Toward a New History of the Tet Offensive: Spies, Allies and Murder in Hanoi

On Thursday, October 25 at 2:30 p.m., OLLI at FAU in Jupiter will host Lien-Hang Nguyen, Ph.D. She will present “Toward a New History of the Tet Offensive: Spies, Allies and Murder in Hanoi.” Dr. Nguyen is the Dorothy Borg Associate Professor in the History of the United States and East Asia at Columbia University. She specializes in the Vietnam War, U.S.-Southeast Asian relations, and the global Cold War. Dr. Nguyen is currently working on a comprehensive history of the 1968 Tet Offensive for Random House. She is the general editor of the forthcoming Cambridge History of the Vietnam War, 3 vols., as well as co-editor of the Cambridge Studies in U.S. Foreign Relations. She received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and her Ph.D. from Yale University.

Dr. Nguyen was fine months old in April of 1975 when her family fled Vietnam. Growing up, her family did not discuss leaving Vietnam because it was too painful to talk about the experience. It was not until she was working with John Gaddis at Yale, who was focusing on the Cold War era, did she focus her studies on Vietnam. Her initial focus was on the American Civil War.

Her lecture at OLLI will cover the 1968 Tet Offensive. It  is perhaps the most well-known event of the Vietnam War. Much of its origins, however, remain shrouded in mystery even a half century later. Using new materials from Vietnam, this talk will explore the Tet strategy deliberation in Hanoi to reveal how North Vietnam’s foreign relations and domestic politics contributed to the planning for the communist offensive. In particular, it will reveal how spies, allies and even murder played a role in the 1968 Tet Offensive.

To see a clip from 2012 of Dr. Lien-Hang Nguyen’s speech at the 12th annual National Book Festival on the National Mall in Washington D.C., click here.

To register for “Toward a New History of the Tet Offensive: Spies, Allies and Murder in Hanoi” on Thursday, October 25 at 2 :30 p.m., click here.

A book signing will follow the lecture.