Scope and Contents

Unit Four of the Pike Collection contains documents, newspaper clippings, and other literature pertaining to the diplomatic history of the political settlement for the Vietnam War. The scope of the collection is dated between 1946-1975, the bulk of which covers the years 1962-1975. Materials consist of internal government memorandums, transcripts of speeches and press conferences made by American and Vietnamese government officials, translated Vietnamese enemy documents, official government reports on the status and progress of American and Vietnamese efforts to reach a diplomatic settlement, cables and telegrams between Washington, D. C. and American officials in Vietnam, and American and Vietnamese periodical and newspaper articles covering the diplomatic aspects of the war.

Biographical / Historical

Douglas Pike was born at Cass Lake, Minnesota in 1924. After growing up in the midwest he became a journalist and served in the United States Army reporting on World War II and the Korean War. He then went on to become a foreign service officer in Asia and the Middle East. While as a foreign service officer serving in Vietnam from 1961-1975 he collected all of the documents that is now called the Pike Collection, of which Unit Four is a part of. Pike went on to become a scholar and was educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California at Berkeley, and the American University. Pike has written several articles and books on Vietnam and the war. He maintained his collection until 1982 when the University of California at Berkeley offered to support it. Ten years later UC-Berkeley considered terminating their Indo-China Studies program. Thus, Pike looked for an institution where his collection would be best utilized and maintained for research purposes and found Dr. James R. Reckner, the Director of the Vietnam Center at Texas Tech University, who solicited him. The Pike Collection began arriving at Texas Tech University in 1994. As of the Fall semester of 1997, Pike permanently relocated to Lubbock, Texas, and became an adjunct professor of history. His entire collection is now housed at the Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University.