AMST 3100 The 1960s Vietnam 19681973

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AMST 3100 The 1960sVietnam 1968-1973

• Powerpoint 13
• Read the web links to Vietnam Opposing Views
  Lessons of Vietnam Interview Death in the Ia
  Drang Valley

2
The War at Home

• The Tet Offensive of January 1968 weakened
  Johnsons credibility and led the media to take a
  more skeptical view of LBJs characterizations.
• By the 1960s the mass media, especially TV, was a
  major force in shaping American public opinion.
• More than 60 million Americans watched the
  nightly TV news, and the television spin became
  somewhat critical of the war by 1968.
• After the Tet Offensive, about half of all
  Americans opposed the war. The Democratic Party
  especially was divided over war policies. Some
  wanted an immediate pull out, others wanted a
  gradual pull out, and others wanted the U.S. to
  remain committed to maintaining South Vietnam.

The anti-war movement began as a relatively
idealistic movement with faith that government
would respond to their concerns. By 1968 there
was much anger and rising militancy resulting
from frustration with LBJs war policies.
However, as captured by this photo, the peace
movement also included many who believed that one
must demonstrate love and peace in order to
change the world.
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Anti-War Candidates, 1968

• In February, 1968, Senator Eugene McCarthy, a
  liberal anti-war Democrat, nearly won the New
  Hampshire presidential primary.
• The New Hampshire primary is significant because
  it is the first primary of the season.
• This near-victory secured media attention for
  McCarthy, and the talk was about the popularity
  of his anti-war platform.
• In March, after seeing McCarthys New Hampshire
  support, Robert Kennedy decided that he too
  would run for President on an anti-war platform,
  splitting the antiwar movement between the two.
• Robert Kennedy had been questioning U.S. policy
  in Vietnam as early as 1963.

Eugene McCarthy
Robert Kennedy
4
LBJ bows out in March, 1968

• President Johnson was deeply affected by the Tet
  Offensive and his own staff had become polarized
  over the war. Clark Clifford, a member of his
  inner circle, had shifted against the war.
• Johnson could see that he had lost his
  popularity.
• On March 31, 1968, LBJ announced that he would
  seek a real peace in Vietnam through negotiation,
  he would suspend the bombing campaign, and he
  would not run for re-election.
• Johnson did not want to participate in the bloody
  combat of a polarized election campaign.

LBJs March announcement stunned the country.
Before the Tet Offensive, most considered him the
frontrunner for re-election. However, 1968
brought frequent and dramatic changes every week.
By March, the credibility gap and anti-war
sentiment was too great for LBJ to overcome. His
announcement created much speculation about who
might win the Democratic nomination.
5
MLK and Vietnam

• The rising momentum against the Vietnam war was
  spurred partly by Martin Luther King, Jr.s
  declaration on April 4, 1967 that he opposed the
  Vietnam War.
• By 1967, King lent his considerable credentials
  in favor of the antiwar movement.
• He was also being pressured by black radicals,
  who strongly opposed the war as militant
  imperialism. While King was never a militant, he
  was becoming increasingly frustrated with LBJs
  priorities by this time.
• King would be assassinated exactly one year after
  publicly condemning Johnsons war policies.

In this photo, King condemns U.S. policy in
Vietnam, thus severing cordial relations with the
executive branch. In public, King was
conspicuously silent on the Vietnam conflict
until April 4, 1967. His silence was probably a
consequence of the relatively cordial
relationship he had with LBJ on civil rights.
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RFK

• Robert Kennedys candidacy gained momentum and he
  won the crucial California primary on June 5,
  1968. This meant he had a good chance of winning
  the Democratic nomination for President. At this
  point it was likely that Kennedy, an anti-war
  candidate, would win the nomination as well as
  the Presidency.
• However, Kennedys assassination by Sirhan Sirhan
  threw the Democratic party and the anti-war
  movement into a deep depression.
• The murders of both King and Kennedy in 1968
  probably represented the last gasp for liberal
  reforms and perhaps the last chance for a quick
  end to the Vietnam conflict. The future of
  American politics would take a turn to the right
  with the Presidential election of Richard Nixon.

The California primary was held on June 4th and
Kennedy learned he had won by the early morning
of June 5th. However, he was shot just after his
victory speech and died the next day.
7
Hubert Humphrey

• Humphrey, the Democratic nominee for President in
  1968, was tainted by his association with the
  Johnson administration and its Vietnam policies.
• As the status quo candidate, he had difficulty
  explaining how he might change U.S. policy in
  Vietnam. He had been loyal to Johnsons Vietnam
  War policies, which were now highly unpopular.
• Late in the campaign Humphrey said he would agree
  to a unilateral halt to the U.S. bombing
  campaign. While this was a popular move, it was
  not quite enough to overcome Nixon and he lost
  the election.

8
Richard Nixon

• Nixons position on Vietnam was intentionally
  ambiguous. He stated that the war needed to end,
  but that it needed to end with honor.
• Nixon was in the favorable position of being the
  candidate of change with respect to Vietnam
  policy.
• Nixon may have started and certainly allowed -
  a rumor that he had a secret plan to end the
  war, but he apparently didnt. He also never
  explained what he would actually do in Vietnam,
  arguing that he did not want to ruin LBJs
  efforts to achieve a peace settlement or let the
  enemy know his own secrets for achieving a
  settlement.
• Privately, in 1968 Nixon did not want President
  Johnson to be successful with a peace settlement,
  so he secretly approached the leader of South
  Vietnam, President Thieu, and advised him not to
  cooperate with Lyndon Johnsons peace efforts.
• He told Thieu, who was still seeking sovereignty
  for South Vietnam, that he would be better off
  under a Nixon administration. Thieu embraced
  Nixons advice and refused to participate in
  LBJs peace talks, thus discouraging an early
  settlement of the war. Later, when Nixon embraced
  a similar peace plan with North Vietnam in 1972,
  Thieu felt exploited and abandoned by Nixon.

9
Nixon

• Like Johnson and Kennedy before him, Nixon
  inherited an unstable situation in Vietnam. South
  Vietnam had been on the verge of collapse from
  the beginning, and there would never be a time
  when South Vietnam was strong enough to stand on
  its own.
• Johnson had escalated the war to dramatic levels,
  with over 500,000 troops stationed in Vietnam
  when Nixon came into office.
• American public opinion was deeply polarized over
  what to do there. Most Americans felt the war was
  a mistake, but they did not want to turn tail
  and run.
• Nixon had chosen Henry Kissinger as his primary
  foreign policy advisor.
• Like Nixon, Kissinger was a tough hawk on
  Vietnam. But they were also pragmatic and
  flexible in their foreign policy deliberations.

President Nixon with Henry Kissinger on the
Presidential plane.
10
Nixon

• Both Nixon and Kissinger privately felt that the
  Vietnam War was not winnable by 1969.
• But they also felt that a unilateral withdrawal
  would be too costly politically and in American
  world prestige.
• Nixon and Kissinger decided on a plan for slow
  withdrawal.
• As a political hawk Nixon could not admit any
  sense of defeat or retreat from Vietnam in
  public. Hence, Nixon was secretive and deceptive
  from the beginning in his war policies, and this
  would contribute to great hostility towards his
  administration by the counterculture.

Both Nixon and Kissinger liked to play hard ball
with their opponents, both in domestic and
foreign policy.
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Nixons Vietnam Policy

• Nixons Vietnam policy had several aspects. The
  most salient was the planned withdrawal of U.S.
  troops under the policy called Vietnamization.
• Nixon was committed to reducing U.S. casualties
  in Vietnam. Vietnamization involved turning the
  war over to the ARVN.
• While they were not likely to win the war on
  their own, the increased reliance on the ARVN
  would buy time for Nixon to gradually withdraw
  American troops.

An ARVN soldier threatens a Viet Cong rebel with
a knife in an effort to get him to talk. With
only a few exceptions, the ARVN were never a
force capable of sustaining South Vietnam,
despite intense efforts by the Americans to
supply and train them. The Viet Cong, on the
other hand, were highly motivated fighters.
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Vietnamization

• By the late 60s, the ARVN had improved
  significantly as a fighting force, especially in
  the Catholic and southernmost regions of Vietnam.
  However there were several problems in relying
  upon the ARVN
• the ARVN were mostly conscripts and their
  desertion rate was high.
• ARVN officers were generally appointed for
  political loyalties rather than professional
  competence.
• When called upon to perform solo operations, the
  ARVN did not perform well, as evidenced by the
  1971 invasion of Laos in which the ARVN (without
  direct U.S. troop backing) were routed by the
  communists.
• Meanwhile Nixon set about trying to convince the
  American public that the ARVN were ready to
  defend South Vietnam on their own. Most serious
  observers understood the flaw in this argument,
  but what most Americans wanted by now was U.S.
  troop withdrawal, regardless of the fate of South
  Vietnam.

ARVN firebase, nine miles inside Laos, 1971.
Nixons approval of the invasion of Laos outraged
the antiwar advocates and helped de-stabilize
this region of Southeast Asia.
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Nixons Vietnam Policy

• Another aspect of Nixons Vietnam policy was the
  so-called madman strategy. Nixon allowed Henry
  Kissinger to informally reveal during secret
  negotiations with North Vietnam that President
  Nixon himself was unstable and liable to go to
  extreme lengths (escalating the war, new
  invasions and bombings, hinting at using nuclear
  weapons) if North Vietnam did not agree to peace
  talks.
• This approach was not very successful in a direct
  way, but Nixon and other hawks believed that his
  heavy bombing of the North perhaps a form of
  this madman rage - ultimately drove the North
  Vietnamese to the peace talks.

Nixon points to a reporter during a press
conference.
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Nixons Vietnam Policy

• While Vietnamization and his madman strategy were
  not very effective, Nixon did have one foreign
  policy strategy that was highly successful and
  which helped his Vietnam policy. This was the
  policy of triangulation pursuing détente with
  both the Soviets and (Red) China.
• Nixon was approached privately by the Red Chinese
  soon after his election to see if he was
  interested in a U.S. - Chinese version of
  détente. The Soviets were already working on
  détente with the U.S.
• In détente, both sides work toward reducing Cold
  War tensions. They do this by establishing
  communication lines, securing nuclear arms
  limitation treaties, establishing trade, and
  emphasizing diplomacy over military posturing.
• With rising détente, Nixon could perhaps get the
  Chinese to help him secure a peace agreement with
  the North Vietnamese.
• Nixon visited China in 1972, signaling an end to
  the old-style Cold War era, and bringing Nixon
  his greatest foreign policy achievement.

This photo captures Nixons visit to China.
Détente helped Nixon persuade the Chinese and
Soviets to be less rigid in their support for
North Vietnam, and this aided his efforts to get
a treaty with the North Vietnamese.
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Moratorium March, 1969

• In 1969 the Vietnam Moratorium Committee (MOBE),
  arranged for a massive antiwar protest across the
  country, highlighted by a Peace Moratorium march
  in Washington.
• On October 15th, between two and ten million
  protestors across the country marched.
• The March is generally considered a huge success
  in demonstrating massive public support for
  ending the war.

Roughly 250,000-500,000 people participated in
the Washington Peace Moratorium.
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Nixons Response to the Peace Moratorium

• Nixon and Agnew used the politics of polarization
  to turn mainstream Americans away from the peace
  movement.
• An angry Nixon labeled the protestors
  anti-American and engaged in a war of rhetoric
  against them.
• Vice President Spiro Agnew led the charge,
  labeling the protestors nattering nabobs of
  negativism and professional anarchists.
• Nixon and other hawks argued that the antiwar
  protestors were harming U.S. efforts in Vietnam,
  thus giving aid to the enemy.
• Let us be united for peace. Let us also be
  united against defeatNorth Vietnam cannot defeat
  or humiliate the United States. Only Americans
  can do that.
• At that time (late 1969) Americans were polarized
  over Vietnam, with roughly 40 seeking a complete
  withdrawal within 1 year, and another 40 seeking
  peace with honor regardless of how long it
  took. Only about 10 of Americans wanted to
  escalate the fighting.

Nixon press conference
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My Lai Massacre

• News of the My Lai Massacre came out in 1969.
• This massacre occurred in March of 1968 when a
  search and destroy operation against the Viet
  Cong resulted in an entire South Vietnamese
  village (300-500 people) getting wiped out by
  frustrated American GIs.
• Even the children were murdered. The army hushed
  it up, but the story eventually got out.
• Lt. William Calley and another officer were
  brought to military trial and Calley was
  convicted of the murder of civilians and
  sentenced. President Nixon intervened and reduced
  it to house arrest. He was paroled a few years
  later.
• The other officer was not convicted.

The My Lai massacre occurred in 1968 but was
covered up until 1969. Atrocities occurred on
both sides of the war, but because the Americans
had symbolized themselves as the good guys
against the evils of communism, My Lai was a blow
to American ideals and honor.
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Nixon Invades Cambodia, 1970

• In April, 1970, Nixon went on national TV to tell
  Americans that he had widened the war to include
  Cambodia. His goal was to wipe out communist
  sanctuaries within Cambodia being used by the
  North Vietnamese to infiltrate the south.
• Nixons widening of the war provoked massive
  antiwar protests across the country and
  re-energized the antiwar movement.
• Four students were shot by the national guard at
  Kent State during a student protest, followed by
  2 more killed by authorities at Jackson State in
  Mississippi.
• Then 450 colleges went on strike as the national
  guard had to be deployed to dozens of colleges
  across the country. Many colleges simply closed
  for the rest of the year.

The Kent State shootings, 1970.
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Laos Invasion, 1971

• By the end of 1970 there were 335,000 troops in
  Vietnam, down from more than 500,000 in 1968.
• But the war was still going on, and Americans
  were still polarized over what to do about it.
• In February of 1971, Nixon publicly admitted he
  had widened the war to Laos for reasons similar
  to his Cambodian invasion. Most of this invasion
  consisted of the ARVN backed by American air
  support. This invasion went well in the beginning
  but was pushed back by a North Vietnamese
  counter-invasion, and the U.S. had to airlift out
  the remainder of ARVN. This invasion was an
  embarrassment.
• This incident revealed what most observers
  understood already. The ARVN were incapable of
  being a stabilizing force for South Vietnam.

ARVN troops leap from an American helicopter as
they invade southern Laos in 1971.
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The Veterans Protest of April, 1971

• While there were many antiwar protests this year,
  the most notable was when the Vietnam Veterans
  Against the War (VVAW) held a protest at the
  Capitol Building and the veterans threw their
  medals away in protest of Nixons war policies.
• The 2004 Democratic Presidential contender, John
  Kerry, was one of these angry veterans. Kerry had
  volunteered and served honorably in Vietnam and,
  like so many other GIs, had become disillusioned
  with U.S. war policy by the early 1970s.
• Meanwhile, Nixon continued to remove troops from
  Vietnam (as he increased the bombing). By the end
  of 1971 there would be 157,000 troops in Vietnam,
  and Nixon spared no effort to advertise this
  achievement.

John Kerry is circled in red.
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1972

• By 1972, the monthly Vietnam casualty rate had
  fallen to only a few dozen people.
• In November, 1972 there were 27,000 troops
  stationed in Vietnam.
• During 1972, Nixon authorized bombing raids on
  strategic targets in North Vietnam, including
  parts of Hanoi. He also mined harbors in North
  Vietnam. His goal was to secure a peace agreement
  with the North Vietnamese.
• Ironically one of his problems was South Vietnam
  President Nguyen Van Thieu, who refused to sign
  any agreement with North Vietnam unless they
  recognized the sovereignty of South Vietnam.

A B-52 takes off to strike North Vietnam as
soldiers watch.
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End of Vietnam War

• Immediately following his landslide victory in
  November of 1972, Nixon again sought to put
  pressure on the North Vietnamese to sign a peace
  treaty.
• This time he ordered a new bombing campaign
  against North Vietnam called Linebacker 1.
• It was otherwise known as the Christmas bombing
  campaign because he ordered the bombing to
  continue through the holidays with the only pause
  on the day of Christmas itself.
• Meanwhile, Nixon pressured Thieu to accept the
  terms of the draft treaty and Thieu whose South
  Vietnam was entirely dependent upon the U.S. -
  had no choice. The draft treaty essentially
  allowed all North Vietnamese troops to remain in
  those areas of South Vietnam they controlled,
  which was nearly everywhere except the major
  cities in the South.

B-52s waiting to be loaded with 500lb bombs.
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End of Vietnam War

• On January 23, 1973 Nixon announced that he had
  reached an accord with the North Vietnamese. This
  agreement
• 1. Set up a cease fire for Vietnam, Laos, and
  Cambodia.
• 2. Stated that the U.S. would withdraw from
  Vietnam.
• 3. Stated that North Vietnam would release all
  American prisoners of war.
• 4. Recognized the Thieu government while also
  recognizing that North Vietnamese troops could
  stay in the South.

An American POW is returned to his family in
March, 1973.
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End of Vietnam War

• The war was essentially over for the United
  States by 1973.
• However the U.S. would have a skeleton staff in
  Saigon until 1975, when the North Vietnamese
  troops entered the city.
• It took Richard Nixon exactly 4 years to secure
  the treaty of 1973. The cost over these four
  years totaled roughly 21,000 U.S. lives. This
  treaty did little for the U.S. other than secure
  American POWs.
• It was clear that the Americans lost in their
  goal of nation-building. There were lessons to
  consider for any future wars, including resorting
  to an all-volunteer army, media coverage of war,
  the war-making powers of the President, the
  popularity of war at home, war goals and
  strategies, American imperialism in a
  post-colonial world, and issues involving
  securing the hearts and minds of the indigenous
  population.

These South Vietnamese refugees have found
temporary safe haven aboard a Huey helicopter.
The final death toll of the Vietnam War was
roughly 1 million Vietnamese combatants killed, 4
million Vietnamese civilians killed, and roughly
58,000 U.S. soldiers killed.
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AMST 3100
End