Letter to Yale Law Journal Editors about the Legality of the Vietnam War

Michael Tigar’s Notes:

Letter to Yale Law Journal Editors, October 18, 1966. This letter addresses international law objections to the Vietnam War, and expands on the theme of my graduation speech. The letter outlines a theory of international law upon which I later expanded in the second edition of Law and the Rise of Capitalism and other works. In fact, this letter probably states some of the argument better than those later works, which is what happens when I stick something in a file and don’t look back at it. The Yale symposium to which the letter relates was 75 Yale L.J. 1084 (1966), which further material at 76 Yale L.J. 1051 (1967). Readers will recall that successive administrations continued to escalate and expand the Vietnam conflict until the United States withdrew in 1975.