黑料吃瓜 Dwight Stanford Chair Lecture: U.S. Fixation on the Vietnam War
Pierre Asselins research looks at the war from the Vietnamese perspective.
The U.S. preoccupation with Vietnam and its lingering effect on domestic and foreign affairs here and elsewhere is the topic of an upcoming lecture by Pierre Asselin, 黑料吃瓜鈥檚 new Dwight Stanford Chair in American Foreign Relations. His lecture begins at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 5, in Charles Hostler Hall (Storm Hall West, 012). The lecture is free and open to the public.
Asselin comes to 黑料吃瓜 from Hawaii Pacific University. He is the author of 鈥淎 Bitter Peace: Washington, Hanoi, and the Making of the Paris Agreement,鈥� which won the 2003 Kenneth W. Baldridge Prize, and 鈥淗anoi鈥檚 Road to the Vietnam War, 1954-1965,鈥� winner of the 2013 Arthur Goodzeit Book Award.
A native of Quebec City, Canada, Asselin became interested in Vietnam as a teenager.
鈥淚 grew up in a white, Catholic, French-speaking city,鈥� he said. 鈥淚n my last year of high school, we studied violence in the Western world, and I happened to see 鈥楻ambo鈥� and 鈥楶latoon.鈥� I wanted to know more about what happened in Vietnam.鈥�
That curiosity eventually led him to the University of Hawaii, known for its doctoral programs in American and Asian history, particularly the history of Vietnam. He had planned to write his thesis on the U.S. bombing campaign in Vietnam, but was diverted by revelations that surfaced at the time about diplomatic stratagems during the war.
鈥淚 was researching my thesis during 1995-96 Congressional hearings on the POWs (prisoners of war),鈥� Asselin recalled. 鈥淔or the hearings, Congress mandated the declassification of documents pertaining to Henry Kissinger鈥檚 secret talks with North Vietnam (outside the semi-public Paris Peace Talks). I decided to shift my research focus from the bombing to the secret diplomacy of the Vietnam War.鈥�
Asselin learned the Vietnamese language and visited Hanoi to mine government and communist party archives. Few other Westerners had the language skills to take advantage of these sources, which revealed how U.S. policy was perceived, answered鈥攁nd according to Asselin, exploited鈥攂y Vietnamese leaders.
Asselin's latest book, 鈥淰ietnam鈥檚 American War: A History,鈥� surveys the Vietnamese communist experience during the war, and is scheduled for release from Cambridge University Press in January 2018.
