Transcript File

James L. Roark ● Michael P. Johnson
Patricia Cline Cohen ● Sarah Stage
Susan M. Hartmann
The American Promise
A History of the United States
Fifth Edition
CHAPTER 29
Vietnam and the End of the Cold War
Consensus,
1961-1975
Copyright © 2012 by Bedford/St. Martin's
I. New Frontiers in Foreign Policy
A. Meeting the “Hour of Maximum Danger”
1. Flexible response to communist expansion
2. “Wars of National Liberation”
3. The Bay of Pigs
• Kennedy ordered the invasion; on April 17, 1961, about 1,400 anti-Castro exiles
who had been trained and armed by the CIA landed at the Bay of Pigs on the south
shore of Cuba; contrary to U.S. expectations, no popular uprising materialized in
Cuba to support the anti-Castro brigade; the invaders quickly fell to Castro’s
forces; a humiliating defeat for the Kennedy administration.
4. The space program
5. Crisis in Germany
B. New Approaches to the Third World
1. The Alliance for Progress
• Kennedy publicly supported third world democratic and nationalist aspirations;
created the Alliance for Progress, designed to thwart communism and hold nations
in the American sphere by fostering economic development; promised $20 billion in
aid for Latin America over the next decade; by 1969, the United States had
provided only half, much of which went to military projects or corrupt ruling elites.
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2. The Peace Corps
Peace Corps; more than 60,000 Americans served by the mid-1970s.
3. Military aid
I. New Frontiers in Foreign Policy
C. The Arms Race and the Nuclear Brink
1. The Cuban Missile Crisis
2. Ending the crisis
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the Soviets removed the missiles and pledged not to introduce new offensive weapons into Cuba; the
United States promised not to invade the island and secretly agreed to remove missiles from Turkey.
3. Preventing future confrontations
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Kennedy emerged triumphant; Kennedy worked with Khrushchev to prevent further confrontations;
installed a special “hot line” to speed top-level communications; in 1963, the United States, Soviet
Union, and Great Britain signed a limited test ban treaty.
D. A Growing War in Vietnam
1. U.S. commitment to Vietnam
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Kennedy increased the flow of weapons into South Vietnam, but two major problems stood in the way
of his objective of holding firm; first, the South Vietnamese insurgents, the Vietcong, were an
indigenous force whose initiative came from within, not from the Soviet Union or China; second, the
South Vietnamese government was corrupt and repressive; refused to satisfy the demands of the
insurgents but could not defeat them militarily.
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2. North Vietnamese intervention
1960, the North Vietnamese government established the National Liberation Front, composed of South
Vietnamese rebels but directed by the northern army; created the Ho Chi Minh Trail to send people
and supplies to help liberate the South.
3. Gradual escalation
4. A coup
South Vietnamese military leaders launched a coup on November 2, 1963, brutally executing Premier
Diem and his brother who headed the secret police; although shocked by the killings, Kennedy
indicated no change in policy; by the time of his death, 16,000 Americans had served in Vietnam and
100 had died there.
II. Lyndon Johnson’s War against Communism
A. An All-Out Commitment in Vietnam
1. Johnson’s dilemma
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some advisers cautioned him against continued American involvement; Johnson believed
that the nation’s reputation was on the line, and he did not want to suffer the political
fate Truman suffered when the Communists took over China; believed conceding defeat
would undermine the Great Society.
2. The Gulf of Tonkin
1964, Johnson seized the opportunity to increase the pressure on North Vietnam; in
response to a report that North Vietnamese gunboats had fired on U.S. destroyers in the
Gulf of Tonkin, Johnson ordered air strikes on North Vietnamese targets; requested and
received Congress’s permission in the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution to repel further armed
attacks against U.S. forces.
3. Widening the war
Johnson’s tough stance in the Gulf of Tonkin crisis, just two months before the 1964
elections, helped counter the charges made by his opponent, Arizona senator Barry
Goldwater, that he was “soft on communism”; after winning reelection, Johnson widened
the war, rejecting peace overtures from North Vietnam and initiating Operation Rolling
Thunder, a bombing campaign against them; early in 1965, Johnson ordered the first
U.S. ground troops to South Vietnam, and in July, Johnson shifted U.S. troops from
defensive to offensive operations.
B. Preventing Another Castro in Latin America
1. Panama
2. The Dominican Republic
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Johnson’s Latin American policy generated new cries of “Yankee imperialism”
in 1961, voters in the Dominican Republic ousted a dictator and elected a constitutional
government headed by Juan Bosch. In 1965, when the government was overthrown by a
military coup, Johnson sent more than 20,000 troops to quell what he called a “leftist
revolt” and to take control of the island; this was the first outright show of U.S. force in
Latin America in forty years and damaged the administration at home and abroad.
II. Lyndon Johnson’s War against Communism
C. The Americanized War
1. Further escalation
2. Vietnamese will
3. Body counts and kill ratios
• General William Westmoreland’s strategy of attrition was designed to search out and kill
the Vietcong and North Vietnamese regular army
• in this situation, which emphasized body counts and kill ratios, American soldiers did not
always distinguish between military combatants and civilians.
D. Those Who Served
1. Young soldiers from poor and working classes
• when the average soldier was twenty-six years old, teenagers fought the Vietnam War
• average age was nineteen; the poor and working class constituted about 80 percent of
the troops; privileged youth avoided the draft using college deferments or family
connections.
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2. Gender imbalance
3. African Americans
African Americans constituted 31 percent of combat troops, often choosing the military
over the meager opportunities in the civilian economy; death rates among black soldiers
were disproportionately high until 1966 when the military adjusted assignments to
achieve a better racial balance.
4. Obstacles to success in Vietnam
III. A Nation Polarized
A. The Widening War at Home
1. Opposing the war
• Johnson’s authorization of Operation Rolling Thunder sparked a
mass movement against the war; in April 1965, chapters of
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) sprang up on more than
three hundred college campuses across the country; Martin Luther
King Jr. also rebuked the government.
2. Mainstream sentiment
3. Opposition tactics
• writing campaigns to officials, teach-ins on college campuses,
mass marches, student strikes, withholding of federal taxes, draft
card burnings, and civil disobedience against military centers and
producers of war materials; many, like Muhammad Ali, refused to
fight; about 60,000 fled the country to escape the draft.
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4. Diverse views in antiwar movement
5. Silencing critics
Johnson tried a number of means to silence critics; deceived the
public about the progress of the war; ordered the CIA to spy on
peace advocates; without the president’s specific authorization,
the FBI infiltrated the peace movement, disrupted its work, and
spread false information about activists; however, even this resort
to illegal measures failed to subdue the opposition.
III. A Nation Polarized
B. The Tet Offensive and Johnson’s Move toward Peace
1. Doubts within the administration
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Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara now believed that the United States could not defeat the North
Vietnamese and left the administration in 1968.
2. The Tet Offensive
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Turning point; began on January 30, 1968, when the North Vietnamese and Vietcong attacked key cities and
every major American base in South Vietnam
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the Tet Offensive underscored the credibility gap between official statements and the war’s actual progress.
3. Vietnamization
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March 31, 1968, Lyndon Johnson announced in a televised speech that the United States would reduce its
bombing of North Vietnam and that he was prepared to begin peace talks with its leaders;
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he then stunned the audience by declaring that he would not run for reelection; marked the end of the gradual
escalation that had begun in 1965, and the beginning of the shift from increasing American forces to
“Vietnamization,” a reliance on the South Vietnamese; negotiations began in Paris in May 1968, but nothing
was settled immediately and the war continued.
C. The Tumultuous Election of 1968
1. Escalating violence at home
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spring of 1968, as riots gripped college campuses, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Democratic
presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy both took place.
2. The Democratic National Convention
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August, protesters battled the police in Chicago, where the Democratic Party had convened to nominate its
presidential ticket; on August 25, police responded to jeering protesters with tear gas and clubs, initiating three
days of street battles; culminated in a so-called police riot on the night of August 28 in which police used mace
and nightsticks not only on those who had come to provoke violence but also reporters, convention delegates,
and peaceful demonstrators.
3. Three parties
4. Cracks in Democratic Coalition
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With nearly 10 million votes, the American Independent Party produced the strongest third-party finish since
1924, but Republican Nixon managed to edge out Democrat Hubert Humphrey by just half a million popular
votes; the 1968 elections revealed deep cracks in the coalition that had kept the Democrats in power for most
of the previous thirty years;
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the South voted for Wallace, and large numbers of blue collar workers broke with the Democrats as well; saw
the Democrats as the party of racial turmoil, poverty programs, changing sexual mores, and failure in Vietnam.
IV. Nixon, Détente, and the Search for Peace in Vietnam
A. Moving toward Détente with the Soviet Union and China
1. Exploiting communist conflict
2. Visiting China
3. Negotiating with the Soviets
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Nixon and Henry Kissinger hoped, the warming of U.S.-Chinese relations increased Soviet
responsiveness to their strategy of détente; in May 1972, Nixon visited Moscow, signing
several agreements on trade and cooperation in science and space, and concluding arms
limitation treaties that had grown out of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT)
begun in 1969.
4. The Helsinki Accords
policy of détente made little progress after 1974; nonetheless in 1975, U.S., Soviet, and
European leaders signed a historic agreement in Helsinki, Finland, formally recognizing
the post–World War II boundaries in Europe
contained a clause committing the signing countries to recognize human rights and
fundamental freedoms; set the stage for revolt fifteen years later.
B. Shoring Up U.S. Interests around the World
1. Chile
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Nixon administration helped to overthrow Salvador Allende, a self-proclaimed Marxist
who was elected president of Chile in the 1970s
in 1973, with the help of the CIA, the Chilean military engineered a coup, killed Allende,
and established a brutal dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet; in other parts of
the world, too, the Nixon administration stood by repressive governments.
2. Israel and Arab nations
Israel won a stunning victory in the Six-Day War in 1967, seizing territory that amounted
to twice its original size, but that decisive victory did not quell Middle Eastern turmoil
when the Nixon administration sided with Israel in the Yom Kippur War, Arab nations
retaliated with an oil embargo.
IV. Nixon, Détente, and the Search
for Peace in Vietnam
C. Vietnam Becomes Nixon’s War
1. Maintaining credibility
2. A four-pronged strategy
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1969 to 1972, Nixon and Kissinger pursued a four-pronged approach in Vietnam: (1) to
strengthen the South Vietnamese military and government, (2) to disarm the antiwar
movement at home, (3) to negotiate with North Vietnam and the Soviet Union, and (4)
to conduct a massive bombing campaign.
3. Growth of the ARVN
4. Cambodia
5. Antiwar protests
antiwar protests followed; included those at Kent State University in Ohio where four
students were killed, and at Jackson State College in Mississippi where police killed two
students; by 1971, Vietnam veterans themselves were a visible part of the peace
movement, the first men in U.S. history to organize against a war in which they had
fought.
6. Congressional reaction and failure in Cambodia
7. My Lai and the Pentagon Papers
After the spring of 1971, there were fewer massive antiwar demonstrations, but protest
continued, especially after Americans learned of the My Lai massacre and the
government’s cover-up of the event
administration policy suffered another blow in June 1971 with the publication of the
Pentagon Papers, a secret government study critical of U.S. policy in Vietnam
military morale sank in the last years of the war.
IV. Nixon, Détente, and the Search
for Peace in Vietnam
D. The Peace Accords
1. Jugular diplomacy
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Nixon and Kissinger continued to combine military force and negotiation,
believing that intensive firepower could defeat the North Vietnamese
with peace talks stalled, Nixon ordered the most devastating bombing of
North Vietnam yet
referred to as “jugular diplomacy” by Kissinger, the intense bombing was
costly to both sides, but brought about renewed negotiations.
2. Peace with honor
3. The fall of Saigon
on May 1, 1975, the North Vietnamese occupied Saigon, and Americans
evacuated with 150,000 of their South Vietnamese allies.
4. Distrust and disillusionment
he expanded the conflict into Cambodia and Laos and launched a massive
bombing campaign
although many legislators criticized the war, Congress never denied the
funds to fight it
only after the peace accords did the legislative branch stiffen its
constitutional authority over the making of war with the passage of the
War Powers Act in November 1973.
IV. Nixon, Détente, and the Search
for Peace in Vietnam
E. The Legacy of Defeat
1. Ending the Great Society
2. The domino theory proven false
3. Abandoned veterans
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Veterans generally expressed two kinds of reactions to the defeat
many regarded the commitment as an honorable one and felt betrayed by
the U.S. government for not letting them and their now-dead comrades
win the war
others blamed the government for sacrificing the nation’s youth in an
immoral or useless war; because the Vietnam War was in large part a
civil, guerrilla war, combat was especially brutal
failure of the United States to win and the war’s unpopularity at home
denied veterans a hero’s homecoming
most veterans came home to public neglect, while some faced harassment
from antiwar activists who did not distinguish the war from the warriors
the Veterans Administration estimated that nearly one-sixth of the three
million veterans suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder
many produced children with deformities or fell ill themselves; not until
1991 did Congress provide assistance to veterans with diseases
associated with Agent Orange.
4. The war in American culture