The Vietnam War

1
The Vietnam War
1945 - 1975
2
The Vietnam War - A Background
Ho Chi Minh
Nationalist who created the Viet Minh to fight
the French colonists and then the Japanese.
1945 Ho Chi Minh declares Independence for Vietnam
fails to receive United States support for
Independence
(Why?)
1) Ho Chi Minh was a communist
2) The alliance between the Soviets and the
United States had broken down into a Red Scare
Truman sees a need to fend off the Red Tide of
communism
- Needed French support of NATO in Europe
1950 Truman decides to support the French against
the communists
3
I. First Indochina War, 1945-1954French and the
Vietminh

• A War for National Liberation from French Rule
• Empowered in part from Vietminh role in fighting
  the Japanese
• Expectations from the Atlantic Charter
• War of the elephant and the grasshopper
• French jaunissement (yellowing) demonstrates a
  desire to leave Vietnam
• Very unpopular in France
• Defeat at Dienbienphu seals the French fate

4
1954 Geneva Accords

• Divides Vietnam into Two-halves along the 17th
  parallel
• Elections were to be held in 1956 to unite the
  country. They never were, Why?
• What roles did countries other than France and
  the Vietminh play at the conference?

• Prime Minister Diem rejected the Accord and
  predicted
• another more deadly war to which he would be
  correct.

5
II. The Rise and Fall ofAmericas Mandarin

• Diems Presidency, 1955-1963

• Create support for Diems government (Lansdale)
• Remove rural support away from the Vietcong
• (Strategic Hamlets)
• Build and train a strong South Vietnamese Army
  (ARVN)

Prevent the Domino Theory from taking place in
South East Asia
6
Diem with Eisenhower
The infamous failure of Strategic Hamlets
Why was Diem and South Vietnam Important to
America?
Why did they fail?
7
Diem has got to go!
2 October -NSC Meeting 519 - Between President
Kennedy, Robert McNamara and Maxwell D. Taylor
They brief the President on the trip to South
Vietnam (SVN) and discuss the removal of 1,000
advisers from SVN. The President convenes the
National Security Council on the matters
contained in the report and stresses that the US
needed to find effective ways of persuading Diem
to change the political atmosphere in Saigon. The
President endorses the withdrawal of 1,000
advisers from Vietnam by December 31, 1963.
8
Madame Ngo Nhu, the wife of Diem's brother,
refers to the immolations as "barbecues".
Why were Lansdales efforts to make Diem
popular unsuccessful in the long-run?
9
The role of the Cold War
1959 Marxist Cuban Revolution- Fidel Castro
1960 - The U2 Spy Plane Incident-Francis Gary
Powers
1961 - JFK becomes President, January 20
1961 The failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba,
1962 - The Cuban Missile Crisis
1963 President Diem of South Vietnam is
assassinated, Kennedy decides to remove all
military advisors from Vietnam
10
Quotes from the conflict
to see sovereign rights and self-government
restored to those who have been forcibly
deprived of them Atlantic Charter, 1941
You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill
of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose
and I will win. Ho Chi Minh.
Communist guerilla hide among people. If you
win the people over to your side, the communist
guerillas have no place to hide. With no place
to hide you can find the. Then military men will
fix themfinish them. Edward Lansdale
Every quantitative measurement shows that we
are winning the war. Robert McNamara
Now we have a problem in making our power
credible, and Vietnam is the place. Kennedy
did you really mean it (referring to a
compliment about Diem being An Asian
Churchill) shit. Diem is the only boy we
got out there- Vice President, Lyndon Johnson.
The Communists will defeat us, not by virtue of
their strength but because of our weakness. They
will win by default. Diem
11
III. Johnsons War, 1964-1969
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident (Video)
1964 The US Destroyer Maddox is fired upon by the
North Vietnamese
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
Open aggression on the high seas
President Johnson asks for, and gets,
wide-ranging powers from Congress to conduct
the war in Vietnam
Walt Rostow We dont know what happened, but it
had the desired effect
12
Operation Rolling Thunder
On Mar. 2, 1965, the United States instituted
its famous "Rolling Thunder" campaign, the
systematic bombing of North Vietnam, starting at
the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and
South Vietnam. Its planes flew from bases in
South Vietnam and Thailand. By slowly advancing
the target areas northward across North Vietnam,
it was hoped the North Vietnamese leaders would
eventually be convinced to sit down at the peace
table. However, Washington imposed stringent
controls upon these operations, lest Red China or
the Soviet union actively enter the conflict.
13
Winning the Hearts and Minds of the Vietnamese
people
The US in Vietnam is involved in two
simultaneous and very difficult tasks, nation
building and fighting a vicious and
well-organized enemy. If it could do either one
alone, the task would be vastly simplified, but
its got to do both at once . . . Helping Vietnam
. . . may very well be the most complex problem
ever faced by men in uniform anywhere on earth.
Program for the Pacification and Long-Term
Development of South Vietnam (PROVN)March, 1966
14
Winning the Hearts and Minds of the Vietnamese
people
Pacification Programs limitations
15
The Ho Chi Minh Trail
It was located in Laos and Cambodia, both neutral
countries during the conflict
16
The Ia Drang Valley, Nov 1965
What did each side learn from this relatively
large battle?
17
(No Transcript)
18
7th Cavalry Air-Mobile
New style of fighting Highly mobile, smaller
military units
19
1966 The Big Build-Up
Search and Destroy Missions
5,000 Americans died in that year
An additional 200,000 men would be sent to Vietnam
The Vietcong
The Draft
Draftees comprised 1/3 of all U.S. soldiers in
Vietnam
The average age of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam was
19 years
20
LBJ visits troops going to Vietnam in 1966
President Johnson would commit hundreds of
thousands of United States military soldiers to
Vietnam
550,000 American troops would be in Vietnam when
he left the presidency
21
Agent Orange (powerful dioxin)
22
(No Transcript)
23
(No Transcript)
24
The use of technology

• How did the use of technology affect the outcome
  of the Vietnam War?
• Notable technological weaponry
• B-52 Heavy Bombers, Helicopters, Napalm, Agent
  Orange, etc

What about non-lethal technology? The Television
25
Assessment of the War in 1967
Winning or Losing
Civil War or Cold War
Stay in or get out Political Cost?
What is the cost, is it worth the cost?
26
What was the political, economic and social
impact on America during Johnsons presidency?
27
The Tet Offensive - January 1968
1968 - U.S. involvement peaks at 543,000 troops
A massive Vietcong and NVA assault on American
positions throughout South Vietnam - (Turning
Point event of the war)
United States military turns back the attack, but
the damage had already been done to the support
back home
Anti-War Movement
28
The Tet Offensive failed to meet its main goal
AND the Vietcong suffered terrible losses. Why
then is it a turning point of the war in favor of
the North?

• The United States had set up high
• expectations for the war to be over soon

2. American support for the war begins to slowly
erode and anti-war protestors become more vocal
and visible
29
Siege of Khe Sanh
An American Dien Bien Phu?
30
The Election of 1968
Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy
assassinated in Los Angeles (June)
Hubert Humphery nominated as the Democratic
Presidential Candidate
Richard Nixon is elected President
Promises to end the war with honor
31
IV. Nixons War, 1969-1973

• The Process of Vietnamization begins

Sees the war from the perspective of Linkage
with the wider Cold War

• Failure to pressure the Soviet Union and China
  to help force the
• North Vietnamese to accept negotiation
  demonstrates the folly of Linkage

• Secret negotiations are begun between Le Duc Tho
  and Henry Kissinger,
• but Kissinger fails to get acceptance for the
  formula of Mutual Withdrawal

• Nixon simultaneously begins the withdrawal of
  American troops while widening
• The war with the secret bombing of Cambodia and
  later invasion of Cambodia

• Kissinger eventually changes the offer to the
  North to a Leopard Spot
• Agreement. Building on the stand-still, cease
  fire.

• The United States forces the South to agree the
  tail doesnt wag the dog

• Nixon resorts to large-scale bombing of the North
  when they threaten to
• Not sign. The Christmas 1972 Bombings force the
  North to sign.

32
My Lai Massacre
Occurs March 16, 1968, but revealed to public in
1969
Lt. William Calley orders his men to enter the
village firing
Over 300 unarmed civilians, many women and
children are murdered
Calley was eventually convicted of murder, but
was later released in 1974
33
Vietnamization
Process of shifting the burden of the war over to
the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN)
1970 Nixon expands the war into Cambodia with
secret and illegal bombing of Cambodia followed
by an invasion With US and South Vietnamese troops
Hoped to destroy the Ho Chi Minh Trail
May 4, 1970
Protests erupt and tragedy hits Kent State
University
4 students are killed by National Guardsmen
34
Pentagon Papers (1971)
Daniel Ellsberg leaks 7000 documents to the New
York Times and Washington post
Why?
I felt that the country was eating its young
Three effects
1. Illustrates governments lying about wars
progress
2. Illustrates the folly of ESCALATION
3. Creates a paranoid Nixon Administration
35
Patriot or Traitor?
36
The First Televised War
Americans begin to question the war
Hawks vs. Doves
1972 - Jane Fonda visits North Vietnam
37
Operation Linebacker I and II
The Christmas Bombings
Forces the North Vietnamese to accept Paris Peace
Accords
South Vietnam remains a non-communist nation, but
NLF (Vietcong) are allowed to remain under the
Leopard Spot agreement
38
Time became the biggest concern for Nixon and his
effort to end the war

• What problems did Nixon inherit from the Johnson
  administrations conduct of the war?

In what ways were the Johnson and Nixon wars
similar and different?
To what extent did Nixon accomplish his goal of
peace with honor?
39
Paris Peace Accords are signed in 1973 South
Vietnam retains its independence from the North
1975 - The North will invade the South one last
time and succeed in unifying all of Vietnam -
The US does not honor its pledge to protect the
South
The Aftermath of the Vietnam War
Agent Orange
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
Americans are forever changed
The Cost
110,00 Billion Dollars
58,000 American lives
Estimates as high as 3.5 million Vietnamese died
in the 30 year conflict
70 Tons of bombs for every square mile - 500
pounds of explosives For every man, woman, and
child in the country
40
V. Vietnam Syndrome 1973 to 1991
Today, Americans can regain a sense of pride
that existed before Vietnam. But it can not be
achieved by re-fighting a war that is
finishedThese events. As tragic as they are,
portend neither the end of the world nor of
Americas Leadership in the world. April 23,
1975, President Ford

• The reluctance of the American people to support
  or allow their government to use military force
  abroad

41
The Vietnam War Memorial
Washington D.C.
Contains the names of all those who gave their
lives during the Vietnam War