Hanoi's War
Hanoi's War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam
Lien-Hang T. Nguyen
Series: The New Cold War History
Copyright Date: 2012
Published by: University of North Carolina Press
Pages: 464
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5149/9780807882696_nguyen
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Book Info
Hanoi's War
Book Description:

While most historians of the Vietnam War focus on the origins of U.S. involvement and the Americanization of the conflict, Lien-Hang T. Nguyen examines the international context in which North Vietnamese leaders pursued the war and American intervention ended. This riveting narrative takes the reader from the marshy swamps of the Mekong Delta to the bomb-saturated Red River Delta, from the corridors of power in Hanoi and Saigon to the Nixon White House, and from the peace negotiations in Paris to high-level meetings in Beijing and Moscow, all to reveal that peace never had a chance in Vietnam.Hanoi's Warrenders transparent the internal workings of America's most elusive enemy during the Cold War and shows that the war fought during the peace negotiations was bloodier and much more wide ranging than it had been previously. Using never-before-seen archival materials from the Vietnam Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as materials from other archives around the world, Nguyen explores the politics of war-making and peace-making not only from the North Vietnamese perspective but also from that of South Vietnam, the Soviet Union, China, and the United States, presenting a uniquely international portrait.

eISBN: 978-1-4696-0166-3
Subjects: History, Political Science
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  1. Front Matter
    Front Matter (pp. i-vi)
  2. Table of Contents
    Table of Contents (pp. vii-viii)
  3. Acknowledgments
    Acknowledgments (pp. ix-xi)
  4. Abbreviations
    Abbreviations (pp. xii-xvi)
  5. INTRODUCTION
    INTRODUCTION (pp. 1-14)

    Before the bombs fell, Hanoi was relatively quiet. Although the war had disrupted the frenetic pace of life in North Vietnam’s largest city, the late fall and early winter of 1972 seemed even more desolate than seasons past. Between one-quarter and one-half of the population had been evacuated since early December, leaving empty such places as the bustling Dong Xuan market nestled in the maze of the Old Quarter and the tree-lined boulevard surrounding West Lake that had once provided a romantic backdrop for strolling young lovers.²Mua phun, the steady light rains of the winter months, enveloped Hanoi, shrouding...

  6. PART I: THE PATH TO REVOLUTIONARY WAR
    • Chapter one LE DUAN’S RISE TO POWER AND THE ROAD TO WAR
      Chapter one LE DUAN’S RISE TO POWER AND THE ROAD TO WAR (pp. 17-47)

      Under the cover of darkness on 22 January 1955, Le Duan, Party secretary of the Southern Territorial Committee, bid a hasty farewell to his second-in-command, Le Duc Tho, at the mouth of the Ong Doc River of the tip of Ca Mau province in the deep south of Vietnam. While Le Duan secretly descended the river on a rickety canoe back to the heart of the Mekong Delta, Le Duc Tho stayed onboard the larger ship headed for North Vietnam.² Earlier that day, the two Party leaders had boarded the Hanoi-bound Polish vesselKilinskiamid great fanfare in front of...

    • Chapter two POLICING THE STATE IN A TIME OF WAR
      Chapter two POLICING THE STATE IN A TIME OF WAR (pp. 48-84)

      Walking through the halls of the Social Sciences Institute in 1963, Hoang Minh Chinh worried that he had not done everything in his power to rebalance VWP policy. A devotee of Soviet thinking, Chinh, head of the Marxist Institute of Philosophy, was convinced that the Party was veering dangerously close to the Chinese line and away from the accepted path of peaceful coexistence espoused by Moscow. Instead of devoting energy to industrialization and collectivization, North Vietnam was sending precious manpower and matériel southward in an endless stream. When Hanoi’s foremost theoretician, Truong Chinh, approached him to compile a report for...

  7. PART II: BREAKING THE STALEMATE
    • Chapter three THE BATTLE IN HANOI FOR THE TET OFFENSIVE
      Chapter three THE BATTLE IN HANOI FOR THE TET OFFENSIVE (pp. 87-109)

      On 5 July 1967, one day before he was set to return South, COSVN Commander General Nguyen Chi Thanh had lunch with an ailing Ho Chi Minh. Lingering at his car before leaving, General Thanh worried it would be the last time he would be able to set eyes on the aged leader. Ho was thinking along the same lines. Asking Thanh to convey a message to the southern revolutionaries since he might not live to see victory and reunification, Ho wanted them to know that the South was always in his heart. Moved by Ho’s parting words, Thanh made...

    • Chapter four TO PARIS AND BEYOND
      Chapter four TO PARIS AND BEYOND (pp. 110-150)

      It was apparent to many Saigonese living in the labyrinth of pathways just off Justice Bridge (Cau Cong Ly) that something was afoot on the eve of the 1968 Lunar New Year. For weeks prior to the holiday, new cyclo drivers, street vendors, and itinerant peddlers positioned themselves in tucked-away corners and deep in ghetto alleys. Even during the busiest seasons these seemingly innocuous neighborhoods rarely attracted new faces, unlike the Paris-inspired boulevards of downtown Saigon where expensive restaurants, crowded cafés, and the bustling Ben Thanh Market maintained a constant buzz of activity. Busily preparing for the upcoming Tet festivities,...

  8. PART III: THE PURSUIT OF A CHIMERIC VICTORY
    • Chapter five SIDESHOWS AND MAIN ARENAS
      Chapter five SIDESHOWS AND MAIN ARENAS (pp. 153-193)

      Le Duc Tho met Henry Kissinger for the first time on a cold winter’s day in a working-class suburb of Paris. Having sparred directly and indirectly with other American negotiators, including W. Averell Harriman and Henry Cabot Lodge, Tho quickly took stock of Kissinger, who appeared quite different from his patrician predecessors. Tho, and his colleagues in the Politburo, steeled themselves for this new type of American negotiator: a German Jew who had risen to the top in both academia and government in his adopted home country.² Recalling two lines from the Vietnamese epic poemTruyen Kieu, “Dan long cho...

    • Chapter six TALKING WHILE FIGHTING
      Chapter six TALKING WHILE FIGHTING (pp. 194-228)

      On 12 June 1971, Nixon gave away his daughter, Tricia, in a stunning ceremony in the White House Rose Garden. Although it had rained all morning, the president had it on good authority that the sun would come out late in the afternoon, in time for the bride to make a grand entrance in front of 400 guests. Looking dapper and relaxed in his long tuxedo jacket, Nixon could breathe easily: Tricia’s wedding went off without a hitch. Weeks before, he had authorized his national security advisor to make an important concession at a secret meeting in Paris with the...

  9. PART IV: THE MAKING OF A FAULTY PEACE
    • Chapter seven WAR AGAINST DÉTENTE
      Chapter seven WAR AGAINST DÉTENTE (pp. 231-256)

      Nixon and Kissinger sat awkwardly as Brezhnev hurled insults at them at his dacha in Novo Ogarevo, west of Moscow. As the first American president to visit the Soviet Union, Nixon’s trip to Moscow in May 1972 during a beautiful Russian spring was just as momentous as his visit to Beijing a few months earlier. Although the historic encounter began uncomfortably at the Soviet leader’s summer estate, it included a more pleasant river cruise down the Moscow River. As American leaders took in the historic splendors of Moscow, including the Kremlin, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, Gorky Park, and...

    • Chapter eight WAR FOR PEACE
      Chapter eight WAR FOR PEACE (pp. 257-299)

      Each time Nga received a letter from her husband, Le Duan, telling her to remain strong and be a hero of the revolution, she passed it along to her colleagues, who felt similarly buoyed by his words. By 1972, Nga had become deputy head of the Women’s Auxiliary Corps and a member of the Party Regional Committee. Although she held an important position and wanted to travel around the Mekong Delta to survey the war effort, her comrades insisted that Nga stay close to headquarters for fear that she be arrested by enemy forces. Her capture would not only be...

  10. EPILOGUE
    EPILOGUE (pp. 300-304)

    Under the command of General Van Tien Dung, PAVN troops entered Saigon on 30 April 1975, bringing the Ho Chi Minh Offensive to a successful close. As communist soldiers marched and rode atop Soviet tanks into the heart of RVN power, exuberant masses lined the streets of Saigon to welcome the troops as liberators. In the end, the Party did not need for the South Vietnamese people to rise up and help topple the Saigon regime; South Vietnam’s leaders had more or less fled the country a week before. On 21 April, Nguyen Van Thieu had given a rambling resignation...

  11. CONCLUSION
    CONCLUSION (pp. 305-312)

    It has been nearly four decades since the fall of Saigon. In the intervening years, policymakers, journalists, and historians have battled over the question of what went wrong. How did the United States become mired in a disastrous war in Southeast Asia and why did Washington fail to achieve victory in Vietnam? While these crucial debates will continue, this study suggests that perhaps the time has come to formulate a new set of questions for insight into the old debates. How did North Vietnam manage to engage the United States in total war and why did Hanoi emerge victorious over...

  12. Notes
    Notes (pp. 313-390)
  13. Bibliography
    Bibliography (pp. 391-416)
  14. Index
    Index (pp. 417-444)
  15. Back Matter
    Back Matter (pp. 445-445)
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