Vietnam War - Lecture Notes - U.S. since 1877 | HIST 2020, Study notes of World History

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The Vietnam War 1955-1975 cer | parila Ba | Pura Sete RD }LOPER | ew be Laas feel Aa ea ; ‘oe : ate ie ere re eet fr Te rile na aes Another Issue with Containment • Southeast Asia, during WWII, a Vietnamese nationalist named Ho Chi Minh had founded a coalition called the Vietminh • The goal of Ho Chi Minh was to fight both the occupying Japanese and the French colonial rulers • Since Ho Chi Minh declared himself a Communist, the Truman administration quietly began to give aid to the French Communism in Vietnam • Eisenhower saw Communism in Vietnam much as Truman had viewed its threat in Greece • A Domino Theory • By 1954, the U.S. was contributing 75% of the cost of France’s war in Vietnam, but the U.S. refused to play a larger role • When France asked for more planes, Eisenhower said, “No!” The U.S. and Vietnam • 1954, the French colony in Dien Bien Phu fell to the Communist • Two months later, in Geneva, France signed a truce • Some officials warned against the U.S. involvement in Vietnam • September 1954, the U.S, along with Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Pakistan, and the Philippines committed to the defense of Cambodia, Laos, and South Vietnam Vietnam • 1960, the Hanoi government (North Vietnam) established the National Liberation Front, composed of South Vietnamese rebels, but directed by the northern army • Hanoi also constructed a network of infiltration routes, called the Ho Chi Minh Trail, in neighboring Laos and Cambodia , through which it sent people and supplies to help liberate the south • Violence escalated between 1960-1963, bringing the Saigon (South Vietnam) government close to collapse Kennedy’s Decision • Kennedy takes the middle ground, gradually escalating the U.S. commitment • Spring 1963, military aid had doubled, and the 9,000 Americans serving in Vietnam as military advisors occasionally participated in actual combat Vietnam • The war in Vietnam was different than any the U.S. had experienced • Advanced weapons were ill-suited to the guerilla warfare of the enemy • November 23, 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated • The War on Vietnam would be handed over to LBJ Johnson and Vietnam • August 1964, Johnson continued to dispatch military advisors, weapons and economic aid • During a routine espionage mission in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of North Vietnam, two U.S. destroyers reported that North Vietnamese gunboats had fired on them on August 2 and 4 Johnson and Vietnam • After the attacks, Johnson ordered air strikes on North Vietnamese torpedo bases and oil storage facilities • Johnson also sought the approval of Congress • There is some debate as to whether or not Johnson covered up whether or not the second attack actually happened President Johnson and Vietnam • Soon after winning re- election, Johnson widened the war • He rejected peace overtures from North Vietnam, which insisted on U.S. withdrawal and a coalition government in South Vietnam • Johnson began a bombing campaign The War in Vietnam • Because there was no battlefront as in previous wars, officials calculated progress in body counts and kill ratios, this meant the number of enemies killed relative to the cost of American lives • This war also had teenagers in the battle Vietnam War • 1967, the Johnson administration doubted the effectiveness of this war • Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, a principal architect of U.S. involvement, now believed that the North Vietnamese would never quit, no matter how much we bombed them Vietnam War • January 30, 1968, a critical turning point came with the Tet Offensive • The North Vietnamese and the Vietcong had attacked key cities and every major American base in South Vietnam • This was the biggest surprise of the war • Both sides had observed a truce during the Vietnamese New Year holiday, called Tet • Militarily the enemy suffered a defeat, losing more than 30,000 men Nixon and Vietnam • Richard Nixon won the election of 1968, he then aggressively pursued the war in Vietnam • Nixon expanded the fighting into Cambodia and Laos and ferociously began bombing North Vietnam Nixon in Vietnam • 1969-1972, Nixon and Kissinger pursued a four pronged approach to Vietnam: 1. They tried to strengthen the South Vietnamese military and government 2. Disarm the anti-war movement at home 3. Negotiated with both North Vietnam and the Soviet Union 4. The military applied heavy bombing to persuade Hanoi to accept American terms at the bargaining table Nixon and Vietnam • Spring 1969, Nixon began a major air war in Cambodia, carefully hiding it from Congress and the public for more than a year • During the four years that it took Nixon to end the war, he had increased battle significantly • Congress passed the War Powers Act in 1973, requiring the president to report to Congress within 48 hours of deploying military forces abroad • This law did little to gain US civilian trust back