The Vietnam War
APUSH – Spiconardi
I don’t see that we can ever hope to get
out of there once we are committed…I
am not going to be the president who
saw Southeast Asia go the way China
went. ~Lyndon B. Johnson (1964)
The Antiwar Movement
• As casualties mounted and it became apparent that the U.S.
government was misleading the public, the antiwar movement
strengthened
The Antiwar Movement
• The Draft
• Young men were burning
their draft cards of
fleeing to Canada to
avoid conscription
• There was a
disproportionate number
of poor and black drafted
• 76% of men sent to
Vietnam were from
working class or lower
middle class backgrounds
• In 1965 & 1966, blacks
accounted for 20% of
American casualties
The Antiwar Movement
• Vietnamization
• Nixon’s policy to equip
and train South
Vietnamese forces to take
an increasing combat role
in the war
• Called for reduction in
U.S. ground combat
troops
• However, increased U.S.
Air Force bombings in
Vietnam and Cambodia
The Antiwar Movement
• Veteran Opposition
• Vietnam veterans
testified before the
Senate to explain their
opposition to the war.
• In 1971, thousands
deserted the army
• Some soldiers
experimented with
heroin
• Many soldiers refused
orders from superior
officers
The Antiwar Movement
• Kent State
• In the spring of 1970, more than 350 college campuses experienced
strikes
• At Kent State, four students were killed by the Ohio National Guard during
an antiwar demonstration.
The Antiwar Movement
• My Lai
Massacre
• The New York
Times
published
details on the
My Lai
Massacre of
1968 in a
1969 report
• The report
detailed the
killing of 350
South
Vietnamese
civilians by
American
troops
The Antiwar Movement
• The Pentagon Papers
• In 1971, the New York Times published the Pentagon Papers, which were
classified documents from the Department of Defense
• It showed how the U.S. was involved in Vietnam going back to World
War II
• Revealed how Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and
Nixon misled the American people about involvement in Vietnam
The Antiwar Movement
• New York Times Co. v. The United States
• Nixon claimed executive authority in
hopes of halting publication of the
documents
• Supreme Court ruled that the New York
Times was protected under the First
Amendment and Nixon’s national
security claims were unfounded
• Justice Brennan reasoned that since
publication would not cause an
inevitable, direct, and immediate event
imperiling the safety of American forces,
prior restraint was unjustified
The War Powers Resolution [Act]
• To prevent another Gulf of Tonkin, Congress passed the War
Powers Resolution in 1973
• The president had to seek congressional approval in order to
commit American troops overseas
• In 2014, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) proposed repealing the War
Powers Resolution and replacing it with a stricter one
• U.S. last declared war in 1941, but had committed troops
overseas several times
The End of the Vietnam War
• In 1973, Nixon’s Secretary of State,
Henry Kissinger was able to
negotiate a cease fire
• Legacy
•
•
•
•
First war the U.S. definitively lost
Americans killed: 58,000
Cost: $100 billion
American’s lost confidence in the
government and American
institutions
• American ideals and long-standing
beliefs were challenged
“…we didn’t know our ally.
Secondly, we knew even less
about the enemy. And, the last,
most inexcusable of our mistakes,
was not knowing our own
people.” ~ Gen. Maxwell Taylor