Internet Resources
- Gulf of Tonkin: HistoryA coup by some of his own generals succeeded in toppling and killing Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, in November 1963, three weeks before Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
- The Gulf of Tonkin Incident: The Unwritten RecordFifty years ago, in what came to be known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, North Vietnamese patrol boats attacked the U.S.S. Maddox.
Archives & Primary Sources
- Gulf of Tonkin: NSAOn 30 November 2005, the National Security Agency (NSA) released the first installment of previously classified information regarding the Vietnam era, specifically the Gulf of Tonkin incident. This release includes a variety of articles, chronologies of events, oral history interviews, signals intelligence (SIGINT) reports and translations, and other related memoranda.
- NSC Meetings, Volume 3, Tab 20, 8/4/1964, Gulf of Tonkin AttackNational Archives digitized record on the Gulf of Tonk Attack from the official papers of President Johnson.
War In Indochina
From the 1890s, France controlled Indochina. After World War II, Ho Chi Minh ruled in the north, while France held power in the south. The First Indochina War ended with the defeat of French forces at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Elections to unite Vietnam were due to take place in July 1955, but they were cancelled.
Source: Kanopy
Perspectives
Secrets
Daniel Ellsberg began his career as the coldest of cold warriors-a U. S. Marine company commander, a Pentagon analyst, and a staunch supporter of America's battle against Communist expansion. But in October 1969, Ellsberg-fully expecting to spend the rest of his life in prison-set out to turn around American foreign policy by smuggling out of his office the seven-thousand-page top-secret study, known as the Pentagon Papers, of U.S. decision making in Vietnam. Now, for the first time, Ellsberg tells the full story of how and why he became one of the nation's most impassioned and influential anti-war activists-and how his actions helped alter the course of U.S. history. Covering the decade between his entry into the Pentagon and Nixon's resignation, Secrets is Ellsberg's meticulously detailed insider's account of the secrets and lies that shaped American foreign policy during the Vietnam era. Ellsberg provides a vivid eyewitness account of the two years he spent behind the lines in Vietnam as a State Department observer-an experience that convinced him of the hopelessness of Johnson's policies and profoundly altered his own political thinking. As Ellsberg recounts with drama and insight, the release of the Pentagon Papers, first to The New York Timesand The Washington Post, set in motion a train of events that ultimately toppled a president and helped to end an unjust war. Infused with the political passion and turmoil of the Vietnam era, Secretsis at once the memoir of a committed, daring man, an insider's exposé of Washington, and a meditation on the meaning of patriotism under a government intoxicated by keeping secrets.
Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945-1975
The Vietnam war continues to be the focus of intense controversy. While most people--liberals, conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, historians, pundits, and citizens alike--agree that the United States did not win the war, a vocal minority argue the opposite or debate why victory never came, attributing the quagmire to everything from domestic politics to the press. The military never lost a battle, how then did it not win the war? Stepping back from this overheated fray, bestselling author John Prados takes a fresh look at both the war and the debates about it to produce a much-needed and long-overdue reassessment of one of our nation's most tragic episodes. Drawing upon several decades of research-including recently declassified documents, newly available presidential tapes, and a wide range of Vietnamese and other international sources--Prados's magisterial account weaves together multiple perspectives across an epic-sized canvas where domestic politics, ideologies, nations, and militaries all collide. Prados patiently pieces back together the events and moments, from the end of World War II until our dispiriting departure from Vietnam in 1975, that reveal a war that now appears to have been truly unwinnable--due to opportunities lost, missed, ignored, or refused. He shows how--from the Truman through the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations--American leaders consistently ignored or misunderstood the realities in Southeast Asia and passed up every opportunity to avoid war in the first place or avoid becoming ever more mired in it after it began. Highlighting especially Ike's seminal and long-lasting influence on our Vietnam policy, Prados demonstrates how and why our range of choices narrowed with each passing year, while our decision-making continued to be distorted by Cold War politics and fundamental misperceptions about the culture, psychology, goals, and abilities of both our enemies and our allies in Vietnam. By turns engaging narrative history, compelling analytic treatise, and moving personal account, Prados's magnum opus challenges previous authors and should rightfully take its place as the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and accurate one-volume account of a war that--judging by the frequent analogies to the current war in Iraq--has not yet really ended for any of us.
A Brief History Of Gulf Of Tonkin Incident
A brief history of Gulf of Tonkin incident.
Source: AVON