title: Our Vietnam/Nuoc Viet Ta: A History of the War 1954-1975
author:  A.J. Langguth 
description: By the evidence former <i>New York Times</i> war correspondent <a href="/exec/obidos/exact-author=Langguth%2c%20A.%20J./${0}">A. J. Langguth</a> presents in <i>Our Vietnam</i>, that long conflict can be seen as a steadily accumulating series of missteps, misinterpretations, and mistakes. Some had their origins in earnest attempts to bring scientific method to bear on the business of killing, such as Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's belief in the theory of "statistical control," a cost-benefit accounting procedure that, hitherto confined to factories, was applied to the battlefield with tragic result. Some, such as the endless argument at the Paris peace talks over the shape of the conference table, were born in the endless struggle to win the war on the propaganda front. And some, like the CIA's misreading of events that led to the 1963 coup against South Vietnamese leader Diem, arose from an almost willful refusal to recognize the realities of Vietnamese society.
zlib_text: # VIETNAM WAR
  
  ###  _A History from Beginning to End_
  
  _  
  _
  
  Copyright © 2016 by Hourly History
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  
  Table of Contents
  
  [Introduction](text00002.html#_Toc442713817)
  
  [Vietnam’s Past](text00003.html#sigil_toc_id_1)
  
  [Exit the French](text00004.html#sigil_toc_id_2)
  
  [The United States and Ngo Dinh Diem](text00005.html#sigil_toc_id_3)
  
  [The Resistance War Against America Begins](text00006.html#sigil_toc_id_4)
  
  [Americanization](text00007.html#sigil_toc_id_5)
  
  [The American Home Front](text00008.html#sigil_toc_id_6)
  
  [Vietnamization and President Nixon](text00009.html#sigil_toc_id_7)
  
  [The End of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath](text00010.html#sigil_toc_id_8)
  
  [Conclusion](text00011.html)
  
  [Your Free eBooks!](text00013.html)
  
  
  #  Introduction
  
  Although the country of Vietnam is a small corner of the globe, the Vietnam
  War was one of the most polarizing, iconic, and devastating events of the
  second half of the twentieth century. At its heart, the Vietnam War was a
  civi