NEW People's University: The Vietnam War
Begins April 3 at the Ohio County Public Library
Download the brochure.
Wheeling. April 30, 2025 will mark 50 years since the Fall of Saigon. In remembrance of that fateful date, the People's University series at the Ohio County Public Library will explore the history of the Vietnam War from French colonization through American involvement and withdrawal. Around 36,578 West Virginians served in the Vietnam War, which lasted from 1958 to 1975.
A display of Vietnam War Commemoration Legacy Posters on loan from the West Virginia Humanities Commission will accompany the series. Topics include: The Chaplaincy in the Vietnam War; Indigenous Peoples in the Vietnam War; The U.S. Navy in the Vietnam War; and The POW Experience in the Vietnam War, among several others.
For the finale program on May 22, local Vietnam Veterans are encouraged to attend to be recognized and possibly share some of their experiences.
All classes meet Thursday evenings from 7 PM to 8:30 PM in the Harold E. Viitalie Auditorium on the library's lower level.
To watch Library livestreams of these events, go to the People's University Facebook Page or the People's University YouTube page and look for the live link, which typically appears about five minutes before each program. The programs typically remain on these same sites (and on the Library's Calendar pages) as recordings that can be watched at your convenience.
Full Schedule:
April 3: Class 1 Revolution - French Colonialism and the Indochina War (1946-1954)
In this introductory prologue, we will examine the history and geography of Vietnam prior to French colonization; the process of French colonization through World War II, including the rise of Ho Chi Minh; the First Indochina War 1946-54, including increasing US involvement, Cold War complications, etc.; and the Geneva Conference and Partition.
Instructor: Dr. Gary Kappel is a Professor of History, Emeritus, at Bethany College where he taught for 36 years. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Bethany College and a Masters and PhD in European History from West Virginia University. During his time at Bethany he taught a wide range of courses in European history, military history, and social and intellectual history. In 2003 he accompanied a group of students to Vietnam. He recently completed work on a documentary film about the New Martinsville Regatta for inboard hydroplanes and the revival of the sport in the upper Ohio Valley area via the vintage hydroplane movement.
April 10: Class 2 The US Gets Involved - (1955-1964)
With the first U.S. military assistance to the French in 1950, a generation-long commitment to anti-communist nation-building project in South Vietnam began. After the French defeat at Dienbienphu in 1954, the US engaged in an authoritarian modernization program, pumping millions of dollars of aid into S. Vietnam, supporting the unpopular and autocratic, S. Vietnamese leader Ngô -Dinh Diêm. After S. Vietnamese generals deposed, and killed, Diem in a 1963 coup, South Vietnamese national politics devolved into instability. The U.S. then militarily escalated the War in S. Vietnam. The U.S. escalation simultaneously attempted to prevent the infiltration of N. Vietnamese communist forces from the North; contain a pro-communist insurgency in the South; and prevent the implosion of the S. Vietnamese government.
Instructor: Dr. Gary Kappel, Professor of History, Emeritus, Bethany College
April 17: Class 3 The Gulf of Tonkin Incident (1964)
Starting in 1964, U.S. and anticommunist S. Vietnamese quietly military entered into N. Vietnam, attempting to prevent the infiltration of the communist N. Vietnamese into S. Vietnam. These efforts attempted to destabilize the N. Vietnamese military effort to absorb S. Vietnam. The secret S. Vietnamese and U.S. deployment was named Operation Plan 34A, (OPLAN-34A). As part of the Plan, U.S. ships were stationed off the coast of N. Vietnam, in the Gulf of Tonkin, monitoring N. Vietnamese military action. Even though LBJ and his top military officials knew that the evidence for attacks on U.S. ships was sketchy, they used a N. Vietnamese attack on a U.S. ship in the Gulf in early Aug. 1964 to ask the U.S. Congress for a “blank check” to escalate the U.S. war effort in S. Vietnam. Congress agreed. Abetted by a perceived mandate from a landslide Presidential victory in Nov. 1964, Johnson embarked on massive U.S. military escalation, thought necessary to contain communism. Over the course of nine years, Johnson and Richard M. Nixon ordered about 8.7 million U.S. military and civilian personnel to S. Vietnam.
Instructor: Dr. James F. Siekmeier received his PhD in History from Cornell in 1993, specializing in the history of U.S. foreign relations towards Latin America. He has taught at colleges and universities in Washington, D.C., New York, Iowa, Texas, and in Bolivia, on two Fulbright Grants (where he taught courses on North American history in Spanish). From 2001 to 2007 he compiled the American Republics volumes in the Foreign Relations of the US Series, the official documentary history of US foreign policy put out by the US State Department. He has published The Bolivian Revolution and the United States, 1952-Present (Penn State University Press, 2011) as well Latin American Nationalism: Identity in Globalizing World (Bloomsbury, 2017). Currently, he is a Professor of History at West Virginia University. He is working a history of the “war on drugs” in South America from the 1970s to the present.
April 24: Class 4 Body Count - Major US Involvement and the Tet Offensive (1965-1968)
In March 1965, President LBJ ordered the first U.S. combat troops to Vietnam. Three years later, there were more than a half million Americans fighting in Southeast Asia. This presentation will examine how and why LBJ escalated the war and the difficulties U.S. forces encountered. It will also examine how reporters covered America’s first television war—the first time that TV coverage had a critical effect on public understanding of a military conflict and on a president’s ability to build popular support for a war. The Johnson administration’s effort to “sell” progress in Vietnam collapsed in early 1968 with the Tet Offensive, leading to the president’s stunning announcement that he would not seek reelection. This presentation will explain how Johnson’s presidency became a casualty of the Vietnam War.
Instructor: Dr. Chester Pach is a Professor of History at Ohio University. He has an A.B. from Brown University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Northwestern University. He specializes in the history of U.S. involvement in world affairs and recent American political history. He has a particular interest in television coverage of international issues and the intersections between politics, popular culture, and international history. His books include Arming the Free World: The Origins of the United States Military Assistance Program, 1945-1950 (University of North Carolina Press); The Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower (University Press of Kansas); The Johnson Years: Presidential Profiles (Facts on File); and A Companion to Dwight D. Eisenhower, ed., (Wiley Blackwell). He is completing The Presidency of Ronald Reagan for the University Press of Kansas. His articles and essays on U.S .news media coverage of the Vietnam War have appeared in The Cambridge History of the Vietnam War and the New York Times.
May 1: Class 5 Backlash: The US Anti-War Movement (1964-1973)
The typical image of the anti-war movement is of student and hippie protestors. But the antiwar movement included not just students, but also labor unions, church groups, civil rights activists, suburban housewives, and Vietnam veterans. This class will explore the various forms of protests, the growth of the antiwar movement as the war escalated, and whether the antiwar movement helped end the war.
Instructor: Dr. Dan Weimer is an attorney who received his Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University, with a concentration in environmental law. Prior to working in the legal field, he was a professor of history at then Wheeling Jesuit University, where he taught courses on the Vietnam War. He earned his Ph.D. from Kent State University and is the author of multiple publications on U.S. foreign policy, environmental history, and drug control.
May 8: Class 6 Vietnamization - Planned US Withdrawal (1969-1972)
In the aftermath of the 1968 Tet 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 is a doctoral candidate at Ohio University specializing in the history of the Vietnam War. His dissertation tentatively entitled “Cold War Citadel: Hue and the Global Vietnamese Civil War,” employs the central Vietnamese city of Hue 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.
May 15: Class 7 - The Spring Offensive to The Fall of Saigon & Rise of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (1972-1976)
This lecture will examine the final episode of the Vietnamese Civil War, focusing on the period from the Spring Offensive to the reunification of Vietnam and the establishment of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Often overlooked by American historians due to the diminished role of the US after its military disengagement, this episode is crucial to understanding the nature and conclusion of the war.
Instructor: Zachary Tayler PHD Candidate at Ohio University
Zachary Tayler is a doctoral candidate at Ohio University specializing in the history of the US-Vietnamese bilateral relations after the Vietnam War. His dissertation tentatively entitled “Reconciliation and Normalization: The United States and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, 1975-1995,” examines the diplomacy between both countries that led to the establishment of diplomatic relations in July 1995. Tayler has proficiency in Vietnamese and has conducted extensive research across the United States and plans to go to Vietnam next year for further archival research.
Facebook Event
May 22: Legacy: Wheeling and West Virginia in the Vietnam War
This class will focus on the war years here in West Virginia and Wheeling, which came during a period of key transition for the Friendly City and the Mountain State. The state’s coal industry saw an uptick in production and over 30,000 West Virginians joined or were drafted during the conflict. At the same time, the war years witnessed tensions statewide, as West Virginians organized a variety of social causes, driven by the activism of the War on Poverty at home. Wheeling serves as an instructive microcosm of the war years, as many locals served in Southeast Asia, and others from local colleges and various social classes protested the war.
Instructor Dr. William Hal Gorby is a Teaching Associate Professor of History, and Director of Undergraduate Studies at West Virginia University. He teaches courses on West Virginia, Appalachian, and American Immigration History, and is the 2020-21 recipient of the Eberly College’s Outstanding Teacher award and the University’s Nicholas Evans Excellence in Advising Award. His book, "Wheeling’s Polonia: Reconstructing Polish Community in a West Virginia Steel Town" was published by WVU Press in May 2020. The book won the Oskar Halecki Prize from the Polish American Historical Association in 2022, for the best book on the Polish American experience. He has also consulted on the research and script editing for the PBS American Experience documentary “The Mine Wars,” which received an Emmy nomination for research in the documentary film category. In 2019, he researched, wrote, and hosted a podcast by Wheeling Heritage Media, titled “Henry: The Life and Times of Wheeling’s Most Notorious Brewer,” which won a History Hero Award from the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History in 2020.
In keeping with the mission of public libraries as sanctuaries of free learning for all people, the Ohio County Public Library created The People’s University, a free program for adults who wish to continue their education in the liberal arts. The People’s University features courses—taught by experts in each subject—that enable patrons to pursue their goal of lifelong learning in classic subjects such as history, philosophy, and literature.
All programs are free and open to the public. Patrons may attend as many classes as they wish. There are no tests or other requirements. For more info about the People’s University The Vietnam War, please call the Library at 304-232-0244 and ask for Sean Duffy.
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ABOUT THE OCPL'S PEOPLE'S UNIVERSITY SERIES:
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.
The People’s University features courses (taught by experts in each subject) that enable patrons to pursue their goal of lifelong learning in classic subjects such as history, music appreciation, philosophy, and literature. Patrons may attend as many classes as they wish. There are no tests of other requirements and all programs are free and open to the public. For more information about PU: The Vietnam War, EMAIL US, visit ohiocountylibrary.org or call the library at 304-232-0244.
