PU The Vietnam War - Class 6: Vietnamization - Planned US Withdrawal (1969-1972)

May 08, 2025
7:00pm - 5:30pm

In the aftermath of the 1968 Tết Offensive, the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) launched a comprehensive mobilization of South Vietnamese society to counter North Vietnamese incursions. Known as “Vietnamization”, this “General Mobilization,” expanded the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) to over one million soldiers. The lecture will explore the military strategies employed by the ARVN and the United States to disrupt North Vietnamese supply lines, including the invasions of Cambodia in 1970 and Laos in 1971 and their controversial “Phoenix program” to eradicate the Communist Party infrastructure in South Vietnam. The discussion will also focus on the diplomatic landscape during this pivotal period, including President Richard Nixon’s so-called “Nixon Doctrine.” Unlike older scholarship that centers on the US and heavily relies on English-language sources, this lecture adopts a “Vietnam-centric” approach.

Instructor: Cody J. Billock, PHD Candidate at Ohio University

Cody J. Billock is a doctoral candidate at Ohio University specializing in the history of the Vietnam War. His dissertation tentatively entitled “Cold War Citadel: Huế & the Global Vietnamese Civil War,” employs the central Vietnamese city of Huế to argue that the three decades of war between 1945-1975 was one defined by one continuous conflict between communist and anti-communist groups. Billock has proficiency in the French, Chinese, and Vietnamese languages and has conducted extensive archival research in Vietnam, France, and the US.

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In 1951, the Ohio County Public Library's librarian, Virginia Ebeling, referenced British historian Thomas Carlyle, who said, “the public library is a People’s University,” when she initiated a new adult education program with that name. Miss Ebeling charged the library with the responsibility of reaching “as many people in the community as possible.” In keeping with that tradition of public libraries as sanctuaries of free learning for all people, the Ohio County Public Library revived the series in 2010.

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