We should declare war on North Vietnam. . . .
We could pave the whole country
and put parking strips
on it, and still be home by Christmas....Ronald Reagan,
1965
* Desertion: In the Time of Vietnam by Jack Todd ****
This memoir of a Vietnam era deserter tells of the political and personal factors
in his decision to flee to Canada in the 1960s, the difficult life he and otherAmericans
endured, his efforts to find a home after the hostilities ended--
complicated
by the fact that he had renounced his American citizenship--and of the life he made as a successful
Canadian journalist.
I was proud of the youths who opposed the war in Vietnam because they were
my babies. --Benjamin Spock, 1988
Vietnam Reflections
"It doesn't require any particular bravery to stand on the floor
of the Senate and urge our boys in Vietnam to fight harder, and if this war
mushrooms into a major conflict and a hundred thousand young Americans are
killed, it won't be U. S. Senators who die. It will be American soldiers
who are too young to qualify for the senate."-George McGovern
* Women Strike for Peace: Traditional Motherhood and Radical Politics in the 1960s (Women in Culture and Society Series) ****
by Amy Swerdlow, Foreword by Catharine R. Stimpson
This is a narrative history of the 1960s peace organization. Beginning
in 1961, Women Strike for Peace (WSP) "organized against nuclear testing andwar.
. . Amy Swerdlow, herself a leader of Women Strike for Peace, tells the story
of these 'ordinary housewives,' aged roughly from their mid-thirties to late
forties, white and mainly college-educated. . . . In November 1961, approximately
50,000 women participated in a nationwide strike for peace, which kicked off
their political activity for the rest of the decade. . . . {The women's} activism
against nuclear testing and the war in Vietnam . . . was articulated in the
language of mothers who want to protect their children." (Women'sRev
Books)
"Vietnam presumably taught us that the United States could not
serve as the world's policeman; it should also have taught us the dangers
of trying to be the world's midwife to democracy when the birth is scheduled
to take place under conditions of guerrilla war." --Jeane Kirkpatrick,
1979
* The Forgotten Hero of My Lai: The Hugh Thompson Story****
By March of 1968 many in Charlie company had given in to an easy pattern
of violence. Such soldiers were blind to the humanity of the Vietnamese
people. It was open season on all Vietnamese people. Women and girls were routinely raped. A total
of 504 helpless human beings, old women, young women,
old men, boys, girls and babies were sadistically slaughtered at My Lai by soldiers
of the United States Army. There were no young Vietnamese men there. The
American soldiers were never fired upon.
They found no Viet Cong and no weapons.
Helicopter pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson and his crew
were the only other soldiers who had the guts to stand up to the homicidal
psychopaths of the United States Army at My Lai.
 * Four Dead in Ohio: Was There a Conspiracy at Kent State by William A. Gordon
For more information about William A. Gordon and his 19 year investigation into what happened and why during a campus protest on May 4, 1970
please visit his website.
It's time that we recognized that ours was in truth a noble cause...Ronald
Reagan, Oct. 1980
 *The Phoenix Program by Douglas Valentine
A shocking expose of the CIA operation aimed at destroying the Vietcong
infrastructure thoroughly conveys the hideousness of the Vietnam War. Photos.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information.
 * Protest and Survive: Underground GI Newspapers during the Vietnam War*****
by James Lewes
 * Soldiers in Revolt: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War
by David Cortright
Howard Zinn (Introduction) *****
* Vietnamerica: The War Comes Home
When South Vietnam fell in 1975, the children of Vietnamese women and American
servicemen were left behind. Freelance writer Bass spent many years investigating the tragic story of
these children who were considered " the dust of life" in their
homeland.
The U.S. government was unwilling to acknowledge their paternity and accept
responsibility and the chilren were not allowed to emigrate to their fathers' country until 1987.
 * We Were Soldiers Once...and Young: Ia
Drang - the Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam
by Harold G. Moore, Joseph L. Galloway *****
A study of the 1965 battle of Ia Drang, in the central highlands of South Vietnam, provides a blow-by-blow account of the battle and the implications of this key confrontation. The basis
of the major motion picture starring Mel Gibson.
"The United States is to experience not a social revolution at the hands of its own people, but a military defeat at the
hands of twenty, thirty, many Vietnams — plus a few Detroits
~ Carl Oglesby, in Liberation, 1969
It is impossible to imagine any significant
Vietnam collection's being without this book. Cultural Battles: The Meaning of the by Peter McGregor Out of Print. available used. |
Web Links
The Vietnam War
Levitate the Pentagon (1967)
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
Statistics about the Vietnam War
Search the Wall
read more about the first Teach-In
on the Vietnam War held at University of Michigan
a month after Pres. Lyndon Johnson ordered bombing
of North Vietnam.
Kent State: Remembering May 4, 1970
Information on the four young students who were murdered that tragic day
Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Bill Schoeder, and Sandra Scheuer
French Indochina War late 40s & early 50s
The
Mylai Massacre Trial
International
War Crimes Tribunal - 1967
1961-1973:
GI resistance in the Vietnam War
PORTRAITS of VIETNAM
by Paul Emma
Women in Vietnam
Viet Nam Generation Journal Online
Declassified CIA Documents on the Vietnam War
Political Cartoons from Herb Block
Another Vietnam pictures of the War from the other side
Political Posters from the United States, Cuba and Viet Nam-1965-1975
Vietnam-The Whole World Was Watching
Latin America into the 1960s
The Most Dangerous Moment of the Cuban Missile Crisis
Living with War Today
* Grief Denied: A Vietnam Widow's Story
by Pauline Laurent
Grief Denied A Vietnam Widow's Story is a beautifully written, wise and affecting memoir of the author's anguished loss and eventual healing twenty-some years after the death of her husband in the Vietnam War
 * The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
by Barbara W. Tuchman *****
More than half of this study of "the
pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests" deals with the United States and the war in Vietnam. Shorter comparative case studies analyze the Trojan horse
disaster, the failure of the Papacy to
deal with the Reformation, and the loss
of the American colonies by the British. The book is in the Tuchman tradition: readable, entertaining, intelligent. It should lead a wide audience to think usefully about "the persistence of error."
... Gaddis Smith, Foreign Affairs
 * Home Before Morning: The Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnamby Lynda Van Devanter,
*****
Lynda Van Devanter whose 1983 book "Home Before Morning" inspired the 1988-91 television series "China Beach," died Nov. 15
at her home in Herndon, Va. The cause was systemic collagen vascular disease, which she had attributed to her exposure in Vietnam to chemicals including the defoliant Agent Orange. She was 55.
***** DVD recommendations *****
* The Atomic Cafe
Released in 1982, its producers spent years toiling over Government A-bomb
test and propaganda films, military training films, news reel footage, radio
broadcasts, and other sources, to come up with one of the most chilling, and
hilarious, movies ever made.
 * Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Special Edition)(1964)
More DVD's
* Good Morning, Vietnam
* Atomic War Bride/This Is Not a Test
* Hiroshima Mon Amour (1960)
* Seven Days in May (1964)
* Sir! No Sir! - The Suppressed Story of the GI Movement to End the War in Vietnam
* National Geographic - Vietnam's Unseen War - Pictures from the Other Side
* Vietnam War With Walter CronkiteVietnam War With Walter Cronkite
 * AGENT ORANGE: THE LAST BATTLE Produced by Adam Scholl and Stephanie Jobe
This film is educational not entertaining.
And it may be hard for some to view as it reflects the lives of those that are suffering, but it will leave you with that feeling of “What can I do?”
|