The Vietnam War PDF

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The Vietnam War...

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The Vietnam War Decolonization A. Vietnam and the French - Vietnam was controlled by France and didn’t want to be - They despised the French - During WW2, Vietnam is taken over by Japan so this is part of the war - the Vietnamese fought the Japanese because they want to be independent B. Ho Chi Minh - Leader of the resistance of the Vietnamese against the Japanese - He is hoping that because both the Vietnamese and the U.S. are fighting against Japan, that the U.S. would see that they deserve independence - The French take them back over by the end of the war - Ho Chi Minh wrote a declaration of independence that looks a lot like the United States - Ho Chi Minh is a communist and he wanted Vietnam to be communist - Eisenhower is president during this while Vietnam was resisting the French Eisenhower and Vietnam A. Domino Theory - If you let one country in Asia fall to communism, they will all fall - A line has to be drawn and it was decided that that line would be Vietnam - The US supports France in colonizing Vietnam - The French realize that they will not win the war - In 1954 the French give up - The US decides that they can’t walk away B. Division of Vietnam, 1954 - Ngo Dinh Diem - North Vietnam is communist under Ho Chi Minh - South Vietnam is capitalist and supported by the US by Ngo Dinh Diem - In 1956 the Vietnamese people vote to see if they want to be capitalist or communists - Ngo Dinh Diem denies his people of the freedom of speech, religion, etc. and is very corrupt - Makes it clear to Eisenhower that Ho Chi Minh will win so they cancel the voting and keeps Vietnam split C. Civil War - A civil war between the North and the South Vietnam - Army of North Vietnam: communists under Ho Chi Minh, allied with national liberation front - National liberation Front (Vietcong)- communist supporters in south Vietnam - Army of Republic of Vietnam (ARVN)- army of south Vietnam, supported by America Kennedy and Vietnam A. Advisors - Kennedy says that he will send advisors to train the army of south Vietnam to fight for themselves, not troops

- Diem becomes increasingly unpopular, Buddhist monks stage protests B. Increased protests - Buddhist monks set themselves on fire - The leader of south Vietnam is assassinated by his own officers - After this south Vietnam never got a good leader and America can’t fix that LBJ’s War A. Gulf of Tonkin - The Maddox- an American ship, provided support for the south Vietnamese, got fired on by North Vietnam and not a lot of damage was done… two days later, they think they got attacked but it was a false alarm - LBJ sees this as an excuse to escalate the war and send in more groups - Congress sends in more troops (600,000 American troops) B. Military Strategy - Air War - Operation Rolling Thunder- bomb the area, supplies, and people in hopes that they will stop fighting; destroy the moral, instead of this it backfires - North Vietnam just goes underground - Increase use of chemical weapons: Napalm (burns when exposed to air) Agent Orange (not technically a weapon used on people, designed to destroy plants because the NLF was taking refuge in the jungles so they were killing the jungle in order to see the people) - Ground Fighting- didn’t happen except in South Vietnam, no official ground fighting in North Vietnam; campaigns against the NLF - Majority is ambushes, search and destroy missions - Search and destroy missions- search villages in south Vietnam for evidence of the NLF - Psychologically this war was really traumatizing to the soldiers C. The soldiers - Many of the soldiers are 18-20 years-old - The vast majority of them were drafted o If you were a college student, you would be exempted from the draft o Lottery system based on your birthday - You would serve for a year and then you would come back to the U.S. immediately - 2/3 of the soldiers smoked pot - 1/3 used heroine D. My Lai - 1968 a search and destroy mission went horribly wrong, the platoon captain, Medina, told the soldiers that this was an opportunity for revenge, they were in My Lai, in 4 hours the platoon killed over 350 people (mainly children and old people), the people in the helicopters intervened and turned their guns on fellow soldiers - this really upsets the American people, this war is heavily televised The Anti-War Movement A. The Credibility Gap - Stems the anti-war movement

The difference between what people see on the news and what the government is saying - The government is saying we are winning, but the news is not showing that and there hasn’t been any reports of a victory, no markers backing up what the government is saying B. Hawks vs. Doves - Americans divide into Hawks and Doves - Hawks: support the war, say we haven’t won because we haven’t been aggressive enough - Doves: don’t support the war for multiple reasons (not all doves are hippies) o Don’t support the war because of the high civilian and military casualties, the fear that the war is turning good people into murderers o Civil rights leaders don’t support the war because it is taking time and money away from the civil rights movements (high number of African Americans being drafted because the minorities can’t afford college to avoid draft) o Don’t support the war because we can’t win the war and we need to get out - this is the first war where we see a huge number of artists against the war (unlike WW2) - there is an outpouring of art and music that are strongly against the war (bob Dylan, Neil Young) - people are starting to lose trust in the military C. The Tet Offensive - Christmas of 67, LBJ says that we haven’t won yet but we pretty much have made our mark - January of 68 Vietnam goes on the offensive to show that they were going to keep fighting - In 24 hours, they were able to spread out and take out multiple American sights including the American Embassy. This was not supposed to happen - The fighting lasted for 4 weeks, the U.S. are able to push them back - LBJ’s secretary of defense quits, the next in line says we aren’t going to win, the advisory splits in half- we either go harder or try to end it - Johnson opens up peace negotiations with North Vietnam and decides not to run for president Nixon and Vietnam A. Election of 1968 - Republicans are all behind democrats - “Peace with honor” - silent majority supports Nixon, most Americans - Nixon says he will be a law in order president - Nixon is elected in 1968 B. Vietnamization - Henry Kissinger- Nixon’s main foreign policy advisor - Vietnamization- shifting of fighting the war from American soldiers to South Vietnamese -

Gets rid of the college exemptions for the draft to end the war getting fought by poor people and the rich men get out - This is supposed to be shrinking the war but the war keeps going on because Nixon takes away the peace treaties that LBJ but in place - Nixon wants nothing more than North Vietnam to surrender, which isn’t going to happen C. Widening the War - Cambodia and Laos were neutral countries but the Ho Chi Minh trail went through them so Nixon started bombing Cambodia and Laos and then invaded to try to stop the Ho Chi Minh trail but this doesn’t work - Leads to even more protests particularly at college campuses D. Increased Protests: Kent State - May of 1970 - President of the University said no more protests at the campus - This ended up with more protests because of the oppression of free speech - One night someone burned down the campuses ROTC building - The national guard came to restore order to Kent State - Some of the protestors threw rocks at the national guard in the commons area, the national guard fired bean bag pellets and tear gas to disperse the crowd, it looked like the crowd was leaving and then about 12 of the nation guard opened fire on the protesters and about 68 bullets had been fired into the crowd - When the smoke clears, 10 students were wounded, 1 was paralyzed completely, and 4 were killed (only 2 were actually protesters, the other two were just walking to class) - A lot of college students feel under attack so they protest more E. Increased Protests: Jackson State - There’s a protest, police came, two students were killed studying in their dorm rooms - Majority of college students side with the protesters - Parents and up are in favor of the police and national guard and whatever measures they are taking to restore the order - Creates a generation gap F. Declining Troop Morale - Vietnam Veterans Against the War: feel like they were sent into a war that was never winnable - John Kerry lead Vietnam Veterans Against the War The American Withdrawal A. The Cease-Fire, Jan 1973 - America pulls out all of its troops, north and south Vietnam line stays - For about a year north Vietnam upholds these terms - Then north Vietnam breaks the cease fire and attacks south Vietnam B. The Fall of Saigon, 1975 - The communists took over all of Vietnam -

C. Aftermath: - 58,000 Americans dead - 300,000 Americans wounded - 2 million Vietnamese dead - 170 billion dollars...