Transcript The Vietnam Era

8th Grade United States History
 Essential
Question:
• What were the key foreign policy challenges the
United States faced during the Kennedy
administration?
 1961
– Cold War continued to deepen
• President Kennedy continues anti-communist
campaign
 Throughout
the world, communist groups
fought to take control of national
government
• Kennedy introduced a plan
called “flexible response” in
response to guerilla warfare
• Green Berets
 Communist
promises of economic equality
was attractive
• Latin America, Asia, Africa
 Kennedy
provided aid to those countries to
weaken the appeal of communism
 Executive order created the Peace Corps to
aid countries in need
• Volunteers worked as teachers and health
workers
• Advisers for government, farming and industry
 1959
– Fidel Castro seizes power and sets
up a Communist dictatorship
• Ally of the Soviet Union
 CIA
plans to overthrow Castro by recruiting
Cuban refugees in USA to spark uprising in
Cuba
 Bay of Pigs
• Many mistakes made in the beginning of
invasion
• Kennedy refused air support
• Kennedy took blame for the failure
 Kennedy
never completely trusted
military and intelligence advice
 Nations in Latin America lost trust in
Kennedy
 Soviet leader Khrushchev saw Kennedy
as a weak leader
 Khrushchev
built the Berlin Wall in 1961
• Keep western troops out of East Berlin
following WWII
• Prevent refugees seeking freedom from East
Berlin from entering West Berlin
• Cut communications between the two parts
of the city
• Wall came to symbolize Communist
repression
 1962
– American spy plane took
photographs revealing Soviets building
launching sites for nuclear weapons in Cuba
• Could reach U.S. in minutes
• Kennedy ordered blockade of Cuba until
missiles were removed
• Kennedy warned that a nuclear attack from the
Soviets would result in a nuclear attack by the
U.S.
• After 5 days, Soviets removed missiles
• Two nations started to work together to avoid
nuclear war
 1961
– Kennedy commits U.S. to landing
on the moon by the end of the decade
 NASA expands
• July 20, 1969 – The Eagle lands on the surface
of the moon
• Neil Armstrong
 “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for
mankind.”
 What
motivated the Soviet Union to build
the Berlin Wall?
 How
did the United States attempt to contain
communism during the Kennedy
administration?
 Answer
the Essential Question: What were
the key foreign policy challenges the United
States faced during the Kennedy
administration?
 Essential
Question:
• How and why did American involve itself in the
war in Vietnam?
 After WWII, Vietnamese
Communist
leader, Ho Chi Minh, declared
independence from the French
 French were unwilling to give up their
Indochina colony
• Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam
• Rice, rubber and tin
 Ho
Chi Minh defeated French forces in
1954
 1954
– U.S., France, Great Britain, Soviet
Union, China and Vietnam meet in
Geneva, Switzerland
 Decided Vietnam would be temporarily
divided
• Ho Chi Minh = Communist North Vietnam
• United States would support non-Communist
South Vietnam
• United States emphasized that it would act if
the Communist North moved against the
South
 South Vietnamese
leader Ngo Dinh Diem
refused to hold elections and cracked
down on Communism in the South
• Communists set up the Vietcong (National
Liberation Front) in response
• Began a war against Diem regime
 Eisenhower
and Kennedy supported
South Vietnam in the form of economic
aid and training of troops
 Diem was urged to made reforms that
would weaken the appeal of Communism
but few reforms were made
• Took rights away from Buddhist population
• South Vietnamese overthrew Diem with
support of the United States
 16,000
American troops were in Vietnam at
the time of Kennedy’s assassination
 Vietcong attacks caused Americans to get
more involved
 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
• North Vietnamese patrol boats allegedly attacked
American destroyers near Gulf of Tonkin
• Congress gave President Johnson the ability to
“take all necessary measures to repel any armed
attack against the forces of the United States”
 1965
– 500,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam
 1965-1968 - U.S. Bombing campaign
 Fighting
•
•
•
•
a ground war was difficult
Dense jungles
Muddy trails
Swampy rice paddies
Guerilla warfare
 Search
and destroy missions
 Planes bombed areas of South Vietnam to
drive guerillas out of the jungle
• Napalm
• Agent Orange
 No
matter how many Vietcong and North
Vietnamese troops were destroyed, they
were always replaced
• Soldiers became frustrated
 Opposition
to U.S. involvement in
Vietnam began to grow at home
 What
was the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
and why was it important?
 Why
was it difficult for U.S. soldiers to
fight in Vietnam?
 Answer
the Essential Question: How and
why did American involve itself in the
war in Vietnam?
 Essential
Question:
• How did the Vietnam War affect the political and
social climate in the United States?
 The
war divided the nation
• Generation gap
• Doves and hawks
 Some
considered it a Civil War between
the Vietnamese
 Believed the cost of war was hurting
domestic programs
 Viewed South Vietnam as a corrupt
dictatorship that was not worth assisting
 Loss of countryside
 Loss of Lives
 Challenge
to traditional middle class
values
 Challenge to customary social roles of
work and family
 Reject competition for material goods
and personal success
 Student
protests targeted the selective
service system
• Sought to halt the supply of soldiers needed
to fight the war
• Argued that deferments discriminated
against poor and working class families
 Conscientious
Objectors
 January
31, 1968 – North Vietnamese and
Vietcong launched attacks
• Military bases
• South Vietnam’s cities
• United States embassy in Saigon
 U.S. pushed
back all communist forces
 Many Americans began to turn against the
war and President Johnson
• Concerned that an enemy they were assured was
so close to defeat could launch such a large attack
• People began to distrust the Johnson
administration
 American
commander in Vietnam
requested more troops
 Johnson ordered a reevaluation of the war
 1968 – Johnson stated that no more
bombs would be dropped on N.
Vietnamese cities
• Asked for peace talks
 Informed
the nation that he would not
seek a second term
 April
4, 1968 – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is
assassinated
• Riots erupt all over the country
 June
1968 – Robert Kennedy is assassinated
 Protestors
flocked to Chicago to protest
the presidential nomination of
Democratic Senator Hubert Humphrey
• Humphrey favored Johnson’s Vietnam policy
• Protestors threw bottles and sticks at police
• Police threw tear gas, beat protesters with
night sticks and arrested many
 Republican
Richard Nixon wins the
election of 1968
 What
were draft deferments and who
benefited from them?
 What
was the Tet Offensive and why was
it significant to the course of the war?
 Answer
the Essential Question: How did
the Vietnam War affect the political and
social climate of the United States?