This master's thesis deals with the development and implementation of counterinsurgency warfare by the military and government of the United States during the Vietnam War. The main point of this work revolves around the fact that the United States did not develop a successful and comprehensive counterinsurgency doctrine during this period. However, certain counterinsurgency units and programs were developed that did achieve success in deterring the guerrilla war waged by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army. The Phoenix Program and especially the Civilian Irregular Defense Group Program, which was developed and operated by the U.S. Army Special Forces, proved that counterinsurgency warfare could be waged successfully against an elusive foe. As the Vietnam War escalated, the United States relied upon the technology, the mobility, and the firepower of America's conventional military to try and destroy an unconventional enemy. This reliance upon conventional military strategies and tactics eventually led to the withdrawal of American troops and the defeat of the Republic of Vietnam by the communist forces of North Vietnam. I believe that the United States and the Republic of Vietnam could have prevented a communist victory through the proper development of counterinsurgency warfare doctrine. This doctrine would include a combination of counterinsurgency tactics and strategies I social reform, economic assistance, military training, and political stability. The United States learned many valuable lessons in Vietnam, including the importance of maintaining specialized units that could be used to fight a limited war against a dedicated enemy with a political agenda. Warfare has never been an exact science, and a nation must be prepared to deal with any contingency. / Master of Arts

This study examines how three liberal publications (Washington Post, Newsweek, and New Republic) and three conservative publications (Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report, and National Review) reported six different events of the Vietnam War. Chapter one will examine the publications’ coverage of the Tonkin Gulf incidents of August 1964 and the November 1965 Pleiku attack. The 1968 Tet offensive will be the concern of chapter two. Chapter three looks at how the six publications covered the My Lai incident, the Christmas bombing of 1972 (Linebacker II), and the release of American prisoners of war (Operation Homecoming). / Master of Arts

This thesis examines the communist insurgencies in Malaya (1948-1960) and Vietnam(1961-1963). A British Colonial Service Officer, Robert Thompson, helped develop the successful counterinsurgency doctrine during the Malayan Emergency. Later he carried this knowledge to Vietnam to help in the anti-Viet Cong struggle. U.S. leaders welcomed lessons of the Malayan Emergency and their application in parts to the Vietnamese situation in the form of the Strategic Hamlet Program. Thompson’s transfer of knowledge from Malaya to Vietnam shows a historical analogy taken out of context by U.S. leadership. I begin my study by looking at British evolution of counterinsurgency doctrine and practices, specifically the New Villages in Malaya, and Robert Thompson’s role in the process. The second chapter examines Thompson’s transferal of Malayan knowledge to Vietnam and the U.S. acceptance of and support for his efforts. I also compare these insurgencies in chapter two to show the differences between them and prove my thesis. Finally, the third chapter shows some reasons why the Strategic Hamlet Program failed and whether Thompson’s program was doomed to fail or not. By examining the Strategic Hamlet Program, an understanding of how the U.S. evolved policy in the Vietnam War becomes possible. / Master of Arts

Thesis advisor: Devin O. Pendas / This dissertation assesses the Vietnam War’s effect on the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and its relationship with the United States in the 1960s. In the name of alliance solidarity, the West German government provided economic, technical, and humanitarian assistance to South Vietnam. The Federal Republic would have quietly continued this support and thought little more about Vietnam if not for President Lyndon B. Johnson’s mounting demands that Bonn share more of the burden of the defense of the so-called “Free World.” In the most dramatic example of this effort, Johnson and his advisers attempted in late 1965 to pressure Chancellor Ludwig Erhard into sending West German support troops to Vietnam. Erhard ruled out sending military personnel, but the episode – combined with a series of foreign policy and economic failures – led to his resignation in November 1966. At the heart of this setback in West German-U.S. relations was a dispute over the Federal Republic’s place in the world. West German leaders largely agreed that it was only a matter of time before the Federal Republic got out from under the shadow of the Third Reich and returned to the world stage, but they disagreed about how this goal could best be achieved. By comparison, the Johnson administration had a clear vision for the Federal Republic’s return to the world stage. Looking to co-opt German economic power to maintain American hegemony around the world, Johnson expected Bonn to play the role of America’s junior partner. Although Erhard proved incapable of filling the role intended by Johnson, he helped to establish the Federal Republic’s characteristic political culture, combining military reluctance with a strong preference for economic stability. After Erhard’s resignation, Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger and his Vice-Chancellor, Willy Brandt, established a genuine and productive partnership with the United States, even as they made the limits of their solidarity clear. Like the government, West German civil society struggled to come to terms with the Federal Republic’s evolving place in the world. This dissertation shows that "regular" Germans' grappling with the Vietnam War was linked to their attempt to define the Federal Republic’s place in the world and, perhaps even, early efforts to come to terms with their collective responsibility for the Holocaust and other Nazi crimes. For the German Red Cross, the West German Catholic and Protestant churches, and private "pacifist" organizations like Hilfsaktion Vietnam, humanitarianism and human rights was an important outlet for this endeavor. The West German government, for its part, learned that it could employ the language of humanitarianism and human rights to distance itself from the most controversial or morally dubious parts of American foreign policy without sacrificing its formal alliance with the United States. In the late 1960s, then, government pragmatism, civil society interests, and public (moral) outrage converged to bring humanitarianism and human rights to the forefront of the Federal Republic of Germany. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2024. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History.

As American involvement in Vietnam escalated in the 1960s, the military's need for medical personnel rose as well. A shortage of qualified nurses in the United States coupled with the requirements of providing adequate troops abroad meant increased opportunity for male nurses. To meet the needs of Army personnel, the Army Nurse Corps actively recruited men, a segment of the nursing population that had previously faced daunting restrictions in the Army Nurse Corps (ANC). Amidst mounting tension, the Army Student Nurse Program began accepting men and provided educational funding and support. Additionally, Congress extended commissions in the Regular Army to previously excluded male nurses. Men answered the call and actively took advantage of the new opportunities afforded them by the demands of war. They entered the educational programs and committed to serve their country through the ANC. Once admitted to the corps, a large percentage of male nurses served in Vietnam. Their tours of duty proved invaluable for training in trauma medicine. Further, these men experienced personal and professional growth that they never would have received in the civilian world. They gained confidence in their skills and worked with wounds and diseases seldom seen at home. For many, the opportunities created by the war led to a career in military medicine and meant the chance to seek additional training after nursing school, often specialized training. Relying heavily on oral histories and the archives of the Army Nurse Corps, this study examined the role these nurses played in entrenching men as a vital part of the ANC.

This thesis explores what Telford Taylor called the “ethos of Nuremberg” and how it shaped antiwar resistance during the Vietnam War in the United States. The Vietnam War was a monumental event in the twentieth century and the conflict provided lawyers, academics, activists, and soldiers the ability to question the legality of the war through the prism of the Nuremberg Principles, the various international treaties and U.S. Constitutional law. As many legal scholars and historians have lamented, the Cold War destroyed hopes for the solidification of an international court empowered to preside over questions of war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace. In the absence of cooperation among the international community, the antiwar movements in the United States and around the world during the Vietnam War utilized these legal instruments to form what I call a war crimes movement from below. A significant component of this challenge was the notion that individual citizens – draft noncooperators, military resisters, tax resisters, and the like – had a responsibility under the Nuremberg Principles to resist an illegal war. In the numerous United States military interventions after World War II, none had been challenged as openly and aggressively as the war in Vietnam. As this thesis will demonstrate, the ideas that crystallized into action at Nuremberg played a major role in this resistance.

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 desperate gamble born out of knowledge the tide of war favored the Allies by mid-1967. The trend was solidly towards the government and the NLF increasingly depended on violence to maintain control. The American PSYOP forces went to Vietnam with little knowledge of the history and culture of Vietnam or experience conducting psychological operations in a counterinsurgency. As this dissertation demonstrates, despite these drawbacks, they had considerable success in the period covered. Although facing an experienced enemy in the psychological war, the U.S. forces made great strides in advising, innovating techniques, and developing equipment. I rely extensively on untapped sources such as the Foreign Broadcast Information Service transcripts, Captured Document Exploitation Center files, and access to the U.S. Army Special Operations Command Archives. Additionally, I have digitized databases such as the Hamlet Evaluation System and Terrorist Incident Reporting System for Geographic Information System software analysis. The maps provide examples of the possibilities available to the historian using these datasets.

Thesis (MA)--Macquarie University (Division of Society, Culture, Media & Philosophy, Dept. of Media and Communications), 2006. / Bibliography: leaves 176-188. / Precursors -- An imperfect war -- Interregnum -- The perfect war -- Conclusions. / This thesis explores how war reporting on Australian television has been dramatically reshaped over the last 40 years, particularly by new technologies. Specifically, it seeks to answer these questions: 1. How did differing cultural, social, political and professional contexts, available technology and battlefield experience affect the attitudes, editorial content and narrative forms of two generations of television correspondents - in Vietnam and Iraq respectively? 2. How did technological and other industry changes over the 30 years between Vietnam and Iraq reshape the power relationship between the war correspondent in the field and his news producers and managers? What impact did these changes have on the resulting screened coverage? What are the longer-term implications for journalism and for audiences? / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / 192 leaves ill. (some col.)

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 and packages to be sent to the POWs, and afford better treatment for prisoners of war.

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