Cronkite on Vietnam
From: David Marr <dgm405@coombs.anu.edu.au>
Date: Oct 23, 2006 6:35 PM
Subject: [Vsg] Cronkite on Vietnam
Someone gave me the memoir by Walter Cronkite, A Reporter's Life
(1996). While I enjoyed most his evocation of the 1940s and 1950s in
America, the chapter on Vietnam ought to be read by VSGers in
relation to the debate started by Keith Taylor and about to be
immortalized in the first issue of JVS. Cronkite makes no claim to
understand Vietnamese motivations, but his take on US dynamics in
relation to the war is succinct and impressive. He reaffirms his own
change of stance on return from the Tet 1968 fighting, but admits
that historians may overestimate the impact of his statement on air.
David Marr
From: Marc J. Gilbert <mgilbert@hpu.edu>
Date: Oct 24, 2006 8:22 PM
Subject: [Vsg] Cronkite the Tet Offensive and JVS
Marc Jason Gilbert
Hawaii Pacific University
mgilbert@hpu.edu
I would like to take up the thread of David Marr’s comments on Cronkite, current historiographical trends and also the article on the Tet Offensive in the JVS by mentioning a few resources pertaining to these questions.
First, it was soon clear to all serious historians that there was no acceptable attribution to LBJ’s remark _If I have lost Cronkite, I have lost the country_ and Larry Berman ten years ago rendered it irrelevant (see his chapter in Gilbert and Head, _The Tet Offensive_ 1996): 89-124.
Reading Lien-Hang T. Nguyen’s _The War Politburo: North Vietnam's Diplomatic and Political Road to the Tet Offensive_ I was happy to find a much broader and fuller analysis of its antecedents than that offered in my chapter entitled _Losing the Other War_ in _Why North Won the Vietnam War_ (2001). _The War Politburo_ addresses the purposes and achievements of the Tet Offensive in not very different terms than my own poor effort, though it is different in tone and reaches very different conclusions. There is nothing wrong with that, but I find in this article the absence of the following source, an absence germane to the larger discussion current among historians of the period.
After the Tet Offensive, Victoria Pohle, working for Rand Corporation, surveyed the Tet Offensive’s impact on the Saigon elite in a study entitled _The Viet Cong in Saigon: Tactics and Objectives_ (Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, 1969).
She found that what she identified as the backbone of the regime was encouraged that the VC had been beaten in Saigon and elsewhere. Students of the war that seek proof that the Tet Offensive had not beaten the RVN, as Lien-Hang T. Nguyen boldly states (p.34), would be delighted to see this. .
Unfortunately, Polhe’s survey of that same elite also found that the offensive had utterly convinced it that the Republic could not survive without continued massive direct US support. They attributed what they saw as the defeat of the communists to the US military presence alone, not to ARVN, and had no doubt that without that support, the Republic was doomed.
In other words, key elements in both the US and the RVN were both demoralized by the offensive to a point which defined their view of the future. This is consistent with what Joseph Trullinger found later in I Corps, where the _failure_ of the Easter Offensive similarly conditioned its inhabitants to accept defeat at the hands of the communists. It is why General Abrams argued against Vietnamization.
Pohle’s conclusion was that the US needed to abandon any and all efforts at Vietnamization, as it would guarantee the loss of the only segment of the public in the RVN that most closely identified itself with that government.
Pohle’s study was listed in the publications of Rand Corporation; in other words, it has long been widely available. It is cited in the two above mentioned works (p. 134 and p. 197 respectively), works which are cited by Lien-Hang T. Nguyen in his extensive and admirable notes.
Pohle provides us with one survey. It is open to interpretation. However, as historians, when making any judgments about the post- Tet appeal and political strength of the RVN or the military strength of the post- Tet ARVN for that matter, it is essential that we consider as much of the record as is available so that are our judgments are as well-founded as possible. In the end, it is hoped that we are as professionals judged not on where we stood in the historiographical debates defined by the Left or Right or revisionist classifications without end, but on the comprehensiveness and soundness of our research.
In this regard, young students of this phase of the war can do much worse than read James H. Willbanks, _Abandoning Vietnam_. Not for its lack of Vietnamese language sources (which he acknowledges) or its brief ahistorical coulda-shoulda-wouda final conclusions, but for the way Willbanks struggles visibly to credit alternative views, the manner in which tests his hypotheses and how he attempts to get beyond the delusions of so many of his peers on the Left and Right. This veteran of the siege of An Loc wrote the most honest, well-balanced after-action report of that battle, or any battle, it was ever my experience to read. I am glad to have come to know him as a colleague in the unforgiving pursuit of history.
Marc Jason Gilbert
NEH Endowed Chair in World History
College of Liberal Arts
Hawai'i Pacific University
1188 Fort Street
Honolulu, Hawai'i 96813
Phone 808-638-2563
E-mail mgilbert@HPU.edu
From: Ed Miller <Edward.G.Miller@dartmouth.edu>
Date: Oct 25, 2006 7:50 AM
Subject: RE: [Vsg] Cronkite the Tet Offensive and JVS
A couple of points in response to Marc’s comments on Lien-Hang’s JVS article:
1. Marc’s remark about “his” extensive and admirable research notwithstanding, Lien-Hang is a woman. (Vietnamese speakers will recognize the “T.” in her name as an abbreviation for “Thi.”, which invariably signifies a female.)
2. Pohle’s 1969 study is indeed an important and interesting source, but I do not see how it is relevant to the argument that Lien-Hang makes in this article. The article is manifestly about the twists and turns in Communist strategy LEADING UP TO the Tet Offensive in 1968. Pohle’s study, in contrast, is mainly about the response of Saigon residents to the offensive DURING AND AFTER it took place. The only place where Lien-Hang makes any reference at all to the outcome/aftermath of the offensive is in the closing lines of the article, and I fail to see how anything she says there is undermined by Pohle’s findings. (Lien-Hang does point out on page 34 that “The US administration, rather than the Sai Gon regime, fell in the face of the Tet Offensive.” But there are a host of primary and secondary sources which support this statement, and it is in no way contradicted by anything in Pohle’s study.) In my view, citing Pohle’s study would neither have strengthened or weakened Lien-Hang’s argument in this article, and I don’t see what she would have gained from referring to it.
3. In light of number 2 above, Marc’s suggestion that the omission of Pohle from this article is reason to question the “comprehensiveness and soundness” of Lien-Hang’s research is specious. As this article and her other writings and presentations demonstrate, Lien-Hang’s work is based not only on the standard collections of US materials that Americanist scholars have been using to interpret the war lo these many years, but also on a prodigious amount of research in the relevant Vietnamese, French, British and Hungarian archives. This includes pathbreaking work in the MoFA archives and the National Reunification Committee records in Hanoi, and also in the Thieu government records held at Archives 2 in Saigon. None of these collections have been extensively mined before now. There is thus every reason to expect that Lien-Hang’s dissertation (which is focused on the 1968-1973 period) will provide by far the most comprehensive analysis to date of the post-Tet war in South Vietnam.
I look forward to many lively discussions of this and other JVS articles on this email list. However, I do think it is important to keep these discussions focused on the actual topic of the article in question, and to avoid unwarranted and unhelpful extrapolations—especially those drawn from the omission of a single document.
Ed Miller
From: Marc J. Gilbert <mgilbert@hpu.edu> ington.edu>
Date: Oct 25, 2006 4:53 PM
Subject: [Vsg] RE: Hoa Binh Cronkite Tet Offensive JVS
Actually, that last was meant for Pierre, but since Ed is not on the
list, I thought I would simply also post my b/c reply to him here:
Dear Ed,
You will see by my reply to yours (below) that I think you misread my
intentions, but that does not matter. I am glad what I wrote gave you an
opportunity to say what you did as those sentiments are important.
Between us, I would add that archival sources-like Cold War US archives
naming names of communists who were in truth apolitical
civilians-require careful handling: such handling flows most naturally
out of a willingness to engage or seek alternative meanings. That is our
chief defense against polemic, even polemic backed by archival sources.
I thought my comment on Willbanks made clear that this was my purpose in
writing. I do not consider the JVS piece a polemic, but rather fine
scholarship. However, the tone recalled a style that I, personally, find
_nepriatnoe_ (my Russian is superior to any Vietnamese I have and, God
forgive me, was still useful in North Viet Nam among a certain elite)
and I saw no sin in pointing out possible overstatements or misjudgments
in the article's conclusion to encourage best practices.
Revolution is not a dinner party and we are now in a revolutionary stage
of writing Vietnamese history. That is good thing, but when one looks at
the shelves of books written in such times, few seem valuable in
retrospect.
With so many excellent scholars entering the field and with so rich an
archival resource looming, we should do everything we can to encourage
the style and practice of the works that have the longest legs.
I began to write about Viet Nam years after my graduate studies after
meeting with Ambassador Bui Diem, who lent me his 40 pound portable
computer (this was 1990-1) to write my first essay. I found in his
person and in his _The Jaws of History_ a sense of propriety,
generosity, balance and self-reflection that translated into a writing
style worth emulating and which was almost totally lacking in the
literature on Viet Nam of the 1980s and early 1990s.
That model may be old fashioned today, but I cannot shake it and seek
whenever I perceive an opportunity to do so to encourage it. Please
forgive me if that addiction leads me to wander down the wrong path and
be certain that I accept any and all admonition and guidance with
pleasure.
Marc
From: Marc J. Gilbert <mgilbert@hpu.edu>
Date: Oct 25, 2006 12:43 PM
Subject: RE: [Vsg] Cronkite the Tet Offensive and JVS
I did say that history is an unforgiving profession. Email is a harder task master. One writes quickly to get to main points and always sounds more critical than one intends, even though I thought I was very careful in writing that my argument with Lien-Hang’s article was only with the conclusion marked clearly in the post by page number (one does not have to be fluent in Vietnamese to recognize female names—just tired when composing responses, I was well aware I was referring to the work of two women decades apart). My concern is always with the selectivity of source use whenever an argument is being made in that I like to see writers debate their sources and consider alternative readings. I find that lacking in most recent historical writings a pattern not confined to Vietnam. What is present are very acutely written arguments that amass documentation supporting conclusions which often lack the interplay or interpretation (historical discourse) and also lack humility. In this case, I was only referring to a very bold conclusion that went beyond evidentiary data and, I think Ed would agree, beyond the scope of the article itself. I thought that was worth addressing and I am sorry that Ed Miller in his post saw my remarks as anything more than this.
We are entering a new phase of historical writing on Vietnam from a new generation of writers. I would like to promote as much as I can a history that is not driven by ideologies of the past or of recovery of nationality, but that is impossible—history is always driven by such forces. But it may be possible to change the tone and the style of argumentation in this discourse so those that follow will see how we struggled with each other and not against each other to find new truths.
I have to go to class now, where that is my job.
marc
From: Pierre Asselin <asselin@hawaii.edu>
Date: Oct 25, 2006 1:37 PM
Subject: Re: RE: [Vsg] Cronkite the Tet Offensive and JVS
Dear Ed and all:
To clarify a (relatively) minor point -
Ed suggests in his response to Marc that Hang worked in MoFA archives in Hanoi. I haven't communicated with Hang in a while, but those archives remain virtually inaccessible to foreign as well as Vietnamese researchers. Hence, I seriously doubt that that was/is in fact the case. (If it turn out she did get in, the rest of us working on DRVN diplomacy should seriously reconsider our raison d'etre!) I've come across MoFA docs while researching at Archives 3, but mostly by chance (i.e., while perusing the files of other governmental divisions). We should all remember that the files of the Foreign and Defense ministries, unlike the records of other ministries and governmental sub-divisions, are not in the custody of Trung tam luu tru.
Aloha,
Pierre
From: Marc J. Gilbert <mgilbert@hpu.edu>
Date: Oct 25, 2006 3:12 PM
Subject: RE: RE: [Vsg] Cronkite the Tet Offensive and JVS
The sad thing is that archival material is not "objective." It is the way we choose to interpret it: who made the record and why. But so it goes. I was only reacting to the tone of the piece, though the remark that it was ironic that moderates won seems to me naive--they always do in the end, even if because the radicals burn out.
From: Pierre Asselin <asselin@hawaii.edu>
Date: Oct 25, 2006 4:47 PM
Subject: Re: RE: RE: [Vsg] Cronkite the Tet Offensive and JVS
Dear all:
Just heard from Hang. Let’s just say that I owe Ed an apology.... In my defense, I did write “virtually inaccessible."
Best,
From: Tuan Hoang <thoang1@nd.edu>
Date: Oct 26, 2006 10:54 AM
Subject: RE: [Vsg] Cronkite the Tet Offensive and JVS
This is a very stimulating debate. If I understand correctly, there are different positions on two issues:
(1) the effect of Tet on Saigon, and (2) the fact that the "moderates" won the South-first vs. North-first
debate.
On the first, Hang Nguyen wrote that "the US administration, rather than the Saigon regime, fell in the face
of the Tet Offensive" (p. 34). It is indeed a bold statement, and I share at least some of Marc Gilbert's
skepticism. I think that even if Prof. Gilbert didn't raise it on VSG, someone else will raise it elsewhere,
and Hang will have to address it sooner or later. But I also think that the article is about Hanoi rather
than the Saigon government, and we will have to wait for Hang's dissertation (or another article) to get a
more complete evaluation of this statement. In the meantime, the fact that there was nothing close to a
general uprising as anticipated by the Politburo shouldn't be underestimated, even though it sounds like old
news to us. (Check out, for instance, the section on post-Tet effects on the NLF in volume two of David
Elliot's magisterial _The Vietnamese War_.)
On the second issue, on whether or not Hang's conclusion is significant (or naive or whatnot), I think that it
is rather besides the point. Concentrating on the originality (or lack) of this conclusion, strikes me to
have obscured her far greater contribution, which includes the internal politics of the Party and Politburo.
This is an emergent topic, exemplified by at least two articles in the "Cold War History" issue last year that
was devoted to Vietnam and edited by Sophie Quinn-Judge. In my estimate, Hang's article advances scholarship
a good deal, and for that we ought to be thankful.
In the end, I agree with Prof. Gilbert that we are entering a revolutionary stage of research on the war. I
also share his hopes for history-writing that cuts through Left and Right. It's a tall order, complicated
(unfortunately, in my view) by the debates over Iraq. But even before Iraq, it was already complicated by
highly politicized positions by historians such as (to give rather obvious examples of polemicism) Marilyn
Young on the
one hand and Michael Lind on the other. However, I think that the profession has a way of balancing itself
out. For every revisionist position like Michael Lind's _The Necessary War _, there is at least a
counter-position like Jeffrey Record's _The Wrong War_. I could be naive here, but the dialetics looks to be
healthy than debiliating. Indeed, it was no other than Prof. Young who commented on a panel on revisionism
that she'd rather call it "better history" than revisionism. So, the situation looks good over all. Not, of
course, that I don't have concerns, albeit of different kinds. Such as the over-reliance on oral interviews
that shows up a lot lately, of which Robert Brigham's volumes on ARVN and the NLF are only the best-known
instances. But that is topic for another day.
~Tuan
From: Marc J. Gilbert <mgilbert@hpu.edu>
Date: Oct 26, 2006 9:43 PM
Subject: RE: [Vsg] Cronkite the Tet Offensive and JVS
These were just the points I wished to make, put as graciously as I intended, and with actually the same concern for protecting as well as improving the work under review, but may have failed to do.
With thanks,
Marc