Vietnam
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Nixon Reelection in 1972
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Nixon campaigned on his Vietnamization policy, intense air responses against the North
Vietnamese, and negotiations.
Draft Peace treaty had been completed.
Democratic Senator George McGovern campaigned on immediately ending the war and bringing all troops home.
The last combat troop had already left Vietnam in
November with little media notice.
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Nixon won the largest victory of any President in
American history up to Ronald Reagan’s defeat of Walter
Mondale in 1984.
McGovern only won one state —
Massachusetts
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Nixon Wrote to the President of South
Vietnam, Nguyen Van Thieu
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With a new confidence from a crushing election victory, Nixon wrote
Thieu.
He assured him that the U.S. would “take swift and severe
retaliatory action” if the North Vietnamese broke the proposed treaty.
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Congressional Backlash
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Despite Nixon’s landslide victory, Thieu has doubts that the U.S. will defend
South Vietnam in the future.
He sees a very hostile
Congress, an anti-war (at times anti-American war effort) American media, and student anti-war sentiment.
Ted Kennedy & John Kerry
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Nixon was Ready to Sign
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Nixon looked to sign the peace treaty and viewed it as a victory over the
North Vietnamese.
The North Vietnamese objective was the conquest of South Vietnam and they had failed.
The American war objective was to stop a North Vietnamese conquest and the U.S. had succeeded.
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National Security
Advisor, Henry
Kissinger went to
Paris to meet the
North Vietnamese negotiator, Le Duc
Tho.
Le Duc Tho refused to negotiate and finish the Treaty.
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He tells the North
Vietnamese that the
U.S. will launch a maximum bombing of Hanoi and
Haiphong harbor if they do not return to the negotiating table within 72 hours.
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Hanoi did not respond.
Most intense bombing of the war took place.
Wave after wave of
B-52s pounded military targets.
The U.S. dropped over 100,000 bombs in only 11 days.
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The Washington Post The New York Times
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The Post described the bombing as the
“most savage and senseless act of war ever visited over a scant 10 days, by one sovereign people over another.
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The NY Times reported that the bombing was indiscriminate and that its purpose was to cause heavy civilian casualties that would only stiffen Hanoi’s resolve to fight on. The bombing would cause the
U.S. shame in the eyes of the world.
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No civilians were targeted.
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Unlike WWII, plans were taken to avoid civilians.
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754 B-52 sorties and
640 fighter bombers dropped over 20,000 tons (40 million pounds) were dropped from
December 18 to
December 29, with a
36 hour Christmas break.
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The bombing destroyed the North Vietnamese war making potential and the bombs were dropped near the North
Vietnamese leaders offices for the first time.
The North Vietnamese leadership caved and agreed to continue the
Treaty negotiations by
January 8, 1973.
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Prisoner of War (POW)
Captain Jeremiah
Denton reported that when they heard the bombing they knew the war was almost over.
They reported that the
North Vietnamese knew the war was over and
“I received formal acknowledgement from them that they knew they had lost the war.”
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Because of
Linebacker II, the
North Vietnamese leadership had lost confidence that they could continue and were willing to end the war on the
American terms.
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The Treaty was signed January 27, 1973.
The U.S. would leave Vietnam in 60 days.
North Vietnamese would release all American
P.O.W.s
North Vietnamese could leave 150,000 troops in a corner of South Vietnam.
Any offensive activity would be a violation of the
Treaty and would meet another massive U.S. air attack.
The government of South Vietnam and the
(nonexistent) Viet Cong would make plans for reconciliation.
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Republic of Vietnam
South Vietnam would remain an independent nation that had withstood North
Vietnamese attacks and all that North
Vietnam could throw at it.
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FREE & INDEPENDENT
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North Vietnam and the U.S. agreed that South
Vietnam’s right to self determination:
◦ “was sacred, inalienable, and respected by
all nations.”
The South Vietnamese shall decide for themselves the future of South Vietnam through genuinely free and democratic elections.
Foreign countries shall not impose any political tendency of personality on South Vietnam.
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The North Vietnam learned to respect
Nixon’s resolve.
Also, Communist China had moved away from total support of North Vietnam.
The Communist Chinese became very captivated with Nixon and wanted good relations with the U.S. especially in light of their deteriorating relations with the Soviets.
The U.S. even offered North Vietnam aid to rebuild. They rejected it.
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The Nixon administration was elated that they had forced the North
Vietnamese to sign the treaty.
He told everyone to not use the word “Victory” until the P.O.W.s returned.
He did not want to provoke the chastised North
Vietnamese.
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South Vietnam had peace for the first time in a generation.
Kissinger and Le Duc Tho both won the Nobel Peace
Prize; though, the North
Vietnamese refused the prize, because the Accords had publicly demonstrated their failure to meet their war objectives.
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In February 1973, 591
U.S. P.O.W.s came home.
To the media’s dismay, all thanked Richard Nixon.
The P.O.W.s had been thoroughly tortured and abused, but still strongly supported the American war objectives.
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Real Admiral Jim Stockdale had even disfigured himself, so the North Vietnamese could not use him for propaganda.
The P.O.W.s would rather endure torture when
American peace activists came to proclaim the justice of the North Vietnamese causes.
Captain (later Senator) John
McCain refused to defame the war effort even when threatened with torture and offered freedom because his father was an American Navy
Admiral.
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3 million Americans served in the U.S. military in Vietnam over 11 years.
(In the 2000 census, over 12 million claimed to have served in Vietnam)
47,209 American troops and pilots died.
There were also 11,000 American noncombat deaths.
40,484 American military volunteers were killed; (70%)
17,725 American draftees were killed. (30%)
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75% 0f the men who served in Vietnam were volunteers.
25% (648,500) of the men who served in Vietnam were drafted.
◦ (Over 2/3 the U.S. armed forces in World War II were draftees, only 33% were volunteers.)
82.73% of the men who actually served in Vietnam were white;
10.6% (275,000) were black;
5.67% (170,000) were Hispanic
1% belonged to other races.
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76% of the men who serves in Vietnam were from lower middle/working class backgrounds.
75% had family incomes above the poverty level;
50% were from middle income backgrounds.
Some 23% of Vietnam servicemen had fathers in professional, managerial or technical fields.
79% of the men who served in Vietnam had a high school education or better when they entered the military service.
(63% of Korean War vets and only 45% of WWII vets had completed high school upon separation.)
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South Vietnam and Cambodia were free independent (for the time being).
Thailand and the rest of Southeast Asia were free of a Communist threat and later became very prosperous.
The “Dominos” had not fallen.
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After the Paris Peace Accords and the American promise to defend South Vietnam from any North
Vietnam attacks:
Large antiwar sentiment in Congress led to the
(Senator Clifford P.) Case (R-NJ)-(Senator Frank)
Church (D-ID) Amendment to the Defense
Appropriations bill.
It read that there would be no more American military involvement in Southeast Asia effective
August 15, 1973.
◦ It had failed to pass in August 1972 before the election, but passed on January 26, 1973, one day before the North
Vietnamese signed the Paris Peace Accords.
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The Congress in effect had pulled the U.S. out of the war, one day before the North
Vietnamese had submitted to the
Americans’ terms.
The amendment passed the House 278-124 in the
House and 64-26 in the Senate.
The Congress could overturn any Nixon veto.
Even though all combat forces were out of
Vietnam, the Amendment sent a clear signal to
North Vietnam that the U.S. would no longer defend South Vietnam and Cambodia with
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The United States removed the mines from the Haiphong harbor that were blocking the North
Vietnamese ports.
North Vietnam then received a massive influx of new Soviet arms in violation of the Accords.
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November 7, 1973—Congress passed the War
Powers Act that stated that the President must go to Congress within 90 days that he commits the
United States to any military action abroad.
◦ All U.S. Presidents since have argued that the Act was unconstitutional and violated the separation of powers outlined in the Constitution .
All Presidents, however, have gone to Congress to commit troops, rather than cause a Constitutional crisis during a time of military necessity and to not disturb bipartisan support.
◦ The first President to ignore the War Powers Act was Barack Obama when he committed U.S. airpower to the overthrow of Muammar
Qaddafi in Libya in 2011
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As a result of the Watergate
Scandal, Richard Nixon resigned the Presidency on August 9,
1974.
The North Vietnamese
Politburo met in October 1974 and agreed to invade South
Vietnam in 1975.
They believed Congress would never let the new American
President, Gerald Ford to respond and defend South
Vietnam with American airpower.
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The South Vietnamese had been receiving minimal military aid since the Accords.
According to the Accords, they were allowed to receive replacement pieces, guns, ammo, and tanks, etc. at a one to one ratio.
◦ e.g. One broken or disabled tank could be replaced with one new tank.
Americans replaced South Vietnamese supplies at a less than 1:1 ratio.
Soviets and Communist Chinese replaces at a 4 to
5:1 ration in violation of the Accords.
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VETO PROOF
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Due to the Watergate scandal the elections of
1974 saw a landslide victory for the
Democrats in Congress.
The majority in Congress were strongly against any more involvement in Southeast
Asia, despite earlier American guarantees.
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The Veto proof Congress tried to run foreign policy a realm usually and
Constitutionally the sphere of power of the Executive Branch
In the House:
◦ 291 Democrats and 144 Republicans
In the Senate:
◦ 61 Democrats and 39 Republicans
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On December 1974, the
North Vietnamese Army made a minor incursion into the South at Phouc
Long to see whether the
U.S. would honor their commitment to South
Vietnam.
They only received strong rebukes from
President Ford.
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North Vietnamese
Politburo ordered a massive offensive to conquer South
Vietnam.
They plan for a two year war of conquest.
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94 th Congress took power in January 1975.
They worked to unravel the Paris Peace
Accords and stop all aid to South Vietnam and to Cambodia.
The North Vietnamese were still being strongly supplied by the Soviets.
The Communist Chinese were heavily supplying the Communist Khmer Rouge in
Cambodia.
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North Vietnam had the 5 th largest army in the world and a generous Soviet supplier.
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On January 14, 1975, the
Secretary of Defense,
James Schlesinger testified that Congress was preventing the
United States from fulfilling its promises to
President Thieu and the
South Vietnamese people for agreeing to sign the
Peace Accords.
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ON JANUARY 21, 1975
PRESIDENT FORD TOLD A
PRESS CONFERENCE
THAT THE U.S. IS
UNWILLING TO RE-ENTER
THE WAR.
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April 4, 1975— General Fred C.
Weyland, the US Army Chief of Staff sent a classified memorandum to
President Ford. He reported that the Government of South Vietnam and their army were both in very good shape during the summer 1974. The U.S. had let the situation deteriorate.
◦ The South Vietnamese were now begging to help to survive.
The present levels of American support would guarantee and Communist victory.
The South Vietnamese felt abandoned and betrayed.
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Ford went to a Joint
Session of Congress on April 10, 1975 to plead for an aid package for the
South Vietnamese and the Cambodians.
The speech was live on T.V. and radio
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Chances of enduring peace after the Paris Peace Accords rested on two publicly stated premises:
◦ If necessary the U.S. would help sustain the terms of the
Accords.
◦ The U.S. would provide adequate economic and military aid to South Vietnam.
◦ Ford said that time was quickly running out.
The President asked for $722 million in economic aid and
$250 million in economic and humanitarian aid.
Also, the Cambodians had fought hard and Ford had asked for aid but was denied.
◦ Now it was too late.
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In Cambodia, the situation is tragic… And, yet for the past three months, the beleaguered people of Phom Phen have fought on, hoping against hope that the United States would not desert them, but instead provide the arms and ammunition they so badly needed. . . In January,
I requested food and ammunition for the brave
Cambodians, and I regret to say that as if this evening, it may be too late.
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Let no potential adversary believe that our difficulties or our debates mean a slackening of our national will. We will stand by our friends, we will honor commitments, and we will uphold our country’s principals.
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In Cambodia, Premier
Long Boret, “We have no more material means.
We feel completely abandoned.
They U.S. offered evacuation and refuge to Cambodian officials.
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Prince Sirik Matak responded to the American ambassador:
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Dear Excellency and Friend: I thank you very sincerely for your letter and for your offer to transport me towards freedom. I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion. As for you and in particular for your great country, I never believed for a moment, that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty.
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You have refused us you protection and we can do nothing about it. You leave us and it is my wish that you and your country will find happiness under the sky. But mark it well that, if I die here on the spot and in my country that
I love, it is too bad because we all born and must die one day. I have only committed the mistake of believing in you, the Americans.
Please except, Excellency, my dear friend my faithful and friendly sentiments.
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April 17, 1975— The
Communist Khmer
Rouge take the capital,
Phnom Penh, and government forces surrender.
Prince Sirik Matak was executed four days later and the genocide of over 2 million
Cambodians begins
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Once the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh they ordered all foreigners out of the country and all
Cambodians out of all
Cambodian cities.
They murdered people in the middle of medical operations because they could not leave, or could not rise out of bed fast enough.
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On one day, 3 million people were herded into the countryside. No complaining, no talking under the penalty of death. The
Khmer Rouge’s leader Pol Pot wanted to create a Communist utopia of agrarian workers.
Influenced by 18 th century French philosopher, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Po Pot rejected modern society and all institutions except government.
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They separated married couples.
Children were taken from their parents.
Children were compelled to watch their parents tortured and executed.
Many were beheaded, but the chief method of execution was crushing skulls with hammers.
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To destroy the institution of the family, all family names were changed and birth names forbidden.
Cambodians would be unable to locate relatives with new unknown names.
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Extermination
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Almost all whom had serves in the previous government were tortured and then executed, as were their spouses.
Designation S-21 became more feared than death.
S-21 was the Khmer
Rogue’s torture chamber.
Torture & Intimidation
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All street signs were white-washed to break-up old communities.
All money was declared illegal.
Rice was the only currency.
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All signs of the modern world were destroyed.
People were executed if they possessed a watch or a radio.
They were executed for dozing off at work, or flirting with another.
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Atheism was the law.
Practicing Buddhism or Catholicism or any other religion was punishable by death.
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All books written before April 17, 1975
(the day Phom Phen surrendered) were burned.
2 million Cambodians were slaughtered—
1/3 the country’s population
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Senator and 1972
Presidential candidate,
George McGovern stated: Cambodians would be better off if we stopped all aid to them and let them work things out in their own
way.
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Representative and future Connecticut
Senator said: The greatest gift our country can give to the Cambodian people is not guns, but peace and the best way to accomplish that goal in by ending military aid now.
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Senator Mike Mansfield,
North Dakota
Senate majority leader, Mike
Mansfield: The cutoff of aid is in the best interest of
Cambodians.
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Meanwhile, regarding
South Vietnam,
President Ford explained to the annual
Convention of the
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American Society of
Newspaper Editors on
April 19, 1975:
Well it is my best judgment, based on experts within the administration, both economic and military, that if we had made available for the next three years reasonable sums of military aid and economic assistance, the South
Vietnamese would have been viable.
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That it could have net any military challenges. This is another of the tragedies. For just a relatively small additional commitment in economic and military aid, relatively small compared to the 150 billion that we spent, that at the last minute of the last quarter (football analogy) we don’t make that special effort, and now we are faced with this human tragedy. It just makes me sick every dayI hear about it, read about it, and see it.
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North Vietnam is acting in massive violation of the military provisions of the 1973 truce, but President Thieu has just as clearly violated the political provisions of that accord— the provisions for establishing a coalition national Council
[the Viet Cong] to create a new political constitution for
South Vietnam. Even now spokesmen for North Vietnam and its ally in the south, the Provincial Revolutionary
Government [the Viet Cong] are insisting that their immediate goal is to implement these provisions and thereby avoid one final battle in the streets of Saigon.
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On April 21 during a 90 minute TV explanation, before the CIA helps him escape to the Republic of China
(Taiwan), Thieu read from the letter sent by Richard Nixon in 1972 pledging "severe retaliatory action" if South
Vietnam was threatened. Thieu denounced the Paris Peace
Accords, Henry Kissinger and the U.S.
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President Thieu
"The United
States has not respected its promises. It is inhumane. It is untrustworthy. It is irresponsible
."
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As the North Vietnamese approached Saigon, the U.S. made secret plans to evacuate.
Pentagon made contingency plans to evacuate if the North
Vietnamese captured the airport.
The warning would be a radio announcement that it’s 115 o and rising. They would then play Bing Crosby’s White
Christmas at 15 minute intervals.
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Helicopters evacuated
American personal to the USS Blue Ridge off the coast of the South
China Sea.
Most of the South
Vietnamese who had worked with the
Americans were left to fend for themselves.
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On April 30, 1975, the last ten U.S.
Marines surrender.
The North
Vietnamese take the presidential palace.
The Vietnam War
Memorial is smashed.
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When reporting on the North Vietnamese conquest of Saigon and that the memorial had been smashed, Jack
Perkins of NBC called it an excess of what money and bad taste could accomplish. I don’t know if you call it the fall of
Saigon or the liberation of Saigon.
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Over 2 million North
Vietnamese had earlier escaped the Communist government by moving south to South Vietnam.
Now, hundreds of thousands of South
Vietnamese try to escape the Communists on rickety boats out into the middle of the sea.
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CBS aired: Vietnam: A War That Is Finished tracing the war back to the Truman Administration in the 1940s.
Oddly, it never mentions any part of the John
Kennedy years of the early 1960s, when over 16,000 advisors are sent over to Vietnam. It also includes no interviews or clips of the tortured P.O.W.s released in 1973. However, they ran videos provided by the North Vietnamese showing that the
Communists treated the P.O.W.s well.
For CBS, the American heroes of the war are the news reporters who covered it; not the soldiers.
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CBS Creates an Imaginary Narrative
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The CBS documentary never mentioned that
South Vietnam had never invaded North
Vietnam and that North Vietnam had invaded
South Vietnam on numerous occasions.
CBS showed 2 amputees that came from mistaken firing of the South Vietnamese. Of the 80,000 amputees, nothing was mentioned that most had come from North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fire.
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The North Vietnamese renamed Saigon, Ho
Chi Minh City.
Similar to Cambodia, one million people are forced out of the city into the countryside.
They are sent to “Reeduction Camps” to learn about the new Communists system.
Those who objected were tortured or executed.
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Hundreds of Thousands were sentenced to hard slave labor and torture.
Many were placed into soldiery confinement in small holes.
Many were then executed.
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They outlawed typewriters.
People had to submit a list of all the books they owned for approval.
People were ordered to report all conversations deemed contrary to the
“Revolution”.
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CONGRESS VOTES TO CONTINUE EVACUATING
SOUTH VIETNAMESE WHO HAD WORKED FOR AND
HELPED THE UNITED STATES DURING THE WAR.
THE HOUSE REJECTS IT:
162 YEAH 246 NAY
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The conqueror of Saigon, Colonel Bui Tin, later discussed how, “Everyday, out leadership would listen to world news over the radio to follow the growth of the American anti-war movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane
Fonda and former Attorney General Ramsey
Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses
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Bui Tin continues:
We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red
Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war and that she would struggle along with us.
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When asked what would have happened if had not resigned, he said : I would have bombed the Blazes out of
Hanoi and Haiphong harbor. Since Congress hadn’t appropriated any funds, I probably would have been impeached for giving the military such an order, but so what? I would have saved thousands, no, let me correct that; millions of Southeast Asian lives.
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When Nixon stepped down because of
Watergate we knew we would win. Phan Van
Dong (Prime Minister of North Vietnam) said of President Ford that “ he’s the weakest president in U.S. history, The people didn’t elect him. Even if you give him candy, he doesn’t dare to intervene in
Vietnam again ,”
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PEACE
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Colby, William E. and James McCargar. Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of America’s Sixteen-Year
Involvement in Vietnam. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1989.
Cunningham, Mark E. and Lawrence J. Zwier. The Aftermath of French Defeat in Vietnam (Aftermath of
History). Breckenridge, CO: Twentyfirst Century Books, 2009.
Gaddis, John Lewis. The Cold War: A New History. New York. Penguin Books, 2005.
Herschenson, Bruce. An American Amnesia: How the U.S. Congress Forced the Surrenders of South
Vietnam and Cambodia. New York: Beaufort Books, 2010.
Jennings, Philip. The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War. Washington, DC: Regency Books, 2010.
Kolko, Gabriel. Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States and the Modern Historical Experience.
New York: The New Press, 1994.
Langguth, A.J. Our Vietnam: The War 1954-1975. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000.
Leamer, Lance. The Kennedy Men, 1901-1963 Laws of the Father. New York: Harper Collins Publishers,
Inc., 2001.
Moyar, Mark. Triumph Forsaken. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Veith, George J. Black April: The Fall of South Vietnam, 1973-75. New York: Encounter Books, 2012.
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