The Vietnam War as You've Never Seen It ... From Hanoi: Interview with Lien-Hang Nguyen
by David Austin Walsh, History News Network
[url]http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/148755#sthash.r06NHjDE.dpuf[/url]
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Le Duan, the central figure of your book, is fascinating. When I was reading the book, I almost felt like he was a Stalin without the cult of personality, [Color=blue][B]very a much a schemer who managed to get himself into a position of power.[/B][/color]
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Q: [B]I want to jump into the actual course of the war, because you describe very vividly in the book how in 1964 Le Duan rolls the dice. He says, "We can implement this GOGU strategy and topple the South Vietnamese government before the Americans become heavily involved." And that doesn't work. Johnson comes up with Tonkin as an excuse to intervene, and the U.S. enters in force. And then the bombing campaign starts. Given all of this, how does Le Duan survive politically? (He stayed in power until his death in 1986.)[/B]
A: I think that by 1963, he had pretty much established his police/garrison state. There is a period from 1963 to 1967 when his detractors become more vocal and foreign powers start to come into the equation and pull the Vietnamese in different directions. But nonetheless, by 1963 he's really able to control the situation. When the 1964 gamble failed, he fell back on his police state and in particular the Ministry of Public Security under Tran Quoc Hoan, to clamp down on any criticism that could damage his position or his ability to dictate war policies. That's the reason he was able to stay in control -- by 1963, everything is in place to allow him to dominate in the North.
That's how he was able to stay in power, despite having failed each time he tried to implement his GOGU strategy -- the first time having given the Americans the excuse to intervene directly in 1964; the failed Tet Offfensive in 1968, despite its ultimate failure to delivery victory and costing the Southern insurgency something like 80 percent of the guerilla infrastructure, and even the 1972 Easter Offensive didn't result in better terms at the negotiating table. But because he'd already laid in place his police state, he was never pushed out of power the way that Truong Chinh was.
Q: [B]What brought Le Duan and the North Vietnamese to the negiotating table in Paris, with Richard Nixon, of all people?[/B]
A: Le Duan's decision to enter into negotiations with the United States wasn't really a sign that he was ready to throw in the towel. He had to do it because there was no other choice. The roll of the dice failed, but the North Vietnamese did read what was taking place in the U.S. and Le Duan knew that time was essential on the North's side. The Americans were definitely going to leave, so the question was, were they going to make the South strong enough so that the South could endure? Would there end up being a permanent division, like Korea? That was the big fear.
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About [B]Lien-Hang Nguyen[/B]:
Currently she is a Dorothy Borg Associate Professor in the History of the United States and East Asia of Columbia University.
[B]Education[/B]
Ph.D. – Yale University, 2008
B.A. – University of Pennsylvania, 1996
[B]Interests and Research[/B]
Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, Dorothy Borg Associate Professor in the History of the United States and East Asia, specializes in the Vietnam War, U.S.-Southeast Asian relations, and the global Cold War. Professor Nguyen is currently working on a comprehensive history of the 1968 Tet Offensive for RandomHouse. She is the general editor of the forthcoming Cambridge History of the Vietnam War, 3 vols., as well as co-editor of the Cambridge Studies in U.S. Foreign Relations.
[B]Courses[/B]
The Vietnam War
The United States and East Asia
The Wars for Indochina
Southest Asia & the World
[B]Awards[/B]
National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar Grant, 2016.
Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Stuart L. Bernath Memorial Lecture Prize, 2015.
Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Stuart L. Bernath Book Prize, 2013.
Society for Military History Edward M. Coffman Prize for best military history manuscript, 2012.
Henry Chauncey Jr. ’57 Postdoctoral Fellow in Grand Strategy, International Security Studies, Yale University, 2009-2010.
International Seminar on Decolonization Fellow, National History Center, American Historical Association, Summer 2009.
John M. Olin Postdoctoral Fellow for Military History and Strategy, International Security Studies, Yale University, 2008-2009.
John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies Pre-doctoral Fellow, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, 2005-2006.
Center for International Security and Cooperation Pre-doctoral Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University, 2004-2005.