Download Viet Nam War

Viet Nam War
Topics
 The United States Focuses on
 Going to War in Vietnam
 Vietnam Divides the Nation
 The War Winds Down
Vietnam
Test 7
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1. Describe the nationalist motives of Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh.
2. Explain the origins of American involvement in Vietnam during the 1950s.
3. Describe how President Johnson deepened American involvement in Vietnam.
4. Discuss how the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese were able to frustrate the
American military.
5. Analyze why support for the war began to weaken.
6. Describe the motives of those in the antiwar movement.
7. Explain the events of Nixon’s first administration that inspired more antiwar
protests.
8. Summarize the major lessons the United States learned from the Vietnam War
experience.
• Although little was known about Vietnam in the late 1940s and early 1950s,
American officials felt Vietnam was important in their campaign to stop the spread
of communism.
 During the early 1900s, nationalism was strong in Vietnam.
 As the Vietnamese sought independence or reform of the French colonial
government, several political parties formed.
 One of the leaders of the nationalist movement was Ho Chi Minh who, during his
travels to the Soviet Union, had become an advocate of communism.
 In 1930 Ho Chi Minh helped form the Indochinese Communist Party and worked to
overthrow the French.
 Ho Chi Minh was exiled to the Soviet Union and China.
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Upon his return to Vietnam in 1941, Japan had control of the country.
He organized the nationalist group, Vietminh, which united Communists and nonCommunists to force Japan out.
With the Allies’ victory over Japan in 1945, Ho Chi Minh and his forces declared
Vietnam an independent nation.
France sent in troops to regain its colonial empire.
France asked the United States for help.
American officials were against France controlling Vietnam, but they did not want
Vietnam to be Communist either.
The United States, under the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, supported
the French military and their campaign against the Vietminh.
Eisenhower defended the United States policy in Vietnam with the domino theory–
the belief that if Vietnam fell to communism, other nations in Southeast Asia would
do the same.
Despite aid from the United States, the French struggled against the Vietminh.
The Vietminh frequently used the tactics of guerrillas, or irregular troops who
usually blend into civilian population and are difficult for regular armies to fight.
They used hit-and-run and ambush tactics.
In 1954 the French commander ordered his forces to occupy the mountain town of
Dien Bien Phu.
A huge Vietminh force surrounded the town.
The defeated French were forced to make peace and withdraw from Indochina.
Negotiations to end the conflict, called the Geneva Accords, divided Vietnam
between the Vietminh controlling North Vietnam and a pro-Western regime in
South Vietnam.
The Accords also recognized Cambodia’s independence.
In 1956 elections were held to form a single government.
The United States stepped in to protect the new government in the South led by
Ngo Dinh Diem, a pro-Westerner and anti-Communist.
The tension between North and South Vietnam escalated with the United States
caught in the middle.
After Ngo Dinh Diem refused to hold national elections, Ho Chi Minh and his
followers created a new guerrilla army known as the Vietcong.
Their goal was to reunify North and South Vietnam.
The United States continued to send aid to South Vietnam.
The Vietcong’s power, however, continued to grow because many Vietnamese
opposed Diem’s government.
President Kennedy continued the nation’s policy of support for South Vietnam,
agreeing with past presidents that Southeast Asia was important in the battle
against communism.
The unpopularity of South Vietnam’s President Diem increased because his
government was corrupt, he created strategic hamlets, and he discriminated
against Buddhism, one of the country’s most widely practiced religions.
Diem was overthrown and later executed.
This further weakened South Vietnam’s government, forcing the United States to
become more involved.
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After Kennedy’s assassination, President Lyndon Johnson inherited the problem of
Vietnam.
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At first, President Johnson was cautious regarding Vietnam, yet he was
determined to prevent South Vietnam from becoming Communist.
Politically, Democrats needed to keep South Vietnam from becoming Communist,
or Republicans would use it against them.
On August 2, 1964, President Johnson announced that North Vietnamese torpedo
boats fired on two American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.
A similar attack reportedly occurred two days later.
The Senate and the House passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on August 7, 1964,
authorizing the president to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack
on U.S. forces.
Congress had given its war powers to the president.
After the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed, the Vietcong began attacking
bases where American advisers were stationed in South Vietnam.
After an attack in February 1965, Johnson sent aircrafts to strike in North Vietnam.
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While the polls showed that Johnson’s approval rating had increased, some
dissenters in the White House warned that if the United States became too
involved, it would be difficult to get out.
In March 1965, however, Johnson increased American involvement, and American
soldiers were fighting alongside the South Vietnamese troops against the
Vietcong.
By 1965 some 180,000 American combat troops were fighting in Vietnam, with the
number doubling by 1966.
Many Americans believed they could win in Vietnam.
To take Vietcong’s hiding places away, American planes dropped napalm, a jellied
gasoline that explodes on contact, and Agent Orange, a chemical that strips leaves
from trees and shrubs.
Farmlands and forests were turned into wastelands.
Americans underestimated the Vietcong’s strength, stamina, and morale.
Johnson refused to order a full invasion of North Vietnam, fearing China would get
involved in the war.
President Johnson also refused to allow a full-scale attack on the Vietcong’s supply
line, known as the Ho Chi Minh trail.
This made winning difficult.
As American casualties increased, many American citizens began questioning the
United State’s involvement in the war.
When American troops first entered the Vietnam War, many Americans supported
the military effort.
As the war in Vietnam continued to drag on, public support decreased.
Americans began to question the government and believed a credibility gap had
developed, making it difficult to believe what the Johnson administration said
about the war.
As the casualties increased, Americans, especially college students, began to
publicly protest the war.
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In March 1965, faculty and students at the University of Michigan abandoned their
classes and formed a teach-in where they informally discussed issues of the war
and why they opposed it.
This triggered teach-ins at many college campuses.
Young protestors focused their attention on what they felt was an unfair draft
system.
While college students could delay military service until graduation, those with
low-income and limited education were called to serve.
As a result, minorities, especially African Americans, were called to war.
Many draftees refused to serve.
Others moved to Canada and other nations.
By 1968 the nation seemed divided into two camps–the doves and the hawks.
The doves wanted the United States to withdraw from the war, and the hawks felt
the United States should stay and fight.
On January 30, 1968, during Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, the Vietcong and
North Vietnamese launched a surprise attack known as the Tet offensive.
In the attack, guerrilla fighters hit American airbases in South Vietnam as well as
the South’s major cities and provincial capitals.
Militarily, the Tet offensive was a disaster for the Communists, but it was a
political victory that shocked Americans.
As a result, the approval rating for the president plummeted.
Eugene McCarthy and Senator Robert Kennedy entered the 1968 presidential race
as “dove” candidates for the Democratic nomination.
Johnson withdrew from the presidential race, announcing his decision in an
address to the nation on March 31, 1968.
In April Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated.
Two months later, Robert Kennedy was also assassinated.
This violence, coupled with a clash between protesters and police at the
Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August, left the nation in a state of
chaos.
The chaos benefited the Republican presidential candidate, Richard Nixon, and an
independent, Governor George Wallace of Alabama.
Nixon promised to regain order and end the war in Vietnam.
Although Johnson attempted to help the Democratic campaign with a cease-fire,
Democratic presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey lost by more than 100
electoral votes as well as the popular vote by a slim margin.
Richard Nixon became president.
President Nixon chose Harvard professor Henry Kissinger to be special assistant
for national security affairs, giving him authority to find a way to end the war in
Vietnam.
 Kissinger used a policy he called linkage to improve relations with the Soviet Union
and China–the suppliers of aid to North Vietnam.
 He started up peace talks again with North Vietnam.
 At the same time, Nixon began Vietnamization–the gradual withdrawal of
American troops in Vietnam, allowing South Vietnam to assume more of the
fighting.
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As peace negotiations were underway, Nixon increased air strikes against North
Vietnam to maintain American strength.
The Vietnam War continued to stir up protests and violence in the United States.
In 1969 Americans learned of a 1968 event that further increased their feelings
that this was a senseless war.
An American platoon under the command of Lieutenant William Calley had
massacred more than 200 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians in the hamlet of My
Lai.
Most of the victims were old men, women, and children.
In April 1970, Nixon announced that American troops had invaded Cambodia to
destroy Vietcong military bases.
Americans viewed this as an expansion of the war, and a wave of protests
followed.
In 1970 Congress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that had given the
president near complete power in directing the war.
In 1971 a former Defense Department worker, Daniel Ellsberg, leaked what
became known as the Pentagon Papers to the press.
The secret document showed that many government officials had privately
questioned the war while publicly defending it.
The document also showed how the various administrations deceived the public
about Vietnam.
By 1971 nearly two-thirds of Americans wanted the Vietnam War to end.
President Nixon dropped the insistence that North Vietnam had to withdraw from
South Vietnam before
a peace treaty could be signed.
A month before the presidential election, Henry Kissinger announced that peace
was at hand.
Nixon won re-election in a landslide.
Peace negotiations broke down when South Vietnam’s president, Nguyen Van
Thieu, refused any plan that left North Vietnamese troops in South Vietnam.
The United States began a bombing campaign that eventually led to the
resumption of peace talks.
On January 27, 1973, the sides agreed to end the war and restore peace in
Vietnam.
After eight years at war, the longest in American history, the United States ended
its direct involvement in Vietnam.
In March 1975, the North Vietnamese army launched a full-scale invasion of the
South.
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