November 2, 1998

Dr. James G. Blight, professor of international relations at Brown University, delivered the Charles Griffin Memorial Lecture in Sanders Auditorium, speaking on “The Door We Never Opened: How the Vietnam War Could Have Been Avoided, 1962-1963.” Along with Vassar Professor of History Robert K. Brigham, Professor Blight participated with former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara and Vietnamese scholars and former military and civilian officials in six extended discussions between November 1995 and February 1998 of the Vietnamese War. Brigham, Blight and McNamara published Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy in 1999.

The Charles Griffin Memorial Lecture honored the former dean of the faculty and professor of history Charles Caroll Griffin, a distinguished Latin Americanist, who taught at Vassar from 1934 until his retirement in 1967. Professor Griffin died in 1976.

Professor Blight spoke again at Vassar on this topic in March 1999.