Reid).

The Preacher and Vietnam: When Billy Graham Urged Nixon to Kill One Million People

The disclosure of Billy Graham's recommendation of war crimes did not exicte any commotion.
by Alexander Cockburn, Jeffrey St. Clair via CounterPunch on September 27, 2017
Magazine comic image of soldiers in Vietnam.

Comics Captured America's Growing Ambivalence About the Vietnam War

Comics were able to reflect changing views on the conflict in a way few other popular culture forms could.
by Cathy Schlund-Vials via The Conversation on September 20, 2017
Title card for Burns and Novick's Vietnam War documentary.

‘The Vietnam War’: Past All Reason

The new series by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick is mesmerizing. But it doesn’t answer key questions about the Vietnam War.
by Andrew J. Bacevich via The Nation on September 19, 2017
Napalm explosion in Vietnam.

Episode-by-Episode Reviews: "The Vietnam War"

Watching Ken Burns' latest epic with a historian who has written extensively about the war.
by Christian G. Appy via Process: A Blog for American History on September 18, 2017
Two American soldiers in Pleiku, South Vietnam, home to an American airbase in May 1967.

Studying the Vietnam War

How the scholarship has changed.
by Mark Atwood Lawrence via Humanities on September 16, 2017

Who is the Enemy Here?

The Vietnam War pictures that moved them most.
by Alice Gabriner via TIME on September 15, 2017
The filmmakers discuss the Vietnam miniseries.

Burns and Novick, Masters of False Balancing

In promoting healing instead of a search for truth, “The Vietnam War” offers misleading comforts.
by Jerry Lembcke via Public Books on September 15, 2017
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