Douglas Eugene Pike (July 27, 1924 – May 13, 2002) was a leading American historian and foremost scholar on the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

and the

Viet Cong , , war = the Vietnam War , image = FNL Flag.svg , caption = The flag of the Viet Cong, adopted in 1960, is a variation on the flag of North Vietnam. Sometimes the lower stripe was green. , active ...

based at

Texas Tech University Texas Tech University (Texas Tech, Tech, or TTU) is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas. Established on , and called Texas Technological College until 1969, it is the main institution of the five-institution Texas Tech University Sy ...

from 1997, was director of the Indochina Archive at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

from 1981 and prior to that served as Foreign Service Officer in Asia, with assignments in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), Hong Kong, Tokyo and Taipei. Pike served for 15 years as the State Department's leading analyst. He was considered the leading expert on the National Liberation Front and NVA ( People's Army of Vietnam) before his death in 2002. Pike received a degree in journalism from the University of North Dakota, a bachelor's in international communications from the

, an MA from American University in Washington D.C. (1958), and did a year of graduate work at the

MIT Center for International Studies The MIT Center for International Studies (CIS) is an academic research center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It sponsors work focusing on international relations, security studies, international migration, human rights and justi ...

(1963–64). He was the founder of the journal Indochina Chronology which was subscribed to by academics and diplomats worldwide. He has authored numerous books and articles on the war and the National Liberation Front. His book ''PAVN: People's Army of Vietnam'' has been described as "one of the two or three most significant books to emerge from the war".

Early life

Pike was born in

Cass Lake, Minnesota Cass Lake is a city in Cass County, Minnesota, United States, located within the boundaries of the Leech Lake Indian Reservation. It is surrounded by Pike Bay Township. Cass Lake had a population of 675 in the 2020 census. It is notable as ...

. He grew up in Minor and had planned on a career in journalism, but with the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, he joined the

Army Signal Corps The United States Army Signal Corps (USASC) is a branch of the United States Army that creates and manages communications and information systems for the command and control of combined arms forces. It was established in 1860, the brainchild of Ma ...

and served in the South Pacific. He served between 1943–1946 and reached the rank of Master Sergeant.

The Indochina Chronology

Pike founded The Indochina Chronology in 1982 to cover both historical and contemporary events in

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailan ...

, and Laos.

Published works

* Douglas Pike, Viet Cong. The organization and techniques of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1966) * Douglas Pike, War, Peace, and the Viet Cong (Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1969) * Douglas Pike, History of Vietnamese Communism, 1925-1976 (Hoover Institution Press 1978) * Douglas Pike, PAVN: People's Army of Vietnam (Presidio Press 1986)

References

External links

The Indochina Chronology

Complete text of Douglas Pike's "Vietcong Strategy of Terror" (PDF)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pike, Douglas 20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers 1924 births 2002 deaths People from Cass Lake, Minnesota American male non-fiction writers United States Army personnel of World War II CIA personnel of the Vietnam War