Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

The Carter Administration and Vietnam pp 91–124Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

The Retreat from Normalisation

  • Chapter

  • 12 Accesses

Abstract

From the previous chapter it is clear that Zbigniew Brzezinski returned from Beijing at the end of May 1978 confirmed in his opinions that Vietnam was a Soviet ‘proxy’ and that China would view American moves towards normalisation with that country very unfavourably. His tendency, as President Carter put it, to ‘exalt’ the relationship with China,1 which was premised upon his preoccupation with the Soviet Union and how to contain it, added to his view that there was nothing to be gained from normal relations with Vietnam, led him to become increasingly vocal in his opposition to improved Vietnamese-American relations for fear of damaging the normalisation process with China.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes

  1. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977–1981 (New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1983) 563.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, Speech before the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, ‘Brown’s Asian Assurance’, Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER) 3 March 1978, 25–6.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Vice-President Walter Mondale, ‘America’s Role in Southeast Asia and the Pacific’, Address at the East-West Center, Honolulu, 10 May 1978, Department of State Bulletin (DOSB) (July 1978) 23.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Cyrus Vance, Hard Choices: Critical Years in America’s Foreign Policy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983) 115–16.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Richard Holbrooke, ‘Changing Perspectives on Policy in East Asia’, Address before the Western Governors Conference, Honolulu, 16 June 1978, DOSB (August 1978) 2.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Gareth Porter, ‘The Decline of US, Diplomacy in Southeast Asia’, SAIS Review, 1 (Winter 1981) 152–3.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Nayan Chanda, Brother Enemy: The War after the War. A History of Indochina Since the Fall of Saigon (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986) 271.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Elizabeth Becker, When the War Was Over: The Voices of Cambodia’s Revolution and its People (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986) 400.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Robert Ross, The Indochina Tangle: China’s Vietnam Policy 1975–1979 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988) interview with Leonard Woodcock, 201.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (New York: Bantam Books, 1982) 194–5.

    Google Scholar 

  11. for a discussion of the contents of the Soviet-Vietnamese Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation see Douglas Pike, Vietnam and the Soviet Union: Anatomy of an Alliance (Boulder, Co: Westview Press, 1987) 184–7.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Frederick Z. Brown, Second Chance: The United States and Indochina in the 1990s (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1989) 30.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Richard Holbrooke, Statement before the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs of the House Committee on International Relations, 17 October 1979, DOSB, (January 1980) 12–13.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Grant Evans and Kelvin Rowley, Red Brotherhood at War: Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos Since 1975 (London: Verso 1990) 52–3

    Google Scholar 

  15. Bruce Grant, The Boat People: An ‘Age’ Investigation with Bruce Grant (New York: Viking Penguin, 1979) 84–9

    Google Scholar 

  16. Gareth Porter, ‘Vietnam’s Ethnic Chinese and the Sino-Vietnamese Conflict’, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 12, 4 (1980) 57

    Google Scholar 

  17. Richard Holbrooke, ‘Changing Perspectives on Policy in East Asia’, DOSB (August 1978) 5.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Gareth Porter, ‘The US and Vietnam: The Missed Chance’, The Nation, 20 October 1979, 368.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Richard Holbrooke, Statement before the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, 13 June 1979, DOSB (October 1979) 35.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Richard Holbrooke, ‘The United States and Southeast Asia’, Address before the Boston World Affairs Council, 16 November 1978 (Xerox).

    Google Scholar 

  21. Gareth Porter, ‘Vietnam’s Soviet Alliance: A Challenge to US Policy’, Indochina Issues, 6 (May 1980) 4.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Richard Holbrooke, Statement before the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, 13 June 1979, DOSB (October 1979) 35.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Gareth Porter, ‘The “China Card” and US Indochina Policy’, Indochina Issues, 11, (November 1980), 3

    Google Scholar 

  24. Richard Holbrooke, Statement before the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, 13 June 1979, DOSB (October 1979) 38.

    Google Scholar 

  25. Barry Wain, ‘The Indochina Refugee Crisis’, Foreign Affairs, 58, 1 (Fall 1979) 167

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Richard Holbrooke, Statement before the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, 13 June 1979, DOSB (October 1979) 35.

    Google Scholar 

  27. Cyrus Vance, comments at a Press Conference of 3 March 1980, US Department of State, American Foreign Policy: Basic Documents 1977–80 (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1983) 1123

    Google Scholar 

  28. Statement of Richard Holbrooke, Hearing before the Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs, 27 September 1979, 27.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Tim Huxley, ASEAN and Indochina: A Study of Political Responses, 1975–1981 (Department of International Relations, the Australian National University, Canberra: Canberra Studies in World Affairs, No 19, 1985) Chapters 1 and 2.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Adam Malik, ‘Towards a New Era of Peace and Harmony in Southeast Asia’, Asia-Pacific Community 1 (Summer 1978) 5.

    Google Scholar 

  31. M. Rajendram, ASEAN’s Foreign Relations: The Shift to Collective Action (Kuala Lumpur: aren bukc sah. bhd. 1985) 93

    Google Scholar 

  32. Kishore Mahbubanhi, ‘The Kampuchean Problem; A Southeast Asian Perspective’, Foreign Affairs 62, 2 (Winter 1983/84) 424

    Google Scholar 

  33. Michael Leifer, ASEAN and the Security of Southeast Asia (London: Routledge, 1989) 89–93.

    Google Scholar 

  34. Banning Garret, ‘China Policy and the Strategic Triangle’, in K. Oye, D. Rothchild and R. J. Lieber (eds), Eagle Entangled: US Foreign Policy in a Complex World (New York: Longman, 1979) 246–50.

    Google Scholar 

  35. Huynh Kim Khanh, ‘Into the Third Indochina War’. Southeast Asian Affairs 1980, 328–45

    Google Scholar 

  36. Justus M. Van Der Kroef, ‘The Indochina Tangle: The Elements of Conflict and Compromise’, Asian Survey, 20, 5 (May 1980) 477–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Stephen R. Heder, Kampuchean Occupation and Resistance, Asian Studies Monographs 27 (Bangkok: Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University, 1980) 65, 69–70, 73, 75.

    Google Scholar 

  38. Justus M. Van Der Kroef, ‘ASEAN, Hanoi and the Kampuchean Conflict: Between “Kuantan” and a “Third Alternative”’, Asian Survey 21, 5 (May 1981) 515

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Lau Teik Soon, ‘ASEAN and the Cambodian Problem’, Asian Survey 22, 6 (June 1982) 558

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Justus M. Van der Kroef, ‘Kampuchea: The Diplomatic Labyrinth’, Asian Survey 22, 10 (October 1982) 1018–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Leszek Buszynski, ‘Thailand: The Erosion of a Balanced Foreign Policy’, Asian Survey 22, 11, November 1982, 1045–6

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. R. Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation: US-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1985) 620.

    Google Scholar 

  43. Gaddis Smith, Morality, Reason and Power: American Diplomacy in the Carter Years (New York: Hill and Wang, 1986) 92.

    Google Scholar 

  44. Quoted in Daniel Tretiak, ‘China’s Vietnam War and its Consequences’, The China Quarterly, 80 (December 1979) 740.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Quoted in Chan Heng Chee, ‘The Interests and Role of ASEAN in the Indochina Conflict’, in Khien Theeravit and MacAllister Brown (eds), Indochina and Problems of Security and Stability in Southeast Asia (Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Press, 1981) 193.

    Google Scholar 

  46. Sarasin Viraphol, ‘Thailand’s Perspective on its rivalry with Vietnam’, in William S. Turley (ed.), Confrontation or Coexistence: The Future of ASEAN-Vietnam Relations (Bangkok: Institute of Security and International Studies, Chulalongkorn University, 1985) 19–30.

    Google Scholar 

  47. Michael Leifer, ‘Conflict and Regional Order in South-East Asia’, Adelphi Papers 162 (London: IISS, 1981) 17.

    Google Scholar 

  48. Richard Holbrooke interview, FEER 16 November 1979, 14–16.

    Google Scholar 

  49. Chang Pao-Min, Kampuchea Between China and Vietnam (Kent Ridge, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1985) 138, 134–6.

    Google Scholar 

  50. Richard Holbrooke, answers to questions, Hearing before the Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs, 27 September 1979, 55–6.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

    Steven Hurst (Lecturer in Politics)

Authors
  1. Steven Hurst
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Copyright information

© 1996 Steven Hurst

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Hurst, S. (1996). The Retreat from Normalisation. In: The Carter Administration and Vietnam. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24782-0_5

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation