Communism

• Economic system• Government control of property

and resources • Single political leader • No individual rights

• American leaders believed that if the communists captured one country, nearby nations would also fall to communism, like dominoes falling

The idea that America should keep communism

“contained” and not allow it to spread to any more areas

in the world

• France had controlled Vietnam since 1858

• The colony became known as Indochina

• Vietnamese fiercely resisted French control, demanding independence

Indochina consisted of

Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia

• May 6, 1954

• French forces waited in the fortress of Dien Bien Phu

• Vietnamese forces surrounded the compound and began raining artillery

• Eventually the French surrendered (similar to the Alamo)

Dien Bien Phu

• May, 1954• After the French defeat at Dien Bien

Phu, world leaders met at Geneva, Switzerland

• Agreed to divide Vietnam at the 17th parallel

• Ho Chi Minh would be the president of the communist North

• Ngo Dinh Diem would be the president of the non-communist south.

• Elections were to be held in 1956 on the issue of unification.

• However, the South refused to hold elections, claiming that the communists would not play fair.

• DRVN

• Democratic Republic of Vietnam

• Communist dominated

• President - Ho Chi Minh

• Capital city - Hanoi

• RVN• Republic of Vietnam

• Anti-communist• President - Ngo Dinh Diem

• Capital city - Saigon• America backs South Vietnam to

prevent a communist takeover

• Leader of the League for the Independence of Vietnam

• He combined many of the goals of communism with his desire to end the exploitation of Vietnam by outside countries

Ho Chi Minh

League for the Independence of Vietnam. Vietnamese who

supported the liberation of Vietnam from French control and

unification of Vietnam

Vietminh Soldiers

The military wing of the North Vietnamese communist forces

Vietcong Prisoner 1966

A Vietcong Prisoner

Saigon police chief murders a VC in 1968

Political wing of the North Vietnamese push for

unification of Vietnam

Flag of the National Liberation Front

• President Eisenhower sends the first military advisors to Vietnam in the 1950s to provide on the ground intelligence to Washington D.C.

• America also gives the French $25 million because they were our ally

• Looks like the U.S. supports colonialism

• 34th President

• 1953 – 1961

• Republican

• New York

• Military Assistance Advisory Group

• Advised U.S. leaders that it would be unwise to get involved in Vietnam for these reasons:

1) The conflict was more about nationalism than communism since 80% of the Vietminh were NOT communists

2) The Vietminh were extremely popular

3) U.S. soldiers were not trained for guerilla warfare in jungles

Aerial view of the jungle canopy in Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam

How many soldiers can

you find hidden in the

jungle?

Answer: 14

• Elected President in 1960

• Increased spending on RVN’s efforts to repel the Vietminh

• Increased U.S. military involvement in Vietnam

• Wanted to prove to his critics in the U.S. that he was not weak on fighting the communists

• But he was reluctant to become deeply involved in Vietnam

• Top ranking military leaders advised him that the situation in Vietnam was growing worse daily - it was only a matter of time before the RVN fell to communist control

• Reluctantly, the U.S. military engaged in training RVN forces to be able to defend their own country against the communist forces

• January 2, 1963• Ap Bac was a village 40 miles southwest

of Saigon in the Mekong Delta• RVN (South Vietnam) forces

outnumbered the Viet Cong 4:1• The Viet Cong were well-supplied with

captured American M-1 rifles and 30 caliber machine guns

• RVN was poorly led and unprepared

• 5 U.S. helicopters were shot down

• 3 U.S. advisors were killed and 8 wounded

• First major victory for Viet Cong

• VC used the victory for propaganda purposes

• VC began to plan for full scale war against the RVN

• U.S. realized we would need to send additional support for the RVN

Downed chopper at

Ap Bac

January 2, 1963

Ap Bac

January 2, 1963

Downed choppers (flying bananas)

January 2, 1963

Ap Bac (January 2, 1963)

Ap Bac Casualties

• 1954 -appointed prime minister of RVN• This alienated many South Vietnamese • He was seen as a U.S. puppet leader• He refused some basic land reforms• He seized peasant land and gave it to

friends/family• He was Catholic• He persecuted the Buddhists

• U.S. advisors stated that even the non-communists preferred Ho Chi Minh

• By 1963, we learned that Diem had been secretly trying to create a coalition government that would include the communists

• U.S. helped to arrange a coup (the overthrow of a government)

• May 8, 1963

• On Buddha’s birthday, Diem banned the display of religious flags

• Buddhists raised their prayer flags to celebrate anyway

• Diem orders RVN troops to disperse the crowd

Buddhist Prayer Flags

Buddhist Prayer Flags

• 8 Buddhist monks were killed • On June 11, the first of seven monks

sets himself on fire in the street of Saigon to protest Diem’s leadership.

• This becomes the symbol of Diem’s leadership to the American public.

T. Quang Duc

First Buddhist Monk to

commit self-immolation

June 11, 1963

Warning:

Graphic disturbing images follow. Look away if you might be offended.

Douses himself with gasoline and sits calmly in the lotus position

Ignites the flame

The remains are carried away

The unburned heart is

displayed in a Buddhist Temple

• Nov. 1, 1963, RVN forces overthrew Diem’s leadership

• He and his family were supposed to be exiled to France

• RVN army executed Diem and his brother

• Their bodies were found in a van in Saigon

• Created chaos in RVN and instability in the government

• 12 governments in 18 months

Diem and his brother found murdered in the back of a van in Saigon

• 36th President• 1963 – 1969• Democrat• Texas• Became President

when Kennedy was assassinated

• Substantially increased U.S. involvement in Vietnam

Sworn in on Air Force One by Judge Sarah T. Hughes

• American general in charge of U.S. forces in Vietnam

• Continually pushed for increasing troop levels in Vietnam

• August 4, 1964• U.S. patrol ships off the coast of

Vietnam claimed to have been attacked by DRVN torpedo boats.

• President Johnson addressed the nation about the attacks and ordered retaliatory air strikes for the “unprovoked attack.”

Gulf of Tonkin

• August 7, 1964

• Legislation that allowed LBJ to take “all necessary measures to prevent further aggression” in Vietnam

• Johnson said that “it was like Grandma’s night-skirt. It covered everything.”

• It would be used to drastically escalate American involvement in the war

LBJ signs the Tonkin Gulf Resolution

• Increasing military pressure on an enemy’s forces

• By 1967, we had over 470,000 troops in Vietnam.

• February, 1965• A U.S. Army base in RVN was mortared

while National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy visited

• 9 Americans died, and 126 more injured • It showed how unstable the situation was:

we couldn’t even protect our high-ranking officials.

Pleiku, 1965

Pleiku airfield in 1967

• McGeorge Bundy: “Pleikus are like street cars.” (If you wait a while, another one will come along.)

• LBJ responded by authorizing bombings of North Vietnam.

Aerial bombings of North Vietnam which began in

March of 1965

The U.S. wished to avoid a ground war in the mountainous

jungle terrain of Vietnam

Gen. William Momyer, 7th Air Force commander, meets with President Johnson

LBJ boasted, “I won’t let those Air Force generals bomb the

smallest outhouse without checking with me.”

Boeing B-52 Stratofortress

B-52 Bomb

Bay

May, 1965 – Bomber carrying 1000 pound bomb

• Lead Sled, Thud

• Flew 75 % of the strikes and took more losses over North Vietnam than any other kind of aircraft

• When Rolling Thunder ended, more than half of the Air Force’s F-105s were gone.

At first, bombing missions were not

allowed in areas around

Hanoi or Haiphong

“Rolling North”

Bombing raids

authorized farther north later in 1965

and 1966

• Policy of wearing away an enemy’s forces until they cannot continue to fight

• The U.S. strategy in Vietnam

• We would bomb the VC until they could not continue replacing their casualties; then they would surrender

• November 1965

• First major battle between VC and U.S. troops

• The U.S. 7th Cavalry delivered a substantial defeat to a VC unit

• 7 to 10 times as many VC died as did Americans

• U.S. saw it as proof that attrition works • The VC claimed that they had forced the

U.S. into combat to inflict casualties and learn about U.S. tactics.

• VC did not consider this a defeat.

U.S. Infantry disembarks

Lt. Col. Moore checks VC casualties

Scene from 2001 motion picture, We Were Soldiers

Starring Mel Gibson

• U.S. assassination program

• We tried to eliminate VC leaders

• Thousands died in these related attacks.

• U.S. forces would be used to train RVN forces

• Eventually, the U.S. would scale back our troop levels until the RVN could function self-sufficiently

• North Vietnamese supply line from DRVN and ending at various points near the South Vietnamese border

• A honeycomb of routes through jungle and grassland areas that totaled 12,000 miles of trail

• Although Laos was supposedly neutral (per the Geneva agreement of 1954), 100’s of miles of the trail passed through that country

• Before 1964, the trail was used by bicycles that were specially modified to carry pallets of rifles and ammunition weighing 400 pounds.

• In 1964 the trail was upgraded with bridges, way stations, underground barracks, storage facilities, workshops, and fuel depots

• In 1965 80,000 laborers were building 2 miles of new road each day

• 2,294 trucks passed through from Jan to May of 1965

• 12,000 DRVN soldiers infiltrated into the South in 1965

• 24,000 DRVN soldiers in 1966• It became of primary importance to stop

this infiltration along the trail• April 1965, the U.S. began air strikes

against the trail called “Steel Tiger”

• This led to the secret expansion of the war into Laos in 1965

• In March of 1970 President Nixon finally admitted U.S. military operations in Laos, claiming that the North Vietnamese had violated the Geneva Accord “before the ink was dry” and that over ½ million North Vietnamese troops had entered the South though Laos

The Cu Chi Tunnel

• Of major importance during the Vietnam War

• About 250 kilometers long

• Destructive gelled gasoline chemical that burns uncontrollably

• Sticks to bodies and sears off flesh

• Burns at 800 to 1200 degrees Celsius

• A deforesting agent that killed jungle life, exposing VC hiding places

• Contained dioxin – extremely toxic• Reported to cause death, debilitating

diseases, and genetic defects to those exposed

C 123 “Supplier” of Agent Orange

Service Patch awarded for flying Agent

Orange “Ranch Hand”

missions

• May 1967 – CIA estimates that 430,000 Viet Cong had infiltrated the South

• Dec 1967 – 45% of American public said our involvement in Vietnam was a mistake

• Nov 1967 – Vice President Humphrey says on the “Today Show” – “We are on the offensive. Territory is being gained. We are making steady progress.”

• Nov 21, 1967 – General Westmoreland says that DRVN was “unable to mount a major offensive . . . I am absolutely certain that whereas in 1965 the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing.”

• Westmoreland says in interview with Time Magazine, “I hope they try something, because we are looking forward for a fight.”

• Tết Nguyên Dán – January 31 - the lunar new year– most important Vietnamese holiday

• Both North and South Vietnam had announced on national radio that there would be a three-day cease-fire during the Tet celebration

• The VC launched a series of unexpected highly coordinated attacks all across South Vietnam.

• 80,000 VC troops struck more than 100 towns and cities – included Saigon

• U.S. embassy in Saigon was invaded

Saigon burns

• It showed the public that the government had not been truthful about the situation and our chances in Vietnam.

• The largest military operation by either side in the war up until then

• Attacks continued until September 1968

• Ended U.S. hopes of winning the war.

• After Tet, we were looking for a way out.

• March 16, 1968

• “Search and destroy” mission

• A small village in South Vietnam where 250 VC were rumored to be hiding

• When we arrived, we found only women and children

• Lt. William Calley ordered all of the inhabitants rounded up and executed

• Only one U.S. chopper crew flew in and stopped the slaughter.

• 407 villagers were killed

• American public was shocked and outraged

• Lt. William Calley was tried for murder• Claimed he was only following orders to kill

everyone in the village• Dishonorably discharged and received a life term

in prison • His sentence was later reduced by President

Nixon• Released on parole in November 1975

Lt. Calley escorted to Ft. Benning stockade March 31, 1971

My Lai Memorial at the site of the

massacre

• The U.S. launched secret attacks on Cambodia starting in 1969, looking for rumored VC headquarters.

• By 1975, the VC continued to use Cambodian supply lines

• Protests erupted across the U.S. when the public found out about these bombings.

Cambodia

• February 1971

• RVN forces were to attack the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos to cut off VC supply lines.

• Would prove that Vietnamization was working

• But as the RVN forces prepared, the VC attacked.

• Only U.S. B-52 bombers saved the day. • It was a disaster that proved that the

RVN existed only through massive U.S. support.

THE VIETNAM WAR

III. THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT

ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT Protests demanding an end to the Vietnam War. People marched in demonstrations, attended sit-ins, teach-ins, burned draft cards, blocked troop trains by sitting on the tracks. A few even self-immolated themselves like the Buddhist monks in Saigon.

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE disobeying/protesting an unjust law/policy through non-violent methods.

SNCC antiwar and civil rights group that helped organize many of the protests against the war.

SIT-INS also used in civil rights protests, students would pick public businesses and simply sit there in protest of the war. Made national news as they were dragged out by police.

TEACH-INS A series of debates and lectures about U.S. presence in Vietnam across the nation. The idea was to educate the public to increase pressure on the govt. to change it Vietnam policy.

COUNTERCULTURE A movement among younger Americans to oppose the “establishment” whom they considered to be older, white men. Younger people blamed “the establishment” for the war.

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COUNTERCULTURE Counterculture beliefs included: questioning authority, seeking personal pleasure, alternative lifestyles, rock music, drugs, and different clothing styles.

HIPPIES a group that was part of the counterculture. They valued youth, individuality, and spontaneity. They promoted peace, love, and freedom.

Woodstock (August 1969) 400,000 members from diverse counterculture groups gathered for a music festival. It was the icon of the hippie movement.

Kent State (1970)An Ohio working-class commuter university—average for “middle-class” America. Student anti-war protesters had organized, but a fire broke out in the ROTC building on May 2.

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Kent State (1970)On May 4, students began chunking stuff at the armed guards who opened fire, killing 4, wounding 13. Demonstrates the deep anger and instability resulting from the Vietnam War.

CANDLELIGHT MARCHThousands marched on Washington D.C. at night with candles to protest the war. Even govt. officials’ families participated, such as Vice Pres. Agnew’s daughter. It shows that mainstream Americans were opposed to the war, not just Hippies.

THE VIETNAM WAR

IV. POLITICS

HAWKSthose who favored the war.

DOVESthose who favored peace.

1968 ELECTIONLBJ announced that he would not run for reelection, mainly because of the war in Vietnam. The 1968 election was highly turbulent as Americans protested and debated the war. Eventually, it would be Richard Nixon that emerges as the “peace” candidate and wins.

“YIPPIES”Youth International Party. Young American anti-war protesters who wanted to go the Democratic Convention in 1968 to protest by nominating a pig named “Pigasus” for president and then eating him. Similar to the Hippies in that they wanted free love and peace in Vietnam.

ROBERT F. KENNEDYU.S. attorney general who decides to run for president after LBJ announces he was not running for a 2nd term. He was assassinated in 1968 after giving a speech at a hotel.

GEORGE WALLACERan as a 3rd party candidate in the 1968 election. He took away enough votes from the Democrats to allow Nixon to win the election.

RICHARD M. NIXONQuaker. Republican. Ran against JFK in 1960 and lost an extremely close election. He wins the presidency in 1968 and is reelected in 1972. Despite his promises to seek peace, Nixon secretly widened the war in Vietnam into neighboring countries and continually bombed N. Vietnam.

26th Amendment (1971) lowered the voting age to 18. People felt that if you were old enough to die for the nation at age 18, you should have the right to vote.

THE VIETNAM WAR

V. THE END OF THE WAR

HENRY KISSINGER Nixon’s Secretary of State. Kissinger was responsible for helping to ease tensions between the U.S., China and the Soviet Union. He was also involved in negotiating the peace settlement in Vietnam.

Operation Linebacker II (the Christmas

Bombings)

Over 200 B-52 bombers flew round-the-clock missions for 11 days. Over 40,000 tons of bombs were dropped. Over 2000 killed with sufficient collateral damaged to DRVN.

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Operation Linebacker II (the Christmas

Bombings)

Nixon’s approval rate fell to 39%, world leaders denounced the bombings, and we were forced back to negotiations with DRVN representatives.

GERALD R. FORD Became the President after Nixon’s resignation. Ford would order the remaining U.S. troops out of Vietnam.

FALL OF SAIGON Even though the peace terms called for 2 separate nations, VC forces overran Saigon even as the last U.S. troops departed with refugees. We weren’t even gone yet, and the North had taken over South Vietnam.

P.O.W.’S Prisoners of war. Hundreds of U.S. soldiers had been captured and detained by VC forces. Some had been tortured and executed before being returned at the end of the war.

M.I.A.’S Missing in Action. Hundreds of U.S. soldiers were unaccounted for at the end of the war. We weren’t sure if they had been killed, captured, deserted, or something else.

War Powers Act (1973)A law designed to limit a president’s ability to wage war without congressional approval. 1) Required president to notify Congress within 48 hours after deployment of troops, including reasons for and the expected length of the mission.

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War Powers Act (1973)2) Limit to 60 days without congressional approval. 3) Congress can demand that the President bring the troops home.