Transcript Vietnam

The Vietnam
War
November 1, 1955April 30, 1975
(America’s Longest War)
Document #7 “The Eve of Destruction”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1kzd-bdv2w
Welcome to Vietnam
Vietnam - French Colony
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Vietnam was originally part of a larger
French colony called Indochina.
The French tried to regain (from Japan)
firm control of their colony after WWII
ended.
By 1950, the Vietnamese had
no desire to be a French colony
any longer.
A vicious war of independence (AKA
the First Indochina War 1950-1954)
erupted between the Vietminh, the
Vietnamese Communist-Nationalist
(Independence) Movement,
and the French forces.
The US sent $2.6 Billion to support
France’s war effort …Why?
Ho Chi Minh
 Leader
of the Việtminh
independence movement
from 1941 onward, establishing
the communist-ruled
Democratic Republic of
Vietnam in 1945 and
defeating the French in 1954
at the battle of Điện Biên Phủ..
 Communist
 Vietnamese National Hero

The climactic confrontation of
the First Indochina War
between the French Union's
French Far East Expeditionary
Corps and Vietminh
communist-nationalist
revolutionaries

In other words, it’s the siege
battle which caused the
French to surrender Vietnam in
1954
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The Geneva Accords of May,
1954 granted, Cambodia,
Laos, and Vietnam
independence from France
and divided North (communist)
and South (anti-communist)
Vietnam at the 17th parallel,
with the guarantee of 1956
free elections to unify Vietnam.
Dien Bien Phu
Why does the US Care?
 Eisenhower’s
Domino Theory: If Vietnam falls to
Communism so will the other nations in Asia!
 Question:
What policy, which we studied during the
Cold War does Domino theory relate to?
So What Did the US Do?
 President
Eisenhower 1952-1960 gave lots of
money to South (Non-Communist) Vietnam to
resist the Vietminh.
 1954 SEATO was formed to contain communism in
Southeast Asia
 President Kennedy 1960-1963 sent (15,000+)
troops to keep the anti-communist South
Vietnamese leader, Ngo Dinh Diem, in power.
Kennedy called them military “advisers” or
consultants.
Why Was This a Problem?
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Diem was not popular at all:
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Very restrictive/controlling
Devout Catholic in a
Buddhist country
Refused to participate in free
1956 elections, because he
would have lost.
A group of communist rebels
in the South (Vietcong)began
an insurgency against this
South Vietnamese
government
Diem was eventually
assassinated (with the help of
US operatives and with
Kennedy’s knowledge) in
1963… the same year as
Kennedy.
ENTRY # 49: Read Documents 1-2: Gulf of Tonkin
THEN:
What happened in the Gulf of Tonkin?
What does the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution allow the President of the United
States to do?
Why do you think the US. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin
Resolution?
(Document 1 and 2)
Johnson “Inherited” Vietnam
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Thought all communists are the same, so
predisposed to be aggressive against N.
Vietnam
August 2, 1964 -North Vietnamese ships
attacked an American destroyer
patrolling in the Gulf of Tonkin.
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution: Congress
authorized the President to “take all
necessary measures to repel any armed
attack against the US armed forces and to
prevent further aggression” - Allowed the
President to commit further troops without
having to go back to Congress for a
Declaration of War. (LBJ: Resolution is like
” Grandma’s Nightshirt”)
The War By the Numbers
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1963; 10,000 American advisers in Vietnam
1965: 180,000 American Soldiers in Vietnam.
2.7 million Americans served in Vietnam
Average age of the 58,148 US killed in Vietnam was 23.11 years
In 1973, the United States listed 2,646 Americans as unaccounted
for from the entire Vietnam War. By April 2013, 1649 Americans
remained unaccounted for, of which 850 were listed as Killed In
Action – Body not recovered and 749 are listed as a presumptive
finding of death
Year in which the highest number of American deaths were
reported in Vietnam: 1968 (16,592 deaths reported)
The estimated number of Vietnamese deaths—military and
civilian from both sides of the struggle—between 1965 and 1975:
1 million (However, some sources estimate 2 million; the
Vietnamese government estimates 3.1 million war deaths
Approximately 12,000 helicopters saw action in Vietnam (all
services).
http://www.shmoop.com/vietnam-war/statistics.html
The US Strategy: Attrition
 If
the US killed
enough of the
enemy hopefully
they would stop
coming…
 Used our
advantages:
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Massive Firepower
Incredible
technological
advantage.
Airpower
Operation Rolling Thunder
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Johnson ordered the operation in early
1965.
We dropped 800 tons of bombs on North
Vietnam per day for almost three years. 3x
more bombs than all of WWII combined)
Four objectives of the operation were to:
 boost the sagging morale of South
Vietnam;
 persuade North Vietnam to cease its
support for the communist insurgency in
South;
 destroy North Vietnam's transportation
system, industrial base, and air
defenses, breaking the North
Vietnamese will to fight; and
 cease the flow of men and material
into South Vietnam.
Vietminh/Vietcong Strategy
 Guerilla
Warfare
 Could decide when and where to attack then
melt back into the jungle or into hiding in “plain
sight”
 Using ambushes and hit and run tactics the
Vietcong and North Vietnamese troops slowly
defeated the American will to fight, matching
each American troop increase with one of its own.
Ho Chi Minh Trail
 Was
used to bring
supplies into South
Vietnam on foot.
Went to every part
of South Vietnam.
Why Did the Vietnam War Make the
Government and the US look bad?
The Endless War…No matter how much firepower, no
matter how many troops were sent, no matter how much
money was spent, there seemed to be no end in sight.
 Use of The huge monetary costs of the war were
prohibiting money from being spent on domestic issues
and were causing economic problems
 Misinformation by military and civilian leaders to the
American people, along with Johnson’s reluctance to
speak frankly regarding the scope and costs of the war
created a “credibility gap”
 Napalm and Agent Orange…
 All caught on film and brought nightly into the American
Living Room.
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Napalm
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A mixture of chemicals which creates a
jelly-like substance that, when ignited,
sticks to practically anything and burns
for up to ten minutes. The effects of
napalm on the human body are
unbearably painful and almost always
cause death among its victims.
“Napalm is the most terrible pain you
can ever imagine” said Kim Phúc, a
survivor from a napalm bombing.
“Water boils at 212°F. Napalm generates
temperatures 1,500°F to 2,200°F.”
Napalm was first used in
flamethrowers for U.S. ground troops;
they burned down sections of forest and
bushes in hopes of eliminating any
enemy guerrilla fighters. Later on in the
war B-52 Bombers began dropping
napalm bombs and other incendiary
explosives. Air raids that used napalm
were much more devastating than
flamethrowers; a single bomb was
capable of destroying areas up to 2,500
square yards
Agent Orange
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Agent Orange is a toxic chemical herbicide that
was used from about 1965 – 1970 in the Vietnam
War. It was one of the main mixtures used during
Operation Ranch Hand. Operation Ranch Hand
was intended to deprive Vietnamese farmers and
guerilla fighters of clean food and water in hopes
they would relocate to areas more heavily
controlled by the U.S. By the end of the operation
over twenty million gallons of herbicides and
defoliants were sprayed over forests and fields.
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Agent Orange is fifty times more concentrated
than normal agricultural herbicides; this extreme
intensity completely destroyed all plants in the
area. Agent Orange not only had devastating
effects on agriculture but also on people and
animals. The Vietnam Red Cross recorded over 4.8
million deaths and 400,000 children born with birth
defects due to exposure to Agent Orange.
ENTRY #50 : Document # 5
in Vietnam Packet
Tet Offense
Which side was behind the Tet Offense?
What was the goal of the Tet Offense?
Do you think the Tet Offense was successful? Why or why
not?
http://www.history.com/shows/vietnam-in-hd/videos/tet-offensive
Tet Offensive:
Feb, 1968
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Major coordinated
communist/North Vietnamese
offensive throughout South
Vietnam, including the capital
of Saigon and the holy
imperial city of Hue
Though US forces retook both
Saigon and Hue, and though
there were many, many
enemy casualties, the Tet
Offensive convinced
Americans that we were not
winning this war any time
soon.
War Protest
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As the war dragged on
and on, more and more
protests of the war, first
among pacifists and
socialists, then on college
campuses, and then in
wider society.
Students for a Democratic
Society (SDS) and “teach
ins
“Doves and Hawks
“Make Love, Not War!”
Hey, Hey, LBJ, How many kids did
you Kill today!?
Hell No, We Won’t Go!
“America, Love it or Leave it!
“Nattering Nervous Nellies of Negativity”
1967 March on the Pentagon
The Draft
 Selective
service system
was
used to keep up with troop
demands
 Deferments for college
students and some professions, and a militaryassignment system that sent the better-educated
to desk jobs, created a situation where lower-class
youths were twice as likely to be drafted and then
twice as likely to see combat duty than middle
and upper class youths.
 Those who did not wish to go burned draft cards in
protest, or ran away to Canada or other countries
not involved in Vietnam (will later be pardoned by
Ford)
1968 Democratic Convention
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Anti-war (and anti- political
establishment) protests turned
into rioting in the streets of
Chicago.
Yippies (Youth International
Party – led by Abbie Hoffman)
threatened to put LSD in the
city’s water supply
Democrats seen as the party of
dissent and disorder, and Nixon
cruised to victory in 1968
election.
He claimed to have a secret
plan to end the war.
Nixon and Vietnam
 Nixon’s
general plan to end the war was a
policy of Vietnamization, in which we trained
South Vietnamese troops to defend their own
country…under this policy, US troop numbers
went from 540,000 in 1969 to 30,000 in 1972.
 This Vietnamization policy reduced the
number of war protests temporarily, until news
of 1)secret bombing of Cambodia and Laos,
2)the discovery of the My Lai Massacre and
3)the Publication of the Pentagon Papers
refueled anti-war sentiment, leading to Kent
State.
My Lai Massacre
Vietnamese women and
children in Mỹ Lai before
being killed in the massacre,
March 16, 1968. According
testimony, they were killed
seconds after the photo was
taken.
Photo by Ronald L. Haeberle
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The My Lai Massacre was the mass murder of between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians in
South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, by United States Army soldiers of "Charlie" Company of
1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the Americal Division.
Victims included women, men, children, and infants. Some of the women were gangraped and their bodies were later found to be mutilated, and many women were
allegedly raped prior to the killings. While 26 U.S. soldiers were initially charged with criminal
offenses for their actions at Mỹ Lai, only Second Lieutenant William Calley, a platoon leader
in Charlie Company, was convicted. Found guilty of killing 22 villagers, he was originally
given a life sentence, but only served three and a half years under house arrest.
The first reports claimed that "128 Viet Cong and 22 civilians" were killed in the village during
a "fierce fire fight.” The incident prompted global outrage when it became public
knowledge in 1969. The massacre also increased domestic opposition to the U.S.
involvement in the Vietnam War.
-Wikipedia
Pentagon Papers
 Classified
history of the
war in Vietnam leaked to
the NY Times by former
Defense Department
analyst, Daniel Ellsberg
 Documented mistakes
and deceptions of
government policymakers in dealing
with Vietnam.
Kent State
May 4, 1970: Kent State Massacre. Police
shot at a group of unarmed protesters,
killing 4.
Four Dead in Ohio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
GI7-m919ynU
Paris Accords of 1973 created a cease
fire and allowed the remaining US troops to get out of
Vietnam completely, with a promise to South Vietnam to
resume aid if North Vietnam attacked.
Fall of Saigon
In 1974, when President Ford
asked Congress for aid to
South Vietnam in the face of a
strong attack from Communist
forces, it was denied. In April,
1975, Saigon, South Vietnam’s
capital, fell to communist
forces, and Vietnam became
one country under communist
rule, with its capital at Hanoi.
Evacuation of Vietnamese supporters of the US from Saigon. April, 1975.
Reflection… ENTRY # 51
 Why
would we say the Vietnam War was
part of the Cold War?
 How was the outcome of this war different
than other wars fought by the U.S.?
 How did the Vietnam War change the
culture in the United States?
 Do you think there was a connection
between the Vietnam War and the Civil
Rights Movement? Explain your answer.
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This power point was created by Melissa McGready.