Vietnam War Historical Background
Other than the Civil War, the Vietnam War was the most divisive war in our nation’s history and
the first war in which the United States did not achieve its primary military objective. The
nature of the war was complex and its duration challenged the administrations of Dwight
Eisenhower (1953–1961), John Kennedy (1961–1963), Lyndon Johnson (1963–1969), and
Richard Nixon (1969–1974). On one level the Vietnam War was a manifestation of the Cold War
conflict between the forces of expansion and containment of Communism in Asia. According to
President Eisenhower’s “domino theory,” a communist victory in Vietnam would threaten and
ultimately undermine the ability of other nations (such as Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Indonesia,
Malaysia, and the Philippines) in Southeast Asia to resist Communism. On another level, the
Vietnam conflict was a civil war between two nationalistic factions, Communists in the northern
region and non-Communists in the southern region, for political control of the recently formed
nation of Vietnam, once known as French Indochina.
As the military involvement of the United States in this war escalated and more and more
Americans were killed and injured without any compensatory political or military success, the
American people became increasingly disillusioned with their government’s policies. Critics of
US policy, known as “doves,” demanded the withdrawal of American military forces from the
conflict, which they viewed as merely a civil war between the North Vietnamese and South
Vietnamese. Supporters of American involvement in the Vietnam conflict, known as “hawks,”
cited the threatening menace of Communism spreading into Southeast Asia.
As the American public became increasingly divided and polarized on the war, the
demonstrations organized by both sides (protestors and supporters) grew larger and more
militant. War protestors burned draft cards, took over buildings, shut down college campuses,
and conducted huge protest rallies in the nation’s capital and major cities. Moreover,
thousands of young men evaded the military draft by changing their identities, “going
underground,” or moving to Canada, which did not extradite “draft dodgers” back to the United
States.
President Nixon’s strategy, known as “Vietnamization,” focused on the withdrawal of American
troops from Vietnam and an increase in military assistance and training for South Vietnamese
troops. Nixon also ordered heavy bombing raids in North Vietnam and on the enemy’s supply
and transportation routes in Cambodia and Laos to pressure the North Vietnamese to negotiate
a cease-fire. These policies increased protests in the United States. Finally, in January 1973, the
United States, North Vietnam, and South Vietnam signed the Paris Peace Accords. The United
States agreed to withdraw soldiers from Vietnam, and the North Vietnamese agreed to release
all American prisoners of war. The bitter civil war continued between the North Vietnamese
and the South Vietnamese for two more years until the North Vietnamese forces defeated the
South Vietnamese in 1975, and Vietnam was re-united as a communist nation.
In the United States, the Vietnam War left deep wounds. More than 58,000 American troops
had been killed, more than 300,000 soldiers had been wounded, some Vietnam veterans
returned home with major physical ailments and deep psychological problems, and the
financial cost of the war exceeded $120 billion dollars, leaving a huge national debt and
spiraling inflation. Moreover, American society had become polarized (“hawks” vs. “doves”) in a
way that it had not been since the Civil War. Ironically, the American people faced the daunting
task of re-uniting a nation that had been torn apart by a long conflict in a distant land.
In an attempt to heal the nation, President Gerald Ford (1974–1977) issued a proclamation on
September 16, 1974, that offered amnesty with certain conditions (conditional clemency) to
Americans who had evaded the draft between 1964 and 1973.
To gain amnesty and avoid criminal penalties, the 210,000 young men who had refused to
appear before draft boards or had fled the United States had to reaffirm their allegiance to the
United States and serve two years working in a public service job. In January 1977, President
Jimmy Carter (1977–1981) granted unconditional pardons to most Vietnam-era draft evaders,
asserting that “reconciliation calls for an act of mercy to bind the nation’s wounds and to heal
the scars of divisiveness.” However, critics argued that pardons would encourage future
draftees to defy the law and would show disrespect for the men who had served honorably and
for those who had died in Vietnam.
The longer the Vietnam War lasted and its brutality and futility became more apparent,
discontent and division grew on the American home front. While supporters of the war
continued to believe in the objectives of halting the spread of Communism into Southeast Asia
and defending Vietnam against invasion and insurgency, an increasing number of Americans
protested mounting casualties and costs as well as interference in a civil war that did not
threaten the security of the United States.
Strong opposition developed among college students who would become eligible for the draft
after graduation. Throughout 1967 and 1968 antiwar demonstrations and peace marches
occurred on college campuses and in major cities across the nation. During these rallies college
students often occupied campus buildings and chanted such defiant slogans as, “Hey, hey, LBJ,
how many kids did you kill today?” When President Nixon ordered bombing raids in Cambodia
to destroy Communist cells and North Vietnamese sanctuaries in April 1970, the antiwar
movement intensified to a critical level. On May 4, four college students were killed by
members of the National Guard during an antiwar demonstration on the campus of Kent State
University in Ohio. Ten days later, two students were killed by police at Jackson State University
in Mississippi during an anti-war demonstration.
Journalists who had visited Vietnam added their voices to the chorus of protest in reports that
criticized American involvement in the war. These “stories from the front” about bombing raids
and land mines that wounded and killed civilians and the use of destructive new weapons, like
napalm and the Agent Orange herbicide, which burned villages and defoliated jungles, added to
the opposition, as did the death of soldiers and the physical and mental problems (depression,
drug use, and chemical exposure) experienced by some of the men who came home. In 1970,
the nation was shocked when it learned of the atrocities that had occurred in 1968 around the
village of My Lai when a platoon of American soldiers massacred more than five hundred
Vietnamese civilian men, women, and children. In 1971, the New York Times published the
Pentagon Papers, a classified government history of military plans and operations of the
Vietnam War, which revealed the deceptions, inaccuracies, mistakes, and untruths of
policymakers. The New York Times later concluded (June 23, 1996) that President Johnson and
his administration “systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress.”
By 1972, public opinion polls indicated that two-thirds of the American people wanted the
United States to withdraw its troops and end its participation in Vietnam.
Amid these conditions and events and the growing combat casualties and economic costs
(ultimately over 58,000 American lives and $120 billion dollars), many Americans posed the
question: “To what extent was the United States’ involvement in Vietnam a moral or immoral
war?”