Vietnam Center Hosts Conference on Wars in Laos, Cambodia and Thailand

Written by Cory Chandler

Texas Tech University’s Vietnam Center will host a conference on Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand and the Vietnam War March 13-14 at the Holiday Inn Park Plaza.

All conference presentations will take place in the Mahogany/Sycamore Room. Books will be for sale in the Mesquite Room.

The conference will provide additional insight into some of the regional and international implications of the Vietnam War, said Stephen Maxner, director of the Vietnam Center. The CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence will use the conference to release some previously classified studies of the Vietnam War to include the then-secret war in Laos.

“These remarkable materials will add substantially to our collective understanding of the Vietnam War,” Maxner said. “This collaborative release during a university conference is highly commendable as it reflects transparency in government and directly contributes to the open exchange of ideas that is at the foundation of any great university.”

Texas Tech President Guy Bailey will open the conference with remarks. Sessions are open to the public but registration is required to join in the conference meals. Registration will take place on site at the Holiday Inn.

Sessions Include:

• 8:30 a.m. March 13: Understanding the War in Southeast Asia through the declassified works of Thomas Ahern. Clayton Laurie, a historian for the CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, will moderate the discussion.
• 10:30 a.m. March 13: Vietnamese perspectives on the War in Laos and Cambodia. Ron Milam, interim director of the Center for War and Diplomacy in the Post-Vietnam War Era at Texas Tech, will moderate the discussion.
• 3:30 p.m. March 13: The War in Laos: The Early Years. Marc Jason Gilbert, NEH Endowed Chair in World History and Humanities at Hawai’i Pacific University, will moderate the discussion.
• 5:30 p.m. March 13: The War in Laos. Dennis Patterson, interim director for the Institute of Modern Conflict, Diplomacy and Reconciliation at Texas Tech, will moderate the discussion.
• 8 a.m. March 14: New Interpretations of the War in Laos. Joyce Hoffmann, professor of journalism at Old Dominion University, will moderate the discussion.
• 10:30 a.m. March 14: Postwar Laos. Michael Carroll, SDF Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Calgary, will moderate the discussion.
• 4 p.m. March 14: The War in Cambodia. Kelly Crager, head of the Oral History Project at the Vietnam Center, will moderate the discussion.
• 5:30 p.m. March 14: The War in Thailand. Jeffrey Race, of Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University in Bangkok, Thailand, will moderate the discussion.

Full conference agenda, information and registration form.

Photo Courtesy Vietnam Center and Archive at Texas Tech University.