THE VIETNAM WAR:

BROWN'S WATSON INSTITUTE OBSERVES THREE ANNIVERSARIES,

25-27 APRIL 2005.

From 25-27 April, 2005, Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies will observe three significant milestones related to the Vietnam war. These are:

•  the 40 th anniversary of the introduction of U.S. combat troops in March 1965;

•  the 30 th anniversary of the fall of Saigon to communist forces on 30 April, 1975;

•  and the 10 th anniversary of the normalization of relations between Vietnam and the U.S. in July 1995.

The Watson Institute, in collaboration with the Francis Wayland Collegium and the University Lectures Fund, will present three days of diverse programs that, collectively, speak to all three anniversaries.

•  Monday, 25 April, 4:00 PM-5:30 PM, MacMillan Hall, Starr Auditorium,

A colloquium, "THE VIETNAM WAR: UNTOLD STORIES" with:

•  "Fringes of War: Vietnam, 1969," with Prof. ROGER LeBRUN, an entymologist from University of Rhode Island, who was both a conscientious objector and a member of a medivac (helicopter rescue) team in Vietnam in 1969-1970. Medivac personnel had one of the highest attrition rates of all U.S. personnel in Vietnam. His 25 photos of abandoned Amerasian children, living in a Buddhist monastery he helped transform into an orphanage, are both moving and uplifting, in spite of the grim context in which they were taken. Prof. LeBrun's exhibit received rave reviews when it appeared earlier this year at a gallery in Newport, RI. He will describe his experience, and that of the children he photographed.

•  "Impressions of My Father," with Ms. QUYEN TRUONG, a Brown senior Art concentrator, who was born in Saigon, and moved with her family to Hartford, CT when she was 7. Her father, a South Vietnamese soldier, was imprisoned in a reeducation camp in northern Vietnam for seven years and barely survived the experience. She has taped and transcribed interviews with her father, and is transforming her impressions into large, black and white drawings (five of them, roughly ten feet by five feet each). Her paintings are overwhelming in their power to move the viewer. Quyen Truong will describe the process by which she “interviewed” her father, what motivated her to do so, her father's response to seeing her paintings, and some reflections on her trip during the summer of 2004 back to Vietnam with her father (their first since immigrating to the U.S.).

•  "A Vietnam Surgeon Reports," with Dr. AUGUSTUS A. WHITE III, former head of orthopedic surgery at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital, and a MASH unit surgeon in South Vietnam in 1965-66. Dr. White, who graduated from Brown in 1958, was an athletic star in his college days and, following medical school at Stanford, became one of the foremost orthopedic surgeons in the world, specializing in spinal surgery. He has long been a leader in championing the cause of African-Americans and other minorities in the medical profession. He returned to Vietnam for the first time as an observer at a 1997 conference in Hanoi on the war, sponsored by Brown's Watson Institute. He will speak about his medical experience in Vietnam, and also about racism among the U.S. forces, as well as his unusual decision to stay on an extra year in Vietnam to work in leper colony.

•  Moderator ,” James G. Blight, Professor of International Relations (Research), Watson Institute, Brown University.

•  Monday, 25 April, 6:00 PM-7:00 PM, Watson Institute for International Studies, Atrium.

GRAND OPENING OF “THE VIETNAM WAR: UNTOLD STORIES,” with Prof. Roger LeBrun and Ms. Quyen Truong. A personal guided “tour” of the joint exhibit, of Prof. LeBrun's photographs and Ms. Truong's paintings, will be given by the photographer and artist.

•  Tuesday, 26 April, 2004, at 12:00 Noon-1:30 PM, Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute for International Studies:

"KENNEDY, JOHNSON AND VIETNAM: THE IMPACT OF THE PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION ON THE WAR, AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. FOREIGN AND DEFENSE POLICY," with:

•  THOMAS BLANTON, director, National Security Archive, George Washington University, Washington, DC., moderator.

•  JAMES G. BLIGHT, Watson Institute.

•  jANET M. LANG, Watson Institute.

•  DAVID A. WELCH, Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto.

The participants will present the results of an 8-10 April 2005 conference at the Musgrove Conference Center in St. Simons Island, Georgia, on “Kennedy, Johnson and Vietnam.” Of particular interest will be their analysis of new documents and audio tapes from the Kennedy and Johnson Libraries that bear on what Kennedy decided regarding Vietnam, and why; what Johnson decided, and why; and especially on what Kennedy may have done, had he lived and been reelected in November 1964. The participants in the symposium will also attempt to draw lessons from the historical exercise, and apply them to the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq.

•  Wednesday 27 April, 2004, as 12:00 Noon-1:30 PM, Peterruti Lounge, Faunce Hall (by invitation only):

"THE ROAD TO ‘THE FOG OF WAR'” with:

•  ROBERT S. McNAMARA, former secretary of defense to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson

•  JAMES G. BLIGHT, Watson Institute.

•  jANET M. Lang, Watson Institute.

•  DAVID A. WELCH, University of Toronto, moderator

The panelists will describe the nearly two-decade-long odyssey of research, using the method called "“critical oral history,” into the Cuban missile crisis and the escalation of the war in Vietnam. The method, which mixes declassified documents, former officials, and scholars familiar with the literature on the topic under scrutiny, has led to nearly two dozen major international conferences on the missile crisis and Vietnam, as well as other Cold War crises and conflicts. This past year, the research process, headquartered at Brown's Watson Institute since 1990, paid unusual dividends, when “The Fog of War,” a documentary film by Errol Morris, in which McNamara is narrator, subject and “star,” won the Academy Award for best documentary feature. The film, which more than one million people saw in theaters across North America, has now spawned a book (by Blight and Lang), also called “The Fog of War,” which will be published in March 2005, and is based on the film, which in turn was based on their research done at the Watson Institute. The panelists will offer a “behind the scenes” look at how it all happened.

•  Wednesday 27 April, 2004, 4:00 PM-5:30 PM, Macmillan Hall 117.:

"REDUCING THE RISK OF CONFLICT, KILLING AND CATASTROPHE IN THE 21ST CENTURY," with:

•  ROBERT S. McNAMARA, former secretary of defense.

•  JAMES G. BLIGHT, Watson Institute.

•  ABBOTT GLEASON, Department of History and Watson Institute, Brown University, moderator.

Robert McNamara will describe the conclusions he has reached regarding war and peace in the 21 st century, following his personal participation in some of the epochal events of the 20 th century, and also his recent writing on these themes in three recent books: “In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam” (1995); “Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy” (1999, with James G. Blight and Robert K. Brigham, et al.); and especially “Wilson's Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing and Catastrophe in the 21 st Century (post 9/11 edition, with James G. Blight, 2003). James Blight will describe the unusual process by which the research led by McNamara was transformed by Errol Morris into the Academy Award-winning film, "“The Fog of War.”

Following the presentation, James Blight and janet Lang, of Brown's Watson Institute, will be signing copies of their new book, “The Fog of War: Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara,” published by Rowman & Littlefield. Copies of the book may be purchased in the lobby of Salomon Auditorium, where the book-signing will take place.

May 11, 2004 Screening a critical portion of the film dealing with the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis"The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara"

at 4 pm Salomon 101

Introduction by Dr. Thomas Biersteker, Director of the Watson Institute for International Studies; discussion to follow featuring the two Brown University scholars whose work formed the basis of the film - Dr. James Blight, professor of international relations, and Dr. Janet M. Lang, adjunct associate professor of international relations - taking questions and sharing insider stories about making the film on which they consulted. Drawing on 30 hours of interviews with McNamara, the film considers questions about the role of moral values in modern warfare. The program is open to the public at no charge.

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CD release party to celebrate the launch of "Double Take: Jazz-Poetry Conversations". Featuring a performance by poet Michael Harper and musician Paul Austerlitz, followed by a reception

The CD "Double Take: Jazz-Poetry Conversations" brings together the talents of poet Michael Harper and composer / bass-clarinetist Paul Austerlitz in a unique blend of word and music. These artists have developed an innovative collaborative mode, with Austerlitz's improvisatory compositions highlighting the musicality of Harper's poetry.

5-7 pm, Wednesday, April 14
Chancellors Room, Sharpe Refectory,
144 Thayer St.

Michael Harper's poetry specializes in jazz-related themes; he has written Dear John, Dear Coltrane and Debridement, among other books of poetry, and edited The Vintage Book of African American Poetry. Harper is the first State Poet of Rhode Island, a New York Library Literary Lion, a Phi Beta Kappa scholar and an American Academy of Arts and Sciences fellow. He is recipient of many distinctions, including the Robert Hayden Poetry Award from the United Negro College Fund, the Melville-Cane Award and the Black Academy of Arts and Letters Award. He is a University Professor at Brown.

Bass-clarinetist, composer, and ethnomusicologist Paul Austerlitz teaches and conducts research on jazz at Brown. He has performed with Doc Cheatham, David Murray, and Gonzalo Rubalcaba, among others, and leads his own group which has recorded two CDs: A Bass Clarinet in Santo Domingo and Detroit (X-Dot 25), and Dominican Dreams / American Dreams (Engine 030). Austerlitz has also authored two books bearing the fruit of his ethnomusicological research: Merengue: Dominican Music and Dominican Identity, and Essays in Jazz Consciousness.

Both the performance and reception are free of charge and the public is invited to attend. For further information call 401 863-2412.
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Wayland Collegium grants are supporting the following Faculty Seminars for the academic year 2003-2004. Lectures as featured events of these seminars are free and open to the wider Brown community and to the public. Links of interest will be added frequently to the topics: bookmark this page and check back often!

"The Art and Science of Affective Behavior" -- faculty contact Ruth Colwill

"Earth's Environmental Future" -- faculty contact Mark Bertness

"Brown v. Board of Education" -- faculty contact Evelyn Hu-DeHart

"Computing and the Future of the Humanities" -- faculty contact Massimo Riva

"Incarceration, Narrative, and Performance" -- faculty contact Myron Beasley. For schedule of events and further information, visit the Incarceration, Narrative, and Performance site at Africana Studies: http://www.brown.edu/Departments/African_American_Studies/wayland_fac_seminar/

Wayland Collegium Co-Sponsored Events for 2003-2004

WHAT'S KILLING OUR KIDS? Behavioral Misadventures: A Symposium about the phenomena that harm more young people than all diseases combined

November 21-22, 2003

Starr Auditorium, Macmillan Hall

Brown University Campus

Sponsored by the Lipsitt-Duchin Annual Lecture Program, Brown Medical School, Brown University Lectureships Committee, and Wayland Collegium.

1998-1999 Lectures:

Various Speakers: A Symposium on the Racial State