Contested memory: The Vietnam War and American society, 1975-2001

Diplomatic History

Volumn 26, Issue 2, 2002, Pages 159-184

  Mcmahon, Robert J ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0042723898     PISSN: 01452096     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-7709.00306     Document Type: Review

References (154)

1. Quoted in Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin, America Divided: The Civil War the 1960s (New York, 2000), 293.
2. Quoted in W. Fitzhugh Brundage, "Introduction: No Deed but Memory," in Where These Memories Grow: History, Memory, and Southern Identity, ed. W. Fitzhugh Brundage (Chapel Hill, NC, 2000), 9.
3. The phrase is from Marilyn B. Young, The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990 (New York, 1991), 314.
4. Gregory L. Vistica, "One Awful Night in Thanh Phong," New York Times Magazine, 29 April 2001;
5. CBS News, 60 Minutes II, I May 2001.
6. Time 157 (7 May 2001): 24-34.
7. Time 125 (15 April 1985): 16-61;
8. Time 135 (30 April 1990): 18-29;
9. Time 145 (24 April 1995): 22-48.
10. I am indebted to Fredrik Logevall, who participated in the session, for this information.
11. Ernest W. Lefever, "Vietnam's Ghosts," Wall Street Journal, 21 May 1997.
12. Quoted in New York Times, May 3, 2001.
13. Mary Gordon, Shadow Man (New York, 1996), xx.
14. On this burgeoning interest in memory, see especially Daniel Sherman, The Construction of Memory in Intergar France (Chicago, 1999), 1-35;
15. Dominick LaCapra, History and Memory after Auschwitz (Itaca, NY, 1998);
16. Nancy Wood, Vectors of Memory: Legacies of Trauma in Postwar Europe (New York, 1999);
17. and John Dodnar, "Pierre Nora, National Memory, and Democracy: A Review," Journal of American History 87 (December 2000): 951-63.
18. International Theological Commission, Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past (Vatican City, 2000).
19. Among the important books that have dealt with this subject, see especially Jay Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge, U.K., 1995);
20. Sherman, Construction of Memory
21. Stephen Carton, The Cost of War: Australians Return (Melbourne, 1996);
22. Alex King, Memorials of the Great War in Britain: The Symbolism and Politics of Remembrance (New York, 1998);
23. and David William Lloyd, Battlefield Tourism: Pilgrimage and the Commemoration of the Great War in Britain (New York, 1998).
24. Charles Maier, The Unmastcrable Past: History, Holocaust, and German National Identity (Cambridge, MA, 1988);
25. Ian Buruma, Wages of Guilt: Memories of Mar in Germany and Japan (New York, 1994);
26. Robert G. Moeller, "War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany," American Historical Revics 101 (October 1996): 1008-48;
27. Wood, Vectors of Memory
28. John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York, 1999);
29. Yoskhkuni Igarashi, Bodies of Memory: Narratives of War in Postwar Japanese Culture, 1945-1970 (Princeton, NJ, 2000);
30. Pieter Lagrou, The Legicy of Nazi Occupation: Patriotic Memory and National Recovery in Western Europe, 1045-1065 (New York, 2000).
31. John Bodnar, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, NJ, 1992), 15.
32. Michael Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (New York, 1991), 3, 13.
33. In addition to the works cited above, see especially Jay Winter and Emmanuel Sivan, eds., War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, U.K., 1999);
34. Philip West, Steven I. Levine, and Jackie Hiltz, eds., America's Wars in Asia: A Cultural Approach to History and Memory (Armonk, NY, 1998);
35. Martin Evans and Kenneth Lunn, War and Memory in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1997);
36. John R. Gillis, ed., Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (Princeton, NJ, 1994);
37. and Michael J. Hogan, ed., Hiroshima in History and Memory (New York, 1996).
38. Works that have dealt with different aspects of collective memory and the Vietnam War include: Myra MacPherson, Long Time Passing: Vietnam and the Haunted Generation (Garden City, NY, 1984);
39. John Hellman, American Myth and the Legacy of Vietnam (New York, 1986);
40. Richard J.Morris and Peter C. Ehrenhaus, eds., Cultural Legacies of Vietnam: Uses of the Past in the Present (Norwood, NJ, 1990);
41. John Carlos Rowe and Rick Berg, eds., The Vietnam War and American Culture (New York, 1991);
42. Fred Turner, Echoes of Combat: The Vietnam War in American Memory (New York, 1996);
43. Marita Sturken, Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering (Berkeley, CA, 1997);
44. Arnold R. Isaacs, Vietnam Shadows: The War, Its Ghosts, and Its Legacy (Baltimore, 1997);
45. Jerry Lembcke, The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam (New York, 1998);
46. Kristin Ann Hass, Carried to the Wall: American Memory and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (Berkeley, 1998);
47. Keith Beattie, The Scar That Binds: American Culture and the Vietnam War (New York, 1998);
48. Katherine Kinney, Friendly Fire: American Images of the Vietnam War (New York, 2000).
49. See also Christian G. Appy, "The Muffling of Public Memory in Post-Vietnam America," Chronicle of Higher Education (12 February 1999): 64-66.
50. For an important analysis of the Vietnamese struggle over memories of the war, see Mark Bradley, "Contests of Memory: Remembering and Forgetting War in the Contemporary Vietnamese Cinema," in The Country of Memory: Remaking the Past in Late Socialist Vietnam, ed. Hue-Tarn Ho Tai (Berkeley, 2001), 196-226.
51. Brundage, "Introduction: No Deed but Memory," in Where These Memories Grow, ed. Brundage, 3-4;
52. Jay Winter and Emmanuel Sivan, "Setting the Framework," in War and Remembrance, ed. Winter and Sivan, 6-39;
53. Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, trans. Lewis A. Coser (Chicago, 1992);
54. Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge, MA, 1989);
55. Thomas Butler, ed., Memory: History, Culture, and the Mind (Oxford, U.K., 1990).
56. For an important examination of the significance of the memory literature to historians of American foreign relations, see Robert D. Schulzinger, "Memory, History, and the Study of U.S. Foreign Relations," in Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations, ed. Michael J. I Iogan and Thomas G. Paterson, 2nd rev. ed. (New York, forthcoming).
57. Ford, Speech at Tulane University, 23 April 1975, Public Papers of the Presidents: Gerald R. Ford, 1975, Book I (Washington, DC, 1977), 568-72
58. (hereafter cited as Public Papers).
59. On the reaction to this speech, see Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York, 1983), 667;
60. Peter Ehrenhaus, "Commemorating the Unwon War: On Not Remembering Vietnam," Journal of Communication 39 (Winter 1989): 96-107;
61. William Bundy, A Tangled Web The Mating of Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency (New York, 1998), 495-96.
62. For a fuller examination of presidential rhetoric concerning the Vietnam War, see Robert J. McMahon, "The Vietnam War in American Presidential Discourse, 1975-1995," Rhetoric and Public Affairs 2 (Winter 1999): 529-49.
63. Ford, Remarks at news conference, 6 May 1975, Public Papers, 1975, Book 1, 641.
64. See also Ford, Remarks at news conference, 21 April 1975, Public Papers ibid., 5-45-46.
65. Carter, Speech to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, 15 March 1976, in The Presidential Campaign, 1976, U.S. House of Representatives, Committee of House Administration (Washington, DC, 1978-79), II, m.
66. Carter, Address delivered to the American Chamber of Commerce, Tokyo, Japan, 28 May 1975, The Presidential Campaign, 1976 ibid., I, 66-67.
67. See also Carter, Remarks at the National Democratic Issues Conference, Louisville, Kentucky, 23 November 1975, The Presidential Campaign, 1976 ibid., I, 78.
68. Carter, Interview with Playboy, November 1976, The Presidential Campaign, 1976 ibid., III, 948-50.
69. Carter, Speech at Notre Dame University, 22 May 1977, Public Papers, 1977, 954-62.
70. Carter, Remarks at press conference, 24 March 1977, Public Papers ibid., 501.
71. David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge, MA, 2001).
72. Carter, Remarks at ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, II November 1978, Public Papers, 1978, Book II, 2012-14.
73. Carter, Remarks at White House reception, 30 May 1979, Public Papers ibid., 1979, Book II, 972-75.
74. Blight, Race and Reunioir
75. Gaines Foster, "Coming to Terms with Defeat: Post-Vietnam America and the Post-Civil War South," Virginia Quarterly Review 66 (Winter 1990): 17-35.
76. Carter, Remarks on signing Vietnam Veterans Memorial Bill, I July 1980, Public Papers, 1980-81, Book II, 1268-71.
77. Quoted in New York Times, 19 August 1980.
78. See also Reagan, Remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference dinner, 18 February 1983, Public Papers, 1983, Book I, 249-56.
79. On Reagan's overall rhetorical approach, see especially G. Thomas Goodnight, "Ronald Reagan's Reformulation of the Rhetoric of War: An Analysis of the 'Zero Option,' 'Evil Empire,' and 'Star Wars' Addresses," Quarterly Journal of Speech 72 (November 1986): 390-414;
80. Michael Weiler and W. Barnett Pierce, eds., Reagan and Public Discourse in America (Tuscaloosa, AL, 1992).
81. Reagan, Remarks at dedication ceremonies of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Statue, 11 November 1984, Public Papers, 1984, Book II, 1820-22.
82. Reagan, Remarks at a question-and-answer session with regional editors and broadcasters, 18 April 1985, Public Papers ibid., Book I, 454.
83. Shultz, Speech, "The Meaning of Vietnam," 25 April 1985, U.S. Department of State Bulletin 85 (May 1985): 13-16.
84. For an important analysis of this speech as "a revisionist historical narrative offered to justify policy," see George N. Dionisopoulos and Steven R. Goldzwig, "The Meaning of Vietnam': Political Rhetoric as Revisionist Cultural History," Quarterly Journal of Speech 76 (February 1992): 61-79.
85. Bush, Inaugural Address, 20 January 1989, Public Papers, 1989, Book 1, 1-4.
86. Quoted in New York Times, 2 March 1991.
87. See also Bush, Remarks on signing the National POW/MIA Recognition Day Proclamation, 28 July 1989, Public Papers, 1989, Book II, 1032-34.
88. Clinton, Remarks announcing the normalization of relations with Vietnam, n July 1995, Public Papers, 1995, Book II, 1073-74.
89. See also Clinton, Remarks on lifting the trade embargo on Vietnam, 3 February 1994, Public Papers ibid., Book 1, 178-80;
90. and Clinton's major campaign address on Vietnam to the American Legion Convention, Chicago, 25 August 1992, reprinted in Preface to the Presidency: Selected Speeches of Bill Clinton, 1974-1992, ed. Stephen A. Smith (Fayetteville, AR, 1996), 306-14.
91. On this point, see especially Appy, "The Muffling of Memory."
92. Blight, Race and Reunion.
93. Norman Podhoretz, Why We Were In Vietnam (New York, 1982);
94. Richard Nixon, No More Vietnams (New York, 1985);
95. Guenther Lewey, America in Vietnam (New York, 1978);
96. George C. Herring, "Vietnam, American Foreign Policy, and the Uses of History," Virginia Quarterly Review 66 (Winter 1990): 1-16.
97. W. W. Rostow, "Vietnam and Asia," Diplomatic History 20 (Summer 1996): 467-71.
98. See also W. W. Rostow, The United States and the Regional Organization of Asia and the Pacific, 1965-71 (Austin, TX, 1986).
99. For a critique of this perspective, see Robert J. McMahon, "What Difference Did It Make? Assessing the Vietnam War's Impact on Southeast Asia," in International Perspectives on Vietnam, ed. Lloyd C. Gardner and Ted Gittinger (College Station, TX, 2000), 189-203.
100. Norman Podhoretz, "The Present Danger," Commentary 69 (March 1980): 27-40.
101. Charles Horner, "America Five Years after Defeat," Commentary 69 (April 1980): 50-58, 56.
102. Podhoretz, Why We Were in Vietnam, especially 197-98.
103. Shultz, Speech, "The Meaning of Vietnam."
104. Lefever, "Vietnam's Ghosts."
105. Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, American Public Opinion and U.S. Foreign Policy 1983 (Chicago, 1985), 29.
106. This poll is cited in Thomas G. Paterson, "Historical Memory and Illusive Victories: Vietnam and Central America," Diplomatic History 12 (Winter 1988), 1-18, 3.
107. Richard Sobel, The Impact of Public Opinion on U.S. Foreign Policy Since Vietnam: Constraining the Colossus (New York, 2001).
108. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Crisis of Confidence: Ideas, Power, and Violence in America (Boston, 1969), II.
109. Quoted in Turner, Echoes of Combat, 49-50.
110. Quoted in Jonathan Schell, The Time of Illusion (New York, 1976), 137-38, 277.
111. William M. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977-1992 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1998);
112. Kenneth E. Sharpe, "The Post-Vietnam Formula Under Siege: The Imperial Presidency and Central America," Political Science Quarterly 102 (Fall 1987): 549-69.
113. Quoted in Young, Vietnam Wars, 316.
114. New York Times, 9 October 1989;
115. New York Times, 23 December 1989.
116. Warren Christopher, Chances of a Lifetime (New York, 2001), 291-92.
117. Quoted in Isaacs, Vietnam Shadows, 86.
118. Quoted in George C. Herring, America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975, 3rd rev. ed. (New York, 1996), 312.
119. Compare, for example, the following popular oral history collections: Studs Terkel, ed., "The Good War": An Oral History of World War II (New York, 1984);
120. Kim Willenson, ed., The Bad War An Oral History of the Vietnam War (New York, 1987).
121. Tom Brokaw, The Greatest Generation (New York, 1998);
122. Stephen E.Ambrose, Band of Brothers (New York, 1992);
123. Stephen E.Ambrose idem., Citizen Soldiers (New York, 1997).
124. Hellman, American Myth and the Legacy of Vietnam, 221.
125. Tom Engelhardt, The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation (New York, 1995).
126. Isaacs, Vietnam Shadows, 6.
127. Quoted in James S. Olson and Randy Roberts, Where the Domino Fell: America and Vietnam, 1945-1995, 3rd rev. ed. (St.James, NY, 1999), 270.
128. See especially the essays in Linda Dittmar and Gene Michaud, eds., From Hanoi to Hollywood: The Vietnam War in American Film (New Brunswick, NJ, 1990).
129. See also Albert Auster, Hov the War Was Remembered: Hollywood and Vietnam (New York, 1988);
130. Jeremy Devine, Vietnam at 24 Frames a Second: A Critical and Thematic Analysis of Over 400 Films about the Vietnam War (Jefferson City, NC, 1995).
131. Quoted in George N. Dionisopoulos, "Images of the Warrior Returned: Vietnam Veterans in Popular American Film," in Cultural Legacies, ed. Morris and Ehrenhaus, 87.
132. John Carlos Rowe, "From Documentary to Docudrama: Vietnam on Television in the 19805," Genre 21 (Winter 1988): 451-78;
133. Harry W. Haines, "The Pride Is Back: Rambo, Magnum, P.I., and the Return Trip to Vietnam," in Cultural Legacies, ed. Morris and Ehrenhaus, 99-120;
134. Michael Clark; "Remembering Vietnam," in The Vietnam War and American Culture, ed. Rowe and Berg, 177-207.
135. Quoted in Robert L. Ivie, "AIM's Vietnam and the Rhetoric of Cold War Orthodoxy," in Cultural Legacies, ed. Morris and Ehrenhaus, 31-32.
136. Robert L. Ivie Cultural Legacies Ibid., 27-37;
137. Philip Wander and Melissa Kane, "'Vietnam' and the Politics of History," in Cultural Legacies, ed. Morris and Ehrenhaus, 39-51.
138. Tim O'Brien, Going After Cacciato (New York, 1978), 266.
139. Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried (Boston, 1990), 210.
140. C. D. B. Bryan, "Barely Suppressed Screams: Getting a Bead on Vietnam War Literature," Harper's Magazine 268 (June 1984): 67-72, 69.
141. See also Philip Beidler, American Literature and the Experience of Vietnam (Athens, GA, 1982);
142. Philip Melling, Vietnam in American Literattire(Boston, 1990);
143. Tobey Herzog, Vietnam War Stories: Innocence Lost (New York, 1992);
144. Isaacs, Vietnam Shadows, 19-21.
145. Nathaniel Tripp, Father, Soldier, Son: Memoir of a Platoon Leader in Vietnam (South Royalton, VT. 1997).
146. David R. Gilmore, review of Tripp, Father, Soldier, Son, New York Times Book Review February 1997.
147. Lyrics of some of these songs are reprinted in Stewart O'Nan, ed., The Vietnam Reader(New York, 1998), 281-56.
148. See also H. Bruce Franklin, The Vietnam War in American Stories, Songs, and Poems (Boston, 1996), 203-18;
149. Terry H. Anderson, "American Popular Music and the War in Vietnam," Peace and Change II (April 1986): 51-65.
150. Robert Stone, "'Miss Saigon' Flirts with Art and Reality," New York Times 7 April 1992.
151. William Safire, "Some Enchanted 'Saigon'," New York Times 2 October 1989.
152. Vistica, "What Happened in Thanh Phong," 51.
153. Blight, Race and Reunion, 397.
154. See also Carry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg- The Words that Remade America (New York, 1992).