| Douglas Pike | |
| Birth Name: | Douglas Eugene Pike |
| Birth Date: | 27 July 1924 |
| Birth Place: | Cass Lake, Minnesota |
| Death Place: | Lubbock, Texas |
| Nationality: | American |
| Education: | University of North Dakota UC Berkeley American University MIT |
| Occupation: | Historian |
| Children: | 3 |
Douglas Eugene Pike[1] (July 27, 1924 – May 13, 2002)[2] was a leading American historian[3] and foremost scholar on the Vietnam War and the Viet Cong based at Texas Tech University. From 1997, Pike was the director of the Indochina Archive at the University of California, Berkeley and 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.[4] Pike served for 15 years as the State Department's leading analyst.[5] He was considered an expert on the National Liberation Front and NVA (People's Army of Vietnam) before his death in 2002.[6] [7]
Pike received a degree in journalism from the University of North Dakota as a bachelor's in international communications from the University of California, Berkeley and also a MA from American University in Washington D.C. (1958). Pike worked at the MIT Center for International Studies (1963–64) a year after graduate.[8]
He founded the journal Indochina Chronology, and has authored numerous books and articles on the war and the National Liberation Front.[6] 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".[9]
Pike was born in Cass Lake, Minnesota. He grew up in Minor and had planned on a career in journalism, but with the outbreak of World War II, he joined the Army Signal Corps and served in the South Pacific.[10] He served between 1943–1946 and reached the rank of Master Sergeant.[2]
Pike founded The Indochina Chronology in 1982 to cover both historical and contemporary events in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Articles were published until Pike's death in 2002.[11]