Electronic Databases
The UCLA Library subscribes to hundreds of databases. The following are good sources for primary materials on the Vietnam Wars, including declassified and other government documents, oral histories and memories, images and videos, ephemera, etc. Click on the side tabs to get primary sources in other formats. For memoirs and letters in print format, go to the Books section. If you haven't already done so, you will need to configure your computer to connect from off-campus.
- Calisphere This link opens in a new windowOver one million photographs, documents, letters, artwork, diaries, oral histories, films, advertisements, musical recordings, and more from the collections digitized and contributed by all ten campuses of the University of California and other important libraries, archives, and museums throughout the state.
- Digital National Security Archive (DNSA) This link opens in a new windowMore than 80,000 declassified documents in collections such as Afghanistan, Berlin Crisis, China and the US, Cuban Missile Crisis, El Salvador, Iran-Contra Affair, Intelligence Community, Iran Revolution, Iraqgate, Japan and the US, Military Uses of Space, Nicaragua, Nuclear Non-Proliferation, Philippines, Presidential Directives, obtained through of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
- Oral History Online This link opens in a new windowIndexes more than 2,700 collections of oral history in English from around the world. Provides keyword searching of full-text transcripts when available, plus links to audio and video files.
- Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975: Rock and Roll, Counterculture, Peace and Protest This link opens in a new windowThis online portal explores the period of social, political and cultural change between 1950 and 1975. It includes color images of manuscript and rare printed material as well as photographs, historical news video, ephemera and memorabilia.
- The Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives This link opens in a new window
This searchable database brings the 1960s alive through diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary. The database covers subjects in arts, music, and leisure, civil rights, counter-culture, law and government, mass media, new left and emerging neo-conservative movement, student activism, Vietnam War, women's movement, etc.
- U.S. Declassified Documents (Gale Primary Sources) This link opens in a new windowCollection of over 70,000 primary source government documents, from the post-WWII period through the 1970's. Contains declassified documents from presidential libraries, the CIA, the FBI and a host of other agencies concerning major domestic and international events of the post-World War II era. Formerly known as Declassified Documents Reference System (DDRS).
Internet Resources
These Internet sites also include primary resources.
- Digital History: the Vietnam WarSuccinct yet comprehensive guides on different aspects of the Vietnam War.
- The Vietnam Collection / CIADeclassified documents from the CIA on the Vietnam War.
- Vietnam War / National ArchivesPhotos, textual and electronic records, audiovisual recordings, educational tools, etc. on the American experience related to the Vietnam War.
- Vietnam War / Wilson Center Digital ArchiveThese telegrams, minutes, and discussion notes range from the mid-1950s to the end of the 1970s. Most come from Chinese and Albanian archives. They have been translated into English.
- Vietnam War Ephemera CollectionDigitized collection of political posters, leaflets and other ephemera relating to American student and youth protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s. By the Univ. of Washington Libraries.
- Virtual Vietnam ArchiveContains 7 million pages of scanned materials, including documents, photographs, slides, negatives, oral histories, artifacts, moving images, sound recordings, maps, and collection finding aids, mostly personal in nature. Based at Texas Tech Univ.