Description
This collection contains interview transcripts, published and unpublished reports, research notes, working papers, maps, clippings,
correspondence, memoranda, and statistical data gathered by Joseph M. Carrier primarily while he was employed as a Rand Corporation
counterinsurgency specialist with the Chieu Hoi Program in Vietnam. The bulk of the materials pertains to the Chieu Hoi Program,
which was operated by the Republic of Vietnam from 1963 to 1973 to encourage civilian and military defections from the communist-controlled
South. The collection contains materials documenting the administration of the Chieu Hoi program in addition to transcripts
of interviews conducted with defectors (or "ralliers"), prisoners of war, and refugees. English and Vietnamese interview notes,
translated Viet Minh (or "Viet Cong") documents, and preliminary interrogation reports are also included. The collection also
contains administrative materials produced by the Rand Corporation, the United States government, Republic of Vietnam government,
the National Academy of Sciences, and other agencies documenting such topics as Viet Cong and U.S. military activities; counterinsurgency
movements; the use of herbicides and their toxicological and environmental effects; and Vietnamese socio-economic conditions,
social history, politics, and demographics. A small group of files contain Carrier's research materials for the San Francisco
Center for Southeast Asian Refugee Resettlement's 1991 study of AIDS knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors in San Francisco
Southeast Asian communities, as well as personal letters by a Rand colleague named Leon Goure. The majority of materials are
in English. Some materials are in Vietnamese. The collection also contains 35mm slides and black and white negatives of South
Vietnam between 1962-1973.
Background
Joseph Michel Carrier was a counterinsurgency specialist for the Rand Corporation. He conducted fieldwork in South Vietnam
in 1962 and again from 1965 through 1967. During the last half of 1966 and in the spring of 1967, this fieldwork focused on
the Chieu Hoi Program. In the early 1970s, Carrier joined the National Academy of Sciences as a staff officer on the Herbicide
Committee. At this time, he conducted more field investigations in Vietnam, gathering data on the effects of U.S. defoliation
programs. The spraying, code named Operation Trail Dust and Operation Ranch Hand, was used to defoliate forests to expose
Viet Minh (or "Viet Cong") compounds. In addition, the U.S. military sprayed Viet Cong food supplies with defoliants such
as Agent Orange, which contained high levels of a poisonous contaminant known as dioxin. Carrier produced a National Academy
of Sciences working paper on the effects of herbicides in 1974. He received his Ph.D. in Social Sciences from the University
of California, Irvine in 1972.
Restrictions
Property rights reside with the University of California. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and
their heirs. For permissions to reproduce or to publish, please contact the Southeast Asian Archive Librarian.