A Guide to this Website

In his book, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (New York: the New Press, 1995), James W. Loewen urged students of the Vietnam War to think about the following questions:

One of the best ways to explore the answers to these challenging questions is to go to primary sources. Primary sources are the basic building blocks of history. Primary sources come in a wide variety of shapes and forms.

The website, Understanding the Vietnam War, utilizes a large number of primary source materials. They are divided into four sections:

I. Interviews
II. Documents
III. Photographs
IV. Art and Literature

The interviews are in two categories. Some are in transcript form and others are in streaming video. The transcripts are from government documents and other written sources gathered by the Joiner Center at the University of Massachusetts - Boston. Some were done during the war years and others were recorded after the war.

The videos were done by WGBH in Boston for use in the series Vietnam: A Television History. The interviews were conducted by researchers for the series, producers of the television show, and by Stanley Karnow, the chief correspondent for the series. The subjects range from government officials who served in Washington, Saigon, and Hanoi to soldiers, peasants, and antiwar activists. The interviews took place in the late seventies and early eighties.

Students might want to keep in mind the time period of the interview and ask what perspective the subject is presenting. As always, the lenses of race, class and gender play a role in the analysis of the questions and the answers.

We use a broad definition of “document” in creating this section. Most people think of documents as, “The Declaration of Independence,” or “The Constitution,” or Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address.” These are in fact documents and important ones. But letters, diaries, newspaper editorials, poems, songs and slogans on posters are also documents. They were created by different people in a given time and space, and they generally reflect the values and opinions of their authors. No serious historian would ignore such artifacts, because they give insight into how much of the official story is actually accepted and shared by the people.

A serious historian attempting to develop the history of the Gettysburg Address would certainly want to get the words of Lincoln, but he or she would also want to discover what the audience had to say about it. Newspapers and diaries and letters to friends from “ear witnesses” would be invaluable in this pursuit.

Our collection is made up of a wide variety of these kinds of sources. All are derived from the Joiner Center Archives.

Some questions to keep in mind when analyzing documents are the following. Who is the speaker and who is the audience? Where do race, class and gender enter into these accounts and interpretations? Who gets left out when we look at literary documents? To what extent is crude and vulgar language part of the message of dissent? Is a calm, cool, rational presentation always a good guide to truth or might it mask a clever fabrication?

A critical mind is not a cynical mind. The critic looks for flaws, not because he suspects that they are present in the current work, but because he has found them in other works. A critical mind puts all claims to the test of reason and evidence. This test applies to people in power and those without power. One might argue that in a democratic society a healthy skepticism toward the authorities is the beginning of wisdom. As Bob Dylan once said, “. . . Don’t follow leaders, watch the parking meters. . . .”

Photographs are often believed to capture reality. Cameras probably do, but we must remember that human beings aim all cameras.

Human beings have agendas. These agendas include goals, values and allegiances. The photographer is not the final judge of what part of the photograph is shown to the audience. A person called an editor makes that determination. Editors are employed by publishers and publishers enjoy freedom of the press because they own one.

When looking at a photograph it is always wise to scan from left to right and then from top to bottom. In our culture we look at things that way and our media reflect our culture and shape it. Look for the rich and the poor in every photograph. If one group is missing ask why? In scenes that show rich and poor, ask how are they depicted? Who has the clean clothes? Who has the horse? Who has no shoes? Who looks like a gentleman?

Race, class and gender questions are always appropriate for photographs. Cameras are expensive, so is film. Who is on top? The photographer or the subject? Who pays for the photograph?

Our collection contains a number of French, Vietnamese and American photographs from a variety of sources including some “official” ones.

Art and Literature might seem like a strange category for students investigating the sorrows of war. The fragile nature of the artistic mind, it might seem, is no match for the sheer destructive power of modern warfare, but in a sense it has greater power than war itself.

Homer’s poems have outlived the greatest warriors of the wars of the Ancient Greeks. Poems and letters of the Civil War era continue to circulate long after the last soldier has fallen dead to the ground.

We include a wide variety of poems, short stories, songs, art work, cartoons in this category because it does reflect the human spirit’s reflection on itself even in the midst of chaos, violence, death and destruction. No matter which side you are on in a war, and no matter what the outcome, the arts and literature remind us of what might have been.

The primary sources presented here display a range of responses to the war. We urge those who watch and read the interviews; those who read the documents and those who examine the photographs, the poems, and the artifacts to avoid the tendency to rush to judgment.

Think carefully about what is being said and look carefully at what is in front of you. All of these materials were selected because they give a point of view and provide a perspective. After reading and looking at a number of these sources, you will be in a stronger position to reach your own conclusions. The deeper you dig, the stronger and more secure your foundation!