Sources on Vietnam War Massacres
Sources on Vietnam War Massacres
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 04:37:19 -0400
From: Stephen Morris <sjmorris@mail.jhuwash.jhu.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Sources on Vietnam war Massacres
** Reply Requested When Convenient **
I find it interesting and illustrative of the state of their profession that, in response to a request for sources on massacres committed during the Vietnam war, both of the American ethnic academic historians who have commented so far should raise the issue of My Lai (which resulted in the slaughter of hundreds), and several other smaller atrocities or alleged atrocities by Allied forces. But neither of these academics has mentioned the well known atrocities against thousands of Vietnamese civilians committed by the NVA/VC.
The largest single event atrocities committed during the Vietnam war inside Vietnam were either the Hue massacre of 1968, carried out by the NVA/VC, the NVA shelling and machine gunning of civilians escaping from Quang Tri during the NVA Easter Offensive of 1972, or the NVA shelling of thousands of civilians in the columns of soldiers and mostly civilians fleeing the highlands in 1975.
The answer as to which was the largest should be known to serious sholars of the Vietnam war. Unfortunately the topic of communist atrocities seems to be not of much interest to most of the Vietnam specialists active on this list.
I am not sure who all the commanders responsible for the 1972 and 1975 massacres were. But I do know that two of those responsible for Hue 1968, then Defense Minister General Vo Nguyen Giap, and then regional commander Tran Van Quang were, last time I checked, still alive in Hanoi. Giap was also Defense Minister in 1972 and 1975, but less actively involved in policy in 1975. Unfortunately interviewing these comrades on these sensitive matters is hardly likely to be very illuminating. As loyal party men they will deny that the slaughter of civilians by communists ever happened (one official Hanoi line on the Hue massacres is that "the people" did it in anger. See the PBS "Vietna. A Television History" episode on Tet for that). Some of these events were reported in the American press at the time. Better personal interview results might come from talking to the relatives of the victims, as the PBS team under Austin Hoyt (now at WGBH Boston) did at the time.
There were many other atrocities of merely My Lai proportions committed by the NVA/VC -- such as the flame thrower extermination of hundreds of Montagnard women and children at Dak Son in 1967, and the slaughters at Duc Duc and Phu Thanh (?) villages in 1970 and 1971. All these events can be documented.
I wonder why the Vietnam studies professionals had not raised these examples before I did?
Stephen J. Morris.
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 05:15:47 -0400
From: Stephen Morris <sjmorris@mail.jhuwash.jhu.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Sources on Vietnam war Massacres
To forestall any possible misrepresentation of my views on what competent, honest and objective historians or television documentary producers should present when discussing Vietnam war atrocities, let me make my views clear.
I believe that in any scholarly printed work or television documentary the My Lai atrocity should be discussed, including the belated resistance to it by some American soldiers (recently honoured), as should any other confirmed large scale atrocities against civilians carried out by Allied forces. These atrocities should be set alongside the more numerous examples mentioned previously, of atrocities equal to or many times larger in scale than My Lai, committed by the communists. A discussion should then be undertaken of official American rules of conduct, issued to American troops, why these rules were not followed in some specific instances, the poor record of South Korean military justice and contrition, and the mixed record of American military justice and public contrition.
That should be contrasted with the actual (not official PR) communist policy on use of terror and on the killing of civilians, and then a discussion of why the three cases of deliberate massacres of thousands, and the many cases of massacres of hundreds or dozens cited previously, have never even been publicly admitted by the Hanoi regime, let alone punished.
Dr. Stephen J. Morris.
Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.
Johns Hopkins University.
Washington, DC.
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 03:03:07 -0700 (PDT)
From: sophie qj <sophie_qj@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Sources on Vietnam war Massacres
Dear Stephen,
I think we all take for granted by now the fact that there were atrocities against civilians on both sides during the war. Non-military US historians have since the 1970s perhaps paid more attention to tragedies for which our own military bears responsibility, as we believe ourselves to be above that sort of thing. (Americans are not cruel people, we would like to believe.)
The unfortunate fact is that civilian and military authorities on both sides believed that the end justified the means, that they were fighting for a noble cause. But a lot of us who opposed the war believed that if we in the US did not adhere to our values with regard to the sanctity of life, and the need to avoid civilian casualties, then some national soul-searching was called for.
As far as documentation of massacres goes, one person's documentation is often another's propaganda. So maybe a first step in writing the history of massacres, or at least examining the issue, should be a review of existing documentation. Violence in Cambodia has attracted more scholarly attention than in Vietnam -- now that we all agree that Vietnam is more than a war, perhaps more attention will be paid to the use of violence in the Vietnam Wars.
For existing documentation, I would mention the study of Korean atrocities in Central Vietnam by Ed Herman and Diane and Michael Jones. For a contemporary look at the assault on rural society which was the context for many atrocities in Central Vietnam, 'The Military Half' by Jonathan Schell may still be the best book available.
Sophie Quinn-Judge
PS -- I'm now working as Research Coordinator in the Cold War Studies Programme of the International History Dept. at LSE in London.
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 21:54:04 +0200
From: John Kleinen <kleinen@pscw.uva.nl>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Sources on massacres in Vietnam
Dear List members,
The "Livre noir du communisme. Crimes, terreur, repression" (Robert Laffont 1997) by Stephane Courtois a.o. devotes 12 pages to Vietnam (out of 846) in a chapter written by Jean-Louis Margolin, a historian from the University of Aix en Provemce who deals also with NOK and Laos. Maybe, the producers of the series should read this first and try to ask for comments, before the vsg members are going into a long list of massacres. The comments remind me of earlier discussions we had.
The SOK atrocities in Quang Ngai and Binh Dinh (An Khe) are well documented by now. Not only Bill Popkin, but also Terry Rambo have been contemporary witnesses of the events, be it from a distance.
John Kleinen
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 14:02:41 -0700
From: Stephen Denney <sdenney@uclink4.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Sources on massacres in Vietnam
One flaw I noticed in the Vietnam chapter, although perhaps minor, is the author erred by a few years in stating the year the last re-education camp prisoners (former RVN officers and officials) were released. The author said the last survivors of the re-education camps did not return home until 1986 when actually it was 1992 when the final group of prisoners were released.
- Steve Denney
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 21:27:53 -0400
From: Hue Tam H. Tai <hhtai@fas.harvard.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Sources on massacres in Vietnam
Actually Sam Popkin told me he used information provided by Terry Rambo and Neil Jamieson on the SOK massacres.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 13:03:02 +0200 (CEST)
From: irene@ruc.dk
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: persons involved in massacres in Vietnam?
Dear list-members,
Thanks for all the responses to my inquiry on massacres in Vietnam. I think the information and viewpoints are interesting to consider, also for the TV programme producers. Not to make the discussion broaden out too much, I will try to narrow it down.
They TV producers are also looking for persons who were actually involved in massacres to find out why people are doing this type of acts. The only story I know is Lieutenant Calley's story told to John Sacks (1970)from the My Lai massacre, and I understand that some have been decorated recently. Who are they? Anyone knows more low-ranking veterans involved directly who would be willing to talk about what they did and why back in time?
thanks
Irene
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 09:59:54 -0400
From: Edwin Moise <eemoise@clemson.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: persons involved in massacres in Vietnam?
At 01:03 PM 10/19/2001 +0200, you wrote:
>They TV producers are also looking for persons who were actually involved in
>massacres to find out why people are doing this type of acts. The only
>story I know is Lieutenant Calley's story told to John Sacks (1970)from the My Lai
>massacre, and I understand that some have been decorated recently. Who are
>they?
The veterans decorated on March 6, 1998 were Hugh Thompson and Larry Colburn. They had tried to stop the My Lai massacre while it was going on, and they had succeeded in rescuing a few peasants from the massacre. For further details, see the book THE FORGOTTEN HERO OF MY LAI: THE HUGH THOMPSON STORY, by Trent Angers.
Ed Moise
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 23:30:39 -0700 (PDT)
From: joseph j hannah <jhannah@u.washington.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: persons involved in massacres in Vietnam?
Irene,
Another American massacre of civilians in the Vietnam War that received a great deal of press earlier this year was committed by a small squd of 6 US Navy SEALS (commando unit) led by now Senator Bob Kerry. Senator Kerry's account is that the killings were accidental, albeit still an atrocity. Another member of the squad tells a different story: the villagers were rounded up and executed deliberately. Other members of the squad subsequently made statements that were somewhat different. (If nothing else, the public exposure of this event, and the political spin put on it by Senator Kerry's place of employment, has opened interesting questions about the "fog of war" and about personal and collective memory. How does and individual aand a nation reconcile his/its self-understanding with such unthinkable behavior?)
These men were all interviewed extensively, as were Vietnamese villagers.
Your contacts may be interested in pursuing this story as well. I found a great number of web pages dedicated to it through the major search engines.
All the best,
Joe Hannah
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 17:33:24 -0700
From: C. Michele Thompson <thompson_mc@scsu.ctstateu.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: persons involved in massacres in Vietnam?
Dear Everyone,
Going back to the subject of My Lai, Ron Ridenhour has indeed passed away but as far as I know Hugh Thompson (the helicopter pilot who tried to stop things) is still alive and is still giving talks on the subject of My Lai. The transcript that goes with the video of the conference that Steve Graw mentioned says that "Hugh Thompson is available for presentations. Inquire by calling 318-837-3960." That may be old since I believe this transcript was published in 95 or so.
The conference was sponsored by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and was organized by Randy Fertel of Tulane. As far as I know his office phone is still 504-891-1759. I was in contact with him in late 97 or early 98 about buying the tapes of the conference and the number was good at that time.
Hope this is helpfull
Michele