Why did US get in and out of vietnam?

Intro

• After ww2, Vietminh led by Ho Chi Minh defeat Japan and declare Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV)

• America Support French. both in NATO, needed to support ally

• Vietminh supported by communist China

Truman

• following Korea, reluctant, gradual involvement

Eisenhower

• 1954 US paying 80% of France's war costs• Sents advisors• Seen as a Cold war issue, contain communism• Domino Theory• Geneva Accords, divide vietnam temporarily

• US prevent elections, 80% SV favour unity

• Ngo Dinh Diem

JFK

• Green berets, 1961 400 to help ARVN defeat NLF (VC)

• Over $1Billion in aid, largest recipient of US aid

• Ngo Dinh Diem, opposed colonial rule• French described him as 'incapable' and

'mad'.• refused to be puppet and introduce reforms

JFK urged.• unpopular dictator

Buddist protests

• monks ritual suicide gets world attention

• brings into question US policy in supporting Diem.

• threaten US objective, making SV proUS

• Diem murdered, US knew/encouraged it, at least did nothing to prevent it

• weeks later jfk assassinated, SV slipping to VC

LBJno FP experience, turned to secretary of

defence Robert McNamara and Secretary of State Dean Rusk

• US prestige at stake, increase advisors 30%

• election 'im not going to lose vietnam. I am not going to be the President who saw South-East Asia go the way of China'

• Anti war, Great Society. did want war with 'that raggedy-ass little fourth-rate country' to take resources from domestic reform

limited war

• force NV to peace talks, preserve SV• pin pricks, secret US led assults, to stablise until election

over, candidate for peace.• Rejected more aggressive advisors, any move that might

bring in china or soviets (limits on Operation Rolling Thunder, not next chinese boarder or areas where soviet engineers suspected)

• Tolkin incident• Tolkin Resolution, congress give president power to take

'all necessary steps' to defend us forces and its allies'• gradual involvement• airstrikes, no declaration of war. 85% public support

OP. Rolling Thunder

• OP. Rolling Thunder, feb 1965. 8 weeks, lasts 3 years. 100 bombing raids a month in 1965, 12,000 by sept 1966, tonnage dropped more than that dropped by the allies during ww2

• bombing prohibited within 40km of chinese boarder and 16km of Hanoi.

• airbases not targeted for fear of killing soviet engineers operating anti-aircraft SAM missile sites.

• only stiffened NV will to fight, propaganda victory for NV, 50,000 civilians killed.

first troops• VC see it as declaration of war, attack US

airbase at Da Nang, if time US troops targeted.• Gen. westmoreland calls for troops march 1965.• granted, gradual increase.• 200,000 by end of 1965• over 500,000 by 1968. 40% drafted 1 year.

• birthday lotto, unfair, wealthy avoid, go uni, join national guard, bill clinton and george bush jr avoid draft

• majority troops working-class whites, blacks or hispanic

New type of war

after some early large scale battles result in heavy losses for the VC they switch to geurilla warfare, hit and run tactics.

Supplies via Ho Chi Minh trail

tunnels

booby traps

unseen enemy. VC moved like fish in water

US Tactics

• straegic hamlets• free fire zones• search and destroy missions• nalpalm• agent orange 10%• bombing• US Tactics are unpopular: ''if they we're

VC before we got there they sure were when we left''

How measure success: Body count

• 'If he's dead and he's vietnamese, he's VC'

Problem: the troops• most young, little training, 6 months in Tigerland• 40% drafted for 1 year, many were timeservers• Fragging, 600 officers murdered by own troops• no direct enemy to fight in harsh, humid

dangerous climate.• Desertion, AWOL, at height of the war one every

3 minutes.• Drugs, 30% hard drugs, cocaine/heroin. 60%

marijuana• VC sell marijuana cigarettes laced with heroin• Race issues. gun battles. % of black deaths too

high (poverty issue in truth)

Tet Offensive

• LBJ tells americans they are winning and war will be over soon

• national holiday, unofficial ceasefire for two days

• massive assault by vietcong on cities in the South

• VC attack US embassy in Siagon• total military failure for NV 70%, 60,000

killed but massive political success• TV broadcast it into the homes of

americans

Effect of Media/ Credibility Gap

• first televised war. no censorship

• Cronkite. View LBJ lied to people

• LBJ, 'if ive lost Cronkite ive lost america'

• On February 1, 1968, a suspected NLF officer was summarily executed by General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, a South Vietnamese National Police Chief. Loan shot the suspect in the head on a public street in front of journalists

Peace movement

• Started small in universities

• reasons (listed in book)

• teach-ins

• rallies

• draft-card burnings

• 'hell no we wont go!'

Draft card burnings

• In late July 1965, Johnson doubled the number of young men to be drafted per month from 17,000 to 35,000, and on August 31, signed a law making it a crime to burn a draft card.

• On October 15, 1965 the student-run National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam in New York staged the first draft card burning to result in an arrest under the new law

• Two anti-war activists set themselves on fire in November

• 32 year old Norman Morrison at the Pentagon

• 22 year old Roger Allen LaPorte at the UN headquarters in NYC

• On October 15, 1969, hundreds of thousands of people took part in National Moratorium anti-war demonstrations across the United States; the demonstrations prompted many workers to call in sick from their jobs and adolescents nationwide engaged in truancy from school. However, the proportion of individuals doing either who actually participated in the demonstrations is uncertain

Anti-war slogans

• Common slogans and chants• "Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids have

you killed today?" • The chant "One, two, three, four! We

don't want your fucking war!" was chanted repeatedly at demonstrations throughout the U.S. in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

• "Draft Beer, not boys", "Hell no, we won't go", "Make love, not war", "Eighteen today, dead tomorrow",

growing opposition

• hippies, generation gap.• music. woodstock.• popular people: Martin luther king, jane

fonda, Muhammad Ali, Stript of title, no visa, 'no Vietcong ever called me nigger'

• devisions in democratic party: Senators doubt LBJ, 'how do you know he is lying? his lips are moving'

• McNamara retires.

Effect on Truman

• Stressed. hated the war. almost losses democratic primary election to Eugene Mccarthy. Unusual for Pres. to be opposed.

• 'Hey, Hey LBJ how many kids did you kill today'

• poor health.• withdraws from Presidential election• Calls off rolling thunder, enters peace

talks, march 1968

LBJ and Vietnam asseassment

• LBJ presidency fatally damaged by vietnam• 220,000 US troops killed or wounded on his

watch• couldnt end it by negotiations (70 times) or

military means.• it diverted resources from his great soiety

program (domestic reform) at home.• he refused to raise taxes to pay for war which

created inflation that took years to control.• ultimately led to his resignation.

Nixon and Vietnamization

• 1968, claimed to have a secret way out of the war. aim: exit stratagy with US prestige intact

• Vietnamization, strenghten ARVN to take up the fight and phased withdrawal, starts in 1969, 543,000 by 1972 69,000.

• Bombed Ho CHi Minh trail in neutral Laos and Cambodia

Anti-war movement

• Vietnamization weaken anti-war movement. people happy troops coming home.

• Small amount of extremists luanch a wave of bombing in Us

• Nixon uses this to discredit anti-war movement, as pro-communist and anti-american. Nixon argued the silent majority supported the war. polls show slim majority against it

Kent State

• extension of war into Cambodia outraged anti-war movement and gave it a new lease of life

My Lai Massacre 1971

• US tactics shock public

• 'in order to save a village it was necessary to destroy it'

• March 1968, 347 men, women and children murdered.

• Lt William Calley

• The explosive news of the massacre fuelled the outrage of the antiwar movement, which demanded the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam. It also led more potential draftees to file for conscientious objector status. Those who had always argued against the war felt vindicated; those on the fringes of the movement became more vocal.

Vietnam veterans against the war

• Winter soldier hearings

• John Kerry speaks at congress

The Pentagon Papers, officially titled United States – Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political-military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. The papers were discovered and released by Daniel Ellsberg, and first brought to the attention of the public on the front page of The New York Times in 1971. A 1996 article in The New York Times said that the Pentagon Papers "demonstrated, among other things, that the Lyndon Baines Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance"

end

• 1972 North attack South, south defeat offensive.• OP. Linebacker, heaviest bombing campaign

ever. 41,500 attacks. B52 bombers bomb Hanoi and main port Haiphong

• 27 Jan 1973 Paris peace accords. ceasefire, 60 days to get out, NV remain in south (control 40%)

• March/april 1975 North Defeat south. Siagon now Ho Chi Minh city

Results

• 2.5 million Vietnamese death, 58,000 US• $112Billion• Containment failed, domino theory proved

true. Indochina, Laos and Cambodia (Khmer Rouge/Pol Pot/killing fields) became communist also.

• US military morale low• divided US, esp. youth• weakened Democrats, rise of Republicans