A Brief History of the Vietnam
War
The Geneva Peace Accords (G.P.A.)
• France controls Viet Nam
after WWII.
• Vietnam has revolution to
kick out France.
– France loses (“Vietnam is
unwinnable”)
• G.P.A., signed by France and
Vietnam in the summer of
1954
– Vietnam agreed to the
temporary partition of their
nation at the seventeenth
parallel to allow France a
face-saving defeat.
The United States had other ideas.
 Secretary of State John Foster Dulles thought
the Geneva Accords granted too much power to
the Communist Party of Vietnam.
 Dulles and President Dwight D. Eisenhower supported
the creation of a counter-revolution south of the
seventeenth parallel.
 The United States also helped create the
Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), to
get around the Geneva Accords
 Using SEATO for political cover, the Eisenhower
administration helped create a new nation from dust
in southern Vietnam.
South Vietnam Beginnings
• In 1955, with the help of massive amounts of
American military, political, and economic aid,
the Government of the Republic of Vietnam
(GVN or South Vietnam) was born.
• Ngo Dinh Diem, a staunchly anti-Communist
figure from the South, won a rigged election
that made him president of the GVN.
South Vietnam Under Ngo Dinh Diem
• He used the American Central Intelligence
Agency to identify those who were against his
government and arrested them.
• Diem passed a repressive series of acts that
made it legal to hold someone in jail if s/he
was a suspected Communist without bringing
formal charges.
Protests against Diem Government
• The outcry against Diem's
harsh and oppressive
actions was immediate.
• Buddhist monks and nuns
were joined by students,
business people,
intellectuals, and
peasants in opposition to
the corrupt rule of Ngo
Dinh Diem
The Kennedy Administration reaction
to Diem
 Some Kennedy
advisers believed Diem
was not a good leader
of Viet Nam.
 Others argued that
Diem was the "best of
a bad lot."
 We help overthrow
Diem
Communists in Viet Nam
• Southern Communists want to adopt more
violent tactics to guarantee Diem's downfall.
• In January 1959, the Communist Party finally
approved the use of revolutionary violence to
overthrow Ngo Dinh Diem's government and
liberate Vietnam south of the seventeenth
parallel.
December 1961 White Paper
• Kennedy advisors argued for an increase in
military, technical, and economic aid, and the
introduction of large-scale American
"advisers" to help stabilize the Diem regime
and crush the communists.
• Kennedy decided that we would increase the
level of military involvement in South Vietnam
through more machinery and advisers, but
would not intervene by sending troops.
Overthrow of Diem’s government
• By late September of 1963, the Kennedy
administration supported a coup.
• Diem's own generals approached the American
Embassy in Saigon with plans to overthrow Diem.
• With Washington‘s approval, on November 1,
1963, Diem and his brother were captured and
later killed by Vietnamese Generals.
• Three weeks later, President Kennedy was
assassinated on the streets of Dallas.
President Johnson Escalates the War
• Continuing political
problems in Saigon
convinced new president,
Lyndon Johnson, that
more aggressive action
was needed.
• After a raid on two U.S.
ships in the Gulf of
Tonkin, the Johnson
administration argued for
expansive war powers for
the president.
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
• Gave the president broad
war powers.
• The resolution passed
both the House and
Senate with only two
dissenting votes.
• The Resolution was
followed by limited
reprisal air attacks against
the DRV (Communists).
• We never declare war in
Vietnam
OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER
• Johnson ordered the
sustained bombing
missions over the DRV
that the Joint Chiefs of
Staff had long
advocated.
• In March 1965, Johnson
sent the first combat
troops to Vietnam.
The War in America
 The Johnson administration wanted to fight
this war in "cold blood."
 America would go to war in Vietnam with the
precision of a surgeon with little noticeable impact
on domestic culture.
 A limited war called for limited mobilization of and
was supposed to cause little disruption in everyday
life in America.
 The Vietnam War did have a major impact on
everyday life in America
 the Johnson administration was forced to consider
domestic consequences of its decisions every day.
Protests at Home
• Protests erupted on college campuses and in
major cities at first.
• By 1968 every corner of the country seemed to
have felt the war's impact.
• Chicago, 1968 Democratic National Convention.
Hundreds of thousands of people came to
Chicago in August 1968 to protest American
intervention in Vietnam and the leaders of the
Democratic Party who continued to prosecute the
war.
1968
• The Tet Offensive: attacks against the major
southern cities by the Communists.
•
•
•
•
They force the Johnson Administration to the
bargaining table.
The Tet Offensive was a military defeat, but a
psychological victory for the Communists.
Public now believes that the war was unwinnable.
“If I’ve lost Cronkie, I’ve lost the war.” Johnson, 68.
•
•
News anchor Walter Cronkite concluded a special broadcast
on the recent Tet Offensive with a rare, brief, and potent
editorial suggesting that America cease fighting the Vietnam
War.
Johnson elects not to run for President.
History of the Anti-War Movement
• 1959 Students for a Democratic Society is
founded
• 1965 First draft riots occur on college campuses
• 1967 Johnson authorizes CIA to investigate
antiwar activists 35,000 protesters demonstrate
outside the Pentagon
• 1968 Protest outside Democratic National
Convention turns violent
• 1970 National Guard kills four protesters at Kent
State University
Kent State 4 Dead in Ohio
The Nixon Years
• Secret negotiations began in the spring of
1968 to end the war in Paris
– Nixon starts negotiations as he is running for
President.
• Word leaks out and it makes Johnson’s job harder
• Nixon approved secret bombing Laos and
Cambodia as he was negotiating peace with
Vietnam.
Compare the two pictures
discuss the difference Veterans felt when returning home
WWII Veterans Returning Home
Vietnam Veterans Returning
Home
My Lai Massacre
• Charlie Company received word that VC guerrillas
had taken control of Son My.
• They were sent to the village on a search-and-destroy
mission.
• “all who were found in Son My could be considered
VC or active VC sympathizers” and could be killed.
– They rounded up and murdered hundreds of
civilians–mostly women, children and old men–in
an extremely brutal fashion, including rape and
torture.
Vietnamization
• Nixon’s push to end the war was called
Vietnamization:
– Gradually let South Vietnamese take control over
the war effort and America’s role fades into the
background.
– March 29, 1973, last troops and Embassy workers
leave Vietnam.
• The war changed America in numerous ways
• South Vietnam falls to communism.