Introduction

In the historiography of the Vietnam War, apart from a few isolated and some tangential studies that touched on the Southeast Asian perspective(s),1 the Southeast Asian angle of the conflict is noticeably lacking. This is true even in recent studies that take an ‘international history’ approach to the conflict. This is unfortunate given the fact that the vision of falling dominoes in Southeast Asia goes back to as early as 1949 when the Nationalists were being forced to withdraw from mainland China. The ‘Domino Theory’ had been expressed in one form or another in the National Security Council (NSC) documents: 48/1 (June 1949), 64 (February 1950) and 124/2 (June 1952) culminating in President Dwight Eisenhower’s press conference on 7 April 1954, which is perhaps the best known (as well as the first public) explanation of the possible impact of the war on the non-communist Southeast Asian countries. Whatever one’s view of the Domino Theory may be (the theory remains controversial to this day), most would concur that the Southeast Asian dimension cannot be ignored if we hope to achieve a fuller understanding of the international history of the Vietnam War.