Colonialism and Revolution (Sept. 17)
1. Origins of Vietnam
a. nationalism
b. resistance to French colonialism
2. Political organizing for independence
a. Ho Chi Minh
b. Indochinese Communist Party (ICP)
i.
insurrection
ii. Popular Front
3. WWII and Japanese colonialism
a. Japanese expansion into Indochina
b. Joint control with France
i.
opens door for Vietnamese League for Independence
(Vietminh)
4. Roots of American involvement
a. American imperialism
b. War with Japan
5. August Revolution
a. Vietnamese Liberation Army—Vo Nguyen Giap (part of
Vietminh)
b. US support: Office of Strategic Services (OSS)
c. March 9, 1945: Japanese coup against French in
Indochinainstallation of Bao Dai
d. Mid-August: Vietminh supplant French and Japanese
e. Sept. 2, 1945: Vietnamese declare independence
6. Great powers prepare for French return to Indochina
Recolonization, Cold War, and US Intervention (Sept. 21)
1. The return of colonialism
a. First Indochina War, Sept. 1945-Feb. 1946
b. Chinese invasion, 1946
c. National election, January 1946
d. Recolonization
2. Franco-Vietminh War, 1946-54
a. Haiphong
b. People’s Republic of China forms, recognizes Democratic
Republic of Vietnam; USSR soon follows suit
c. Lao Dong (Vietnamese Workers Party)
d. Increasing American involvement in support of France
i.
Domino theory in Indochina
ii. Cold War imperatives
iii. Summer 1950, first US aid package to French war in
Indochina
e. Battle of Dien Bien Phu
3. Geneva Accords
a. American intervention in place of the French
b. Partition at 17th parallel
c. Elections scheduled for 1956
Nation Building (Sept. 28)
1. New phase of American intervention in Indochina
a. SEATO
b. Ngo Dinh Diem consolidates power
c. Commodity Import Program (CIP)
d. Diem refuses to hold elections
2. Ho Chi Minh’s challenges in North Vietnam
a. Communist government established
b. Reconstruction plans begin
i.
Infrastructure
ii. agricultural efficiency and land reform
3. US props up South Vietnam
a. Military Assistance-Advisory Group (MAAG) and South
Vietnamese Army (ARVN)
b. Diem’s regime
i. Exterminating Communism in the South
ii. Rural alienation
4. Vietnamese nationalism
a. US lack of understanding
b. Revolution in the South
i. Insurgency begins, 1958
ii. Beginning of the Ho Chi Minh Trail
c. Diem isolates the villages
d. Lao Dong endorses revolution
i. People’s Liberation Force (PLAF) original “Viet
Cong”
ii. National Liberation Front (NLF) and People’s
Revolutionary Party (PRP)
5. US shifts to counterinsurgency
a. Laos
The Kennedy Years (Oct. 5)
1. Containment and challenge: “flexible response”
a. South Vietnam: Kennedy’s middle ground
i. short-term response to immediate problems
ii. US and Diem: limited partnership
2. US expands its military presence in South Vietnam
a. strategic hamlets
b. ARVN fails, NLF gains
c. political deterioration in the South
i. repression
ii. NLF incentives
3. McNamara and JFK: the US is winning
a. criticism at home
i. the press
ii. politicians
b. the end of Diem
i. Buddhist revolt
ii. Coup
4. JFK’s legacy
Choosing War (October 15)
1. LBJ and Vietnam
a. Ongoing US commitment
b. Domestic politics: Great Society
2. Changes in Vietnam
a. General Minh looks for independence from the US
i. coups
3. US escalation
a. Covert operations, 1964: OPLAN 34-A
b. Gulf of Tonkin
i. McNamara misreads the evidence
ii. Congressional response: Gulf of Tonkin resolution
iii. Reaction in the North
c. War moves North
4. Presidential campaign 1964
5. Turmoil in South Vietnam
6. Proposed air war
a. Gradualism
b. Rolling Thunder
7. Americanizing the war
a. US combat troops
Escalation and Opposition (Oct. 26)
1.
Limitations of limited war
a. Military strategy
b. Ground warfare
iii. Operation Attleboro
iv. Dubious results
c. Air war: Rolling Thunder, Mar. 2/65-Mar. 31/68
i. Escalation
ii. Oil
iii. Failures
d. Operation Ranch Hand: Agent Orange
e. Secret war: Laos
2.
Nation-building in South Vietnam
a. General Ky
b. Repression
c. Pacification
i. Revolutionary Development (RD) program
d. Political reform
i. General Thieu
3.
War at home
a. Opposition grows
b. Peace movement
i. Liberals
ii. Radicals
iii. Hawks
c. Fulbright hearings
d. Backlash
Conflict Comes Home (Nov. 12)
1. Organized opposition begins
a. Teach-ins
2. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the New Left
a. Context: civil rights movement
b. Building an anti-war movement
c. Politics of confrontation
3. Resistance to the draft
a. Draft evasion
i. Conscientious objectors (COs)
ii. Reserves and National Guard
b. Deferments
i. college
ii. Selective Service inequities
c. Dynamics of class and race
i. Channeling
ii. Project One Hundred Thousand
d. Stop the draft
i. October 1967 protests
4. Wavering American enthusiasm for war
a. Vietnam vs. the Great Society
Two Nations Torn (Nov. 16)
1. Tet Offensive: January 30, 1968
a. Hue and Khe Sanh
b. Paradox of Tet
2. Escalation?
a. Reassessment
b. Toward de-escalation
i. LBJ speech, March 31, 1968—leaves the presidential
race
3. Television war
4. Paris negotiations
5. My Lai massacre
6. Pacification
7. Domestic turmoil
Richard Nixon’s War (Nov. 23)
1. Election of 1968
a. Chicago Democratic National Convention (DNC)
b. Nixon’s victory
2. Nixon Doctrine
a. “go for broke”
b. Vietnamization
3. Anti-war movement reorganizes
a. Weather Underground
b. Community organizing
c. Vietnam Moratorium Committee
d. Nixon reasserts control
i. Draft lottery
ii. Courting the “silent majority”
e. The New Mobilization
i. March Against Death
4. Failures of Vietnamization and Pacification
a. Military decline
i. Drug abuse
5. Widening the war: Cambodian invasion
Limits of Revolution (Nov. 30)
1. Cambodian Spring, 1970
a. Kent State
b. Growing Congressional opposition
c. Failures of Vietnamization
i. Laotian invasion
d. Peace talks
e. South Vietnamese elections
2. Erosion of popular support
a. Winter Soldier
i. trial of Lt. Calley
ii. Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW)
b. Pentagon Papers
i. Daniel Ellsberg
ii. the Plumbers
3. Nguyen Hue Offensive, March 1972
a. détente
b. Operation Linebacker
c. domestic reaction
d. Vietnamization
e. Peace talks, summer 1972: Kissinger and Le Duc Tho
i. Thieu and Nixon refuse to accept the agreement
f. Operation Linebacker II: Christmas Bombing
American Withdrawal and the Postwar War (Dec. 3)
1. The end of American involvement
a. Paris Accords, 1973
b. Price of “peace”
c. Return of the POWs
d. Returning veterans
2. Beginning of the Postwar War
a. Saigon: political weakness
b. Congressional opposition: War Powers Act
c. Vietnam: shifting balances
i. Corruption and failure in Saigon
3. Fall of South Vietnam
a. General Van Tien Dung’s new attack
b. Thieu retreats
c. Ho Chi Minh Offensive
i. US humanitarian aid: Operation Babylift
ii. US abandons Cambodia
d. Hanoi vs. Saigon
i. American evacuation: Operation Frequent Wind
ii. North Vietnamese victory
4. South Vietnam: doomed to fail
a. RVN weakness
b. Northern strength
c. Containment and the domino theory?
d. Impact of Communist victory in Vietnam
5. Vietnam Syndrome
a. Economic, military, political and social crisis