OWNERSHIP AND LITERARY RIGHTS

The records of Fort Chaffee: Operation “New Arrivals” are the physical property of MHI.

CITE AS

Fort Chaffee: Operation “New Arrivals,” the U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.

RESTRICTIONS ON ACCESS

The collection is open for research.

AGENCY HISTORY

In 1975, under the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act (PL 94-23), a federal interagency task force opened four reception centers in the U.S. to aid in the resettlement of refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia. These were located at Camp Pendleton, California, opened on April 29; Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, opened on May 2; Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, opened on May 4; and Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, opened on May 28. The civilian agencies of the task force were charged with refugee resettlement operations, while the Department of Defense was responsible for providing logistical support to the operation.

At both Fort Chaffee and Fort Indiantown Gap, Operation “New Arrivals” was headed by a State Department Senior Service Coordinator with staff members from the Departments of State, Justice, Labor, and Health, Education & Welfare. Also present in the resettlement centers were civilian employees, local area volunteers, and representatives from national voluntary agencies including the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the U.S. Catholic Conference, the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, and the Tolstoy Foundation.

The Department of Defense was charged with logistically supporting resettlement operations, including receiving, transporting, housing, and feeding the refugees, in addition to standard garrison operations such as military police, fire protection, administrative functions, and medical support. Fort Chaffee and Fort Indiantown Gap were well suited to serve as resettlement centers, inactive, but used for annual training by National Guard and Reserve Forces. Approximately 34,000 refugees total were processed through Operation “New Arrivals” at Fort Chaffee and Fort Indiantown Gap.

SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE

Spanning only nine months, from April to December 1975, the records of Fort Chaffee: Operation “New Arrivals” document the efforts made to welcome the refugees, in-process them medically and administratively, screen them for residence, match them with sponsors, and process them out of the reception centers. Procedural operations and attitudes toward the refugees are revealed in Public Affairs Office news releases, briefings, camp newspapers, and area newspaper clippings.

The collection consists of one box and is arranged by subject, including the Public Affairs Office SOP, press releases, briefings, newspaper clippings, the Fort Chaffee camp newspaper “Dat Lanh,” and photocopies of photographs showing camp life.

NOTES ON ARRANGEMENT

The records of Fort Chaffee: Operation “New Arrivals” consist mainly of Public Affairs Office documents from the Fort Chaffee operation, but intermingled at the time of accession from Fort Chaffee was a smaller group of papers from the resettlement operation at Fort Indiantown Gap. For the sake of clarity, the Fort Indiantown Gap papers have been foldered separately from the Fort Chaffee papers.

BOX LIST

Box 1.

Folder 1. Fort Chaffee: Operation New Arrivals, Briefings

Folder 2. Fort Chaffee: Operation New Arrivals, Public Affairs Office SOP; OPLAN

Folder 3. Fort Chaffee: Operation New Arrivals, Press releases

Folder 4. Fort Chaffee: Operation New Arrivals, Newspaper clippings

Folder 5. Fort Chaffee: Operation New Arrivals, Camp newspaper “Dat

Lanh”

Folder 6. Fort Chaffee: Operation New Arrivals, Fort Indiantown Gap, PA

RELATED RECORDS

See also the MHI collection Vietnam Refugee Resettlement.