Chapter 22:
The Vietnam War Years
Section 1:
Moving Toward Conflict
 California
Academic Standards:
11.9.3
 11.9 Students analyze U.S. foreign
policy since World War II.
 .3 Trace the origins and geopolitical
consequences (foreign and
domestic) of the Cold War and
containment policy, including the
following:
The Vietnam War
 Objectives:
 Following
lecture and reading of this
section, students will be able to:
 Summarize Vietnam’s history as a
French colony and its struggle for
independence
 Examine how the U.S. became involved
in the Vietnam conflict
 Describe the expansion of U.S. military
involvement under President Johnson
Overview:
 Tell
me and the class about a time
when you tried to solve a problem,
but instead of getting better, the
problem got worse
 America slowly involved itself in the
war in Vietnam as it tried to contain
spread of communism
The
Roots of American
Involvement
 Involvement
began in 1950, during
French Indochina War.
 France ruled Indochina (Vietnam,
Laos, and Cambodia) from the late
1800s until World War II.
 The French took a large amount of rice
and rubber, and took over Vietnamese
peasant’s farms
 Also the French, in response to
opposition by the peasants, took away
free speech and assembly rights as well
 Ho
Chi Minh, leader of the
Indochinese Communist Party founded
in 1930, organized uprisings by
peasants, even after he fled in 1930 he
organized uprisings in exile from the
Soviet Union and later on China.
 In 1941, a year after the Japanese took
control of Vietnam, the Vietminh
formed (organization of communists
and nationalists that wanted
Vietnamese independence, Ho Chi
Minh returned.
 In
1945 declared Vietnam independent,
after Japan was defeated in WWII.
 France moved back into Vietnam in 1946
to regain its colony, but was eventually
driven out by the Vietminh
 Truman and Eisenhower support France’s
war against Vietnam, because Vietnam was
Communist

U.S. provided economic and military support to
France to keep France as an ally against the
Soviet Union in Europe and to keep
communism from spreading to another Asian
country, as per the domino theory.
 The
Geneva Accords of 1954
temporarily divide Vietnam (along
the 17th parallel) into North
Vietnam and South Vietnam until
an election to unify the country
could be held in 1956.
The
 The
United States Steps In
U.S. continued to supply
economic and military aid to South
Vietnam’s non-communist regime
 South
Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh
Diem canceled the unifying elections
because Ho Chi Minh because of his
popularity was sure to win
 Ho Chi Minh was popular because he
was a national hero for his years of
fighting the Japanese and French and
had broken up large estates in the
north and distributed land to peasants.
 Eisenhower promised U.S. support if
Diem would house a reform
government in South Vietnam.
 Corruption
and repressive policies are a
constant Diem’s regime though.
 By 1957 the Vietcong [National
Liberation Front (NLF)], a Communist
group, began attacking Diem’s
government.
 JFK initially strongly supported Diem
providing 16,000 military personnel by
the end of 1963
 In 1963, JFK backed plans to
overthrow Diem, who also ends up
assassinated after he was overthrown
President
Johnson
expands the conflict
 Diem’s
successors fail to stop the
Vietcong’s influence in South Vietnam
bringing more chaos to the region and
the Vietcong influence began to grow
 The
Tonkin Gulf Resolution of 1964
granted president Johnson broad military
powers in Vietnam.
 In February 1965, President Johnson
escalateed U.S. involvement in Vietnam
with Operation Rolling Thunder
Close
 After
France’s withdrawal from
Vietnam, the country was
temporarily divided into the
Communist controlled North and
the Nationalist controlled South.
 U.S. military involvement escalated
in 1965, when President Johnson
unleashed the first sustained
bombing of North Vietnam.