Southeast Asia
South of China on
the South China Sea
Formerly known as
Indochina
BORN:
Nguyen Sinh Cung
AKA:
“Uncle Ho”
Ho Chi Minh = “He Who Enlightens”
1945 – He created the Provisional
Government
•National Liberation Committee of
Vietnam or Vietminh
•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhyfUmCDyG8
Vietnam’s last emperor – r.1932-1954
Briefly joined Ho Chi Minh
Exiled to Hong Kong and France - 1949 –
54
Returned to Vietnam and was ousted by
Ngo Dinh Diem in a rigged election
Led South Vietnam from 1954 to 1963
Autocratic Rule
Responsible for the Imprisonment
and Execution of hundreds of
Buddhists
•“Big Minh”
•Led S. Vietnam for 2 months
after leading a coup in which
Diem was murdered
•Overthrown by Nguyen Khanh
– who held the position until
1965 when exiled to France
1967 elected president
of South Vietnam
Held position until
1975 fall of Saigon
Emigrated to England
President 1953 – 61
Sent military aid to the
French in Vietnam
Refused to commit
troops
President 1960 – 63 –
when he was
assassinated
Tripled aid to South
Vietnam
Increased number of
US Military Advisors in
South Vietnam
John F. Kennedy’s
Secretary of Defense
Supported increased US
involvement in Vietnam
under Kennedy and
Johnson
“I think the human race
needs to think about killing.
How much evil must we do
in order to do good?”
President 1963 –
1968
Despite his
campaign promises
to not get further
involved in Vietnam
he steadily increased
US Involvement
•General in charge of US military
operation in Vietnam – 1964-1968
•Continually reported positive
assessments of the war until the
Tet Offensive
•Tet Offensive 1968 – Communist
forces attacked cities and towns
throughout S. Vietnam
•Became Army’s Chief of Staff
“Vietnamization” of
the war
Expanded the war
into Laos and
Cambodia
Last troops were
withdrawn during his
2nd term
Advocated bombing
Cambodia
Helped develop Nixon’s
“Vietnamization” policy –
removal of US troops to be
replaced with S.
Vietnamese Troops
Paris Peace Accords Negotiated
•Oversaw final
withdrawal of US
Troops from Vietnam
•Evacuation of 1,000s
of Vietnamese Citizens
French Indochina until 1954
1945 – Ho Chi Minh established the
Provisional Government: The Viet Minh
1946 – France recognized Vietnam as a
“free state” within in the French Union
1954 – Battle of Dien Bien Phu – Viet
Minh defeat France
•“Domino Theory” – response to the
defeat of France
“ You
have a row of dominoes set
up. You knock over the first one,
and what will happen to the last
one is the certainty that it will go
over quickly.”
1. Support Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam
against Viet Cong (National Liberation Front
– S. Vietnamese that supported Ho Chi
Minh)
2. MASSIVE RETALIATION:
Eisenhower’s Nuclear Policy
AIM: DETERENCE
Strike back with more force than you
were hit with
Led to escalation of Nuclear
Proliferation, and MAD
3. NATION
BUILDING
•US would support
and help Diem
establish a
politically stable and
viable government
How and why did Kennedy continue
Eisenhower’s policies?
1.Bay of Pigs – failed attempt to
overthrow Castro – Kennedy’s
leadership is questioned
2. FLEXIBLE RESPONSE
•Kennedy’s Nuclear Policy – replacing
Massive Retaliation
•Robert MacNamara
•Goal – develop options other than nuclear
•Reliance on conventional weapons and
smaller nuclear bombs
•Target enemy military first
3. Sponsored a Military Coup of Diem – October
1963
November 1963 – Diem Assassinated
WHY??
Diem was a liability as President of South
Vietnam – he couldn’t unify the people
He was a Catholic in a country that was
95% Buddhist
He was resistant to US troop
deployments
Responsible to escalating US
involvement in Vietnam into a full
scale war!
1. 1964 – Gulf of Tonkin
Incident
US Destroyers were in
Gulf of Tonkin supporting
S. Vietnamese attacks on
island bases
North Vietnamese
attacked USS Maddox
Reports of 2nd attack
prompted Johnson to bring
resolution to Congress –
Attack never happened!!!
2. 1964 – Tonkin
Gulf Resolution
Authorized
retaliatory
bombings against
North Vietnam
Operation Rolling Thunder
(The Air War)
US sent in troops to protect the airfields
that it was using in South Vietnam
1965 – 1st Marines landed in Da Nang –
40,000 Marines
Followed by weekly deployments
SEARCH AND DESTROY (US GROUND STRATEGY)
1. Relied on air mobility – use of the UH1
Huey Helicopters
•Medical evacuation
•Troop insertion
•Gunship missions
SEARCH AND DESTROY (US GROUND STRATEGY)
2. No Clear Enemy Lines
SEARCH AND DESTROY (US GROUND STRATEGY)
3. Success was measured by body count
•Daily news would report body counts like
they were box scores
SEARCH AND DESTROY (US GROUND STRATEGY)
Problems w/ relying on Body Counts:
1.Communists didn’t measure success
by counts – they weren’t deterred by
the tremendous losses
2.Counts were routinely inflated so it
would appear that we were winning
“THE WISE MEN”-a group of the nations
most prestigious leaders
•November 12, 1967 -Johnson called a meeting of
“The Wise Men”
•Asked for optimistic reports of war in order to
unite the public behind it
•November 17, 1967 – Johnson reported – “We
are inflicting greater losses than we’re taking. We
are making progress”
•November 21, 1967 – Westmoreland reported
“Victory is absolutely certain”
TET OFFENSIVE – January 1968
•TET Nguyen Dan – Vietnam’s lunar new year
festival
•N. Vietnamese surprised US by attacking Nearly
every city in South Vietnam
•Johnson’s and Westmoreland’s words of
assurance were wrong – Americans were
convinced that victory was impossible
•Westmoreland was replaced
•Media eliminated the body counts
Johnson announced an end “to all air,
naval and artillery bombardment of North
Vietnam effective November 1, 1968”
Peace talks broke down
November 3, 1969 – Nixon asked the
nation to support him in the War effort
1.Vietnamization – handing the war
over to the non-communist S.
Vietnamese
2. Peace with Honor
Reduction of US forces
Increased bombing, and expanded
the ground and air war into Laos
and Cambodia
3. More American Soldiers died and more
bombs were dropped, under the Nixon
Presidency than under Johnson’s
4. Foreign Policy – to achieve a
“breakthrough” in relationships with
USSR and China
•Resulted in reduction of USSR and
Chinese aid to North Vietnam
1968 Lt. William Calley, a platoon leader, lead
a massacre of several hundred Vietnamese
civilians – including women, babies, and the
elderly
2 American Soldiers in a helicopter spotted
the carnage and stopped any further killings
Calley was given a life sentence, and a courtmartial in 1970
He was later pardoned by President Nixon
January 15, 1973 – Nixon announced the
suspension of offensive actions in North
Vietnam
A unilateral withdrawal of US troops
began
January 27, 1973 – Paris Peace Accords
were signed – Kissinger was awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize
1975 – North Vietnam invaded South
Vietnam, taking Saigon on April 30, 1975
North and South were fully united on
July 2, 1976 – Socialist Republic of
Vietnam
Saigon renamed Ho Chi Minh City
Human Rights Violations under the new Communist
Government
“tiger cages” – small prison cells used to torture
political prisoners
Firing squads
Concentration and “re-education” camps
“Boat People”
Refugees – hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese
fled by boat
The majority came to the United States
US under Ford – in 1975 evacuated Vietnam
Refugees
•LBJ fought 2 wars, Vietnam and the War
on Poverty
•1964 – Protests began – small isolated
incidents on college campuses
•1968 – Full scale protests
•Majority of Americans did not
support protestors
•Protests kept war in the limelight –
made people question the war
• What sparks the protest movement?
1. Media reports – i.e. Walter Cronkite after
TET announced “it didn’t look like we were
winning”
2. Unfair draft –
1. minorities were overrepresented in
combat roles
2. senators’ sons were safe in college
3. Working class Americans did the
fighting
• May 4, 1970 – Kent State University
• US Troops shot and killed 4 students
April 1971 – 500,000 people marched on
Washington in protest of the Vietnam War
NAPALM
•Produced by Dow Chemical Co.
•1st used in WWII against the Japanese –
it was improved for use in the Vietnam
War – Napalm B
•“bathtub chemistry” – gasoline,
benzene and polystyrene
NAPALM
•“Liquid Fire” – jellied gasoline –clung
to human skin on contact & melted off
flesh
•Eyelids so burned they could not be
shut
•Fleshed looked like “swollen, raw
meat.”
NAPALM
•January 1967 – article released
presenting color photos of mutilated
Vietnamese Children
•Sparked demonstrations against Dow
even after it stopped production in 1969
•Also produced by Dow Chemical
•Used between 1961 and 1971 – 19 million
gallons of the herbicide and defoliant were
sprayed on Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand
•One of the “rainbow herbicides” there was
Agents Pink, Purple, Blue and Green as well, but
Orange proved to be the most effective
•Goal: To destroy cover and to deny food to
enemy
•Contains harmful dioxins which can
cause:
•Cancer
•Birth defects
•Chloracne – acne like eruptions of
blackheads, cysts and pustules
•1984 – Dow Chemical was ordered to pay
$180 million in compensation to US
Veterans
DATE
Dec. 1960
Dec. 1961
Dec. 1962
Dec. 1963
Dec. 1964
April 1965
Dec. 1965
Dec. 1965
Dec. 1966
PRESIDENT
Eisenhower
Kennedy
Kennedy
Johnson
Johnson
Johnson
Johnson
Johnson
Johnson
# of Troops
900 Military Advisors
3200 Military Advisors
12,000 Military Advisors
16,000 Military Advisors
23,000 Military Advisors
40,000 Marines
200,000 Troops
400,000 Troops
Nearly 500,000 Troops
Country
Deaths
Wounded
US
58, 226
304,000
N. Vietnam
1.1 million
Vietnamese
Civilians
2 – 4 million
•Americans have lost trust in the Government
•Backlash – taken out on the veterans
•PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
•Trouble sleeping
•Nervous ticks
•Startle response
•Inability to maintain close personal
relationships
•Drug and alcohol abuse
•20 Years after War – Clinton opened trade
and diplomatic relations with Vietnam
•The Gulf War – fought with Vietnam in mind