North Viet Research Articles

‘US Intelligence and Vietnam’: The Official Version(s)

Recent declassifications of the official histories of Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency activities in the Vietnam War give historians a sharper outline of the overall American intelligence effort in that conflict and a trove of supporting details. While scholars will have to use the new releases with caution, the histories (when combined with appraisals from the Armed Services) offer glimpses of the scale of the US intelligence program and some of the complications that hindered its effectiveness. Two particular features stand out when these materials are viewed in conjunction: the disconnectedness of the various agencies' and Services' efforts from each other (and from decision makers in Washington); and the difficulties that all of them had in working with America's South Vietnamese allies. The picture emerging is thus one of a congeries of largely independent intelligence campaigns working simultaneously against the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong targets. Intelligence miscues did not lose the Vietnam War for the Americans and South Vietnamese, but it now seems clearer that they made victory less likely.

The Stage as a Classroom

Orange—In a play that recalled one of the darker moments in U.S. history, an Army Colonel walked across a dimly lighted stage Monday, handed a pistol to a lieutenant and ordered the man to put the gun to his head and pull the trigger.“You can't be serious,” stammered the horrified lieutenant as his superior officer loudly repeated the order.Upset and confused, the lieutenant let an awkward moment of silence pass, then he quietly told the colonel, a prosecutor: “I can't do it.”So went the chilling climax of a morality play at Chapman College's Waltmar Theater on Monday as students from the freshmen seminar program moved the study of war and peace out of the classroom onto the stage….This is how a local paper reported a play my class wrote and performed about the court martial of Lt. William Calley. As you may recall, William Calley was the Army Lieutenant who, during the height of the Vietnam war, led his platoon into MyLai 4, a small village in South Vietnam. Expecting to find heavily fortified North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers, Calley and his men instead encountered several hundred South Vietnamese civilians, most of them old men, women, children, and babies. The civilians were herded into groups. They were then shot. Calley was later court martialled in one of the most controversial trials in our nation's history.

Legal Dimensions of the Decision to Intercede in Cambodia

In appraising national security decisions, such as the recent decision to send United States combat forces into the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong border sanctuaries in Cambodia, it is useful to focus on three interrelated questions. First, is the decision consistent with national and international law? Second, is the decision consistent with the national interest? And third, are there other alternatives which are likely to be more satisfactory in implementing the national interest? Each of these questions represents an important perspective for appraisal. Although the answer to the first question is important for answering the second and third questions, international lawyers should resist the temptation to regard an affirmative answer to the legal question as equivalent to proof that a decision is the best option for national action. Conversely, international lawyers should also avoid the temptation to regard personal doubts about the efficacy of a particular option as equivalent to proof of the illegality of the option. An international legal perspective is a critical input in national security decisions and should have a major rôle in defining the national interest and in introducing and delimiting options for national action. On the other hand, efforts to overuse international law, whether by way of support or criticism of national action, serve only to obscure the vital rôle that an international legal perspective should play.