Webinar: Ending the 'American War'

 

"Ending the 'American War': 

Promises, Realities and Impact 

of the U.S. Peace Movement" 

Created on December 11, 2022

Watch youtube recording here

https://youtu.be/n4hgMH95q-Y

Carolyn (Rusti) Eisenberg 

and Arnold (Skip) Isaacs

A discussion of their books 

moderated by Paul Lauter

"Ending the ‘American War’ in Vietnam: Promises, Realities and Impact of the U.S. Peace Movement"

Books by Carolyn Eisenberg, Arnold Isaacs moderated by Paul Lauter 

December 18 marks the Fiftieth Anniversary of the “Christmas bombings” of Hanoi and Haiphong, the starting date of eleven nights of devastating B-52 attacks on North Vietnamese cities as well as other American daylight raids on the North. These formed a prelude to the signing of the Paris Peace Agreement (Jan. 27, 1973), which ostensibly ended the “American” phase of the Vietnam War but failed to stop the continuing war between the two Vietnamese sides. This webinar casts fresh light on these events and addresses some of the myths surrounding the accord and its aftermath. What role did the peace movement play in the evolution of U.S. policy? How did Nixon’s victory in the recent Presidential election play out in his policies? And how does this history bear on the present crises of expanding conflict and stymied peace-making that confront us? 

Our speakers' knowledge comes from two quite different experiences. For her forthcoming book Fire and Rain: Nixon, Kissinger and the Wars in Southeast Asia, Carolyn Eisenberg examined thousands of pages of previously classified documents and tapes that provide a mass of gripping new details about Nixon's and Kissinger's policymaking and the social forces shaping their decisions. Arnold Isaacs, as a journalist in Vietnam from 1972 to 1975, had a close-up view of events on the ground before and after the Paris agreement was signed. His book, Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia, amplified that eyewitness reporting with extensive material from U.S. government field reports and other contemporary accounts from Vietnamese on both sides. A new updated edition has just been released.

Carolyn Rusti Eisenberg is a Professor of US History and American Foreign Policy.

at Hofstra University. Her new book Fire and Rain: Nixon, Kissinger and the Wars in Southeast Asia ( Oxford University Press) will become available in January 2023.  Carolyn's prize-winning book, Drawing the Line: the American Decision to Divide Germany, 1944-49 (Cambridge University Press) traces the origins of the Cold War in Europe. Professor Eisenberg is a co-founder of Brooklyn for Peace, and a Legislative Coordinator for Historians for Peace and Democracy.

Arnold R. Isaacs is the author of Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia, named a Notable Book of the Year by both the New York Times and the American Library Association. He also wrote Vietnam Shadows: The War, Its Ghosts, and Its Legacy and an online report, From Troubled Lands: Listening to Pakistani and Afghan Americans in Post-9/11 America, available at www.fromtroubledlands.net. Isaacs was formerly a reporter, foreign and national correspondent, and editor for the Baltimore Sun. During six years as the Sun's correspondent in Asia, among other major stories he covered the closing years and final days of the Vietnam war. Since leaving daily journalism he has taught or conducted training programs for journalists and journalism students in more than 20 countries in Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. His website is www.arnoldisaacs.net

Moderator Paul Lauter is A. K. and G. M. Smith Professor of Literature Emeritus at Trinity College.  He is the author, most recently, of Our Sixties: An Activist’s History.  Lauter served as president of the American Studies Association (USA) and has spoken and consulted at universities in almost every state and in 25 countries.  Earlier in his career, he worked for the American Friends Service Committee, ran a community school in Washington,  DC, helped found The Feminist Press, directed the US Servicemen’s Fund, and was active in a variety of Movement organizations.   

Resources

The "Christmas bombing" of 1972 and why that misremembered Vietnam War moment matters

In the American narrative, one last bombing attack on North Vietnam brought peace. That's a self-serving fiction  by Arnold R. Isaacs, Salon DECEMBER 11, 2022

https://www.salon.com/2022/12/11/the-christmas-bombing-of-1972--and-why-that-misremembered-vietnam-moment-matters/

"North Vietnam, 1972: The Christmas bombing of Hanoi" BBC

Noam Chomsky:  The Responsibility of Intellectuals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6Sds7nkJEE

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