The Vietnam War
1945 - 1975
The Vietnam War - A Background
Ho Chi Minh
Nationalist who created the Viet Minh to fight the
French colonists and then the Japanese.
1945 Ho Chi Minh declares Independence for Vietnam
fails to receive United States support for Independence
1) Ho Chi Minh was a communist
(Why?)
2) The alliance between the Soviets and the United States had
broken down into a “Red Scare”
Truman sees a need to fend off the “Red Tide” of communism
- Needed French support of NATO in Europe
1950 Truman decides to support the French against the communists
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A War for National Liberation from French
Rule
Empowered in part from Vietminh role in
fighting the Japanese
Expectations from the Atlantic Charter
War of the “elephant and the grasshopper”
French jaunissement (yellowing)
demonstrates a desire to leave Vietnam
Very unpopular in France
Defeat at Dienbienphu seals the French fate
I. First Indochina War, 19451954
French and the Vietminh
Divides Vietnam into Two-halves along the
17th parallel
 Elections were to be held in 1956 to unite
the country. They never were, Why?
 What roles did countries other than France
and the Vietminh play at the conference?
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Prime Minister Diem rejected the Accord and predicted
“another more deadly war” to which he would be correct.
1954 Geneva Accords
Diem’s Presidency, 1955-1963
•Create support for Diem’s government (Lansdale)
•Remove rural support away from the Vietcong
(Strategic Hamlets)
•Build and train a strong South Vietnamese Army (ARVN)
II. The Rise and Fall of
Prevent the “Domino Theory” from taking place in South East Asia
America’s Mandarin
Diem with Eisenhower
The infamous failure of
Strategic Hamlets
Why did they fail?
Why was Diem and South Vietnam
Important to America?
Diem has got to go!
2 October -NSC Meeting 519 - Between President Kennedy, Robert
McNamara and Maxwell D. Taylor They brief the President on the trip to
South Vietnam (SVN) and discuss the removal of 1,000 advisers from SVN.
The President convenes the National Security Council on the matters
contained in the report and stresses that the US needed to find effective
ways of persuading Diem to change the political atmosphere in Saigon. The
President endorses the withdrawal of 1,000 advisers from Vietnam by
December 31, 1963.
Why were Lansdale’s efforts to make Diem popular
unsuccessful in the long-run?
Madame Ngo Nhu, the wife of Diem's brother, refers to the
immolations as "barbecues".
The role of the Cold War
1959 – Marxist Cuban Revolution- Fidel Castro
1960 - The U2 Spy Plane Incident-Francis Gary Powers
1961 - JFK becomes President, January 20
1961 – The failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba,
1962 - The Cuban Missile Crisis
1963 – President Diem of South Vietnam is assassinated,
Kennedy decides to remove all military advisors from Vietnam
Quotes from the conflict
“to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who
have been forcibly deprived of them” Atlantic Charter, 1941
“You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours.
But even at those odds, you will lose and I will win.” – Ho Chi Minh.
“ Communist guerilla hide among people. If you win the people over
to your side, the communist guerillas have no place to hide.
With no place to hide you can find the. Then military men will
fix them…finish them.” Edward Lansdale
“[E]very quantitative measurement…
shows that we are winning the war.” – Robert McNamara
“Now we have a problem in making our power credible,
and Vietnam is the place.” –Kennedy
“did you really mean it (referring to a compliment about
Diem being An Asian Churchill)…… “shit”…. “Diem is the
only boy we got out there”- Vice President, Lyndon Johnson.
“ The Communists will defeat us, not by virtue of their strength but
because of our weakness. They will win by default.” Diem
III. Johnson’s War, 1964-1969
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident
(Video)
1964 The US Destroyer Maddox is fired upon by the North Vietnamese
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
“Open aggression on the high seas”
President Johnson asks for, and gets,
wide-ranging powers from
Congress to conduct the war in Vietnam
Walt Rostow “We don’t know what happened, but it had the desired effect”
Operation Rolling Thunder
On Mar. 2, 1965, the United States instituted its famous "Rolling Thunder" campaign,
the systematic bombing of North Vietnam, starting at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)
between North and South Vietnam. Its planes flew from bases in South Vietnam and
Thailand. By slowly advancing the target areas northward across North Vietnam, it was
hoped the North Vietnamese leaders would eventually be convinced to sit down at the
peace table. However, Washington imposed stringent controls upon these operations,
lest Red China or the Soviet union actively enter the conflict.
Winning the Hearts and Minds of the
Vietnamese people
The US in Vietnam is involved in two simultaneous and
very difficult tasks, nation building and fighting a vicious
and well-organized enemy. If it could do either one alone,
the task would be vastly simplified, but its got to do both at
once . . . Helping Vietnam . . . may very well be the most
complex problem ever faced by men in uniform anywhere on
earth.
Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of South Vietnam (PROVN)
March, 1966
Winning the Hearts and Minds of the
Vietnamese people
Pacification Program’s limitations
The Ho Chi Minh Trail
It was located in Laos and
Cambodia, both neutral
countries during the conflict
The Ia Drang Valley, Nov 1965
What did each side learn from this relatively large battle?
7th Cavalry Air-Mobile
New style of fighting: Highly mobile, smaller military units
1966 The Big Build-Up
Search and Destroy Missions
5,000 Americans died in that year
An additional 200,000 men would be sent to Vietnam
The Vietcong
The Draft
Draftees comprised 1/3 of all U.S. soldiers in Vietnam
The average age of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam was 19 years
LBJ visits troops going to Vietnam in 1966
President Johnson would commit hundreds of thousands of
United States military soldiers to Vietnam
550,000 American troops would be in Vietnam when he left the presidency
Agent Orange
(powerful dioxin)
How did the use of technology affect the
outcome of the Vietnam War?
Notable technological weaponry:
B-52 Heavy Bombers, Helicopters,
Napalm, Agent Orange, etc
What about non-lethal technology? The Television
The use of technology
Assessment of the War in 1967
Winning or Losing
Civil War or Cold War
Stay in or get out – Political Cost?
What is the cost, is it worth the cost?
What was the political, economic and social impact on
America during Johnson’s presidency?
The Tet Offensive - January 1968
1968 - U.S. involvement peaks at
543,000 troops
A massive Vietcong and NVA assault on American positions
throughout South Vietnam - (Turning Point event of the war)
United States military turns back the attack, but the damage had
already been done to the support back home
Anti-War Movement
The Tet Offensive failed to meet its main goal AND the Vietcong suffered
terrible losses. Why then is it a turning point of the war in favor of the North?
1. The United States had set up high
expectations for the war to be over soon
2. American support for the war begins
to slowly erode and anti-war protestors
become more vocal and visible
Siege of Khe Sanh
“An American Dien Bien Phu?
The Election of 1968
Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy
assassinated in Los Angeles (June)
Hubert Humphery nominated as the
Democratic Presidential Candidate
Richard Nixon is elected President
*Promises to end the war “with honor”
IV. Nixon’s War, 1969-1973
The Process of Vietnamization begins
Sees the war from the perspective of “Linkage” with the wider Cold War
• Failure to pressure the Soviet Union and China to help force the
North Vietnamese to accept negotiation demonstrates the folly of “Linkage”
• Secret negotiations are begun between Le Duc Tho and Henry Kissinger,
but Kissinger fails to get acceptance for the formula of “Mutual Withdrawal”
• Nixon simultaneously begins the withdrawal of American troops while widening
The war with the secret bombing of Cambodia and later invasion of Cambodia
• Kissinger eventually changes the offer to the North to a “Leopard Spot”
Agreement. Building on the “stand-still, cease fire”.
•The United States forces the South to agree “the tail doesn’t wag the dog”
•Nixon resorts to large-scale bombing of the North when they threaten to
Not sign. The Christmas 1972 Bombings force the North to sign.
My Lai Massacre
Occurs March 16, 1968, but
revealed to public in 1969
Lt. William Calley orders his men to enter
the village firing
Over 300 unarmed civilians, many women
and children are murdered
Calley was eventually convicted of murder, but was
later released in 1974
Vietnamization
Process of shifting the burden of the war over to the South
Vietnamese Army (ARVN)
1970 Nixon expands the war into Cambodia with secret
and illegal bombing of Cambodia followed by an invasion
With US and South Vietnamese troops
Hoped to destroy the Ho Chi Minh Trail
May 4, 1970
Protests erupt and tragedy
hits Kent State University
4 students are killed by
National Guardsmen
Pentagon Papers (1971)
Daniel Ellsberg leaks 7000 documents to the New York
Times and Washington post
Why?
“I felt that the country was eating its young”
Three effects
1. Illustrates government’s lying about war’s progress
2. Illustrates the folly of ESCALATION
3. Creates a paranoid Nixon Administration
Patriot or Traitor?
The First Televised War
Americans begin to question the war
“Hawks vs. Doves”
1972 - Jane Fonda visits North Vietnam
Operation Linebacker I and II
The Christmas Bombings
Forces the North Vietnamese to accept Paris Peace Accords
South Vietnam remains a non-communist nation,
but NLF (Vietcong) are allowed to remain under
the “Leopard Spot” agreement
What problems did Nixon inherit from the Johnson
administration’s conduct of the war?
In what ways were the Johnson and Nixon
wars similar and different?
To what extent did Nixon accomplish his goal
of “peace with honor’?
Time became the biggest concern for
Nixon and his effort to end the war
Paris Peace Accords are signed in 1973
South Vietnam retains its independence from the North
1975 - The North will invade the South one last time and succeed in
unifying all of Vietnam -
* The US does not honor its pledge to protect the South
The Aftermath of the Vietnam War
Agent Orange
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
Americans are forever changed
The Cost
110,00 Billion Dollars
58,000 American lives
Estimates as high as 3.5 million Vietnamese died in the 30 year conflict
70 Tons of bombs for every square mile - 500 pounds of explosives
For every man, woman, and child in the country
“Today, Americans can regain a sense of pride that existed before Vietnam.
But it can not be achieved by re-fighting a war that is finished…These events.
As tragic as they are, portend neither the end of the world nor of America’s
Leadership in the world.” April 23, 1975, President Ford
The reluctance of the American people to
support or allow their government to use
military force abroad
V. Vietnam Syndrome 1973 to
1991
The Vietnam War Memorial
Washington D.C.
Contains the names of all
those who gave their lives
during the Vietnam War