Finding Aid for the William Colby Collection

William Colby Collection

Finding Aid

The William Colby Collection consists of material collected by Mr. Colby during his tenure in Vietnam as a member of the US embassy and of CORDS (Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support) and after his duty as Director of the CIA. This is a period from approximately 1960 to 1972 that resumes again in the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. The material generally reflects Mr. Colby's responsibilities in Vietnam, American policy and the pacification programs. Therefore, the collection is divided into 7 sections; American Foreign Policy consists of various papers and publications by individuals and companies. The Communists includes FBIS (Foreign Broadcasting Information Service) reports and bound materials concerned with the North Vietnamese and their guerilla allies in South Vietnam. Covert Operations primarily contains articles and papers on the CIA. Insurgency, Counter-Insurgency and the Phoenix program discusses the US suppression of guerilla forces through papers and documents published by government .think tanks.. Pacification, a program with which Mr. Colby was highly involved, consists mainly of government documents and pamphlets as well as drafts of articles written by Mr. Colby. .Vietnamization. is a small section composed of articles, papers and a few government documents. The General files may also prove informative as it includes a wide range of topics from Vietnamese culture to relief programs. In July 1999, the Honorable Sally A. Shelton-Colby donated an additional two boxes of material to the Archive and have been added as Box 6 and 7 to the collection. Biography William Egan Colby served in many different capacities during his service with the US government. In the Second World War Mr. Colby was a member of OSS and after the war remained the CIA.s man in Italy and Sweden. In 1959 he became the CIA Station Chief in Saigon, a post he held until 1962. Colby then became the Chief of the CIA.s Far East Division, but returned to Vietnam in 1968 with the rank of Ambassador. In this position he headed the American pacification program, also known as CORDS. A death in his immediate family forced Mr. Colby.s return to the United States in 1971. In 1973 he was appointed Director of Central Intelligence, where he remained until 1976. Those interested in learning more about Mr. Colby should consult his books, Honorable Men and Lost Victory. An avid and active supporter of Vietnam studies, Mr. Colby donated this collection in the formative years of the Vietnam Archive. In early 1997, Mrs. Shelton-Colby graciously donated additional photographs to the collection. Finding Aid and Collection Processed by Chris Heinemeier

Finding Aid,  No Date, William Colby Collection, The Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University.

Finding Aid for the Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association (FVPPA) Collection

Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association (FVPPA) Collection (Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation)

Finding Aid

Finding Aid,  1905-2001, bulk 1977-1999, Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association (FVPPA) Collection, The Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University.

Finding Aid for the Bud Harton Collection

Bud Harton Collection

Finding Aid

Finding Aid,  No Date, Bud Harton Collection, The Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University.

Finding Aid for the My Lai Collection

My Lai Collection

Finding Aid

Just over four linear feet of photographs, legal documents, correspondence, handwritten notes, printed materials, and military records document the My Lai incident (16 March 1968) and the subsequent investigation and trial of the participants of the incident by the Department of Defense in 1969. The materials are dated between 1956 and 1973, with the majority of the documents from 1968 to 1972, and are divided into the following categories: legal documents, correspondence, handwritten notes, printed materials, military records, and photographs.

Included in these documents are witness statements of many of the participants at My Lai, which formed the basis of evidence the U.S. Army used to indict Lieutenant William L. Calley, Jr. and others. Also included are legal documents of the court cases between the United States Government and members of Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry and Department of the Army documents, which explain the procedures of the trial process in a military court of law during the Vietnam Conflict era.

The My Lai Collection has eighteen photographs taken by United States Army photographer Ronald Haeberle, some of which were subsequently published in Life magazine. Haeberle won a Pulitzer prize for these photographs which document the horrific results of the incident. Most of the pictures are quite graphic in their depiction of violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience. The remaining photographs were taken by Defense Department officials to document the My Lai investigation and other biographical information.

Finding Aid,  No Date, My Lai Collection, The Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University.

Finding Aid for the Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 01 - Assessment and Strategy

Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 01 - Assessment and Strategy

Finding Aid

Finding Aid,  No Date, Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 01 - Assessment and Strategy, The Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University.

Finding Aid for the Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 02 - Military Operations

Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 02 - Military Operations

Finding Aid

The contents of this unit are reportorial in nature covering the day to day events of the war from the perspective of combat operations. The tone of these materials is to relate what happened on the battlefields of Vietnam with little analysis as to why certain policies were followed or how successfully they were pursued.. Since combat operations are conducted in an arena influenced by political and diplomatic factors, a certain amount of attention has been devoted to these subjects as well. Here again, however, the goal is more to report such events and their relationship to field operations rather than to analyze them. Primarily, the items in this unit consist of US, North and South Vietnamese journalistic, government, and academic reports and studies which offer narratives of battlefield operations. This unit consists of 35 boxes and is broken down in into two parts. The first, Boxes 1-28, contains contemporary accounts of battlefield events. These materials span the years 1945-1975, with the bulk during the 1961-75 time period. They are indexed at the folder level in this finding aid. Boxes 29-35 house retrospective materials covering the same events, published between 1975 and 1994. These retrospective materials are not indexed in this finding aid. According to the system which Douglas Pike set up in the original collection, each year's files are broken into two catagories. The first is General Files and the second is a group of chronological files. The General Files are found at the beginning of the arrangement for the files of each individual year and are labelled as such. Pike's original idea was to put overview documentation's or grand studies of the year's major events in these files. However, these events may well be covered in the chronological files that follow for the time period in question. The difference is that in these later files the material tends to be more, reportorial, fragmented, and journalistic in nature. If one is studying some major event or turning point in the war it behooves the researcher to begin with the general files and work to the chronological. If working on a more minor event or topic, it makes more sense to begin with the chronological files and then turn to the general files for material giving perspective to these events to help the researcher set them within the larger picture of the major events of the war. In describing the Pike Collection, every effort was made to list all significant subjects or materials contained in a file. This was primarily done by thumbing through the folders and making notes as we went. Thus, it may appear to the researcher that subjects have been listed in this finding aid in the order which they appear in the folders. This is not strictly the case. The only accurate statement that can be made about the folder descriptions is that it they reflect the time period listed and subjects given to be contained in the folder. However, just because material on a topic is encountered early in searching the folder, does not mean that there is not similar material at the end. This may be so because the internal arrangement in the folder is chronological, not topical. To help the researcher, there is also a glossary that precedes the section of this guide containing the folder inventories/indexes.

Finding Aid,  No Date, Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 02 - Military Operations, The Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University.

Finding Aid for the Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 03 - Antiwar Activities

Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 03 - Antiwar Activities

Finding Aid

Finding Aid,  No Date, Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 03 - Antiwar Activities, The Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University.

Finding Aid for the Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 03 - POW/MIA Issues

Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 03 - POW/MIA Issues

Finding Aid

Finding Aid,  No Date, Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 03 - POW/MIA Issues, The Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University.

Finding Aid for the Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 05 - National Liberation Front

Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 05 - National Liberation Front

Finding Aid

Unit 5 examines the National Liberation Front and related organizations such as the People's Revolutionary Party, the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG), and the Alliance of Democratic Peace Forces. The unit is divided into the following series: General Studies, Organizational History, External (International) Relations, Organization, Dan Van Program, Military Activities, Political Action (Dich Van, Binh Van), Communications And Viet Cong Mystique. Another major series contains approximately 4,000 captured NLF documents (most of which are in Vietnamese.)

Finding Aid,  No Date, Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 05 - National Liberation Front, The Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University.

Finding Aid for the Frederic Whitehurst Collection

Frederic Whitehurst Collection

Finding Aid

Finding Aid,  No Date, Frederic Whitehurst Collection, The Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University.

Finding Aid for the Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. Collection: Agent Orange Cases

Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. Collection: Agent Orange Cases

Finding Aid

This sub-series is approximately 1.5 linear feet and contains information about court cases and the effects of Agent Orange. Also included are numerous journal articles and correspondence to and from Admiral Zumwalt related to the cases. The information ranges from the 1970s through the 1990s.

Finding Aid,  No Date, Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. Collection: Agent Orange Cases, The Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University.

Finding Aid for the Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. Collection: Agent Orange Coordinating Committee

Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. Collection: Agent Orange Coordinating Committee

Finding Aid

This sub-series contains the records of the Agent Orange Coordinating Committee (AOCC). The AOCC was comprised of representatives of various Veterans' Organizations, under the leadership of Admiral Zumwalt. Its purpose was to coordinate efforts in raising public awareness regarding the Agent Orange issue, to facilitate political lobbying efforts, to divest the National Academy of Science review committee of those members felt to have a conflict of interest, to support scientific research and assist in the dissemination of information regarding research into the effects of AO on Veterans and, later, the Vietnamese people, and to prevent unnecessary duplication of efforts toward this issue. The AOCC acted as a clearing-house for private-sector efforts to assemble information, such as the Vietnam Veterans Agent Orange Health Survey. The committee was also involved in preparing several amicus curiae briefs for important court challenges. The materials in this sub-series include minutes from AOCC meetings and articles from various newspapers and member organization newsletters. The majority of the collection is correspondence from the 1980s and 1990s.

Finding Aid,  No Date, Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. Collection: Agent Orange Coordinating Committee, The Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University.

Finding Aid for the Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. Collection: Agent Orange Correspondence

Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. Collection: Agent Orange Correspondence

Finding Aid

This sub-series is about 1 linear foot and is comprised of correspondence about the issue of Agent Orange not related to the other sub-series within the Agent Orange series. The correspondence is generally to and from Admiral Zumwalt. Much of the correspondence involves United Stated Government officials and medical personnel. There are also associated articles with some of the correspondence.

Finding Aid,  No Date, Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. Collection: Agent Orange Correspondence, The Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University.

Finding Aid for the Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. Collection: Agent Orange Hearings

Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. Collection: Agent Orange Hearings

Finding Aid

This sub-series is about 1 linear foot and contains information about United States Congressional hearings. This sub-series is comprised of hearing transcripts, articles, and correspondence. The hearings discuss the risk of dioxin. The Congressional Committees found in this sub-series are the House Science Committee, Veterans Affairs Committee, Committee on Government Operations, and various subcommittees.

Finding Aid,  No Date, Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. Collection: Agent Orange Hearings, The Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University.

Finding Aid for the Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. Collection: Agent Orange Publications

Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. Collection: Agent Orange Publications

Finding Aid

This sub-series contains approximately 3.5 linear feet of paper material. This series is comprised of articles from periodicals, newspapers, and journals, reports by various entities, position papers, conference and symposia materials, postal messages from combat development (during the Vietnam War), manuscripts, press releases, and some related correspondence.

Finding Aid,  No Date, Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. Collection: Agent Orange Publications, The Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University.

Finding Aid for the Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. Collection: Agent Orange Subject Files

Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. Collection: Agent Orange Subject Files

Finding Aid

This series is 6 linear feet. This series contains materials about Agent Orange from a wide array of sources, such as the Agent Orange Gray group, Australian Government, Institute of Medicine, conference materials, and The Vietnam Archive. This series also includes bibliographical materials and book reviews. At this time, the materials located in this series have not been associated with other sub-series of Admiral Zumwalt's Agent Orange collection; however, in the near future, some of the materials may be integrated into other sub-series.

Finding Aid,  No Date, Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. Collection: Agent Orange Subject Files, The Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University.