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Let the Dogs Bark: The Psychological War in Vietnam, 1960-1968 (open access)

Let the Dogs Bark: The Psychological War in Vietnam, 1960-1968

Between 1960 and 1968 the United States conducted intensive psychological operations (PSYOP) in Vietnam. To date, no comprehensive study of the psychological war there has been conducted. This dissertation fills that void, describing the development of American PSYOP forces and their employment in Vietnam. By looking at the complex interplay of American, North Vietnamese, National Liberation Front (NLF) and South Vietnamese propaganda programs, a deeper understanding of these activities and the larger war emerges. The time period covered is important because it comprises the initial introduction of American PSYOP advisory forces and the transition to active participation in the war. It also allows enough time to determine the long-term effects of both the North Vietnamese/NLF and American/South Vietnamese programs. Ending with the 1968 Tet Offensive is fitting because it marks both a major change in the war and the establishment of the 4th Psychological Operations Group to manage the American PSYOP effort. This dissertation challenges the argument that the Northern/Viet Cong program was much more effective that the opposing one. Contrary to common perceptions, the North Vietnamese propaganda increasingly fell on deaf ears in the south by 1968. This study also provides support for understanding the Tet Offensive as a …
Date: May 2016
Creator: Roberts, Mervyn Edwin, III
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Power of One: Bonnie Singleton and American Prisoners of War in Vietnam (open access)

The Power of One: Bonnie Singleton and American Prisoners of War in Vietnam

Bonnie Singleton, wife of United States Air Force helicopter rescue pilot Jerry Singleton, saw her world turned upside down when her husband was shot down while making a rescue in North Vietnam in 1965. At first, the United States government advised her to say very little publicly concerning her husband, and she complied. After the capture of the American spy ship, the U.S.S. Pueblo by North Korea, and the apparent success in freeing the naval prisoners when Mrs. Rose Bucher, the ship captain's wife, spoke out, Mrs. Singleton changed her opinion and embarked upon a campaign to raise public awareness about American prisoners of war held by the Communist forces in Southeast Asia. Mrs. Singleton, along with other Dallas-area family members, formed local grass-roots organizations to notify people around the world about the plight of American POWs. They enlisted the aid of influential congressmen, such as Olin "Tiger" Teague of College Station, Texas; President Richard M. Nixon and his administration; millionaire Dallas businessman Ross Perot; WFAA television in Dallas; and other news media outlets worldwide. In time, Bonnie Singleton, other family members, and the focus groups they helped start encouraged North Vietnam to release the names of prisoners, allow mail …
Date: August 1999
Creator: Garrett, Dave L.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

War in the Villages: The U.S. Marine Combined Action Platoons in the Vietnam War

Access: Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
Much of the history written about the Vietnam War overlooks the U.S. Marine Corps Combined Action Platoons. These CAPs lived in the Vietnamese villages, with the difficult and dangerous mission of defending the villages from both the National Liberation Front guerrillas and the soldiers of the North Vietnamese Army. The CAPs also worked to improve living conditions by helping the people with projects, such as building schools, bridges, and irrigation systems for their fields. In War in the Villages, Ted Easterling examines how well the CAPs performed as a counterinsurgency method, how the Marines adjusted to life in the Vietnamese villages, and how they worked to accomplish their mission. The CAPs generally performed their counterinsurgency role well, but they were hampered by factors beyond their control. Most important was the conflict between the Army and the Marine Corps over an appropriate strategy for the Vietnam War, along with weakness of the government of the Republic of South Vietnam and the strategic and the tactical ability of the North Vietnamese Army. War in the Villages helps to explain how and why this potential was realized and squandered. Marines who served in the CAPs served honorably in difficult circumstances. Most of these …
Date: March 2021
Creator: Easterling, Ted N.
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Texas Historian, Volume 59, Number 3, February 1999 (open access)

The Texas Historian, Volume 59, Number 3, February 1999

Journal published by the Texas State Historical Association containing articles written by members of the Junior Historians about various aspects of Texas history.
Date: February 1999
Creator: Texas State Historical Association
Object Type: Journal/Magazine/Newsletter
System: The Portal to Texas History
Advising the ARVN: Lieutenant General Samuel T. Williams in Vietnam, 1955-1960 (open access)

Advising the ARVN: Lieutenant General Samuel T. Williams in Vietnam, 1955-1960

Beginning in 1954, the United States Army attempted to build a viable armed force in South Vietnam. Until the early 1960s, other areas commanded more American attention, yet this formative period was influential in later United States involvement in Vietnam. This thesis examines United States advisory efforts from 1955 to 1960 by analyzing the tenure of Lieutenant General Samuel T. Williams as Chief of the Military Assistance Advisory Group in South Vietnam. During Williams's tenure, the communist forces in the north began the guerrilla insurgency in earnest. Williams's failure to respond to this change has been justly criticized; yet his actions were reflective of the United States Army's attitude toward insurgencies in the late 1950s.
Date: August 1990
Creator: Schneider, Frederick W. (Frederick Walter), 1959-
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

The Phantom Vietnam War: An F-4 Pilot’s Combat over Laos

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David R. “Buff” Honodel was a cocky young man with an inflated self-image when he arrived in 1969 at his base in Udorn, Thailand. His war was not in Vietnam; it was a secret one in the skies of a neighboring country almost unknown in America, attacking the Ho Chi Minh Trail that fed soldiers and supplies from North Vietnam into the South. Stateside he learned the art of flying the F-4, but in combat, the bomb-loaded fighter handled differently, targets shot back, and people suffered. Inert training ordnance was replaced by lethal weapons. In the air, a routine day mission turned into an unexpected duel with a deadly adversary. Complacency during a long night mission escorting a gunship almost led to death. A best friend died just before New Year’s. A RF-4 crashed into the base late in Buff’s tour of duty. The reader will experience Buff’s war from the cockpit of a supersonic F-4D Phantom II, doing 5-G pullouts after dropping six 500-pound bombs on trucks hidden beneath triple jungle canopy. These were well defended by a skillful, elusive, determined enemy firing back with 37mm anti-aircraft fire and tracers in the sky. The man who left the States …
Date: September 2018
Creator: Honodel, David R.
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
Oral History Interview with Richard Craig Warren, April 26, 2002 (open access)

Oral History Interview with Richard Craig Warren, April 26, 2002

Interview with Richard Craig Warren, a paratrooper/weapons specialist in the US Army during the Vietnam War. He describes his time in the service, some of his most dangerous missions, and adjusting to life coming home as a disabled vet.
Date: May 19, 2004
Creator: Meschede, Robert & Warren, Richard Craig
Object Type: Text
System: The Portal to Texas History

Storming the City: U.S. Military Performance in Urban Warfare from World War II to Vietnam

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Book describing military philosophy before and after WWII, with full chapters analyzing how the U.S. Army and Marine Corps engaged in urban warfare during four specific battles: Aachen (October 1944), Manila (February 1945), Seoul (September 1959), and Hue (February 1968). Index starts on page 363.
Date: October 2015
Creator: Wahlman, Alec
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library

Beyond the Quagmire: New Interpretations of the Vietnam War

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In Beyond the Quagmire, thirteen scholars from across disciplines provide a series of provocative, important, and timely essays on the politics, combatants, and memory of the Vietnam War. The essays pose new questions, offer new answers, and establish important lines of debate regarding social, political, military, and memory studies. Part 1 contains four chapters by scholars who explore the politics of war in the Vietnam era. In Part 2, five contributors offer chapters on Vietnam combatants with analyses of race, gender, environment, and Chinese intervention. Part 3 provides four innovative and timely essays on Vietnam in history and memory.
Date: March 2019
Creator: Jensen, Geoffrey W. & Stith, Matthew M.
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
Oral History Interview with Richard Craig Warren, April 26, 2002 transcript

Oral History Interview with Richard Craig Warren, April 26, 2002

Interview with Richard Craig Warren, a paratrooper/weapons specialist in the US Army during the Vietnam War. He describes his time in the service, some of his most dangerous missions, and adjusting to life coming home as a disabled vet.
Date: April 26, 2002
Creator: Meschede, Robert & Warren, Richard Craig
Object Type: Sound
System: The Portal to Texas History
Mercenaries in Service to America: The "More Flags" Foreign Policy of the United States (open access)

Mercenaries in Service to America: The "More Flags" Foreign Policy of the United States

On 23 April 1964, five months after assuming the office of President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson launched the "More Flags" program as United States policy. While the publicly stated purpose of.the "More Flags" program was to obtain as much non-military free world aid for the Republic of Vietnam as possible, the program's principle goal centered around Lyndon Johnson's desire to obtain an international consensus for America's policies toward Vietnam and Southeast Asia. The "More Flags" program continued to serve both goals for the remainder of Johnson's presidency. Although started with high expectations of success, the "More Flags" program never succeeded in achieving the levels of international cooperation Lyndon Johnson desired. In fact, the program's significant lack of success necessitated a number of changes, during the program's first year, in both its stated goals and in the methods used to prosecute it's implementation. The most important of these changes would be Washington's use of the program's beneficent objectives to mask it's use as the means through which the United States would purchase mercenary troops to fight in South Vietnam. "Mercenaries in Service to America: The 'More Flags' Foreign Policy of the United States," presents the available history of …
Date: August 1992
Creator: Blackburn, Robert M. (Robert Michael)
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Capability and cost assessment of the major forest nations to measure and monitor their forest carbon (open access)

Capability and cost assessment of the major forest nations to measure and monitor their forest carbon

According to the Executive Summary, the aims and objective of this report are to provide an assessment of national capacity and capability in 25 tropical countries for measuring and monitoring forest as a requirement for reporting on REDD under IPCC guidelines. This paper was commissioned by the United Kingdom Office of Climate Change as background work to its report 'Climate Change: Financing Global Forests' (the Eliasch Review).
Date: April 7, 2008
Creator: Harcastle, P. D.; Baird, David & Harden, Virginia
Object Type: Text
System: The UNT Digital Library
U.S.-Vietnam Nuclear Cooperation Agreement: Issues for Congress (open access)

U.S.-Vietnam Nuclear Cooperation Agreement: Issues for Congress

This report discusses the U.S.-Vietnamese cooperation on nuclear energy and nonproliferation that has grown in recent years along with closer bilateral economic, military, and diplomatic ties.
Date: March 24, 2014
Creator: Nikitin, Mary Beth D.; Holt, Mark & Manyin, Mark E.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
U.S.-Vietnam Nuclear Cooperation Agreement: Issues for Congress (open access)

U.S.-Vietnam Nuclear Cooperation Agreement: Issues for Congress

This report discusses the U.S.-Vietnamese cooperation on nuclear energy and nonproliferation that has grown in recent years along with closer bilateral economic, military, and diplomatic ties.
Date: May 30, 2014
Creator: Nikitin, Mary Beth D.; Holt, Mark & Manyin, Mark E.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
U.S.-Vietnam Nuclear Cooperation Agreement: Issues for Congress (open access)

U.S.-Vietnam Nuclear Cooperation Agreement: Issues for Congress

This report discusses the U.S.-Vietnamese cooperation on nuclear energy and nonproliferation that has grown in recent years along with closer bilateral economic, military, and diplomatic ties.
Date: May 13, 2014
Creator: Nikitin, Mary Beth D.; Holt, Mark & Manyin, Mark E.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
U.S.-Vietnam Nuclear Cooperation Agreement: Issues for Congress (open access)

U.S.-Vietnam Nuclear Cooperation Agreement: Issues for Congress

This report discusses the U.S.-Vietnamese cooperation on nuclear energy and nonproliferation that has grown in recent years along with closer bilateral economic, military, and diplomatic ties.
Date: September 15, 2014
Creator: Nikitin, Mary Beth D.; Holt, Mark & Manyin, Mark E.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library

A Different Face of War: Memories of a Medical Service Corps Officer in Vietnam

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Assigned as the senior medical advisor to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam in I Corps, an area close to the DMZ, James G. Van Straten traveled extensively and interacted with military officers and non-commissioned officers, peasant-class farmers, Buddhist bonzes, shopkeepers, scribes, physicians, nurses, the mentally ill, and even political operatives. He sent his wife daily letters from July 1966 through June 1967, describing in impressive detail his experiences, and those letters became the primary source for his memoir. The author is grateful that his wife retained all the letters he wrote to her and their children during the year they were apart. The author describes with great clarity and poignancy the anguish among the survivors when an American cargo plane in bad weather lands short of the Da Nang Air Base runway on Christmas Eve and crashes into a Vietnamese coastal village, killing more than 100 people and destroying their village; the heart-wrenching pleadings of a teenage girl that her shrapnel-ravaged leg not be amputated; and the anger of an American helicopter pilot who made repeated trips into a hot landing zone to evacuate the wounded, only to have the Vietnamese insist that the dead be given a …
Date: November 2015
Creator: Van Straten, Jim
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Vietnam-U.S. Normalization Process (open access)

The Vietnam-U.S. Normalization Process

U.S.-Vietnam diplomatic and economic relations remained essentially frozen for more than a decade after the 1975 communist victory in South Vietnam. Over the past decade, Washington and Hanoi have normalized relations incrementally. Congress has played a significant role in the normalization process.
Date: December 13, 2004
Creator: Manyin, Mark E.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Oral History Interview with Afton Keeton, August 30, 2007 (open access)

Oral History Interview with Afton Keeton, August 30, 2007

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Afton Keeton. Keeton joined the Navy in July of 1942. He completed Hospital Corps School and became a Pharmacist Mate. He first served aboard the USS Sea Dragon (SS-194). They patrolled the Aleutian Islands. He was then stationed at the Submarine Base in Pearl Harbor, working in a sick bay. He then served aboard the USS Apollo (AS-25) with a relief crew. He provides some detail of working aboard a submarine, serving as the Doc, living conditions and undergoing his own appendectomy aboard the Apollo. In early 1945 he was assigned for 1 year to serve at a submarine base in St. Thomas. He then served as hospital corpsman on the USS Clamagore (SS-343). Keeton also worked on sonar watch, radar watch and as a cook during his time in the Navy. He spent a total of 30 years in the Navy, retiring in February of 1972.
Date: August 30, 2007
Creator: Keeton, Afton
Object Type: Text
System: The Portal to Texas History

Oral History Interview with Keith Heavrin Jr., July 31, 2015

Access: Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
Transcript of an interview with Keith Heavrin Jr., homesteader and simple life advocate. Heavrin shares concerning his childhood; military experiences in Vietnam; love of the sea; discovering the Nearings and the Simple Life; decision to homestead in Maine; memories of the Nearings and the Good Life Center.
Date: July 31, 2015
Creator: Pomerleau, Clark A. & Heavrin, Keith Jr., 1946-2016
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
Vietnam PNTR Status and WTO Accession: Issues and Implications for the United States (open access)

Vietnam PNTR Status and WTO Accession: Issues and Implications for the United States

Report discussing the role of the United States regarding the status of trade relations with Vietnam after its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). The report focuses on the issue of most-favored-nation (MFN) status, or normal trade relations (NTR) which conflicts with Title IV of the Trade Act of 1974. There is an overview of U.S.-Vietnam economic relations the Jackson-Vanik Amendment and Vietnam's NTR status, the WTO accession process in relation to Vietnam's status, the significance of the issues for both Vietnam and the United States, as well as other political and economic issues.
Date: August 2, 2006
Creator: Manyin, Mark E.; Cooper, William H. & Gelb, Bernard A.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
U.S.-Vietnam Relations in 2009: Current Issues and Implications for U.S. Policy (open access)

U.S.-Vietnam Relations in 2009: Current Issues and Implications for U.S. Policy

This report provides an overview of U.S. relations with Vietnam, including policy issues, the economic and political situation in Vietnam, and a list of pertinent legislation.
Date: February 5, 2009
Creator: Manyin, Mark E.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Oral History Interview with Sam Adams and Al Bishop, November 15, 2018 (open access)

Oral History Interview with Sam Adams and Al Bishop, November 15, 2018

Edited transcript of an interview with cousins Sam Adams and Al Bishop who discuss growing up in Center Point, Sam's time serving the marines (including Vietnam), Al's teaching and coaching high school students before working in insurance, and their families. Copies of photos are included at the end of the transcript.
Date: November 15, 2018
Creator: Collins, Francelle Robison; Flory, Bonnie Pipes; Webb, Jeanie Archer; Leonard, Julie Mosty; Bishop, Charles Alfred & Adams, James Sam
Object Type: Text
System: The Portal to Texas History
U.S.-Vietnam Relations in 2009: Current Issues and Implications for U.S. Policy (open access)

U.S.-Vietnam Relations in 2009: Current Issues and Implications for U.S. Policy

This report provides an overview of U.S. relations with Vietnam, including policy issues, the economic and political situation in Vietnam, and a list of pertinent legislation.
Date: July 29, 2009
Creator: Manyin, Mark E.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library