Vietnam
Descent Into the Longest War
Outline
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History of Vietnam
Beginning of U.S. Involvement
The Sides Are Drawn
Fighting the War
Disadvantages For the American soldier
A Little History
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Who ruled Vietnam until WWII?
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The French
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Why?
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Colonialism: Rice, Rubber, Tin, Tungsten, Teak
You Say You Want a Revolution
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Who took over Vietnam during WWII?
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The Japanese. During this period, a group of
Vietnamese got together to fight the
Japanese; to kick out this foreign power, and
let Vietnamese rule Vietnam.
What was this group called?
The Vietminh
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Uncle Ho
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5. Who was its
leader?
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Ho Chi Minh
We’re glad he’s on our side!
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It’s interesting to note that the U.S. worked with Ho to fight the
Japanese. And most who worked with him commented on what
an exceptional leader he was - hard working, dedicated,
absolutely devoted to the notion that Vietnam should not be
dominated by an outside force.
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He was not someone that
you wanted as an enemy.
Free at last?
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So after the war, the Japanese are
defeated, and Ho Chi Minh is seemingly
going to get his wish.
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Then what happens?
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The French move back in to reclaim
“their” territory.
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What do the Vietminh do?
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Start fighting the French. More and
more people join them. At this point, Ho
believed that the U.S. would actually
help him.
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Why?
When in the course of human events
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Because the U.S. had a tradition
of revolutionary activity. They
were colonized and dominated
by the British, and fought a war
for self-determination (the right
to rule themselves). He had
studied history, and had been
deeply influenced by the
Declaration of Independence.
So he naively assumed that the
U.S. would support the Vietminh
struggle for independence.
“Can you help out, Harry?”
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He sent a letter to
Truman requesting
aid. Pretty ironic,
huh?
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So, why did the U.S.
decide to aid the
French instead?
Because he’s a commie rat!
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France was a strong ally
Raw materials. The U.S. decided that if the
French were in control, it would make sure
that the U.S. had access to the raw materials
(rubber, tin, manganese, etc.)
Ho Chi Minh was a communist (not a puppet
of the Soviet Union, not trying to take over
S.E. Asia. But he was a communist, and in our
Cold War thinking, that was unacceptable.)
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So we came in on the side of the
French: We recognized the puppet govt
they set up, and we began to fund the
French war against the Vietminh. By
1954, we had spent 2 billion in Vietnam,
78% of the cost of the French war.
Butt Whipping
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10. But what happened?
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The French got their butts kicked.
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11. Why?
“…People got to be free…”
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Because people fighting for their
freedom usually fight harder than those
who are acting to deny freedom. The
French were imperialists who were
fighting for dominance and economic
gain. The Vietminh were fighting to end
decades of foreign domination.
Can you spell “Dienbienphu”?
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When did the French finally give up and go
home?
After a particularly nasty defeat in 1954 at
Dienbienphu. They set up an outpost in a
wide valley and fortified it with 13,000 troops,
hoping to provoke the Vietminh into open
battle. The Vietminh responded by amassing
49,000 troops around the valley.
Within two months it was all over. Sacre Bleu!
Geneva Conference
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What happened next?
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There was a peace conference in Geneva,
Switzerland: France, U.S., Russia, Britain,
China, Laos and both Vietnamese govts - that
of Bao Dai, the French puppet, and that of Ho
Chi Minh. Both claimed to represent the
Vietnamese people
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Something very significant happened here.
What was it?
Divided We Fall
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*Vietnam was
divided in two.
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Did you know that
Vietnam was one
country until 1954?
Winner Take All
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It was, and here was the deal: these
countries agreed that the nation would
be split in two, with Bao Dai in power in
the South, and Ho in the North. There
would be elections in 1956 between
these two. The winner would be
President of all Vietnam; the country
would be re-united.
In This Corner
Bao Dai
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Ngo Dinh Diem
Ngo Dinh Diem, prime minister of South Vietnam,
was able to do away with the monarchy. He held
an election in which he mysteriously received
99% of the vote. The Emperor Bao Dai was
stripped of all power.
Ngo Against Ho
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So 1956 rolls around. The election is supposed to
take place that will determine who will rule a
reunited Vietnam. The election will pit Ngo Dinh
Diem against Ho Chi Minh.
VS
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So what happened?
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The election never took place.
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Why?
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*Because Ho Chi Minh would have won! He
was very popular. He had led the Vietnamese
people against imperialist domination.
Not A Nice Guy
Ngo Dinh Diem, the U.S. choice to
replace Bao Dai in the South was very
unpopular.
***He was a Catholic in a nation of
Buddhists.
***He was corrupt.
***He was dictatorial.
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Election? What Election?
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He would have lost, and so when Ho Chi
Minh called for elections in ‘56, Diem
refused and the U.S. backed him up.
The country remained split, and the war
was on. Had the Geneva accords been
respected, 20 years, billions of dollars,
and over two million lives wouldn’t have
been spent.
Who’s Fighting Who?
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With the election called off, and Vietnam
remaining divided in two, Ho Chi Minh led
his followers back to war – this time to get
rid of Diem and reunite the country.
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So who was on each side of the conflict?
Who was fighting who?
In This Corner
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North Vietnamese
Army (NVA)
(Led by Ho)
&
VS
Viet Cong
(National Liberation
Front – NLF)
South Vietnamese
Army (ARVN)
(Led by Diem)
&
The United States
Uh…..Say That Again
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The North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong
wanted to re-unify the country under Ho Chi
Minh.
 They fought against…..
South Vietnamese who we’re loyal to Diem,
and the U.S., both of whom wanted
Vietnam to remain divided and Ho to stay in
the North.
Who Are Those Guys?
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So who were the Viet Cong?
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South Vietnamese
Peasants!
The VC were South
Vietnamese peasants who
didn’t like Diem and wanted
the country reunited under
Ho Chi Minh. They also the
United States gone.
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But I Thought…..
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How does this contradict what most people
think about the Vietnam War?
Well, what is the standard line about why
we fought the war?
Communist North Vietnam was trying to
take over democratic South Vietnam, and
we came in to save the day for freedom
and democracy.
But……….
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But how can that be true if the Viet Cong
were from the south?
It means that many people in South
Vietnam sided with North Vietnam in the
struggle to kick out Diem (and those who
would follow him), get rid of the U.S., and
make Vietnam one country again.
So, really, what kind of war was Vietnam?
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It was not really a war between two
countries, one communist and one
democratic, but more accurately, was a
civil war between the followers of Ho Chi
Minh - who lived in both the north and the
south - and Ho’s opponents, who lived in
the south and didn’t want to see
communism in the whole country.
Let me pop the question…..
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So I’m forced to ask you:
If the Viet Cong were from the south.
If South Vietnam was not democratic in any
way, run by a string of unpopular dictators
propped up by the U.S.
And if, as the CIA’s own reports claimed,
that Ho Chi Minh would have been elected
by the Vietnamese with 70% of the vote.
What
Were
We Thinking?!
Let Them Eat Cake
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After ‘56 when Ho leads the NLF against
Diem, we give Diem a massive amount
of aid which, by the way, he squanders.
He and his buds live in palaces while
most of the population lives in grass
huts.
No, Let Them Eat Lead
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*We send “advisors”
so that by 1963 there
are 16,700 advisors.
I’m not sure what the
exact definition of
advisors is, but most
of them carried
guns.
“Put Silver Wings Upon My Chest”
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Even though we
supposedly only had
advisors in ‘63, I have
a friend who was a
Green Beret on patrol
along the Cambodian
border in ‘63, calling
in airstrikes against
anything that moved.
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So by 1963, we had:
many advisors,
some soldiers out in the field,
and limited bombing (which started as
early as 1961)
a major campaign to take villagers out
of their villages.
To Be Or Not To Be…
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was called
the “Strategic
Hamlet”
program. It
lasts for quite
awhile.
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Why do you think that we would want to take
people out of their villages and move them to new
ones, surrounded by barbed wire (sort of like
concentration camps)?
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To isolate them from the Vietcong. Since the VC
has much of its support in the villages, we wanted
to do away with the villages.
So you take them out of this…
Or this…
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And move them into an ugly village with
barbed wire and gun towers, far from their
rice paddies and much further than they
wanted to be from ancestral burial grounds.
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We turned many villagers who just wanted
to be left alone into VC recruits.
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In the cities, Diem isn’t
doing much better. His
repression of political
opponents and Buddhists
caused some monks to
burn themselves in
protest. This produced
some of the most
dramatic photos of the
war.
You Reap What You Sow
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By this time, late 1963, Diem is so
unpopular that the CIA secretly encourages
a coup, and he is assassinated by South
Vietnamese military guys (taken out of town
and shot in the head).
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Three weeks later…..
Hey, Hey, LBJ…..
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And so
Lyndon
Baines
Johnson is
sworn in as
president.
Saying Good-bye
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And a
shocked
nation
mourns.
LBJ: A tough talkin’
Texan who comes
into office boasting
that “No raggedyass little 4th rate
country like
Vietnam is going to
push around the
United States.”
I Just Want To Kick Some Ass!
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The campaign against Vietnam is
progressing, but in 1964, Johnson really
wants to turn up the heat - to escalate the
war. He wants something to happen that
will get the American people firmly behind
the war effort, and that will get Congress to
give him the green light for escalation.
How Could You?
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And that brings us to
what?
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The Gulf of Tonkin
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What happened?
The N. Vietnamese
supposedly launched an
“unprovoked” attack on the
U.S.S. Maddox.
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Johnson went on television to tell the
American people about this outrageous
action. Congress immediately passed the
 Gulf
of Tonkin Resolution
Green Light!
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…authorizing Johnson to “take all necessary
measures to repel any armed attack against the
forces of the United States and to prevent further
aggression”.
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This is what Johnson wanted. It was not a
declaration of war, but it was a blanket of approval
for anything that Johnson wanted to do.
Bomb, Bomb, Bomb,
Bomb Bomb the Nam
 Massive
bombing
of North
Vietnam
began.
Heroes or Villains?
Only two members of congress stood up to Johnson and
voted against the resolution:
Wayne Morse of
Ernest Gruening of
Oregon
Alaska
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AND