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The Vietnam War
Chapter 17.3 Part II
Setting the Stage
Recall that the United States’ policy during the
Cold War was one of Containment in which
Communism could be contained and its spread
could be checked.
Remember Imperialism, in which European
countries (and America) conquered less-developed
foreign lands to acquire new markets and raw
materials.
In particular, remember the French policy of
Assimilation in which French culture, and French
culture only, was to be practiced in their colonies.
The Road to War
In the early 1900s, France controlled most of
Southeast Asia, an area rich in natural
resources.
The colony’s name was French Indochina, and
included what is now Vietnam, Laos, and
Cambodia. Buddhism, traditional languages and
culture were officially banned, and the native
population was forced to serve the French.
The Vietnamese had long been a people oppressed
by others, and had a long history of struggle against
foreign domination.
• After WWI, a Vietnamese nationalist named Ho Chi Minh
tried to argue for independence for Vietnam during the Paris
Peace Conference, but was denied even an audience with the
Allied leaders.
The Road to War
Ho Chi Minh and others founded the
Vietminh, an independence group, that
helped to force the Japanese out of
Indochina at the end of WWII, and
hoped that they would earn independence
from France after the war.
They were highly disappointed when France
intended to regain their colony.
Fighting Begins
The Vietminh turned their fight to
their French masters for
independence.
The Vietminh was made up of a wide
range of ideologies, from Communism
and Socialism to simple Nationalism.
They used guerilla (hit and run) tactics
to strike at French forces, and gradually
whittled away at their enemy until people
back in France began to doubt the ability
and logic of continuing to fight for the
colony.
• After a major military defeat at Dien Bien
Phu, the French surrendered to Ho Chi
Minh and pulled out.
Fighting Begins
The US had supported the French in Vietnam
in our quest to put down Communism, and saw
the fall of the French as a problem.
President Eisenhower described this danger
in terms of the domino theory.
• Because Communism will spread, if it occupies
one country, it will spread to another, causing
them to fall one at a time like dominos.
Vietnam
-A Divided Country
Similar to the agreement in Korea, a peace
conference was held that awarded the North
part of Vietnam to Ho Chi Minh’s
Communists and the South to an antiCommunist named Ngo Dinh Diem.
Diem was not much better of a choice than
Ho Chi Minh, and ruled as a brutal
dictator.
• Much like the hated French, he oppressed
Buddhism and other native traditions, and
often went above and beyond to punish
and oppress his people to prove that he
was not simply a puppet of the united
States.
• As a result, resistance to Diem’s
government grew, and as the 1950s wore
on, it appeared that Diem’s government
could fall to Communism as well.
The United States
Gets Involved
Fearing the spread of Communism, the
US decided to increase its presence in
Vietnam.
Since the late 1950s, advisors had been sent
there to train ARVN (Army of the Republic of
Viet Nam) troops to fight the Communists.
• However, Diem’s forces were not well motivated,
and the US presence was escalated, or increased as
time went on, but still in a very minor role.
The United States
Gets Involved
In August 1964, North Vietnamese torpedo
patrol boats attacked two US destroyers at least
once in the Gulf of Tonkin, an incident now
called the “Gulf of Tonkin Incident.”
As US ships were fired upon, President Johnson asked
for and was granted permission to send troops to
Vietnam.
• By late 1965 more than 185,000 US soldiers were fighting
on Vietnamese soil. By 1966, there would be more than
500,000 men there.
The United States
Gets Involved
American troops were the best
equipped and most advanced fighting
men in the world.
Two problems nagged at the American
soldier, however: Guerilla warfare in a
jungle and the fact that they were fighting
for an unpopular government in South
Vietnam.
• Buddhist monks set themselves on fire to
protest Diem’s policies toward their religion,
and eventually, the US looked the other way
while a military coup removed Diem from
power.
The United States
Gets Involved
Fighting was horrible, with troops being in combat
over 200 days per year because of the helicopter.
In every engagement, the US was not beaten, but it
could not win a decisive victory because the Viet Cong
(Communist guerillas) always escaped, much like our
own George Washington was able to do in America’s
war for independence.
The United States
Gets Involved
Bombing and deforestation
became a tactic, in which
powerful herbicides such as
“Agent Orange” were sprayed
on the jungles to kill the
vegetation so that bombing
could be more effective.
All told, about 5 million tons of
bombs were dropped on North
and South Vietnam, far more
than in all of WWII.
The US Withdraws
As the 1960s progressed, young people in
America grew increasingly against the war, and
protested across the United States.
The “hippies” of the counterculture, or peace
movement held peace demonstrations across the
country, often centering around colleges.
By the end of the 60s, President Nixon began to
withdraw US troops and replace them with newly
trained South Vietnamese forces in a process called
“Vietnamization.”
• Bombing was increased, and operations were expanded to
other countries to help the South succeed.
The US Withdraws
Political pressure in the US continued to
drive the withdrawal of US troops, with
the last leaving in 1973.
South Vietnam fell in 1975. 58,000
Americans and 1.5 million Vietnamese had
lost their lives.
Postwar Southeast Asia
Fighting was not restricted to Vietnam. In 1975,
Communists called the Khmer Rouge seized Cambodia, and
dictator Pol Pot killed 2 million people, ¼ of the population,
to force his brand of Communism on the people.
It was so bad that Vietnam actually saved the day and
removed Pol Pot. Cambodia finally gained its first
democratic government in 1993.
As Communism took over all of Vietnam, 1.5 million people
fled. Those that stayed behind were “reeducated” in
Communist thought and had their lives tightly controlled.
Although still Communist, Vietnam today seeks foreign
business, and is a trading partner with the US and Canada.