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William
Conrad Gibbons was born in 1926 in Harrisonburg,
Virginia to Howard and Jessie Gibbons. He entered
the University of Virginia in 1945. His studies were
interrupted in order to serve in World War II but he
returned to finish his college education at
Randolph-Macon in Ashland, Virginia and was
graduated in 1949. Dr. Gibbons went on to earn his
Masters and Ph.D. in Government from Princeton
University in 1957 and was in the 1954-55 class of
the American Political Science Association
Congressional Fellowship Program. He worked in
Capitol Hill for both Senator Wayne Morse and |
Howard and
Jessie Gibbons |
Senator Mike Mansfield and also
served as an advance man for presidential contender Lyndon
B. Johnson in 1960. He was a professional staff member of
the Democratic Policy Committee and Assistant to the
Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate (Lyndon Johnson followed
by Mike Mansfeld) from 1960-63.
Dr. Gibbons ran for Congress from the
Western District of Virginia, which covered his hometown of
Harrisonburg but was defeated. He then returned to
Washington to work as legislative program staff (62-63);
Deputy Director (1963-65) and Director (1965-68) of
Congressional Liaison for the Agency for International
Development, Department of State.
At the beginning of the Nixon Administration, William
Gibbons left Washington to set up and head the political
science department at Texas A&M University. He went on to be
a visiting professor at Wellesley College and worked briefly
as the Senior Program Officer in charge of all historical
activities for the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission.
In 1972, Dr. Gibbons became a senior
analyst for the Foreign Affairs Division (“FAND”) of the
Library of Congress, where he stayed for twenty years. It
was as a senior analyst at FAND that he authored the
definitive five-volume set entitled “The U.S. Government and
the Vietnam War.” In 1980 he became a visiting
professor at George Mason University where he continued work
on the series.
The series has been described by historians and
journalists as: “By far the best books on the subject”
(William Bundy), “The master of Vietnam research” (David
Maraniss), “Magisterial” (Brian VanDeMark), “Bill is an
overlooked hero…for people like myself, well, just watch how
much his name comes up in the footnotes” (Paul Hendrickson),
“One of the most valuable studies of the formulation of
Vietnam policy during the Kennedy and Johnson
administrations” (Stanley Karnow). This series was also a
major resource for Robert S. McNamara’s book “In Retrospect”
and for Stanley Karnow’s book, “Vietnam, A History” and his
26-part PBS series of the same name. “Senator Mansfield” and
“TET”, both written by Don Oberdorfer, were also greatly
aided by the research from the Vietnam series by Gibbons.
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Bill and
Pat Gibbons |
Bill
Gibbons has been a friend to many scholars and historians in
that he shares his knowledge and research willingly to
anyone who asks. He and his wife Patricia live on 150
acres on High Peak Farm in the gently rolling hills of
Monroe, VA. He has six children (Rob, Frances,
Stephen, Gayle, Ashley, Justin) and five grandchildren
(Peter, Ben, Alex, Stephanie, Emma) who live in California,
Switzerland, North Carolina, New York and Virginia. |
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