The Vietnam Years

Chapter 29 Summary

Moving Toward Conflict

France had colonized Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia (known collectively as Indo-China) during the 19th century and had attempted to keep the colony after WW2

The USA gave economic and military support to the French in the post-war years; Vietnamese nationalists had resisted French imperialism for much of the 20th century

The Indochinese Communist Party, led by Ho Chi Minh, led many of the protests; the French issued a death sentence against him and he was forced to flee; he returned to Vietnam when the Japanese took the region in 1941

The Vietminh was formed, consisting of various nationalist and communist organizations, to gain independence for Vietnam; in September 1945 Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam an independent nation

The French however were determined to reclaim their former colony and forced the Vietminh into the countryside

The Americans backed France and in 1950 gave $15 million to the French to assist their efforts; over the next four years $2.6 billion was given to France in economic and military aid--Vietnam was caught in the cold war nexus

The "domino theory" of communist aggression seemed real: if Vietnam fell to the Communists then all of southeast Asia may be vulnerable to the communists

The French however were doomed to fail and in May 1954 their post at Dien Bien Phu was overrun and they were forced to leave

An international conference was held in Geneva, Switzerland to determine Vietnam's fate: attending was China, USA, Soviet Union, Laos, Cambodia, France, Great Britain, the Vietminh and anti-communist nationalists from the South

A demilitarized zone at the 17th parallel was formed and elections were scheduled for 1956

Leaders in the South however were reluctant to participate in the elections due to Ho's popularity: he was credited by many Vietnamese for driving the French and Japanese out of their nation and bringing about land reforms that distributed land to the peasants

The president of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, simply refused to hold the elections and the USA supported his decision

His government was corrupt and inefficient, repression was common, and reforms were blocked

Communists in the south known as Vietcong began attacking government officials--they would become known as the National Liberation Front (NLF)

Ho and the North Vietnamese assisted the Vietcong, materials were sent down the Ho Chi Minh Trail located along the Vietnam-Cambodia-Laos border

With JFK's election it was decided to more aggressively support the Diem government; by 1963 almost 16,000 "advisors" were in South Vietnam

Diem's government was increasingly unstable: he moved against the Buddhists, some responded by publicly setting themselves on fire in protest

Whole villages were relocated in a strategic hamlet program provoking resentment among the peasants and farmers

A US sponsored coup overthrew the increasingly unpopular Diem; he was killed

JFK, shortly before his own death, announced that he intended to withdraw US forces from Vietnam ("it's their war")

LBJ however decided to escalate the war which became America's longest war, and a failure as well

A series of military leaders attempted to lead South Vietnam, each more corrupt and inefficient than the last

LBJ was determined not to lose South Vietnam to communism: he remembered how Pres. Truman had been blamed for "losing" China

In August 1964 LBJ announced that North Vietnamese patrol boats had attacked an American warship off the coast of North Vietnam; a second attack on another ship was also claimed

LBJ asked Congress for a resolution: the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which granted him broad military powers to take action against North Vietnam (414-0 in the House and 88-2 in the Senate)

Supporters of the resolution maintained "The American flag has been fired upon. We will not and cannot tolerate such things."

By February 1965 Operation Rolling Thunder was undertaken, large scale bombing of North Vietnam and in March large numbers of ground troops began arriving (50,000 by June)

US Involvement and Escalation

LBJ attacked his Republican opponent, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, in the 1964 as an extremist who would lead the Vietnam conflict into a war with the USSR

Johnson's advisors, Secretary of State Dean Rusk (a graduate of Boys High School in Atlanta) and Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara urged escalating the war to avoid the defeat of the South Vietnamese

61% of Americans supported LBJ's actions in Vietnam while 1/4 opposed it

By the end of 1965 180,000 ground troops were in South Vietnam; by 1965 500,000 were "in country"

The American military believed its superior resources, technology and training would prevail: the Vietcong used guerilla tactics, hit and run, and relied upon public support from the peasants

The war had no established front, boobytraps and spies were everywhere, extensive tunnels were used by the Vietcong to move supplies and fighters

The Vietcong were willing to fight a war of attrition despite taking high losses of life

China and the Soviet Union supplied the Vietcong and North Vietnamese with weapons and ammunition

The Americans hoped to win the "hearts and minds" of the South Vietnamese; it proved very difficult because the South Vietnamese government and ARVN (Army of the Republic of South Vietnam) seemed inept and corrupt

The US used napalm (gasoline bombs), cluster bombs and Agent Orange (toxic chemicals) that were highly controversial

Over three million villagers were forced to become refugees as their lands became free fire zones ("We had to destroy the town in order to save it")

American morale dropped as the war appeared hopeless and unwinnable; the corrupt leaders of South Vietnam only made matters worse

American pilots and others who were captured were kept in POW camps; some were held for nearly a decade

The cost of the war damaged the American economy, inflation became a major problem and the War on Poverty ("the Great Society") was scaled back

Vietnam was a "living room war" as television portrayed the war in increasingly negative terms; public opinion shifted against the war as it became more obvious that the war was not being won and that atrocities by American soldiers against the Vietnamese people

A "credibility gap" emerged as Americans began to question the truth of what they were being told by government leaders

A Nation Divided

Young people were concerned about the war: upper and middle class youth could use college deferments and other ways to escape the draft, the army would rely on working class youth to fill its ranks (80% of Army recruits were from lower economic levels)

Young men between 18 and 26 were eligible for conscription from the Selective Service System--many attempted to deliberately fail their physicals and receive 4-F classification; others served in the National Guard such as Dan Quayle and George Bush as a way of avoiding combat in Vietnam

On college campuses opposition intensified as the war escalated; the "New Left" organized anti-war activists to fight the war; organizations such as SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) attacked the large corporations and government institutions that they believed limited democracy in America

The Univ. of California at Berkeley experienced a Free Speech Movement that focussed on the repression of citizens due to the power of big business and big government

Direct action tactics were used to take over offices and pressure university officials; "teach-ins" were used to educate students against the war; some university building were destroyed

SDS organized demonstrations, rallies, marches and protests that took place on campuses and in Washington, DC

Other critics argued that the war was a civil war between north and south; others believed that America should not be the policeman of the world

Even veterans turned against the war; some threw their medals onto the White House lawn in protest

Draft resistance increased: 200,000 would accused of draft offenses, at least 4,000 were imprisoned while over 10,000 fled to Canada

The nation was divided between hawks and doves though even in 1967 2/3 of the American people still supported the war

Many believed that the anti-war movement was unpatriotic and contributing to the failure to win the war; the North Vietnamese saw the anti-war movement as an ally

LBJ shut out advisors who urged ending the war and called anti-war critics "Nervous Nellies"

1968: A Tumultuous Year

In early 1968 the Tet Offensive took place as over 100 South Vietnamese cities and bases were attacked during a holiday period

Fighting raged over a month; even the American Embassy in Saigon was attacked and five were killed

Despite it being considered a military defeat for the North it was a huge public relations victory as Americans were shocked by what they saw on their televisions

"The Light at the End of the Tunnel" seemed further away than ever

Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford concluded, like his predecessor, MacNamara, that the war could not be won; Walter Cronkite of CBS News said the same thing

LBJ's popularity plunged by March 1968 and he went on national TV to announce he would not run for re-election; about half of the American people now believed the war was a mistake

Anti-war Democrats ran for president including Sen. Eugene McCarthy and Sen. Robert Kennedy

On April 4 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed in Memphis: riots broke out across the nation with nearly fifty people killed and almost 30,000 arrested

Two months later Robert Kennedy was shot and killed after winning the California Primary: he was the leading candidate to oppose the Republicans at that point

The Democratic Party Convention, held in Chicago in August 1968, was an exercise in chaos, violence and confusion; anti-war protesters marched through the city and were attacked by police and guardsmen

Hubert Humphrey, LBJ's vice-president, won the nomination in a bitterly divided party and would lose against Republican Richard Nixon in November

Nixon's comeback was remarkable: he had lost to JFK in 1960 and to Pat Brown in 1962 when he ran for governor of California

The 1968 election was a three way race with segregationist governor George Wallace winning much of the Deep South while Nixon campaigned on promises to restore "law and order" and bring "peace with honor" in the war in Vietnam

Nixon won only 43% of the popular vote but defeated Humphrey by over 100 electoral votes

The End of the War and Its Legacy

LBJ had begun peace talks with the North Vietnamese in Paris and they had made little progress when Nixon arrived in the White House

The US wanted all North Vietnamese troops to leave South Vietnam, the North Vietnamese wanted all US troops to leave South Vietnam and to support a coalition government that included the Vietcong

Nixon pursued "Vietnamization" removing over three years most of the US combat troops; the air war was escalated to pressure the North Vietnamese to make concessions at the bargaining table

The war was secretly expanded into neighboring Laos and Cambodia to attack sanctuaries used by the Vietcong and North Vietnamese

Nixon appealed to the "silent majority" of the American people who quietly supported his quest for peace with honor in Vietnam

Events such as the My Lai massacre with over 175 villagers in 1968 shook their faith: "Kill anything that breathed" apparently was given by Lt. William Calley to his men

When Nixon announced that the war would be expanded into Cambodia in the spring of 1970 college campuses exploded in fury: college students at Kent State in Ohio and Jackson State in Mississippi were killed by Guardsmen

Congress was also angry and repealed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution

In June of 1971 the Pentagon Papers were released: 7,000 pages of war related information leaked to the New York Times by Daniel Ellsberg, a former Defense Dept. employee

The Pentagon Papers showed that LBJ had lied about the war and that there was no plan to leave Vietnam without a victory

In March of 1972 the North Vietnamese launched their most ambitious attacks on the south since the Tet Offensive of 1968

Nixon responded by aggressively bombing cities and military sites across the North

In October 1972 National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger announced that "peace was at hand" because of progress that had taken place in secret talks with the North Vietnamese

The result was a huge landslide victory for Nixon as he won re-election in November against anti-war Democrat George McGovern of South Dakota

Meanwhile the South Vietnam government of Thieu rejected the provisions of Kissinger's peace plan: it did not call for all North Vietnamese soldiers to leave his nation

Talks broke off and Nixon responded by the "Chrismas bombings" of December 1972: intensive bombing of Hanoi and other cities for 11 days and 100,000 bombs

Talks resumed and on January 27, 1973 the US signed an agreement ending the war: The last combat troops were pulled out in March 1973 though thousands of other Americans would remain for two more years. Pres. Johnson in April 1965 had pledged:"We will not withdraw, either openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement." (Four decades later, Bush also promised: "We've got to stay the course and we will stay the course" in Iraq.) We shall see.

Shortly after the agreement fighting broke out between the North and South; within two years the government of South Vietnam would collapse, on April 30, 1975

The price of the war was high: over 58,000 Americans were killed and 365,000 were wounded; at least 1.5 million Vietnamese were killed

The war left the whole region unstable and communist governments took control in Cambodia and Laos

Veterans returning to the US often were met with hostility or indifference: no parades or public recognition for their sacrifices--in 1982 a memorial was established in Washington DC

In Vietnam one nation was established under communist rule, over 400,000 would be imprisoned in labor camps, another 1.5 million fled to US and other nations; another large group of poor Vietnamese were known as the "boat people" because they left with only the shirts on their back (over 50,000 perished)

In Cambodia the Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975 and may have killed 2 million

In 1973 the draft was ended in the US and Congress passed the War Powers Act limiting the power of presidents to wage war without authorization from Congress

The "Vietnam Syndrome" would become a brake on American intentions to use military force around the world: the American public was reluctant to support intervention if it appeared that it might result in future Vietnams

The credibility of the US government suffered greatly due to the conduct of the war, cynicism remained high for years about trusting public officials: years of misleading or concealed information by the Johnson and Nixon administrations

The Watergate Scandal only intensified these feelings: Nixon eventually left office in disgrace in August 1974