Vietnam

1
Vietnam

• The 30 Year War

2
Study Guide Identifications

• Vietnam, the 30 Year War
• Ho Chi Minh and the Declaration of Independence
• Veitminh
• Ngo Dinh Diem
• National Liberation Front
• Gulf of Tonkin
• Rolling Thunder and Operation Thayer
• Anti War Protest
• My Lai Nixons Vietnamization

3
Study Guide Questions
4
Vietnam

• 2 wars lasting 30 years
• First wave French war
• Second wave American War
• Goals of self determination merged with those
  of national liberation, cold war in the
  background with US desire to contain communism

5
French Colonialism

• Mineral extraction, rubber plantations,
  manufacturing
• Majority peasants, wealthy Vietnamese landowners
• Nationalism developed prior to WWI
• Ho Chi Minh French education and travel abroad
• 1920-30s intellectuals met to lead each other
  against imperialism

6
Ho Chi Minh

• Inspired by Soviet revolution and became
  socialist, spent time in both Russia and China
  allying himself in those places with the
  revolutions transpiring there
• 1930 leader of new Indochinese Communist Party
• Attacked by French troops along with other
  nationalist groups

7
Resistance Struggle

• When Japanese occupied in 1940, Nationalist
  groups, ICP began fighting French and Japanese
• 1941 new anti-colonial, nationalist coalition
  group resulted Vietminh (Ho also headed)
• 1945 Japanese Defeat
• Ho Chi Min
• declaration of Independence in Hanoi
• Self determination of nations

8
Partition by Imperial Powers

• China assisted the North
• Britain assisted the South
• (divided spoils?)
• British assisted the French in returning to fight
  the Vietminh in the south
• US gave France over 2 ½ billion aid to fight,
  still unable to defeat the Vietminh.

9
American Perspective

• United states
• providing aid to France to re-colonize
• gave France over 2 ½ billion aid to fight, still
  unable to defeat the Vietminh.
• helping to stop communism in Asia,
• domino theory.

10
American Security Interests

• United States Military bases
• China
• Philippines
• Taiwan
• Japan
• South Korea
• Non-Western control of all of SE Asia would
  threaten US security interests there.

11
Natural Resources

• Southeast Asia
• principal production of world source
• rubber
• tin
• producer of petroleum.
• Rice
• coal

12
Geneva Conference

• 1954 US, France, GB, Soviet and China met and
  decided to partition at 17th parallel, Vietminh
  were forced to move north of the divide.
• Land reform
• France Vietminh agreed to return to North
  south base on open elections within 2 years
• Elections scheduled

13
Ngo Dinh Diem

• United States moved in
• prevent re-unification create sphere of
  interest.
• U.S. supported leader of the south,
• Sent aid to Deim,
• who refused elections to take place
• US sent advisors (15,315 illegally and against
  the Geneva Conventions) and troops
• Escalating opposition in Vietnam to Diem and US
  intervention
• Blocked elections with U.S. aid
• Military coup overthrew Diem, US continued to
  support military leaders who took his place

14
National Liberation Front

• 1958 resistance to Diems Regime emerged
• 1960 the NLF formed
• Supported by peasants
• Social revolution
• Organization and cooperation
• Each village locally controlled by peasants

15
Kennedy Administration

• Within the Administration sought control of
  Vietnam for its resources
• Publicly announced its support of Vietnams
  independence for 10 years,
• liberty and freedom
• Diem and Kennedy killed within 3 weeks of each
  other

16
The American War

• Kennedys Assassination 1963 Lyndon Johnson
  inherited war
• Gulf Tonkin Incident
• Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara told the
  public that Vietnamese Torpedo boats fired on US
  ships
• U.S. destroyer Maddox underwent unprovoked
  attack

17
Justification for war

• US escalated aid to S. Vietnam and began deciding
  on commitment of US troops arms against the
  North
• Highest ranking American officials lied to the
  public
• Congressional resolution gave power to take
  military action in Southeast Asia without
  declaration of war.
• Later Americans learned that the incident that
  justified war never took place

18
Americas Longest War

• Vietnam had its roots in the Truman Doctrine and
  its goal of controlling communism (1954)
• Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, drafted secretly six
  weeks before the incident.
• Johnsons presidential campaign called for
  restraint in Vietnam, though he escalated
  involvement

19
Rolling Thunder Air Campaign

• More bombs were dropped on North Vietnam alone
  than were used in the whole of the Second World
  War.
• 22 tons of explosives for every square mile of
  territory, or 300lb for every man, women and
  child.
• 7 million tons of bombs and defoliants were
  dropped in total and 2.6 million Vietnamese were
  killed.
• The American deployment jumped from 23,300 in
  1963 to 184,000 in 1966 and reached a peak of
  542,000 in January 1969 under Richard Nixon's
  presidency.

20
Credibility Gap

• Every night the network television news tallied
  the American body count, 26 per week in 1965 and
  80 in 1967.
• Johnson worked hard to control the media, but
  found himself badgered by reporters who accused
  him of creating a credibility gap
• Early 1960s the network news ignored Vietnam or
  unquestioningly supported US policy
• Beginning in August 1965 , CBS News Report by
  Morely Safer
• began showing Marines setting fire to thatched
  homes of civilians,
• Senator J William Fulbright of Arkansas, who had
  originally sped the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin
  Resolution and chaired the committee became
  vocal critic of Johnsons war policy and concluded
  the war was unwinnable and destructive to
  domestic reform

21
Searching villagesOperation Thayer
22
Student Activism

• Middle class norm attending college
• Growing awareness and criticism of status quo
• Through education discovered a deeply flawed
  America
• Raised on ideals that capitalism and democracy
  created a society free of poverty, inequality,
  and political repression that plagued other
  nations
• Sense of purpose to force America to live up to
  its values

23
Generation in Conflict

• 1965 1971, social justice movements increased
• Peace movement took shape
• Free Speech Movement, UC Berkeley, 1964
• Protest limitations on political activities on
  campus
• Met by Conservative administration with intent to
  press criminal charges and use of police force

24
American resistance, 1965

• Civil Rights movement
• Normon Morrison, 32 YR. Pacifist, father of 3,
  set himself aflame in front of McNamara's window
• Alice Herz, age 82, burned herself to death

25
Anti-War Protests

• 1965 state wide movement
• 1967 anti-draft administration openly defied the
  draft and confronted government
• Stop the Draft Week Oakland Induction Center
  March
• Protestors outnumbered police in riot gear, took
  over center

26
Bring the War Home

• 1965 congressional act provided for a 5 year jail
  term and 10,000 fine for destroying the draft
  card
• Anti Draft movement
• Thousands of men burned their draft card
• 500,000 refused induction
• 2 Jesuit priests Daniel and Philip Berrigan
  raided the draft board offices in Catonsville,
  Maryland in May 1968 and poured homemade napalm
  over records
• Other activists determined to bring the war
  home went beyond civil disobedience .
• 40,000 bombing incidents or bomb threats took
  place from January 1969 April 1970 ,
• 21 million in damages and 43 people were killed

27
Protest of War Related Research

• From Campus protest to Mass mobilization
• 3 weeks following Operation Rolling Thunder, 1965
• Day long boycott of classes, professors and
  students met to discuss the war
• University of Ann Arbor, Michigan 3,000 people
  turned out
• Teach ins spread across the US, to Europe and
  Japan
• Students for a Democratic Society mobilized
  20,000 people in an anti war march on the capital

28
Dow Chemical Company

• Students protested war related research on their
  campuses
• 1967 The Dow Chemical Company,
• job recruiters to the University of Wisconsin at
  Madison.
• 300 students sat in at the building were
  interviews were taking place, with 2000 onlookers
  gathered.
• Ordered by Administration to disperse the crowd
• police broke glass doors, dragged students
  through debris and clubbed those who refused to
  move.
• Momentum grew over 3 years, protests taking place
  across the country

29
Peaceful protest to Resistance

• April 1967 a day long antiwar rally in Manhattans
  Central park drew 300,000 people.
• 60,000 people turned out in SF
• By Summer veterans began to organize against the
  war
• Many demonstrators concluded that peaceful
  protest alone had little impact on US policy and
  changed tactics from protest to resistance and
  serve as moral witnesses

30
Escalation

• Massive bombing raids, 200,000 troops sent
• US faced a peoples war in the south, developed
  several methods called counter-insurgency.
• Strategic Hamlet Policy locked up villages
• Search destroy napalm, agent orange,
  destroyed villages
• Operation Phoenix selective assassinations of
  Viet cong allies (20,000 murders of civilians)
• Land reclamation

)
31
My Lai MassacreMurder of 504 civiliansRape,
Torture (ages 1-82
32
(No Transcript)
33
Parallel Wars/Teenage Soldiers

• Teenage soldiers average age hovered around 19
  years
• Until 1969 deferments to college students and to
  workers in select occupations
• recruited hard in poor communities and
  advertising the armed forces as a provider of
  vocational training and social mobility
• Working class young men disproportionately
  African American and Latino,
• signed up in large numbers under these
  inducements and more the brunt of combat.
• College graduates 12 of the 2.5 million who
  served and 9 of those killed
• Casualty rate for African Americans was 30
  higher than the overall death rate for US forces
  in Southeast Asia

34
(No Transcript)
35
Tet Offensive, 1968

• Northern general, Vo Nguyen Giap, planned massive
  (70,000) assault against US and south Vietnamese
  troops
• Devastating psychological impact on US soldiers
• Built opposition against war in US

Vietcong had hoped that their liberation of towns
and cities would lead to an uprising against the
Americans
36
Tet Offensive

• Northern general, Vo Nguyen Giap, planned massive
  (70,000) assault against US and south Vietnamese
  troops
• One of the major objectives had been to drive a
  wedge between the Americans and the South
  Vietnamese. The embassy attack was aimed at
  showing up the vulnerability of the American
  forces.
• The Vietcong had hoped that their liberation of
  towns and cities would lead to an uprising
  against the Americans, they believed that the
  South's weary soldiers, dislocated peasantry,
  fractious youth and widely discontented layers of
  South Vietnamese society were ready to join the
  struggle. However this only occurred on a
  sporadic basis.
• Devastating psychological impact on US soldiers
• Built opposition against war in US

37
Bombing continued

• US moved into Cambodia and Laos
• American Protests escalated Kent state police
  opened fire on students, killing many
• Treatment of troops on return home
• Flight attendant underground movement
• 1973 agreement to end war
• Paris Peace Accords
• General cease fire and US with drawl of troop in
  60 days, Release of POWs to US, all troop
  movements would cease

38
Nixons Presidency

• 1968 Johnson would not run for President
• Peace negotiations in Paris 1968 no progress
• Ho died in 1969, no progress in peace, until full
  with drawl bombing by US resumed
• 1969 Nixon Promised with drawl with Presidency
• Announced Policy of Vietnamization or gradual
  withdrawal of the 541,000 troops
• Left 150,000 troops there
• Bombing continued
• Saigon Government, Vietnamese ground troops, US
  money air power would continue the war

39
Kent State

• Army National Guard waiting for protestors to
  advance

40
Killing Students

• Mary Ann Vecchio screaming as she kneels over the
  body of student Jeffrey Miller on May 4, 1970.
  National Guardsmen had fired in to a crowd of
  demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine.

41
(No Transcript)
42
1973

• No victory in sight
• Paris Peace accord signed
• With drawl began (importance of protest)
• Continued aid to Saigon
• 1975 Saigon finally fell to the South
• Renamed Ho Chi Minh City
• Unified into the Democratic Republic of Vietnam

43
Winter Soldier - Vietnam
44
Military Objectors

• By 1971 many GIs were putting peace symbols on
  combat helmets,
• joining antiwar demonstrations, staging their own
  events such as Armed Farces Day
• Sometimes entire companies refused to carry out
  duty assignments or to enter battle.
• Smaller numbers took revenge by fragging
  reckless commanding officers with grenades meant
  for the enemy
• Some African American soldiers complained about
  fighting a white mans war and wrote on their
  helmets slogans such as No Gook ever called me a
  nigger
• Over 40 of the 8.6 million soldiers came back
  with drug dependencies and PTSD symptoms, they
  were not met with fanfare and often had little
  luck re-entering the shrinking work force of the
  1970s

45

Death Toll?

• Estimating the number killed in the conflict is
  extremely difficult.
• Vietnamese
• Today remaining land minds More than 40,000
  Vietnamese have been killed or injured Over
• 4 million Vietnamese killed 

46
United States Casualties

• The U.S.
• 58,226 were killed in action or classified as
  missing in action. A further 153,303 injured
• As of 1990, at least 150,000 Vietnam War
  Veterans have committed suicide since the war
  ended

47
Cambodia

• Approximately 50,000300,000 died as a result of
  U.S. bombing campaigns.
• Khmer Rouge who took power after the USA
• 1.7 million Cambodians were murdered or fell
  victim to starvation and disease before the
  regime was overthrown by Vietnamese forces in

48
American Unity

• Americans agreed no more Vietnams
• US should avoid future military involvements,
• lacking clear and compelling objectives,
• demonstrable public support
• provision of adequate means to accomplish the war.

49
Conclusion

• After troops left, two years of internal conflict
• Vietnam united as one country called the
  Democratic Republic of Vietnam

50
Vietnam

• 2 wars lasting 30 years
• First wave French war
• Second wave American War
• Goals of self determination merged with those
  of national liberation, cold war in the
  background with US desire to contain communism

51
French Colonialism

• Mineral extraction, rubber plantations,
  manufacturing
• Majority peasants, wealthy Vietnamese landowners
• Nationalism developed prior to WWI
• Ho Chi Minh French education and travel abroad
• 1920-30s intellectuals met to lead each other
  against imperialism

52
Ho Chi Minh

• Inspired by Soviet revolution and became
  socialist, spent time in both Russia and China
  allying himself in those places with the
  revolutions transpiring there
• 1930 leader of new Indochinese Communist Party
• Attacked by French troops along with other
  nationalist groups

53
Resistance Struggle

• When Japanese occupied in 1940, Nationalist
  groups, ICP began fighting French and Japanese
• 1941 new anti-colonial, nationalist coalition
  group resulted Vietminh (Ho also headed)
• 1945 Japanese Defeat
• Ho Chi Min
• declaration of Independence in Hanoi
• Self determination of nations

54
Partition by Imperial Powers

• China assisted the North
• Britain assisted the South
• (divided spoils?)
• British assisted the French in returning to fight
  the Vietminh in the south

55
American Perspective

• United states
• providing aid to France to re-colonize
• gave France over 2 ½ billion aid to fight, still
  unable to defeat the Vietminh.
• helping to stop communism in Asia,
• domino theory.

56
American Security Interests

• United States Military bases
• China
• Philippines
• Taiwan
• Japan
• South Korea
• Non-Western control of all of SE Asia would
  threaten US security interests there.

57
Natural Resources

• Southeast Asia
• principal production of world source
• rubber
• tin
• producer of petroleum.
• Rice
• coal

58
Geneva Conference

• 1954 US, France, GB, Soviet and China met and
  decided to partition at 17th parallel, Vietminh
  were forced to move north of the divide.
• Land reform
• France Vietminh agreed to return to North
  south base on open elections within 2 years
• Elections scheduled

59
Ngo Dinh Diem

• United States moved in
• prevent re-unification create sphere of
  interest.
• U.S. supported leader of the south,
• Sent aid to Deim,
• who refused elections to take place
• US sent advisors (15,315 illegally and against
  the Geneva Conventions) and troops
• Escalating opposition in Vietnam to Diem and US
  intervention
• Blocked elections with U.S. aid
• Military coup overthrew Diem, US continued to
  support military leaders who took his place

60
National Liberation Front

• 1958 resistance to Diems Regime emerged
• 1960 the NLF formed
• Supported by peasants
• Social revolution
• Organization and cooperation
• Each village locally controlled by peasants

61
Kennedy Administration

• Within the Administration sought control of
  Vietnam for its resources
• Publicly announced its support of Vietnams
  independence for 10 years,
• liberty and freedom
• Diem and Kennedy killed within 3 weeks of each
  other in 1962.

62
The American War

• Kennedys Assassination 1963 Lyndon Johnson
  inherited war
• Gulf Tonkin Incident
• Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara told the
  public that Vietnamese Torpedo boats fired on US
  ships
• U.S. destroyer Maddox underwent unprovoked attack

63
Justification for war

• US escalated aid to S. Vietnam and began deciding
  on commitment of US troops arms against the
  North
• Highest ranking American officials lied to the
  public
• Congressional resolution gave power to take
  military action in Southeast Asia without
  declaration of war.
• Later Americans learned that the incident that
  justified war never took place

64
Rolling Thunder Air Campaign

• More bombs were dropped on North Vietnam alone
  than were used in the whole of the Second World
  War.
• 22 tons of explosives for every square mile of
  territory, or 300lb for every man, women and
  child.
• 7 million tons of bombs and defoliants were
  dropped in total and 2.6 million Vietnamese were
  killed.
• The American deployment jumped from 23,300 in
  1963 to 184,000 in 1966 and reached a peak of
  542,000 in January 1969 under Richard Nixon's
  presidency.

65
Searching villagesOperation Thayer
66
Escalation

• Massive bombing raids, 200,000 troops sent
• US faced a peoples war in the south, developed
  several methods called counter-insurgency.
• Strategic Hamlet Policy locked up villages
• Search destroy napalm, agent orange,
  destroyed villages
• Operation Phoenix selective assassinations of
  Viet cong allies (20,000 murders of civilians)
• Land reclamation

)
67
My Lai MassacreMurder of 504 civiliansRape,
Torture (ages 1-82
68
American resistance, 1965

• Civil Rights movement
• Normon Morrison, 32 YR. Pacifist, father of 3,
  set himself aflame in front of McNamara's window
• Alice Herz, age 82, burned herself to death

69
Anti-War Protests

• 1965 state wide movement
• 1967 anti-draft administration openly defied the
  draft and confronted government
• Stop the Draft Week Oakland Induction Center
  March
• Protestors outnumbered police in riot gear, took
  over center

70
(No Transcript)
71
(No Transcript)
72
Nixons Presidency

• 1968 Johnson would not run for President
• Nixon Promised with drawl with Presidency
• Policy of Vietnamization
• Left 150,000 troops there
• Bombing continued
• Saigon Government, Vietnamese ground troops, US
  money air power would continue the war

73
Tet Offensive, 1968

• Northern general, Vo Nguyen Giap, planned massive
  (70,000) assault against US and south Vietnamese
  troops
• Devastating psychological impact on US soldiers
• Built opposition against war in US

Vietcong had hoped that their liberation of towns
and cities would lead to an uprising against the
Americans
74
Bombing continued

• US moved into Cambodia and Laos
• American Protests escalated Kent state police
  opened fire on students, killing many 1970

75
Kent State

• Army National Guard waiting for protestors to
  advance

76
Killing Students

• Mary Ann Vecchio screaming as she kneels over the
  body of student Jeffrey Miller on May 4, 1970.
  National Guardsmen had fired in to a crowd of
  demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine.

77
(No Transcript)
78
1973

• No victory in sight
• Paris Peace accord signed
• With drawl began (importance of protest)
• Continued aid to Saigon
• 1975 Saigon finally fell to the South
• Renamed Ho Chi Minh City
• Unified into the Democratic Republic of Vietnam

79

• Estimating the number killed in the conflict is
  extremely difficult.
• Vietnamese
• Today remaining land minds More than 40,000
  Vietnamese have been killed or injured Over
• 4 million Vietnamese killed 

80
Winter Soldier - Vietnam
81
United States Casualties

• The U.S.
• 58,226 were killed in action or classified as
  missing in action. A further 153,303 injured
• As of 1990, at least 150,000 Vietnam War
  Veterans have committed suicide since the war
  ended

82
Cambodia

• Approximately 50,000300,000 died as a result of
  U.S. bombing campaigns.
• Khmer Rouge who took power after the USA
• 1.7 million Cambodians were murdered or fell
  victim to starvation and disease before the
  regime was overthrown by Vietnamese forces in

83
American Unity

• Americans agreed no more Vietnams
• US should avoid future military involvements,
  lacking clear and compelling objectives,
  demonstrable public support and the provision of
  adequate means to accomplish the war.

84
Conclusion

• After troops left, two years of internal conflict
• Vietnam united as one country called the
  Democratic Republic of Vietnam

85
Student Activism - Berkeley

• Middle class norm attending college
• Growing awareness and criticism of status quo
• Through education discovered a deeply flawed
  America
• Sense of purpose to force America to live up to
  its values

86
Political Rift

• Democrats Renewed Commitment to end racism and
  poverty
• Democrats with loyalties to President Johnson,
  staged conservative backlash that shaped national
  politics for the next 3-4 decades
• Many protestors lost faith in politics and some
  responded with violent attacks on the
  establishment
• Symbionese Liberation Army

87
Counter Culture

• Disillusionment fostered cultural protest or
  activism by experimenting with alternative
  lifestyles
• Against
• Material greed
• Competition
• Violence
• Sexual Repression
• Haight-Ashbury district, San Francisco,
  California
• Acid Rock and the San Francisco Sound

88
Decline by 1969

• Gender Roles kept women subordinate
• Girls say yes to boys who say no!
• Generated new and powerful feminist movement
• Manson Murders, Hells Angels Assaults on crowd
  at Rolling Stones Concert
• Emergence of Chicano, American Indian, Asian,
  Feminist and Gay and Lesbian Movements

89
Conservative Backlash

• Rhetoric Right regarded changes as abandonment
  of traditional values
• Governor Reagan (1967-75)
• Platform against free speech movement at Berkeley
• Against residential desegregation and job
  equality
• get rid of undesirables
• Reduced education
• Reduced Welfare