IGCSE History M. Nichols BSA 2006
MODEL ANSWERS ON THE VIETNAM WAR IGCSE PAST PAPER
(a) The Vietcong or VC were the Communist guerrillas who fought both the
Americans and their allies, and the South Vietnamese government for
control over the whole of Vietnam. They were assisted by the North
Vietnamese and by military aid from the USSR and China. They
played a significant part in the War in harassing not only the US and
ARVN forces, but also putting pressure on villagers, government officials
and intellectuals, many of whom they shot. They often successfully
ambushed conventional forces and took a prominent part in the Tet
Offensive of 1968, which finally convinced the Americans that they could
not win the War in Vietnam.
(b) The War became unpopular for a variety of reasons. Morally, many
ordinary Americans were repulsed by what US soldiers were doing in
Vietnam. They learnt of events like the 1968 My Lai massacre of innocent
civilians, and of the widespread use of chemical weapons like napalm and
Agent Orange. Socially, the draft to recruit conscripts for the war was
deeply unpopular and regarded as unfair and discriminatory.
Economically, the War consumed a huge amount of the nation’s
resources, which Johnson had earmarked for social improvements in the
area of health and education. He had to curtail some of his reforms, which
was deeply unpopular with many poorer Democrats. Politically, the war
showed America’s politicians to be liars, as Johnson, for example,
exaggerated the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and Nixon lied over the bombing
of Laos and Cambodia. Many Americans thus became disillusioned not
only with the War, but with their whole nation’s political system.
(c) In some ways, US policy did have successes, but on the whole it was not
only a failure, but a disastrous failure. The presence of over half a million
US troops did help prevent the VC and the NVA taking over Vietnam
for many years, by propping up various South Vietnamese governments
and training and supplying the ARVN. Massive American aerial
bombardment did help to slow down the North’s war effort and damage
its important ports like Haiphong. It also helped force the North to the
negotiating table, and allowed the US to pull out its forces in 1973 with
relative ease. Paradoxically, relations with China also improved
because of their common Vietnamese enemy.
However, on the whole, it is difficult to see US policy towards Vietnam as
anything other than an ultimate failure. The US policy of containment
not only failed in Vietnam, which became a communist country in 1975,
but American policy had also helped drive Cambodia and Laos into the
hands of the communists. The US tactics of search and destroy
missions, for example, and their indiscriminate use of firepower, alienated
many ordinary Vietnamese who became more pro-VC. US forces always
failed to deal with the guerrilla tactics of their VC foe and even when
they were successful against them, as in Tet, the VC were just replaced by
the even more formidable NVA.