No single event since World War II has marked this country's foreign policy and national image as deeply as did the war in Vietnam. Vietnam and America is a complete history of that war, as documented in essays by leading experts and in original source material. It presents generous selections from the documentary record, dispels distortions, and illuminates in depth both sides of the history of America's encounter with Vietnam.

Includes maps of: [Indochina].

Part I. The Vietnamese struggle for independence through World War II -- Vietnam's revolutionary tradition / Ngo Vinh Long -- First appeal to the United States (June 18, 1919) / Ho Chi Minh -- "The path which led me to Leninism" (1960) / Ho Chi Minh -- Founding of the Doc-Lap Dong Minh Hoi (June 1941) / Ho Chi Minh -- Imperial Abdication (August 1945) / Bao Dai -- Vietnam Declaration of Independence (September 2, 1945) -- Part II. The war with France -- The Franco-Vietnamese War, 1945-1954 : origins of US involvement / Ngo Vinh Long -- The French return : two State Department views (April 1945) -- Vietnam's second appeal to the United States : cable to President Harry S. Truman (October 17, 1945) / Ho Chi Minh -- Franco-Vietnamese Agreement on the Independence of Vietnam (March 1946) -- Sponsoring French colonialism : the State Department decision (May 1950) / Dean Acheson -- Taking up the white man's burden : two American views (1954) / John Foster Dulles and Richard M. Nixon -- Vietnamese victory : Dien Bien Phu, 1954 / Vo Nguyen Giap -- Part III. Geneva : the peace subverted -- The Geneva cease-fire (July 20, 1954) -- Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference (July 21,1954) -- Close of the Geneva Conference (July 21,1954) -- Cold War combat : tactics after Geneva / Edward G. Lansdale -- Heroin and politics in Saigon / Alfred W. McCoy -- Elections and reunification denied (1955) -- "Vietnam's democratic one-man rule" / Wesley R. Fishel -- A flawed commitment : US endorsement, with conditions, of Ngo Dinh Diem (1954) / Dwight D. Eisenhower -- Genesis of US support for the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem / Robert Scheer -- Part IV. The revolution against Diem -- Behind the miracle of South Vietnam / Robert Scheer -- The legal underpinnings of government terror in South Vietnam : Law 10/59 -- Washington's man in Saigon : American commitment to South Vietnam (1961) / Lyndon B. Johnson, Ngo Dinh Diem, and John F. Kennedy -- "No other road to take" : origin of the National Liberation Front in Ben Tre / Nguyen Thi Dinh -- Founding program of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam -- "The political and military line of our party" / Vo Nguyen Giap -- US National Security memorandum : policy-planning for counterinsurgency (1962) / McGeorge Bundy -- The rise and fall of "counterinsurgency," 1961-1964 / David G. Marr -- The Buddhist crisis of 1963 : the view from Washington / Pentagon Papers -- Diem must go : the US Embassy in Saigon orchestrates a coup d'etat (1963) -- Part V. The Americanization of the war -- The blueprint for an Americanized war (1963-1964) / Pentagon Papers -- The Gulf of Tonkin "incidents" and resolution (1964) -- Rationale for escalation : the US government "white paper" of 1965 -- Refutation of the "white paper" / I.F. Stone -- "Defeat American escalation" : report to the National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1965) / Ho Chi Minh -- Negotiations? Hanoi's Four Points (April 8, 1965) and Washington's Fourteen Points (January 7, 1966) -- US crisis managers choose from among diminishing options (1965) / William C. Westmoreland, George Ball, William P. Bundy, and Robert S. McNamara -- Part VI. The movement against the war -- "We won't go" / May 2nd Movement -- "Freedom draft card" -- Two poems : "Afterthoughts on a napalm-drop on jungle villages near Haiphong" and "Truth blazes even in little children's hearts" / Barbara Beidler and Huy Can -- "Declaration of conscience against the war in Vietnam" (1965) -- "We refuse, October 16" (1967) -- "A call to resist illegitimate authority" (1967) -- "Declaration of independence from the war in Vietnam" (April 1967) / Martin Luther King, Jr. -- "Deserters' manifesto" (1968) -- "Constraints of the Negro civil rights movement on American military effectiveness" (1970) / George L. Jackson -- "The collapse of the armed forces" (1971) / Robert D. Heinl, Jr. -- Part VII. The decisive year : 1968 -- "The year of decision, 1968" / William C. Westmoreland -- "Remembering the Tet Offensive" / David Hunt -- The aftermath of Tet / Pentagon Papers -- "Peace in Vietnam and Southeast Asia" : address to the nation (March 31,1968) / Lyndon Baines Johnson -- What happened at My Lai? / Seymour M. Hersh -- Part VIII. Nixon's war and the aftermath -- Negotiating positions of 1969 : the NLF's Ten Points (May 8) and Nixon's Eight Points (May 14) -- "Vietnamization" (November 3, 1969) / Richard M. Nixon -- Explaining the "secret war" in Laos (March 6, 1970) / Richard M. Nixon -- Rationale for the invasion of Cambodia (April 30, 1970) / Richard M. Nixon -- Vietnam Veterans Against the War : testimony to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee (April 22, 1971) / John Kerry -- The ecological impact of the air war / Paul Feeny with Jim Allaway -- Ending the war and restoring peace in Vietnam : the Paris Peace Accords (January 27, 1973) -- US promise of postwar reconstruction : letter to DRV Prime Minister Pham Van Dong (February 1,1973) / Richard M. Nixon -- War Powers Resolution (1973) -- The "great spring victory : an account of the liberation of South Vietnam" (1975) / Van Tien Dung -- "'The last chapter'?" / H. Bruce Franklin -- Epilogue: "The Vietnam War in American memory" / Marilyn B. Young.