Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Vietnam
The 30 Year War
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 Nixon’s Vietnamization
Study Guide Questions
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
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– 1920-30’s intellectuals met to lead
each other against imperialism
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
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
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.
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.
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.
Natural Resources
• Southeast Asia – principal production of world source– rubber– tin– producer of petroleum. – Rice – coal
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
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
National Liberation Front
• 1958 resistance to Diem’s Regime emerged
• 1960 the NLF formed– Supported by peasants– Social revolution– Organization and cooperation– Each village locally controlled by peasants
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
The American War• Kennedy’s 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
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
America’s 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.• Johnson’s presidential campaign called
for restraint in Vietnam, though he escalated involvement
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.
“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
Searching villagesOperation Thayer
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
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
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
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
“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
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
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
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
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
)
My Lai MassacreMurder of 504 civilians
Rape, Torture (ages 1-82
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
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
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
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
Nixon’s 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
Kent State
• Army National Guard waiting for protestors to advance
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.
•
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
Winter Soldier - Vietnam
Military Objectors • By 1971 many GI’s 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
• 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
Death Toll?
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
Cambodia
• Approximately 50,000–300,000 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
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.
Conclusion
• After troops left, two years of internal conflict
• Vietnam united as one country called the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
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
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– 1920-30’s intellectuals met to lead
each other against imperialism
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
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
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
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.
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.
Natural Resources
• Southeast Asia – principal production of world source– rubber– tin– producer of petroleum. – Rice – coal
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
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
National Liberation Front
• 1958 resistance to Diem’s Regime emerged
• 1960 the NLF formed– Supported by peasants– Social revolution– Organization and cooperation– Each village locally controlled by peasants
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.
The American War• Kennedy’s 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
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
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.
Searching villagesOperation Thayer
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
)
My Lai MassacreMurder of 504 civilians
Rape, Torture (ages 1-82
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
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
Nixon’s 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
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
Bombing continued
• US moved into Cambodia and Laos• American Protests escalated – Kent state
police opened fire on students, killing many 1970
Kent State
• Army National Guard waiting for protestors to advance
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.
•
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
• 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
Winter Soldier - Vietnam
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
Cambodia
• Approximately 50,000–300,000 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
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.
Conclusion
• After troops left, two years of internal conflict
• Vietnam united as one country called the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
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
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
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
Decline by 1969
• Gender Roles – kept women subordinate– “Girls say yes to boys who say no!”– Generated new and powerful feminist movement
• Manson Murders, Hell’s Angels Assaults on crowd at Rolling Stones Concert
• Emergence of Chicano, American Indian, Asian, Feminist and Gay and Lesbian Movements
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
