Vietnamese History Collection Is Donated to College Library

Nearly 7000 volumes of Western-language materials on Vietnam were donated yesterday to the College library by Joseph Buttinger, a member of the board of the International Rescue Committee and as authority on Vietnam.

The collection includes books, periodicals, maps and photographs, ranging from the seventh century to the present, and is mainly in English and Preach.

John K. Pairback '29, Higginson Professor of History, said yesterday that the collection is one of the best of its kind.

"It's a good time to figure out what went on in Vietnam-what we were doing there, and why we did it," Fairbank said, adding. "The collection comes right up to date, and if anyone wants to study Vietnam they'll have to use this library."

Author of several books on the history of Vietnam. Buttinger said yesterday that "one of the major reasons for the wrong-headedness of our policy in Vietnam is our ignorance of the country, and the best way to remedy this is to make research materials available."

Buttinger said he became interested in Vietnam after he visited it in 1954, when he was working with refugee intellectuals from the North. When he decided to write a history of the country, he said, he realized there was very little material on Vietnam in this country, and he began to build up his collection.

The library will be part of Widener's general collection accept for a few rare books, and will be available to students in the fall. Douglas W. Brsant, university librarian, said yesterday.

Buttinger, an Austrian refugee who received American citizenship in 1943, said he had originally planned to give the collection to New York University, but the library there was unable to find space for it. He said he decided to give the books to Harvard when Fair bank asked his advice on how to build up the college's Vietnamese library