Newswise — On Jan. 30, 1968, North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong troops used the beginning of the Vietnamese lunar new year to launch a sweeping military campaign that surprised allied South Vietnamese and U.S. forces and proved a turning point in public support of the war.
Texas Tech University experts involved in three of the U.S.' largest Vietnam-related archival and diplomatic initiatives can speak about the Tet Offensive, its ramifications and efforts currently underway to advance diplomacy with Vietnam.
[Note: Reckner and Maxner and will be in Vietnam from Jan. 17-29 and available only by e-mail. Khan will not be available except by e-mail from Jan. 17-Feb. 5]
Ron Milam, interim director of the Center for War and Diplomacy in the Post-Vietnam War Era. Milam is a Vietnam veteran who teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in military history. He is the author of "Not a Gentleman's War: Junior Officers in the Vietnam War," slated for publication in 2008, and has written a chapter on the war for Blackwell Publishing's Companion to Military History. As an academic fellow for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, he also focuses his teaching on terrorism and insurgency.
James R. Reckner, executive director of the Institute for Modern Conflict, Diplomacy and Reconciliation. Reckner was a Navy officer who served in Vietnam and can speak about the war and its aftermath. He oversaw the Vietnam Center's growth into one of the world's foremost Vietnam-related archival and diplomatic instruments and developed the Institute for Modern Conflict, Diplomacy and Reconciliation, which focuses on America's world involvement since 1950.
Steve Maxner, director of the Vietnam Center and Archive. Maxner can speak about the strategic and political implications of the offensive, aimed at striking a stinging military blow to the U.S. and provoking an uprising in South Vietnam. Maxner has conducted interviews with Vietnam veterans, family members, Vietnamese and others for Texas Tech's oral history archive.
Khanh Le, associate director of Vietnamese affairs at the Vietnam Center. Khanh Le was an official in the South Vietnamese government who fled the country during the last days of the war. He is now instrumental in correspondence between the Vietnamese government and university officials and Vietnam Center staff.
Vietnam-related research at Texas Tech: The Institute for Modern Conflict, Diplomacy and Reconciliation is an archive-based research facility focusing on America's world involvement from 1950 to the present, including the Vietnam War and post-Vietnam era.
The Vietnam Center and Archives houses one of the largest collections of Vietnam-era related documents outside the National Archives. It also serves a diplomatic mission; in the past year alone, center officials have inked agreements to share information with Vietnam's national archive and also to train the future diplomats of the U.S.' former enemy.
The Center for War and Diplomacy in the Post-Vietnam War Era studies issues relating to national security, intelligence, homeland defense, and the global war on terror from 1975 to the present. Researchers study overseas interventions, combat operations, diplomacy, and the personal experience of American servicemen and women in the post-Vietnam era.
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