The Vietnam War In 1953, a State Department memorandum said that the French were losing the war in Indochina and feared that a settlement "would mean the eventual loss to Communism not only of Indo-China but of the whole of Southeast Asia," and concluded: "If the French actually decided to withdraw, the U.S. would have to consider most seriously whether to take over in this area.! France controlled since the late 19 th century! took control during World War II! With U.S. aid, France attempted re-colonization in the postwar period! The French lost control to Viet Minh forces in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu! President Eisenhower declined to intervene on behalf of France. At an International Conference at Geneva 1954, It was agreed that Vietnam would be divided at parallel o Ho Chi Minh s forces controlled the North (Communist) o, a French-educated, Roman Catholic claimed control of the South The U.S. set up a former Vietnamese official, Ngo Dinh Diem, who had recently been living in New Jersey. " A date was set for a democratic elections to Vietnam Diem of the elections, leading to military conflict between North and South -with American and his government became more and more firmly established. As the Pentagon Papers put it: "South Viet Nam was essentially the creation of the United States." The Enemy NVA VC o South Vietnamese fighting against the South Vietnamese government o Formed in 1960 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------ The Diem Regime U.S. hoped Diem would be the savior of South Vietnam, Nationalists, Anti-Communist, ruler. -Refused to weaken the ruling class, which caused the peasant class to him. -$4 out of every $5 the U.S. sent went to the Dimino Theory held that a victory in one nation would quickly lead to a chain reaction of takeovers in neighboring states. In Southeast Asia, the United States government used the domino theory to justify its support of a noncommunist regime in South Vietnam against the communist government of North Vietnam
Diem became increasingly unpopular. Diem was a, and most Vietnamese were ; Diem was close to the landlords, and Vietnam was a country of. Diem s reaction to the Buddhist Suicide protests Buddhists self-immolated themselves in protest against governmental anti-buddhist policies. Diem's police raided the Buddhist pagodas and temples, wounded thirty monks, arrested 1,400 people, and closed down the pagodas. ============================================================ In 1960, the National Liberation Front (aka ) was formed in the South. It united the various strands of to the Diem regime Its strength came from South Vietnamese peasants, who saw it as a way of changing their daily lives. Vietnam Advisors: Under the Geneva Accords, the United States was permitted to have military advisers in southern Vietnam. Eisenhower secretly sent several thousand. Under Kennedy, the figure rose to thousand, and some of them began to take part in combat operations. ********************************************************* The Assassination of Diem Diem was becoming an embarrassment, an obstacle to effective control over Vietnam. The U.S. wanted a stronger government, and did nothing to help Diem when coup by his generals began to overthrow him. On November 1, 1963, the generals attacked the presidential palace, Diem phoned U.S. Ambassador Lodge. Lodge told Diem to phone him if he could do anything for his physical safety. That was the last conversation any American had with Diem. He fled the palace, but he and his brother were apprehended by the plotters, taken out in a truck, and executed. The generals who succeeded Diem could not suppress the. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The Gulf of Tonkin Incidents 1964 The Gulf of Tonkin Incident reportedly began when the Navy destroyer was attacked by three North Vietnamese patrol boats 28 miles off the North Vietnamese coast in international waters. Two days later, that vessel and another U.S. destroyer (the Turner Joy) in the area both reported new attacks, although North Vietnam subsequently insisted that it hadn't attacked and no attack is now believed to have occurred on the 4th of August. Within hours, Johnson ordered retaliatory air strikes on the bases of the North Vietnamese boats and announced, in a television address to the American public the same evening, that U.S. naval forces had been attacked.
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution A resolution of the U.S. Congress passed just days later in direct response to a minor naval engagement known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. It gave President Johnson approval to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defense of its freedom, It is of historical significance because it gave President Johnson authorization, a formal declaration of war by Congress, for the use of military force in Southeast Asia. This led to a rapid of U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam conflict. Operation Rolling Thunder - Operation Rolling Thunder began when over 100 American fighterbombers attack targets in North Vietnam. -Its Goal: To stop the flow of supplies form the north through and -Targets: major bases, roads, and railways, but especially the Scheduled to last eight weeks, it continued for 3 years. Free Fire Zones Large areas of South Vietnam were declared free fire zones, which meant an area had been cleared of all, with any remaining people assumed to be forces. Bombings and Agent Orange By the end of the Vietnam war, s million tons of bombs, including the flammable liquid napalm, had been dropped on Vietnam, more than twice the total bombs dropped on Europe and Asia in. Ho Chi Minh Trail A series of roads, trials and paths used to bring supplies into In addition, poisonous sprays such s were dropped by planes to destroy trees and any kind of growth an area the size of the state of Massachusetts was covered with such poison. Vietnamese mothers reported birth defects in their children.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The TET Offensive 1968 A military campaign that began on January 31, 1968 when forces of the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam (NLF, or ), and the People's Army of Vietnam (or NVA), fought against the forces of the Republic of Vietnam ( ), the United States. The purpose of the offensive was to strike military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Vietnam and to spark a general uprising among the population that would then topple the Saigon government, thus ending the war in a single blow.
Results: The offensive was beaten back, but it demonstrated that all the enormous firepower delivered on Vietnam by the United States destroyed the NLF, its, its popular support, its will to fight. It caused a reassessment in the American government, more doubts among the American people. President Johnson and the War Did not want to be known as the President who lost the war. I will not be the President who saw Southeast Asia go the way China went During the 1964 election he stated that he would never send American boys to do the fighting that Asian boys should do themselves After the election, he U.S. involvement. Impact of the Tet Offensive Domestic U.S. Reaction:,, of Johnson Administration Hey, Hey LBJ! How many kids did you kill today? +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Nixon and the War In the fall of 1968, Richard Nixon, pledging that he would get the United States out of Vietnam, was elected President. He began to withdraw troops; by, less than 150,000 were left. But the continued. Nixon's policy was " " the Saigon government, with Vietnamese ground troops, using American money and air power, would carry on the war. Nixon was not ending the war; he was ending the aspect of it, the involvement of American soldiers on the soil of a faraway country. Vietnamization The policy was to shift the burden of defeating the Communists onto the South Vietnamese Army and away from the United States ******************************************************************************* The First D.C. Anti-War Rally April 17, 1965! One month after the U.S. sent its first troops to Vietnam! Staged by the Leftist group,! 16,000 people picketed outside the White House! Only arrests made
American Anti-War Immolations On November 2, 1965, in front of the in Washington, as thousands of employees were streaming out of the building in the late afternoon, Norman Morrison, a thirty-two-year-old, father of three, stood below the third-floor windows of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, doused himself with kerosene, and set himself afire in protest against the war. Earlier that year, in Detroit, an eighty-two-year-old woman named Alice Herz burned herself to death to make a statement against the horror of Indochina. March on the Pentagon October 21, 1967-5 days of protests organized by the -Tear gas was released into the crowd -2,500 troops guarded the Pentagon - arrested The Moratorim Rally (D.C.) November 15, 1969 -America s biggest anti-war demonstration ever -250,000-500,000 protestors present -LBJ was out of office and Nixon had initiated his plan -Protest was peaceful for the most part - arrests made Kent State The climax of protest came in the spring of 1970 when President Nixon ordered the invasion of Cambodia. -Kent State University in Ohio, on May 4, students gathered to demonstrate against the war, -National Guardsmen fired 67 rounds Ohio over a period of 13 seconds into the By Neil Young crowd, killing four students and Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, wounding nine others, one paralyzed for We're finally on our own. life. -The commencement day ceremonies after the Kent State killings were unlike any the nation had ever seen. This summer I hear the drumming, Four dead in Ohio. Gotta get down to it Soldiers are cutting us down Should have been done long ago. What if you knew her And found her dead on the ground How can you run when you know?
From Amherst, Massachusetts, came this newspaper report: The 100th Commencement of the University of Massachusetts yesterday was a protest, a call for peace. The roll of the funeral drum set the beat for 2600 young men and women marching in fear, in despair and in frustration. Red fists of protest, white peace symbols, and blue doves were stenciled on black academic gowns, and nearly every other senior wore an armband representing a plea for peace. May 1971 - The Fourth D.C. Rally 7,000 people arrested The Pentagon Papers -Daniel Ellsberg helped write the Department of Defense history of the war in Vietnam, and then decided to make the top-secret document public, with the aid of his friend, Anthony Russo. The two had met in Saigon, where both had been affected by the sight of the war, and had become offended at what the United States was doing to the people of Vietnam. -Ellsberg gave copies to various Congressmen and to the, which published them in 1971. -The most damaging revelation in the papers was that the U.S. had deliberately expanded its war with of Cambodia and Laos, coastal raids on North Vietnam, and Marine Corps attacks, none of which had been reported by media in the US. -The Nixon administration tried to get the to stop further publication, but failed. The government then indicted Ellsberg and Russo for violating the by releasing classified documents. They faced long terms in prison if convicted. The judge, however, called off the trial during the jury deliberations, because the Watergate events unfolding at the time revealed unfair practices by the prosecution. Vietnam Veterans Against the War. In April 1971 more than a thousand of them went to Washington, D.C., to demonstrate against the war. One by one, they went up to a wire fence around the Capitol, threw over the fence the they had won in Vietnam, and made brief statements about the war ````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` Changing Attitude Towards The War One sign that the ideas of the antiwar movement had taken hold in the American public was that juries became more to convict antiwar protesters, and local judges too were treating them differently. The last group of draft board raiders, the "," were priests, nuns, and laypeople who raided a draft board in Camden, New Jersey, in August 1971. The Camden 28 weren't the only group to attempt to break into a draft board office. Groups like the in Cantonsville, Maryland, who included the two priests, had burned draft records around the country.
PROTESTS WERE EFFECTIVE The Protests Did Work Back on September 26, 1969, President Richard Nixon, noting the growing antiwar activity all over the country, announced that "under no circumstance will I be affected whatever by it." But nine years later, in his autobiography, he admitted that the antiwar movement caused him to drop plans for an intensification of the war. The Draft Ends End of the War March 1973 Soldier Exit Vietnam The last American combat soldiers left, though military advisors and Marines, who are protecting U.S. installations, remained. For the United States, the war was officially over April 30, 1975 - The last Americans evacuated as fell to the communists The Mayagüez Incident - An incident involving the in Cambodia on May 12 15, 1975, marked the last official battle of the U.S. in the Vietnam War two weeks after the evacuation of Saigon. Results: Americans killed Vietnamese killed $ billion spent on war (over $ in today s money)