Archive Continues Difficult Work of Reconciling Vietnam

The wounds have begun to heal and, in some cases, even fade. But the political and social rifts created by the Vietnam War still linger even decades after the conclusion of that contentious conflict.

So while Texas Tech University broadens its diplomatic and archival mission to include all modern conflicts since 1950, the Vietnam Center continues its steady work of reconciling the conflict both at home and abroad.

On Aug. 17, the center became the first U.S. entity to formally exchange information with the Vietnamese government’s official archive; forging a new tie between two governments who are just beginning a tentative exchange of information related to a conflict that spanned nearly 15 years.

“Sharing information and knowledge, both in our archives and also our perspectives of the war, is an impressive step for both sides,” said Steve Maxner, director of the Vietnam Center, adding that the Vietnamese government to this point has been reluctant to open its war-related documents to outside sources.

At the same time, the center hosted a team of U.S. researchers who spent two weeks digging in Texas Tech’s vast archive for clues to locate soldiers still unaccounted for after the conflict.

New Lines of Communication

The archive, already home to one of the largest repositories of war-related documents and materials outside of Washington, D.C., recently formalized a commitment to exchange information with the State Records and Archives Department of Vietnam.

“We see this as a monumental milestone for our project,” said Maxner. “The Vietnam Center has worked with the State Records and Archives Department of Vietnam since 2004 to create this memorandum, which will improve understanding and awareness between these two countries and help us reconcile our past so that we can build a brighter future.”

Tran Hoang, director general of the SRADV, signed the memorandum, which outlines a professional exchange of information between the SRADV and The Vietnam Center. This will include not only the sharing of documents, but more direct interaction to improve archiving efforts and the creation of collaborative document exhibitions.

Eventually the agreement could result in the SRADV making documents and materials related to the Vietnam War available in digital form to researchers outside the country. These documents include first-hand accounts and books written by residents inside Vietnam that have not been accessible until now.

The signing capped a three-day visit by a delegation of representatives who visited Lubbock to learn about the Vietnam Center’s digital archiving.

Searching for Answers

The archive also opened its materials to James Coyle, a senior researcher for the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), who led a team of analysts and linguists in searching the archive for new MIA leads and clues.

The team has surveyed 1,680 collections of photos, documents and other materials within the Vietnam Archive for information that could help locate soldiers still missing in Vietnam.

“We are primarily trying to obtain information that we can turn into investigative leads,” Coyle said.

To date, the Vietnam Archive has provided 58 new actionable items of intelligence about currently unresolved MIA cases in Southeast Asia. The online documents also have been used by veteran’s benefits counselors with the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs, who have validated more than 800 Vietnam veterans’ medical claims.

JPAC exists to provide the fullest possible accounting of Americans.

The First Step

To help begin the exchange of information, Hoang provided Maxner with service records of North Vietnamese physician Dang Thuy Tram, whose diaries chronicling the 27-year-old physician’s experiences treating North Vietnamese soldiers have become an international phenomenon.

The Vietnam Center already houses the diaries, but Maxner said this provides a richer level of information as to the details of her service. Vietnam Center representatives, in turn, gave delegation members a disk with photographs of the diaries’ pages as well as a preview copy of “Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram,” the English-language translation of the diaries.