RAND in Southeast Asia: A History of the Vietnam War Era

by Duong Van Mai Elliott, James A. Thomson (Contributor)

This volume chronicles RAND1s involvement in researching insurgency and counterinsurgency in Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand during the Vietnam War era and assesses the effect that this research had on U.S. officials and policies. Elliott draws on interviews with former RAND staff and the many studies that RAND produced on these topics to provide a narrative that captures the tenor of the times and conveys the attitudes and thinking of those involved.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Asia, War

694 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2010

About the author

Dương Văn Mai Elliott is a Vietnamese-American writer and translator. She was born and raised in Vietnam, and was awarded a scholarship in 1960 to pursue post-secondary education in the United States. She then studied diplomacy at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Washington D.C. She graduated from Georgetown in 1963 with a major in Political Science. She then returned to Saigon, where she worked for the RAND Corporation interviewing Viet Cong prisoners of war and defectors for a research project to determine the morale and motivation of the guerrillas during the Vietnam War. She met her American husband, David W.P. Elliott, (now a professor of Political Science) while a student in Washington, D.C., and the two married in Saigon.
In the years following her move to the United States with her husband, she made several trips to Vietnam. Her most recent visits included trips as a guest lecturer for an Asia Society tour in February 2000, as a member of a private Vietnamese-American delegation vetted by the White House for President Clinton's visit to Vietnam in November 2000, and as a guest lecturer for Smithsonian study tours in February 2001 and March 2002.

After a long career in corporate banking, she resigned her job to write her family story, The Sacred Willow: Four Generations in the Life of a Vietnamese Family, which was published by Oxford University Press in April 1999 (under the name of Duong Van Mai Elliott). The Sacred Willow was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and was a finalist for the Asian-American literary award in the year 2000.

(from http://vi.uh.edu/vnwomen/maielliott.htm)

Reviews

[Scott Holstad · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important resource and history of a unique, regrettable and important period. A lot of good detail. Plus, I know some of the people included within the pages!

[Russ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great read by Mai Elliott

[Walk-Minh · Rating 3 out of 5]

A vibrant overview of a nationally-known thinktank

When one hears the name "RAND Corporation", one's historical memory might immediately recall the name "Daniel Ellsberg" and his controversial dealings with the Pentagon Papers. However, this long-winded book takes you on a tour of the thinktank that made its bones with helping the US Air Force assess whether to bomb Vietnam less or more during this country's rueful intervention in her internal affairs. Overall, the book is informative, but its voice and cadence can be a bit all over the place. Meaning, the writing switches moods from the formal to the informal in slightly aggravating ways.

[Benjamin Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A readable account of war-era decision-making, it humanizes the complex history of Southeast Asia through firsthand interviews and declassified documents.