Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, Dorothy Borg Associate Professor in the History of the United States and East Asia at Columbia University, published an article on June 9, 2021, in The New York Times titled "In Vietnam, the Pentagon Papers Are History Written by the Defeated."
Nguyen describes how the Pentagon Papers helped Vietnamese historians understand the war and the seismic impact the Papers had on shaping the Vietnamese government's narrative. While the Vietnamese have released no equivalent to the papers, they have relied heavily on the originals. Nguyen writes, "After war’s end, the very first Communist Party-approved histories of the war published in Hanoi copiously cited the Pentagon Papers in their footnotes. From these early histories to the current versions, the argument has remained consistent: According to the U.S. government’s own internal study, America had no right to get involved and no means to win the war once it did."
To read the full article in The New York Times, click here.
