April 28, 2005 Press contact: Nancy Hamlin Soukup, Watson Institute, 401.863.3438, or Nancy_Soukup@brown.edu.
From April 25 to 27, the Watson Institute observed three significant milestones related to the war with Vietnam: the fortieth anniversary of the introduction of U.S. combat troops in March 1965; the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of Saigon to communist forces on April 1975; and the tenth anniversary of the normalization of Vietnam-U.S. relations in July 1995.
A joint exhibition, "The Vietnam War: Untold Stories," with images by Roger LeBrun and Quyen Truong '05, is on display through July 22, at the Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street. Hours: Monday–Friday, 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
The Watson Institute's Critical Oral History (COH) Projects, in collaboration with the Francis Wayland Collegium for Liberal Learning and the C. V. Starr Lectureships Fund, presented diverse programs and varied perspectives that spoke to these anniversaries—from a combat medic with the 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam in 1969–1970 (Roger LeBrun, University of Rhode Island), to a MASH unit surgeon (Augustus A. White III '57, Beth Israel Hospital and Harvard Medical School), to the daughter of a South Vietnamese prisoner in a communist re-education camp (Quyen Truong, a Brown University senior). An art exhibition with works by LeBrun and Truong is on display at the Watson Institute for the commemorations. James G. Blight and janet M. Lang, COH principal investigators, organized the three-day event.
Other programs focused on the Institute's long-time research on the escalation of the war in Vietnam, and research in which former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara has played a central role.
Read an article by the Providence Journal's Bryan Rourke titled "Brown to host 3-day conference with The Fog of War's McNamara" (Thursday, April 21, 2005).
Event Schedule:
Monday, April 25, 4:00–5:30 p.m., Starr Auditorium, 117 MacMillan Hall, 167 Thayer Street
The Vietnam War: Untold Stories, a colloquium
· "Fringes of War: Vietnam, 1969," with Roger LeBrun, a vector-borne disease specialist from the University of Rhode Island, who was a combat medic with the 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam in 1969–1970. During this commemoration, LeBrun will exhibit 24 photos he took during the war of abandoned Amerasian children, who lived in a Buddhist orphanage, as well as other poignant photos of unusual non-combat scenes. Both moving and uplifting, in spite of the grim context in which they were taken, his images received rave reviews when they appeared earlier this year at a gallery in Newport, Rhode Island. LeBrun will describe his experience and that of the children he photographed. In addition, he will discuss his planned work this summer on infectious disease in Vietnam as a Fulbright Senior Specialist for the Pasteur Institute at the Institute for Hygiene and Epidemiology in Hanoi.
· "Impressions of My Father," with Quyen Truong, a Brown senior art concentrator, who was born in Saigon, and moved with her family to Hartford, Connecticut, when she was seven. Her father, an ARVN (South Vietnamese) soldier, was imprisoned in a re-education camp north of the 17th parallel for seven years and barely survived the experience. She has taped and transcribed interviews with her father, and has transformed her impressions into large, black and white drawings (5 of them, roughly 8 feet by 4 feet each). Her paintings are overwhelming in their power to move the viewer. Truong will describe the process by which she "interviewed" her father, what motivated her to do so, her father's response to seeing her paintings, and some reflections on her trip during the summer of 2004 back to Vietnam with her father (their first since immigrating to the U.S.).
· "A Surgeon in Vietnam Reports," with Augustus A. White III, former head of orthopedic surgery at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital, and a MASH unit surgeon in South Vietnam in 1965–1966. White, who graduated from Brown in 1957, was an athletic star in his college days and, following medical school at Stanford, became one of the foremost orthopedic surgeons in the world, specializing in spinal surgery. He returned to Vietnam for the first time as an observer at a 1997 conference in Hanoi on the war, sponsored by Brown's Watson Institute. He will speak about his medical experience in Vietnam, and share some race related perspectives. In Vietnam, White led a team of military medical volunteers, who offered surgical and non surgical care in a leper colony in a nonsecure region of Vietnam. He will describe and discuss his experiences.
· Moderator, James G. Blight, professor of International Relations (Research), Watson Institute, Brown University.
Monday, April 25, 6:00–7:30 p.m., Atrium, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street
Exhibition Opening of "The Vietnam War: Untold Stories,"
with Prof. Roger LeBrun and Ms. Quyen Truong
A personal guided tour of the joint exhibition—LeBrun's photographs and Truong's paintings—will be given by the photographer and artist.
Tuesday, April 26, 12:00–1:30 p.m., Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street
"Kennedy, Johnson, and Vietnam: The Impact of the Presidential Transition on the War, and Its Implications for U.S. Foreign and Defense Policy"
· Thomas Blanton, director, National Security Archive, George Washington University, Washington, DC, and moderator for this panel
· James G. Blight, Critical Oral History Projects, Watson Institute
· janet M. Lang, Critical Oral History Projects, Watson Institute
· David A. Welch, Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto
The participants will present the results of an April 8–10, 2005, conference at the Musgrove Conference Center in St. Simons Island, Georgia, on "Kennedy, Johnson, and Vietnam." Of particular interest will be their analysis of new documents and audiotapes from the Kennedy and Johnson Libraries that bear on what Kennedy decided regarding Vietnam, and why; what Johnson decided, and why; and especially on what Kennedy may have done, had he lived and been reelected in November 1964. The participants in the symposium will also draw lessons from the historical exercise, and apply them to the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq and other ongoing conflicts.
Wednesday April 27 4:00–5:30 p.m., Starr Auditorium, 117 MacMillan Hall, 167 Thayer Street
"Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the 21st Century"
· Robert S. McNamara, former secretary of defense in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations
· James G. Blight, Critical Oral History Projects, Watson Institute
· Abbott Gleason, Department of History and Watson Institute, Brown University, and moderator for this panel
Excerpts from the Academy Award®-winning film, The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara
Robert S. McNamara described the conclusions he has reached regarding war and peace in the twenty-first century, following his personal participation in some of the epochal events of the twentieth century, and also his recent writing on these themes in three books: In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (1995), Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy (1999, with James G. Blight and Robert K. Brigham, et al.), and especially Wilson's Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing and Catastrophe in the 21st Century (post 9/11 edition, with James G. Blight, 2003). Blight described the unusual process by which the research led by McNamara was transformed by Errol Morris into The Fog of War.
Following the presentation, James G. Blight and janet M. Lang, of the Watson Institute, signed copies of their new book, The Fog of War: Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara.
These events were made possible through the support of Brown's Francis Wayland Collegium for Liberal Learning, the C. V. Starr Lectureships Fund, the Watson Institute, Creative Arts Council, and the Arca Foundation.
For more information about these events, call 401.863.2809.
Photo: "Nightmares," by Quyen Truong '05. Oil, permanent marker, black ink, and charcoal on muslin. From the Exhibition Guide: "Aside from human-inflicted punishment, re-education camp prisoners faced malnourishment, heat-stroke, infectious diseases, malaria, and dysentery, among other traumas. Although the population of these labor-intensive camps was diverse—everyone from South Vietnamese doctors to soldiers were forced to endure re-education—the men found community in each other. My father recounted many tales of how he survived because another prisoner looked after him, or found him when he was injured and sick in the jungle. Throughout the gloom of sickness and feverish nightmares, these men tried their best to ensure each other's survival. Images of ghostly spirits and watchful eyes are integrated into the painting to emphasize the conflicting senses and the fevered thoughts of the sick man portrayed."