Vietnam Project | National Security Archive

35+ Years of Freedom of Information Action

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About this Project

In the mid-1990s the National Security Archive teamed up with Brown University’s Thomas J. Watson Institute for a conference on "Missed Opportunities in the Vietnam War." Creating the briefing books and furnishing historical expertise for that event, which featured key American and North Vietnamese former officials including Robert McNamara and Nguyen Co Thach, led to the launch of the Vietnam Project. The project compiled two extensive sets of Vietnam-era documents as part of the Digital National Security Archive, many of them published for the first time. We also continue to supply electronic postings (e-books) on occasion, covering topics relating to the war and its era. Most recently, along with the Cold War International History Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, we made an effort to bring into the open records of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam. We also participated on the historical advisory panel for the Education Center planned by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.

Blog Posts

New Tet Documents? Not So Much.

Aug 7, 2018

Vietnamese Struggle With Their Past: History of the Southern Resistance

Oct 31, 2014

The Biography of “Tony Po,” AKA Anthony Poshepny

Oct 15, 2013

Ngo Dinh Diem in the Crosshairs

Oct 2, 2013

Ah, Those 11 Words!

Jul 22, 2011

More Blog Posts >>

Featured Posting

Secretary of State Dean Rusk with Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) Director Thomas L. Hughes, and INR Deputy Director Allan Evans

Intelligence and Vietnam (II): Return of The Top Secret 1969 State Department Study

Dec 27, 2020

Previous Postings

New Light in a Dark Corner: Evidence on the Diem Coup in South Vietnam, November 1963

The Murrey Marder Papers at the National Security Archive

Nixon, Kissinger, and the Madman Strategy during Vietnam War

The Diem Coup After 50 Years

Cracking a Vietnam War Mystery

CIA History of DCI William Colby

Complete Pentagon Papers!

Kennedy Considered Supporting Coup in South Vietnam, August 1963

The CIA's Vietnam Histories

More Postings >>

Project Outreach

“Daniel Ellsberg: Whistleblower,” International Spy Museum/Smithsonian Resident Scholars Program, October 14, 2015.

“Vietnam to Iraq: What Did we Learn?” Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, June 26, 2015.

“The CIA, JFK, and the Diem Coup,” Texas Tech University/National Archives and Records Administration conference, September 28, 2013.

“Commentary on Hanoi’s Road to the Vietnam War,” Cold War International History Project, Wilson Center, September 24, 2013.

Remarks at Veterans for Peace/Vietnam Veterans Against the War “New Directions” meeting, New York, May 18, 2013.

In the Media

Who Threw Westmoreland Under the Bus?

The New York Times

Mar 6, 2018

Ride to the Rescue

American Legion

Feb 20, 2018

VVA’s Mike Rose: A Long Road to the Highest Award

Vietnam Veterans of America

Feb 1, 2018

The Importance of the Vietnam War's Tet Offensive

War on the Rocks

Jan 29, 2018

Activists Call for Realistic Portrayal of Vietnam War on a Pentagon Website

The New York Times

Jul 26, 2016

More In the Media >>

Suggested Readings

Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945-1975
Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009.

Operation Vulture: America’s Dien Bien Phu
New York: Don Congdon Associates, 2015.

In Country: Remembering the Vietnam War
Lanham (MD): Ivan R. Dee, 2011.

William Colby and the CIA: The Secret Wars of a Controversial Spymaster
Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009.

Inside the Pentagon Papers (edited with Margaret Pratt Porter)
Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.

The Blood Road: The Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Vietnam War.
New York: John Wiley’s Sons, 1999.

The Hidden History of the Vietnam War
Lanham (MD): Ivan R. Dee, 1995.

Valley of Decision: The Siege of Khe Sanh (with Ray W. Stubbe)
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.