Vietnam was part of the French Empire in South East Asia. After the Second World War France was unable to control the area and withdrew in 1954. Vietnam was divided into two parts. The North was communist, the South was not. The US government had become

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• Vietnam was part of the French Empire in South
  East Asia. After the Second World War France was
  unable to control the area and withdrew in 1954.
  Vietnam was divided into two parts. The North was
  communist, the South was not.The US government
  had become involved in Vietnam before the French
  left in 1954, but in the following years US
  involvement became more and more significant.
• At first US soldiers were there only as
  advisers, but increasingly they began to take
  part in the fighting.Why did the USA become so
  involved in Vietnam? What effects did the war
  have upon the USA?Why was the worlds most
  powerful army unable to defeat the Viet Cong?
  These are some of the issues that you will be
  considering.

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• Assignment One
• Why and how did the USA become involved in
  Vietnam in the 1950s and 1960s?

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THE VIETNAM WAR
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• Where is Vietnam?

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After the French were defeated in 1954, Vietnam
was split in two - the north was Communist, led
by Ho Chi Minh, and the south was Capitalist
under Ngo Dinh Diem. Diem's regime received
billions of dollars from the US but remained
deeply unpopular with most Vietnamese people.
                                                  
                                                 
      
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• Why did America fight the War?
• Basically to hold the line against the spread of
  world Communism. America paid for the war the
  French fought against Communist Vietnam as a part
  of the Truman Doctrine (1947) to protect free
  peoples and then by the 1950s became involved
  when the war flared up again.

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• By the late 1950s the Americans developed the
  Domino Theory as a justification for the
  involvement. This theory stated, If South
  Vietnam falls to the Communist, Laos, Cambodia,
  Thailand, Burma, India and Pakistan would also
  fall like dominos. The Pacific Islands and even
  Australia could be at risk.  

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• The US prevented the elections that were promised
  under the Geneva conference because it knew that
  the Communists would win. Vietnamese Buddhist
  monks protested against American involvement by
  self-immolation.

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• The administration of President John F.
  Kennedy remained committed to the bi-partisan,
  anti-Communist foreign policies inherited from
  the administrations of Presidents Truman and
  Eisenhower.

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• Fearing that failure on the part of the U.S.
  to stop communist expansion would fatally damage
  U.S. credibility with its allies, Kennedy
  reaffirmed the commitment to defend Vietnam.

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• Operation Phoenix was organized by the CIA. This
  led to the arrest and murder of thousands of
  Communists in the south. First the US sent in
  military advisers, then President Johnson sent in
  troops in huge numbers.

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• The Kennedy administration was growing
  increasingly frustrated with Ngo Dinh Diem, the
  leader of South Vietnam . In 1963, a crackdown by
  Di?m's forces was launched against Buddhist monks
  protesting discriminatory practices and demanding
  a political voice. Diem's repression of the
  protests sparked the so-called Buddhist Revolt,
  during which self-immolations by several monks
  took place and which were covered in the world
  press. The communists took full advantage of the
  situation and fueled anti-Diem sentiment to
  create further instability.

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• The U.S. embassy in Saigon communicated
  through the CIA to military officers that the
  U.S. would not oppose the removal of Diem. The
  president was overthrown by the military and
  later executed along with his brother.

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• Chaos ensued in the security and defense
  systems of South Vietnam and, once again, Hanoi
  took advantage of the situation to increase its
  support for the insurgents in the south. South
  Vietnam now entered a period of extreme political
  instability, as one military junta replaced
  another in quick succession.

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• By July 1964 the total US troop level in
  Vietnam was 21,000. On the evening of August 4
  1964, the destroyer U.S.S. Maddox was conducting
  an electronic intelligence gathering mission four
  miles off the North Vietnamese coast when it was
  attacked by three torpedo boats of the North
  Vietnamese navy.

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• It was on the basis of the administration's
  assertions that the attacks were "unprovoked
  aggression" on the part of North Vietnam, that
  the U.S. Congress approved the Southeast Asia
  Resolution (also known as the Gulf of Tonkin
  Resolution) on 7 August. The law gave the
  president broad powers to conduct military
  operations without an actual declaration of war.

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• Assignment Two
• Describe the military tactics used by both the
  U.S. and the Viet Cong Forces in Vietnam in the
  1960s?

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• US Tactics
• Working closely with the Army of the South
  Vietnamese (Arvins) the Americans tried to make
  it difficult for the Viet Cong (Vietnamese
  Communists Victor Charlie) to gain support
  from the South Vietnamese peasants.
• Strategic Hamlet attempted to place peasants in
  fortified villages at night, where they couldnt
  be infiltrated. This backfired badly. It was
  very unpopular with the peasants who resented
  being so far away from their rice fields and
  ancestors. VC demolished many of the fortified
  villages anyway.  

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• The Air War Frustrated by lack of success on
  the ground, the US tried to win the war from the
  air. Operation Rolling Thunder that began with
  dropping millions of tons of High Explosive bombs
  on North Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh trail.

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• This was backed up by phosphorous and napalm
  bombs the latter causing dreadful burns to
  thousand of innocent civilians.

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• When this failed to break down the jungle cover
  the USAF started Operation Ranch Hand the
  defoliation programm, using Agent Orange. This
  deadly chemical cocktail, containing dioxin,
  killed off millions of acres of jungle to try to
  weaken the VC but left a horrendous legacy in
  Vietnam. The dioxin got into the food chain
  causing chromosome damage to humans. There were
  hundreds of cases of children born with
  deformities.

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• Of all aircraft, the helicopter (mainly Bell
  Huey) was the most useful, dropping platoons in
  the jungle clearings and out again. They were
  excellent air ambulances.

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• Vietnamese Tactics
• The Communist NLF (National Liberation Front) or
  "VC" used classic Maoist guerrilla tactics.

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• Guerrillas must move through the peasants like
  fish through sea, i.e. the peasants will support
  them as much as they can, shelter, food, weapons,
  storage, intelligence, recruits.
• In VC held areas they distributed the land to the
  peasants, which went down extremely well. By
  1973, the VC held about half of South Vietnam.
• Their weapons were cheap and reliable - the AK47
  Kalashnikov assault rifle out-performed the
  American M16, and the portable rocket launcher
  took out many US vehicles and aircraft.

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• They recycled dud bombs dropped by the Americans
  or old weapons left by the French.

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• Deadly booby-traps could inflict huge damage on
  young American conscripts!

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• The US countered with Search and Destroy
  tactics. In areas where the VC were thought to be
  operating troops went in, checked for weapons and
  if found, rounded up the villagers and burned the
  villages down. This often alienated the peasants
  from the US/Arvin cause.

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• As one marine said of a search and destroy
  mission If they werent VC before we got
  there, they sure as hell were by the time we
  left. The VC often helped the villagers
  re-build their homes and bury their dead.
• The Vietnamese built large tunnel complexes such
  as the ones at Cu Chi near Saigon. This protected
  them from the bombing raids by the Americans and
  gave them cover for attacking the invaders.

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• To counter this the Americans set up a special
  unit, the Tunnel Rats to seek out the Vietnamese
  fighters.

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• Assignment Three
• Explain why there were such different
  reactions in the USA to the countrys involvement
  in the Vietnam conflict in the 1960s. Why did
  the U.S. get out of Vietnam?

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• Some continued to believe in the Communist
  threat. The Cold War was real and Communism must
  be stopped.

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• Was the U.S. fighting for Democracy? Was the war
  a test of U.S. will and military might?
• Was the South Vietnam government a govt. Of the
  people or just a Dictatorship?
• Why should the U.S. fight this war for the South
  Vietnamese if they didnt care?

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• 1968 THE YEAR OF CRISIS IN AMERICA
• Tet Offensive in Vietnam
• Martin Luther King dies
• Robert Kennedy dies
• Democratic Presidential Convention in Chicago
• Massive Protests
• My Lai massacre

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• Opposition to the Vietnam War
• Probably the turning point came in January 1968
  with the Tet Offensive. The US public had been
  told that America was winning the war. However,
  when the VC attacked (and held for 3 weeks) most
  of South Vietnamese cities and towns Americans
  began to question whether the war could be won at
  all! Despite the serious VC losses (20,000), they
  were soon replaced. 

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• The US could never stem the flow of supplies to
  the Ho Chi Minh Trail and this was crucial to
  trying to end the Viet Cong guerrilla war.  

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• President Johnson was so disillusioned with the
  war he did not seek re-election. The Republicans
  won the 1968 election and Richard Nixon became
  President. Fairly soon he started
  Vietnamization pulling out US troops and
  getting ARVINS to do the fighting. The everyday
  sight on the news of Americans coming home in
  body-bags was hitting the government's support
  for the war.

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• Another serious blow to the US credibility came
  with the exposure of the My Lai massacre (March
  1968). Hushed up at the time and only discovered
  by a tenacious journalist, this involved the
  killing of 400 men, women and children by US
  troops. 

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• It came as a terrible shock to the US public and
  was a powerful boost to the huge peace movement
  who wanted the war stopped. Huge protests brought
  together the various direct-action movements.  

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• Some protests became violent - at Kent State
  University in Ohio, some protestors were shot
  dead with live ammunition by US troops.

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• Peace talks began in 1968 in Paris, and finally
  came to fruition in 1973 when the US left
  Vietnam. By 1975 the Communists launched a
  full-scale invasion and united the country
  renaming Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City.

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• Why Did America Lose the Vietnam war?

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• They underestimated the tenacity and organization
  of the VC and NVA  

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• Despite dropping more tonnage of high explosive
  on Vietnam than the whole of WW2, the Americans
  could not stop the movement of troops or supplies
  to the south along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.  

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• The North Vietnamese conducted a Peoples war in
  which everyone played a part (If the truck is
  stuck, tear down the walls of your house)

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• At first, most Americans supported the war. By
  1970, the PEACE MOVEMENT had support from all
  sections of society and no government could
  ignore it.  

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• After 1969, there were deep questions about the
  efficiency of US troops. There was a serious
  drugs problem desertion rates were high and
  morale low. Many troops were time-servers, i.e.
  counted the days until the tour was over.

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• The US never really understood the culture of the
  Vietnamese people. Coca Cola, chewing gum, ice
  cream, Marlboros could not buy off their ancient
  beliefs

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• America was not prepared to keep losing high
  numbers of casualties for such limited progress
  in a difficult jungle war, for which they were
  not suited.

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• The strength and resourcefulness of the VC ,for
  example the high complex CU CHI tunnel system the
  US never shut down.

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• The credibility of the U.S. government
  suffered in 1971 when newspapers published The
  Pentagon Papers, a top-secret historical study
  of the American commitment in Vietnam from the
  Franklin Roosevelt administration until 1967. The
  documents were leaked to the press by Daniel
  Ellsberg, a former State Department official who
  had worked on the study.

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• The Pentagon Papers laid out the mistakes of
  four administrations in their Vietnam policies.
  For example they revealed the Johnson
  administrations actions concerning the Gulf of
  Tonkin incidents they exposed the secret bombing
  of Laos in 1964 the American government's
  approval of the death of Ngo Dinh Diem.

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• 30 April,1975, the last U.S. Marines
  evacuated by helicopter as civilians poured over
  the embassy grounds.
• VPA troops overcame all resistance, The
  presidential palace was captured and the NLF flag
  waved victoriously over it.

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• U.S. killed in action, died of wounds, died
  of other causes, missing and declared dead -
  57,690. South Vietnamese military killed -
  243,748. Republic of Korea killed - 4,407.
  Australia and New Zealand (combined) - 469.
  Thailand - 351. The Vietnam People's Army and NLF
  (combined) - 666,000. North Vietnamese civilian
  fatalities - 65,000. South Vietnamese civilian
  dead - 300,000.

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