Scope and Contents

The Cartoon Section of the Douglas Pike Collection consists mostly of political cartoons related to the Vietnam War. Many of the cartoons are from the period of the war itself, but some are post-1975 including the 1990s. The cartoons are organized topically, with by far the largest division being the general category of those which deal with the war itself. This section includes a small book titled 'Verdicts on Vietnam,' published in 1968. A small proportion of these cartoons have been separated into a different folder because they are of Southeast Asian origin or are from somewhere besides the United States or Southeast Asia. Those which deal specifically with Cambodia, Laos, or Thailand, and those which deal with refugee matters, have been put in a different folder. The next major division consists of cartoons which relate to the domestic American debate over the war. The idea behind this category is that the cartoons address the debate over the legitimacy of the war, not the war itself, including U.S. or Vietnamese strategy, tactics, etc. Some of the material in this division involves the war as a political issue--for example, how presidents Johnson or Nixon attempted to persuade Congress and the public to support the war effort. Other material covers war protesters or draft card burners and the debate over the legitimacy of anti-war demonstrations. Still other cartoons address the publication of former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's book In Retrospect. Another major division is cartoons which are not directly related to the Vietnam War. Many of these are of interest because they are of Vietnamese origin and address political, cultural and economic issues within Vietnam either during war time or after. Others concern American politics during the war years, and still others are simply miscellaneous. A final division consists of cartoons by H. S. Nguyen. These are good quality, recent sketches which are mostly in Vietnamese but include some English in the captions.