Vietnam War

1
Vietnam War

• 1954-1975

2
Start of Involvement

• Vietnam used to be a French Territory
• Ho Chi Minh becomes national leader of Vietnam
• U.S. doesnt help Minh because France is our ally
• Vietnam fights for independence

• Geneva Accords divided Vietnam
• North Communist Minh
• South- Non-Communist- Diem

3
Kennedy and Vietnam

• JFK supported south Vietnam/ Diem
• Didnt want to be soft on communism
• Increased the number of military advisors, 16,000
  (troops) in Vietnam

• Diem stopped listening to the U.S.
• Persecuted Buddhism
• U.S. lead a coup against Diem and had him
  assassinated
• Kennedy decided to pull U.S. troops out of the
  war but was assassinated

4
Johnsons Vietnam

• Johnson didnt want to become the president that
  lost Vietnam
• August 2, 1964 the U.S.S. Maddox was fired on
• August 7, congress passed the Tonkin Gulf
  Resolution

• Gave President military power in Vietnam without
  declaring war
• Johnson started to bomb North Vietnam
• 50,000 U.S. troops in war by June 65

5
Jungle War

• Used helicopters to get around
• Vietcong/ NLF used hit and run tactics against
  the U.S.
• Used series of tunnels to hide and surprise U.S.
  troops

• Rats had to go into tunnels to search for NLF
• Faced snakes, spiders, scorpions and traps

6
Pictures from the War
7
Tet Offensive

• January 30th starts the Vietnamese new year
  called Tet
• The NLF took advantage of a truce during this
  time period to smuggle weapons in South Vietnam
• The night of Jan 30th, 1968 they made a surprise
  attack

• 100s of cities were attacked by Vietcong
• 12 U.S. bases and the American Embassy in Saigon
• Vietcong lost 32,000 troops to U.S.s 3,000
• Changed U.S. public opinion of the war, nobody
  wanted war

8
Styles Of Fighting

• Operation Rolling Thunder- plan to drop bombs on
  Vietnam
• 6.2 million tons of bombs
• U.S. planes also dropped napalm and Agent Orange
  to destroy ground coverage of Vietnam jungles

• U.S. soldiers were sent on search and Destroy
  missions
• Everything/body was destroyed
• Created refugee camps throughout south Vietnam

9
Peace Talks

• Nixon is elected in 1968 and wants to
  Vietnamize the war
• Withdrawal of U.S. troops
• Peace talks in Paris dont go smoothly
• Nixon sent Henry Kissinger to negotiate

• Played Good Cop/ Bad Cop
• Vietnam pulled out of negotiations so
• Nixon went back to dropping bombs 100,000 in 11
  days
• 1/27/73 signed an peace agreement
• 3/29/73 combat troops were coming home

10
Results

• 58,000 Americans died during the war
• 1.5 million Vietnamese, North and South were
  killed
• Thousands of POWs and MIAs
• Some soldiers had physical and psychological
  damages

• Led to a distrust of political leaders in foreign
  affairs
• Many Refugees had to leave Vietnam when it fell
  to communism