1) For the war between ARVN and PAVN after US disengagement, you might wish to see Col William Le Gro's Cease Fire to Capitulation..Col Le Gro ran intel at the Office of the Defense Attache, Saigon, 1973-5..The entire work is available on-line.
2) Take a look at David "RAND" Elliiott's pentateuchal (in size, not sanctity) work on the war and social change in the Mekong Delta, exerpts of which appear on-line from time to time...It offers many useful insights (among which, the shocked realization of the study's veteran communist protagonist that by liberation --1975, the majority of the populace even in seminally revolutionary Dinh Tuong Province, had been successfully seduced by US-induced modernization and no longer supported the Revolution.....)
3) Bergerud is important for a feel of the situation on the ground in one province, but I concur precisely in Blair's cautionary admonition. Also several of his conclusions are non-sequiters but the narrative is probably an essential read... Don't know what prior experience you bring, Mr. Jensen, but as you can see, if you are coming to the project with tabla rasa, it can be difficult to discriminate amongst the many opinions voiced.
4) Re: Granite State on Sorely: I'd recommend this book because so few others cover the final years. The author sees near defeat of the enemy by 1970. I concur strongly, as would most of my old adviser colleagues, particularly those who experienced both the before and after phases. But ascribing the near win to a dramatic shift from enemy-centrism to territorial security overstates the case, IMO. (....since I have come to the conclusion that at least during my tenure (1971-5), the enemy center of gravity within RVN reposed in the PAVN units in the in-country base areas....Significantly, during the unilateral US withdrawal period ('71-Jan '73), remaining USARV units in MR-III were targeted against those units in those sanctuaries.)...This is not to denigrate the critical nature of territorial security--or the 100% male mobilization after Tet, which enabled effective raising of territorial forces and turned virtually every rural family into RVNAF dependents.
5) Finally, if I had only one book to recommend, it would be a work of history--Government and Revolution in Viet Nam, by Dennis Duncanson, OBE. Oxford Univ. Press, 1968. The author served with his longtime colleague Sir Robert Thompson on BRIAM (British Advisory Mission to VN) through the early '60's; the perspective is that of a COIN practitioner...Thompson recognized Duncanson as the team's preeminent historian and VN expert. The depth of scholarship is impressive, as is his uncommon grasp of the nuances of Vietnamese society. The book's fault is it ends in 1967.
Cheers,
Mike.
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