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A Vietnam War Reader: American and Vietnamese Perspectives
Nixon: I'd rather use a nuclear bomb. Have you got that ready?
Kissinger: Now that, I think, would just be, uh, too much, uh -
Nixon: A nuclear bomb, does that bother you?
[Kissinger response virtually inaudible]
Nixon: I just want you to think big, Henry, for Christ's sake!
A Vietnam War Reader, edited by Michael Hunt, is a unique collection of shocking lived experiences, directly from the mouths and the pens of those soldiers, politicians and citizens who lived through the days of the Vietnam War and its bloody aftermath.
Including testimony from both American and Vietnamese sources, the Reader contains such diverse documents as Ho Chi Minh's report to the Communist Party, a secret memo from the CIA on the Vietcong and a 1966 letter from a junior officer to his family, describing his growing doubts about the war.
Transcripts show the casual conversations and public press conferences that would lead to millions of deaths, revealing the terrible dilemmas faced by those in power, and on the ground.
Pham Van Dong: If the United States dares to start a limited war, we will fight it, and will win it.
Mao Zedong: Yes, you can win it.
239 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 6, 2010
22 people are currently reading
82 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 10, 2016
An interesting and varied set of documents, if perhaps somewhat over edited to get them down to just over 200 pages – I would have liked more and more complete documents.
The book gives a sketch of the major events of the American involvement in Vietnam, starting with Vietnamese nationalist and communist writers in the 1890s and continuing into the aftermath both in Vietnam and the USA.
I am not sure I would recommend to someone who doesn't already know a bit about the war, but if you do it should give you a far better understanding of what happened at the human level during the war.
The book gives a sketch of the major events of the American involvement in Vietnam, starting with Vietnamese nationalist and communist writers in the 1890s and continuing into the aftermath both in Vietnam and the USA.
I am not sure I would recommend to someone who doesn't already know a bit about the war, but if you do it should give you a far better understanding of what happened at the human level during the war.
June 13, 2016
Containing views and useful documents from both sides, this book is of great use to any one who's interested in history.
December 27, 2025
Hunt, Michael H., A Vietnam War Reader
Edited by Michael H. Hunt (2010)
Michael H. Hunt's "A Vietnam War Reader" serves as an invaluable compilation of primary documents spanning the entire post-World War II history of Vietnam, offering readers unfiltered access to the actual words and assessments of those who shaped and experienced one of America's most consequential conflicts. What emerges from these documents is not merely a chronicle of military and political decisions, but a stark portrait of institutional self-deception, persistent misunderstanding, and the gradual recognition of an unwinnable position.
The collection begins appropriately with the roots of American involvement, including National Security Council Report 64 from February 27, 1950. This document reveals the fundamental contradiction that would plague U.S. policy throughout the conflict: while acknowledging to the French that "the legitimate nationalist aspirations of the people of Indochina must be satisfied," the report simultaneously concludes that "all practicable measures be taken to prevent further communist expansion in Southeast Asia." This tension between supporting colonial powers and recognizing nationalist movements would never be resolved. Secretary of State Dulles made the administration's priorities clear in a 1954 address, emphasizing China's involvement and effectively framing Vietnam within the broader Cold War containment strategy that Eisenhower continued from his predecessor.
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution of August 10, 1964, represents the pivotal moment when Congress essentially abdicated its war-making authority, resolving that it "approved and supports the determination of the President, as Commander-in-Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression." This blank check would enable the massive escalation that followed, even as doubts festered at the highest levels of government.
Perhaps the most revealing documents in Hunt's collection are those exposing the internal dissent within the Johnson administration. President Johnson himself harbored deep doubts about large-scale U.S. intervention. George Ball's prescient memo of July 1965 to Rusk, McNamara, Bundy, and ultimately Johnson, began with the stark assessment that "the South Vietnamese are losing the war to the Vietcong." Ball provided damning evidence of the fundamental problem: the sneak attack at Da Nang succeeded despite 9,000 Marines defending the base "only because of the cooperation of the locals." He cited a B-52 raid that failed because "the Vietnamese had obviously been tipped off," and noted that a search-and-destroy mission by the 173rd Airborne Brigade "never made contact with the enemy who had obviously gotten advanced word of the assignment." These documents reveal what should have been obvious: no amount of American firepower could compensate for fighting a war where the local population provided intelligence and support to the enemy.
By March 1968, Defense Secretary Clark Clifford captured the futility of the American strategy in a note to Johnson: "We seem to have a sinkhole. We put in more, they match it. We put in more, they match it." He observed that the Viet Cong were now better armed than the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), a devastating admission about the effectiveness of American military aid and training. Ironically, documents from Hanoi's assessment of the Tet Offensive reveal that North Vietnamese leaders were equally prone to overoptimism, admitting "we have not been able to annihilate much of the enemy." Both sides, it seems, were trapped in their own narratives of inevitable success.
Hunt includes Walter Cronkite's famous commentary following the Tet Offensive on February 27, 1968, which concluded that "it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could." When America's most trusted newsman reached this conclusion, the political viability of the war effectively ended, though the fighting would continue for another five years until the agreement of January 27, 1973.
The collection also illuminates aspects of the conflict often overlooked in American accounts. Women played a crucial role on behalf of North Vietnam, with approximately 1.5 million women in military service—60,000 in regular forces and one million in local forces. Of the 170,000 volunteer youth, 70 to 80 percent were women. Yet documents also reveal that parents in the North, like their American counterparts, did not want their sons going to war, a reminder of the shared human tragedy transcending ideological boundaries.
Perhaps the most poignant documents are those recording the 1995 and 1997 meetings between Robert McNamara and General Vo Nguyen Giap with other Vietnamese leaders. McNamara sought to discuss mutual "misunderstandings" that had prolonged the conflict. The North Vietnamese response was devastating in its simplicity: "We never had a problem understanding you; you had a problem understanding us." This exchange encapsulates the fundamental American failure—the inability to comprehend that for the Vietnamese, this was not primarily about Cold War ideology but about national independence and reunification, goals for which they were willing to accept staggering losses that no American calculation of acceptable casualties could match.
Hunt's editorial work in assembling these documents allows readers to trace American involvement from the early Cold War certainties of NSC 64 through the bitter recriminations of the post-war period. The power of primary documents lies in their resistance to retrospective sanitization; they capture decisions and assessments in real time, preserving the assumptions, blind spots, and occasional clear-sightedness of historical actors. What emerges is a cautionary tale about the limits of military power when divorced from political and cultural understanding—lessons that subsequent generations of policymakers have repeatedly failed to absorb.
For anyone seeking to understand not just what happened in Vietnam but why intelligent, well-intentioned officials made such catastrophic decisions, Hunt's compilation provides essential reading. The documents speak for themselves, requiring little editorial commentary to reveal the tragedy of a war that many of its architects knew was unwinnable even as they escalated American involvement. The collection stands as both historical record and warning.
Edited by Michael H. Hunt (2010)
Michael H. Hunt's "A Vietnam War Reader" serves as an invaluable compilation of primary documents spanning the entire post-World War II history of Vietnam, offering readers unfiltered access to the actual words and assessments of those who shaped and experienced one of America's most consequential conflicts. What emerges from these documents is not merely a chronicle of military and political decisions, but a stark portrait of institutional self-deception, persistent misunderstanding, and the gradual recognition of an unwinnable position.
The collection begins appropriately with the roots of American involvement, including National Security Council Report 64 from February 27, 1950. This document reveals the fundamental contradiction that would plague U.S. policy throughout the conflict: while acknowledging to the French that "the legitimate nationalist aspirations of the people of Indochina must be satisfied," the report simultaneously concludes that "all practicable measures be taken to prevent further communist expansion in Southeast Asia." This tension between supporting colonial powers and recognizing nationalist movements would never be resolved. Secretary of State Dulles made the administration's priorities clear in a 1954 address, emphasizing China's involvement and effectively framing Vietnam within the broader Cold War containment strategy that Eisenhower continued from his predecessor.
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution of August 10, 1964, represents the pivotal moment when Congress essentially abdicated its war-making authority, resolving that it "approved and supports the determination of the President, as Commander-in-Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression." This blank check would enable the massive escalation that followed, even as doubts festered at the highest levels of government.
Perhaps the most revealing documents in Hunt's collection are those exposing the internal dissent within the Johnson administration. President Johnson himself harbored deep doubts about large-scale U.S. intervention. George Ball's prescient memo of July 1965 to Rusk, McNamara, Bundy, and ultimately Johnson, began with the stark assessment that "the South Vietnamese are losing the war to the Vietcong." Ball provided damning evidence of the fundamental problem: the sneak attack at Da Nang succeeded despite 9,000 Marines defending the base "only because of the cooperation of the locals." He cited a B-52 raid that failed because "the Vietnamese had obviously been tipped off," and noted that a search-and-destroy mission by the 173rd Airborne Brigade "never made contact with the enemy who had obviously gotten advanced word of the assignment." These documents reveal what should have been obvious: no amount of American firepower could compensate for fighting a war where the local population provided intelligence and support to the enemy.
By March 1968, Defense Secretary Clark Clifford captured the futility of the American strategy in a note to Johnson: "We seem to have a sinkhole. We put in more, they match it. We put in more, they match it." He observed that the Viet Cong were now better armed than the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), a devastating admission about the effectiveness of American military aid and training. Ironically, documents from Hanoi's assessment of the Tet Offensive reveal that North Vietnamese leaders were equally prone to overoptimism, admitting "we have not been able to annihilate much of the enemy." Both sides, it seems, were trapped in their own narratives of inevitable success.
Hunt includes Walter Cronkite's famous commentary following the Tet Offensive on February 27, 1968, which concluded that "it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could." When America's most trusted newsman reached this conclusion, the political viability of the war effectively ended, though the fighting would continue for another five years until the agreement of January 27, 1973.
The collection also illuminates aspects of the conflict often overlooked in American accounts. Women played a crucial role on behalf of North Vietnam, with approximately 1.5 million women in military service—60,000 in regular forces and one million in local forces. Of the 170,000 volunteer youth, 70 to 80 percent were women. Yet documents also reveal that parents in the North, like their American counterparts, did not want their sons going to war, a reminder of the shared human tragedy transcending ideological boundaries.
Perhaps the most poignant documents are those recording the 1995 and 1997 meetings between Robert McNamara and General Vo Nguyen Giap with other Vietnamese leaders. McNamara sought to discuss mutual "misunderstandings" that had prolonged the conflict. The North Vietnamese response was devastating in its simplicity: "We never had a problem understanding you; you had a problem understanding us." This exchange encapsulates the fundamental American failure—the inability to comprehend that for the Vietnamese, this was not primarily about Cold War ideology but about national independence and reunification, goals for which they were willing to accept staggering losses that no American calculation of acceptable casualties could match.
Hunt's editorial work in assembling these documents allows readers to trace American involvement from the early Cold War certainties of NSC 64 through the bitter recriminations of the post-war period. The power of primary documents lies in their resistance to retrospective sanitization; they capture decisions and assessments in real time, preserving the assumptions, blind spots, and occasional clear-sightedness of historical actors. What emerges is a cautionary tale about the limits of military power when divorced from political and cultural understanding—lessons that subsequent generations of policymakers have repeatedly failed to absorb.
For anyone seeking to understand not just what happened in Vietnam but why intelligent, well-intentioned officials made such catastrophic decisions, Hunt's compilation provides essential reading. The documents speak for themselves, requiring little editorial commentary to reveal the tragedy of a war that many of its architects knew was unwinnable even as they escalated American involvement. The collection stands as both historical record and warning.
December 24, 2020
The book was a bit lacking. While the documents were firsthand accounts which I think is very important in looking at a source, the documents were not given in their entirety. Now were the leaders words compared to their actions (actions speak louder than words).
I would not use this book as a solid source of what happened in Vietnam. It does not paint the full picture, which is what I was looking for. If it did have the complete resources, I would use it as ONE of the resources I would use in studying the subject. Left as it is, it can be a book used to get ideas of what to further research.
I would not use this book as a solid source of what happened in Vietnam. It does not paint the full picture, which is what I was looking for. If it did have the complete resources, I would use it as ONE of the resources I would use in studying the subject. Left as it is, it can be a book used to get ideas of what to further research.
April 8, 2025
A useful collection of documents with some additional context. One of the best ways to understand the war as it teaches directly from the horse's mouth as it were. Personally, I think it is best utilized in conjunction with other books as no one book will give a full picture without sacrificing detail.
April 27, 2025
A gathering of firsthand accounts from the time period of the Vietnam Wars.
December 18, 2015
This book only gives a rough outline of the vietnam war. But that is not the point of the book. The point is the real experiences, directly from the people involved in the war. This provides a unique insight but I would recommend reading about the war in general beforehand. I didn't and I feel like a missed some parts of the book. All in all a nice educationial read with a nice view of different times.
April 20, 2015
A good and balanced presentation of how Americans and Vietnamese view the Vietnam War, which is also called "The War Against American Aggression" by Vietnamese.
It provides some historical context thru the speeches, diaries and correspondences of soldiers and civil leaders feom either side.
It provides some historical context thru the speeches, diaries and correspondences of soldiers and civil leaders feom either side.
April 14, 2017
What I like about this book:
1. It offered a rich collection of testimonies and documents that showed various perspectives of all kinds of participants (direct or indirect) in the war. For the first time I got to understand more how all these people felt, what motivated them and where their positions were during the war.
2. The book's overall tone was very objective. Neither heroic nor vanquished. I'd not be able to read something like that in Vietnam where unreasonable censorship was still being carried out.
3. Vietnamese people on both sides are still harbouring so much resentment against each other nowadays. The most active (and narrow-minded?) among them tend to pick just a few historical details to condemn their opponents. This book however put an end to their arguments by showing the big picture of the war: how it commenced (with links to the previous Viet-France war), who influenced its progress, what roles culture and society of both VN and America played to affect the war's outcome, etc. The book thus proved that the war's extraordinary complexity would negate any attempt to condemn just one of the two sides for the consequences it left.
4. Many open questions were left for readers to contemplate. The book provided only with objective testimonies and documents such as phone scripts between leaders of both sides, interviews with prisoners and letters between soldiers and their families. To quote some from the book:
* To what extent did Ho Chi Minh's evolving views emerge from earlier nationalise attitudes, and to what extent were they shaped by communism?
* How did the emerging struggle for South Vietnam look from the perspective of ordinary Vietnamese?
* How did those at war imagine the cause they were fighting for.
1. It offered a rich collection of testimonies and documents that showed various perspectives of all kinds of participants (direct or indirect) in the war. For the first time I got to understand more how all these people felt, what motivated them and where their positions were during the war.
2. The book's overall tone was very objective. Neither heroic nor vanquished. I'd not be able to read something like that in Vietnam where unreasonable censorship was still being carried out.
3. Vietnamese people on both sides are still harbouring so much resentment against each other nowadays. The most active (and narrow-minded?) among them tend to pick just a few historical details to condemn their opponents. This book however put an end to their arguments by showing the big picture of the war: how it commenced (with links to the previous Viet-France war), who influenced its progress, what roles culture and society of both VN and America played to affect the war's outcome, etc. The book thus proved that the war's extraordinary complexity would negate any attempt to condemn just one of the two sides for the consequences it left.
4. Many open questions were left for readers to contemplate. The book provided only with objective testimonies and documents such as phone scripts between leaders of both sides, interviews with prisoners and letters between soldiers and their families. To quote some from the book:
* To what extent did Ho Chi Minh's evolving views emerge from earlier nationalise attitudes, and to what extent were they shaped by communism?
* How did the emerging struggle for South Vietnam look from the perspective of ordinary Vietnamese?
* How did those at war imagine the cause they were fighting for.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews