William Conrad Gibbons

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William Conrad Gibbons (1926–2015) was an American historian and expert on U.S. foreign policy, especially the Vietnam War. He was born in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and grew up with a brother, John H. Gibbons. He served in World War II, then finished his degree at Randolph–Macon College in 1949. He earned a Master’s and PhD in Government from Princeton in 1957. He worked on Capitol Hill for Senators Morse and Mansfield and helped Lyndon B. Johnson during the 1960 campaign. He served on the staff of the Democratic Policy Committee and as Assistant to the Senate Majority Leader.

Gibbons also ran for Congress in Virginia but did not win. He held various government and academic roles, including at the Agency for International Development and the State Department, and he headed the political science department at Texas A&M. He was a visiting professor at Wellesley and worked with the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission. In 1972 he joined the Library of Congress as a senior analyst, where he wrote The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War, a four-volume study widely praised by scholars. He later taught at George Mason University.

Gibbons died on July 4, 2015, at his farm in Monroe, Virginia, after a stroke. His papers and research on Vietnam policy are kept at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library.