HIST 3225-401  Fall 2006                                  
Günter Bischof & Stephen E. Ambrose

ED 206: Tue 6:30 – 9:15 pm
Dr. Bischof’s office hours in ED 128 (CenterAustria):
Th 5:00 –6:00 pm, or on class days before class
Office Phone: 280-3223            E-mail: gjbhi@mobiletel.com

The War in Vietnam

The Vietnam War is the master narrative of an American intervention in the Cold War gone awry. It has produced one of the great traumas in American History. We will study these aspects and many more. Professor Ambrose’s lectures give you the basic outline of domestic and international events. Professor Bischof’s lectures review the materials assigned and add critical interpretative frameworks and questions such as comparing the French and the American Indochina wars, the American and North Vietnamese soldiers’ experiences, Vietnamese perspectives of the war, the essence of 1960’s America, and American memories of the war.
This is a distance learning course. You will be responsible for listening to Professor Ambrose’s lectures handed out on DVD and for attending Professor Bischof’s scheduled evening sessions without fail. Readings will have to be done by the dates indicated on the syllabus so you will be prepared for discussing them in class.

Grades

Midterm:                  30 %
Final:                        30 %
Papers:                      30 % (first paper 15 %, oral history 15 %)
Class Participation:  10 %

Class Readings (books available for purchase at UNO book store)

** Marilyn B. Young, The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990. New York: Harper Perennial Pb1991 [textbook narrative]
** Mark Hamilton Lytle, America’s Uncivil Wars: The Sixties Era From Elvis to the Fall of Richard Nixon. New York: Oxford UP 2006 [background textbook on domestic context of 1960s America]
** Christian G. Appy, Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides. New York: Penguin 2003 [textbook oral history of the war]
    Eric M. Bergerud, Red Thunder, Tropic of Lightning: The World of a Combat Division in Vietnam. New York Penguin Pb 1994 [history of the 25th division, one American infantry division, fighting between Saigon and Cambodia]
Michal Sallah/Mitch Weiss, Tiger Force: A True Story of Men and War. New York: Little, Brown  and Comp. 2006 [investigative report on American atrocities]
Bao Ninh, The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam. Transl. by Phna Thanh Hao New York Riverhead Pb 1993 [novel by North Vietnamese soldier]
Graham Green, The Quiet American (Viking Critical Library Edition). New York” Penguin 1996 [1950s novel by British war correspondent in 1st Indochina War]
    

Attendance Policy
Students have to attend ALL class lectures held on the UNO Lakefront campus; unexcused absences will result in one grade drop per absence; a class can only be excused by contacting the instructor in advance (phone or e-mail); if you cannot make the 5 scheduled evening classes, drop the course!

Academic Integrity
Academic integrity is fundamental to the process of learning and evaluating academic performance. Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated. Academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to, the following: cheating, plagiarism (including copying work from the Internet!), tempering with academic records and examinations, falsifying identity, and being accessory to acts of academic dishonesty. Refer to the UNO Judicial Code for further information. The Code is available online at http://www.uno.edu/~stlf/policy%20Manual/judicial_code_pts.htm.

Students with Disabilities
Students who qualify for services will receive the academic modifications for which they are legally entitled. It is the responsibility of the student to register with the Office of Disability Services (UC 260) each semester and follow their procedures for obtaining assistance.

Student Learning Objective
After successfully completing this course, students should be able to

•    Identify on a world map the major theaters of operation in this region and during this war
•    Identify the major figures (politicians, generals, diplomats) of the major belligerents who drove the war’s events
•    Understand the nature of American interventionism during the Cold War and its intersection with the postwar global decolonization struggle
•    Have a basic understanding for what motivated the fighting soldiers in the field and how the brutality of war affects individuals for their entire lives
•    Comprehend the enormity of the brutality of  the war and how a democratic nations could increasingly be drawn into unethical practices during this very destructive war
•    Understand how the legacies and memories of the Vietnam War powerfully linger on – and affect both individuals and nations -- to this day



Weekly Meeting and Reading Schedule


Tue Aug 22    Class: Introduction

        Class question: The nature of the Vietnam War and its long afterlife in American
            History. Are there parallels with the current war in Iraq?

Tue Aug 29    Class: The French and the First Indochina War and the Origins of the American Involvement (Truman and Eisenhower)
Readings:     Young, chs. 1-2
Appy, pp. 3-31
Greene, The Quiet American (entire)

Class question: Why were the French in Indochina and why did the Americans  want to be there and replace the French involvement?

Tue Sept 5    No class! Class: Eisenhower, Kennedy and the Deepening of the American
    Involvement
Readings:     Young, chs. 3-5
        Appy, pp. 41-98

Class question: What kind of ally was Diem?

Tue Sept 12    No Class! The Making of a Quagmire: Johnson and the Sending of Regular  American Troops in 1965
        Readings:    Young, chs. 6-7
                Appy, pp. 101-199

        Class question: Would Kennedy have escalated and why did LBJ escalate?

Tue Sept 19    Class: Johnson and the Americanization of the War
Readings:    Young, chs. 8-9
        Appy, pp. 200-282
        Bergerud, Red Thunder, Tropic Lightning (entire)

Class question: Why did LBJ’s strategy of “search and destroy”, body counts and
    “daylight of the end of the tunnel” fail?

Tue Sept 26    No Class! The North Vietnamese and the War    
Readings:     Bao Ninh, The Sorrow of War (entire)

Class question: see topic of first paper below

Tue Oct 3    No Class! The Nature of the Battlefield (1965-68)
Readings:    Sallah/Weiss, Tiger Force (entire)

Class question: see topic of first paper below
        
1st Paper due (5 pages). How do Bergerud, Sallah/Weiss and Bao Ninh describe and analyze the nature of the battlefield in Vietnam and the respective American and North Vietnam way of fighting the war? Where do you see the commonalities and the differences of the soldiers’ experiences? Was the nature of the guerilla war in the jungles of Vietnam bound to lead to atrocities such as committed by the “Tiger Force” and the My Lai massacre?

Tue Oct 10     Midterm Exam!

Tue Oct 17    No Class! Domestic Context: The 1960s as an Era
        Readings:     Lytle, America’s Uncivil Wars, pp. 1-216

        Class Question: Why did the 1950s “era of consensus” end and what were the
factors for the eruption of social movements and protests?

Tue Oct 24    No Class! Home Front and Anti-War Movement
Readings:    Young, chs. 10-11
        Lytle, pp. 240-65
        Appy, pp. 142-149, 262-278, 328-342
        
        Class questions: What was the nature of the antiwar movement? Which segments
and classes of society were involved? What were its ups and downs?         

Tue Oct 31    Class: Roundtable of Vietnam Veterans
        The Nature of the Battlefield and the American Soldier in Vietnam

Tue Nov 7     No Class! Tet and 1968
        Readings:     Lytle, pp. 217-39
                Appy, pp. 285-327, 343-370

Tue Nov 14    No Class! Nixon and the Vietnamization of the War
Readings:    Young, chs. 12-13
        Lytle, pp. 269-374
        Appy, pp. 371-429

Class question: Was Nixon’s madman strategy effective in “Vietnamizing” the war? Did Nixon aggravate the 1960s  “movements” and culture and why?

2nd Paper due - Oral History (6-8 pp): Conduct an oral history and write a paper on it –
    interview a Vietnam veteran, or an active opponent of the war, or a Vietnamese war
    refugee living in the U.S. today (drop paper in my mail box in the History Dept. Office,
    ED 186; or at CenterAustria, ED 128)

Tue Nov 21    Class: Making Peace and the American Withdrawal
        Readings:     Young, chs. 14-15
                Appy, pp. 430-511

        Class question: Was Nixon’s “decent interval” a strategy of defeat and betrayal of
          the  U.S.’s South Vietnamese allies? Was it a “cut and run” strategy?

Tue Nov 28    No Class! Who Won? Legacies and Memories of the War
Readings:    Appy, pp. 515-549
        Lytle, pp. 375-79

Class question: Did anybody win? Why is the American memory of the Vietnam War so intense? What role did “The Wall” in Washington play in exorcising the war? What effect did the war have on US – Vietnamese relations? What happened to the countless refugees of the war?

Tue Dec 5     5:30 – 7:30 Final Examination