Douglas Eugene Pike

Douglas Eugene Pike (27 July 1924 - 13 May 2002) was born in Cass Lake, Minnesota. He served with the United States Information Agency (USIA) as a Foreign Service Information Officer (FSIO) from 1960 to 1980, serving fifteen years in Saigon, Republic of Vietnam, from 1960 to 1975. During that time, Pike became a leading American analyst and expert on the Vietnam War and the communist movements of North and South Vietnam. After the war ended in 1975, he became a special advisor on Vietnam to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger as a member of the State Department Policy Planning Council. When President Jimmy Carter took office, Pike received an offer to work for Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress (on loan from USIA), where he wrote a study on Vietnamese Foreign Relations, wrote reports, testified before Congress and the House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, and worked closely with Senator John Glenn and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

As he approached retirement in 1980, Pike received an offer to establish the Indochina Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley, where he also established the Indochina Archive. While at UC-Berkeley, Pike became the founder and editor of the quarterly journal Indochina Chronology (1982-2001), which featured scholarly analysis of the most recent research and publications regarding the Vietnam War. In 1997, Pike moved the bulk of his Indochina Archive to the Vietnam Center & Archive at Texas Tech University where it remains to this day. Pike also continued editing Indochina Chronology until 2001. Over the course of his life and career, Pike published numerous scholarly works, contributed to many edited volumes, wrote several hundred scholarly and popular articles, monographs, and conference papers; and traveled widely giving thousands of lectures.

Douglas Pike served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps as a high-speed radio operator and a combat correspondent during World War II (1944-46) in the South Pacific and the Philippines. After WWII ended, he arrived in Japan as part of the first contingent of U.S. forces that landed in Sendai, working with Stars and Stripes in Tokyo until February 1946. After attending the University of Minnesota and the University of North Dakota for about eighteen months, Pike then worked as a civilian for the U.S. Army Public Information Office in Okinawa, Japan, before becoming editor-in-chief of the Ryukyuan Review, a daily newspaper in Okinawa.

As the Korean War escalated, Pike applied for positions in Korea, eventually being hired by the United Nations Civil Assistance Command where he served as a public information officer writing articles about civil affairs, relief and rehabilitation programs, and other non-combat/non-military activities. While working in Korea, Pike decided to finish his undergraduate degree, leaving UN service, and attending the University of California-Berkeley earning his B.A. degree in 1953. Upon graduation, the U.S. Department of Defense recruited Pike to serve as editor of Far East Network News (FEN) Service in Tokyo, providing radio-broadcast news for Americans living in and around Japan. After two years, Pike and his wife, Myrna (nee Johnson) moved back to the U.S., eventually settling in Washington, D.C., where he attended American University while working as a reporter for the Washington Star newspaper. While at American University, the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) approached Pike about working as a Foreign Service Information Officer (FSIO) but could not offer him an immediate position due to federal budget constraints. After graduating American University with an M.A. degree in 1957 and awaiting authorization of his employment with USIA, Pike received an offer to work with Voice of America (VOA) in Washington, D.C. in the International Broadcasting Service (IBS). Pike worked with IBS as a political correspondent covering events and activities in Washington, D.C., to include the White House and President Eisenhower’s Press Conferences. Pike worked simultaneously with VOA Far East Desk, reporting on events in India, Kashmir, and Korea.

In 1960, Pike finally received an offer to work with USIA as a Foreign Service Information Officer (FSIO) in Vietnam, arriving in Saigon in December 1960. For the next fifteen years, Pike became the U.S. government’s leading analyst and foremost authority on the National Liberation Front (NLF), the Viet Cong (VC), and Vietnamese communism. Pike’s early personal and scholarly interests focused on the communication of ideas within social movements. His arrival in Saigon in 1960 coincided with the official formation of the National Liberation Front (NLF) as part of the Vietnamese movement to oppose the government of South Vietnam and support the reunification of North and South Vietnam, by force if necessary. Pike’s interest in how such organizations are created, develop, evolve, recruit, grow, and communicate their ideas to a broader audience became the focus of his analytical work as an FSIO. He started to immediately review and collect captured documents, newspaper and magazine articles, propaganda leaflets and other materials, and started to interview NLF/VC defectors so he could better understand the Vietnamese communist movement and how it operated. That material and research served as the foundation for his first study on the Viet Cong, entitled, Viet Cong: The Organization and Techniques of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, which he completed in 1966 while on sabbatical at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This wartime publication propelled Pike to become immediately recognized and respected as the foremost authority on the NLF and Viet Cong. As the war continued, Pike went on to write other important and timely studies to include Politics of the Viet Cong: The Political Process as Practiced by the National Liberation Front (1968); War, Peace, and the Viet Cong (1969); and The Viet Cong Strategy of Terror (1970). After the war, Pike wrote several more important studies on Vietnam to include, History of Vietnamese Communism, 1925-1976 (1979); PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam (1986); and Vietnam and The Soviet Union: Anatomy of an Alliance (1987).

Throughout his service as an FSIO in Saigon, Pike collected substantial research materials on a broad range of topics related to the Vietnam War, the communist movements and other organizations in Vietnam, relevant people, and events, as well as general information about Southeast Asia to include Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. After retiring from USIA In 1980, he established and became director of the Indochina Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley. His extensive personal collection of Vietnam War/Southeast Asia materials also served as the foundation for the Indochina Archive, which Pike founded in 1981. In 1982 he founded Indochina Chronology, a quarterly journal consisting of annotated bibliographic listings of current publications, and historic and contemporary news of the region, for which he served as editor from 1982-2001.

As support for the Indochina Studies Program and Indochina Archive at UC-Berkely waned in the early 1990s, Douglas Pike sought to find a new home where his collection would receive the support needed to make it more widely available to scholars, students, and researchers. In 1994 he donated a large portion of the research materials in the Indochina Archive to the Vietnam Center & Archive (VNCA) at Texas Tech University. In 1996, UC-Berkeley indicated an end to financial support for Douglas Pike’s projects and Pike began looking for a new home, both for himself and his family, for additional Indochina Archive materials, and for the Indochina Chronology. In 1997, Pike accepted a position at Texas Tech University, whereupon he moved additional materials from the Indochina Archive to the VNCA and joined the VNCA as Associate Director of Research, a position he held until his death in 2002. In addition to his published manuscripts and his extensive work editing Indochina Chronology, Douglas Pike authored numerous articles and chapters in edited works and lectured internationally. In 2009, VNCA received a third accession of Douglas Pike’s extensive archive from UC-Berkeley.

The Douglas Pike Collection at the VNCA includes a vast collection of Vietnam-related materials that includes Pike’s own extensive writings plus several million pages of government documents, news clippings, Vietnamese Communist propaganda pamphlets, as well as pre-war and post-war materials on a broad range of topics. The materials received in the 1994 accession (414 linear feet) were divided by topic into 53 individual collections, each with its own collection title, collection number and finding aid. The second group of materials, transferred in the 2009 accession (234 linear feet), was organized, and described as one collection, the Douglas Pike Collection: Indochina Archive (2258).

The materials collected by Douglas Pike remain a vital research collection at the Vietnam Center & Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive.

Friends and associates have offered their own tributes and remembrances of Professor Pike.

From Jay Veith: "I had traveled to Berkeley on business in 1994, and having just started researching the war, I wanted to visit his office. The short, slightly disheveled figure with the oddly shaped beard that greeted me from behind a desk overflowing with documents looked me over once, and asked me what was my interest in Vietnam. I told him that I wanted to research the POW/MIA issue. He corrected me, saying it was more properly called 'the Resolution of Casualties' issue, and began telling me stories, in that soft voice with a still slightly discernible Midwest accent, about his days working with refugees while in the State Dept. After a few minutes, he pointed me in the direction of his files, told me if I needed anything to ask, and promptly went out to lunch, leaving me all alone in his vast archive. It was the beginning of a far too short friendship."

From Steven Denney, University of California at Berkeley: "Vietnam studies has passed on to a new generation of scholars, and the opportunities for understanding Vietnam are much different than when Douglas Pike began his research. But all with a serious interest in Vietnam owe him our gratitude for his pioneering studies on Vietnamese communism, for the collection he established, and for the guidance he has provided to many others over the years."

From Stephen M. Graw: "People look at Mr. Pike as the exemplary Cold Warrior, and his scholarly work depicted Vietnam as - and perhaps he coined the expression - 'The Prussia of the East.' But … at the conclusion of his presentation for the 1983 'Vietnam Reconsidered' conference in Los Angeles, Mr. Pike resolutely called for the normalization of US-Vietnamese relations. This bold move put him directly at odds with the Reagan and Carter administrations' hard line policy towards Hanoi."

From Col. Dan Yen (ret.), ARVN: "Douglas Pike is my hero. … I am sure that Professor Pike also got the highest respect from the four-star generals of both North and South Viet Nam."

From Col. Roger H.C. Donlon, USA (ret.), first Medal of Honor recipient of the Vietnam War: "For those of us who knew and worked with Doug his commitment will remain an inspiration. For me personally, I am proud to have been a fellow U.S. Army Veteran. His memory will continue to be a source of strength."

From the Vietnamese People's Action Movement: "The Vietnamese People's Action Movement, receiving the horrific news of Dr. Pike's death, send our profound condolence."

From Peter C. Rollins, Regents Professor of English and American Film Studies: "Douglas Pike was an honest man, so honest that it was shocking, sometimes, to hear him speak. For two documentaries on Vietnam--Television's Vietnam: The Impact of Visual Images and Television's Vietnam: The Real Story--it was my role to interview Mr. Pike at length. His responses were so down-to-earth, so honest, and so authentic that it was refreshing to hear him speak. He seemed so rooted in his knowledge and seemed to be in touch with telluric truths. This honesty came forth in his newsletter as well--especially in the book review section. Not since the 19th century 'book reviews'" of Thomas Carlyle and Orestes Brownson have I seen such brutally honest evaluations of writings on a topic - in this case, Vietnam."

From Ann Mills Griffith, National League of POW/MIA Families: "(I)t seemed that he would always be with us, the rock of solidity and base of knowledge on Vietnam and most issues related thereto. … He touched many, many lives as a truly unforgettable person. He contributed!"

From Dr. Jane Hamilton-Merritt: "What a terrible loss. Douglas Pike was a gentleman, a scholar, and one of the most interesting men of the academic world of the Vietnam War."

From the family of the late Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, Jr.: "As a family that was personally impacted by the Vietnam War, we have come to admire those who have led the charge to ensure future generations never forget this conflict and what it was all about. Among those who have been in the forefront of this effort was Dr. Douglas Pike."

From Vice Adm. & Mrs. Emmett H. Tidd, USN (ret.): "There will not be another Doug Pike. We'll just have to find another Icon to fill the chair - but never the shoes."

From former South Vietnamese Minister of State Nguyen Xuan Phong: "…Douglas Pike was the exceptional 'non-Vietnamese' who showed deep understanding of the Vietnamese factions on both sides of the dreadful conflict… . He was fascinated by Vietnam and we, the Vietnamese, were also surprised by his mastery of the Vietnamese people and nation. …To many Vietnamese, who were on both sides of the Vietnam War and who knew him then more than 40 years ago, Douglas Pike of the USIS in Saigon will always be remembered for his profound sense of humanity in the midst of death and devastation …."