Vietnam War

1. CH 28 QUIZ
1. Lyndon Johnson domestic programs were known collectively as the _
2. The program that offered health insurance to age 65
3. Leader of Cuba
4. Military strategy that relies on conventional rather than nuclear warfare
5. Soviet barrier that separated West and East Berlin
6. This barred nuclear testing in the atmosphere
7. This was a failed invasion in Cuba that involved CIA trained exiled Cubans
8. JFK vision outlined in his campaign into a legislative agenda was called
9. JFK program that assisted volunteers offering education to developing
nations
10. This person was blamed for solely assassinating John F. Kennedy
11. Communication link between the White House and the Kremlin
12. A decisive factor in the election of 1960 was television coverage of the
13. Event that brought the world uncomfortably close to the brink of nuclear war
between US and Soviet
14. The first Soviet cosmonaut
15. The first man on the moon

3. VIETNAM WAR
Chapter 30
OVERVIEW

4. A Different War• First “living-room war –
people watched footage
of combat on the nightly
news – first in which
television played a major
role.

5. Public Opinion
• Two out of three Americans judge the
Vietnam war to have been a “mistake.”
• Over 50% do not have a clear idea what
the war was about.
• About 1/3 can’t even remember which
side we supported.
• 50% of Americans did not know where
Vietnam was located

6. 76% of the men sent to Vietnam
were from lower to middle class
families.
The average age of a soldier
was 19.
Most soldiers were drafted –
few enlisted.
Soldiers served a “tour of duty”
– about 1 year.

7. Vietnam
1940 Japanese took control
Ho Chi Minh declared
Vietnam independent
(wanted to keep it that
way)
1945 – French control
Vietnam had no intention
of relinquishing its
territory
Ho Chi Minh – controlled
North Vietnam (aided by
China/ Soviet.)
1950 – Pres. Truman sent
$15 million aid to France

8. IN 1953, President Eisenhower
continued the policy of
supplying aid to the French
war effort
In 1954, Eisenhower explained the
domino theory- countries on the
brink of communism waiting to fall
one after the other
In 1956, Eisenhower administration
promised military aid and training to
Diem in return for a stable reform
government in the South.
Despite massive U.S. aid,
French could not retake
Vietnam. They were forced to
surrender in May of 1954,
when the Vietminh overran the
French outpost at Dien Bien
Phu, in northwestern Vietnam.

9. Geneva Peace Accord (1954)
• a provisional
demarcation line at
the 17th parallel
divide Vietnam until
nationwide elections
in 1956
• North Vietnam-
Hanoi- communist
•South Vietnam-
Saigon- democratic

10.  South Vietnam, led by
Ngo Dinh Diem,
democratic, backed by
the U.S.
Corrupt govt. - Offered
little or no land
distribution to peasants.
 North Vietnam, led by
Ho Chi Minh, communist,
backed by Soviet Union.
 he broke up large
estates and redistributed
land to the peasants

11. Vietcong (VC)
• Communist
opposition group
in the South
• Vietminh-
guerrilla fighters
from the South
aiding Minh

12. • 1961- Kennedy increased
financial aid to Diem’s and
sent thousands of military
advisers to help train South
Vietnamese troops.
• Called Vietnam – the
“cornerstone of the free
world.”
• By the end of 1963, 16,000
U.S. military personnel were
in South Vietnam.
Ho Chi Minh supported NLF
(National Liberation Front, and
in 1959 began supplying arms to
the Vietcong via a network of
paths along the borders of
Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia
that became known as the Ho
Chi Minh Trail.

13. Meanwhile, Diem’s popularity plummeted
because of ongoing corruption and his
failure to respond to calls for land reform.
Diem also intensified his attack on
Buddhism.
He imprisoned and killed hundreds of
Buddhist and destroyed their temples.
To protest, several Buddhist monks and
nuns publicly burned themselves to death.
Horrified, American officials urged Diem to
stop the persecutions, but Diem refused.
It had become clear that for South
Vietnam to remain stable, Diem would
have to go.
On November 1, 1963, a U.S.-
supported military coup toppled
Diem’s regime. Against Kennedy’s
wishes, Diem was assassinated.

14. • President Johnson believed that a communist takeover of South
Vietnam would be disastrous. Johnson, like Kennedy, was
particularly sensitive to being perceived as “soft” on
communism. “If I . . . let the communists take over South
Vietnam,” Johnson said, “then . . . my nation would be seen as
an appeaser and we would . . . find it impossible to accomplish
anything . . . anywhere on the entire globe.”

15. Gulf of Tonkin Incident (1964)• On August 2, 1964, a North Vietnamese
patrol boat fired a torpedo at the USS
Maddox, while patrolling in the
Gulf of Tonkin off the N.
Vietnamese coast.
• The torpedo missed its target, but the
Maddox returned fire and inflicted
heavy damage on the patrol boat.
• The alleged attack on the U.S. ships
prompted President Johnson to
launch bombing strikes on
North Vietnam.
• He asked Congress for powers to
take “all necessary measures to
repel any armed attack against the
forces of the United States and to
prevent further aggression.”
• adopted the Tonkin Gulf
Resolution
• Congress granted Johnson broad
military powers in Vietnam.

16. Operation Rolling Thunder
• 1965, Johnson unleashed
“Operation Rolling
Thunder,”
– the first sustained
bombing of North
Vietnam. In
• March of that year the first
American combat troops
began arriving in South
Vietnam.
• By June, more than 50,000
U.S. soldiers were battling
the Vietcong.
• The Vietnam War had
become Americanized.

17. • in March of 1965,
Working closely with his
foreign-policy advisers,
Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara and
Secretary of State Dean
Rusk, President
Johnson began
dispatching tens
of thousands of
U.S. soldiers to
fight in Vietnam.

18. In October of 1964,
Undersecretary of State
George Ball had argued
against escalation,
warning that “once on the
tiger’s back, we cannot be
sure of picking the place to
dismount.” However, the
president’s closest
advisers strongly
urged escalation, believing
the defeat of communism
in Vietnam to be of vital
importance to the future of
America and the world.

19. • By the end of 1965, the
U.S. government had sent
more than 180,000
Americans to Vietnam.
• General William
Westmoreland, continued
to request more troops.
• Johnson administration
complied with
Westmoreland’s requests;
by 1967, the number of
U.S. troops in Vietnam had
climbed to about 500,000.

20. Fighting in the Jungle
• Because the Vietcong lacked the
high-powered weaponry of the
American forces,
– they used hit-and-run and
ambush tactics,
– knowledge of the jungle
terrain,
– Moving secretly in and out of
the general population,
– attacking U.S. troops in both
the cities and the
countryside.
– some enemy lived among the
civilian population,
• it was difficult for U.S.
troops to discern friend
from foe.

21. • Adding to the Vietcong’s
elusiveness was a network of
elaborate tunnels that allowed
them to withstand airstrikes and
to launch surprise attacks and
then disappear quickly.
• Connecting villages throughout
the countryside, the tunnels
became home to many guerrilla
fighters.
• “The more the Americans tried
to drive us away from our land,
the more we burrowed into it,”
• the terrain was laced with
countless booby traps and land
mines.
• Because the exact location of the Vietcong was
often unknown, U.S. troops laid land mines
throughout the jungle. The Vietcong also laid
their own traps, and disassembled and reused
U.S. mines.

22. • to destroy their morale
through a war of attrition,
or the gradual wearing
down of the enemy by
continuous harassment.
• Introducing the concept
of the body count, or the
tracking of Vietcong
killed in battle,
– the general believed that as
the number of Vietcong dead
rose, the guerrillas would
inevitably surrender.
• Despite the growing number of
casualties and the relentless pounding
from U.S. bombers, the Vietcong—
who received supplies from China and
the Soviet Union—remained defiant.
Defense Secretary
McNamara
confessed his
frustration to a
reporter in 1966:
“If I had thought
they would take
this punishment
and fight this
well, . . . I would
Westmoreland Strategies:

23. • US underscored the degree to which
America misunderstood its foe. The
United States viewed the war strictly as a
military struggle; the Vietcong saw it as a
battle for their very existence, and they
were ready to pay any price for
• The campaign to win the
“hearts and minds” of the
South Vietnamese villagers
proved more difficult than
imagined.
• To expose Vietcong tunnels and
hideouts, U.S. planes dropped
napalm, a gasoline-based bomb
that set fire to the jungle.
• sprayed Agent Orange, a leaf-
killing toxic chemical.
• The saturation use of these
weapons often wounded
civilians and left villages and
their surroundings in ruins.
U.S. Army Special Forces, or
Green Berets, stressed the plan’s
importance.
“Just remember this. Communist
guerrillas hide among the people.
If you win the people over to your
side, the communist guerrillas
have no place to hide.”

24. • U.S. soldiers
conducted
search-and-
destroy missions,
uprooting
civilians with
suspected ties to
the Vietcong,
killing their
livestock, and
burning villages.
“We had to
destroy the town
in order to save
it”

25. The frustrations of guerrilla warfare, the brutal
jungle conditions, and the failure to make
substantial headway against the enemy took their
toll on the U.S. troops’ morale.
Philip Caputo, a marine lieutenant in Vietnam
summarized the soldiers’ growing disillusionment:
“When we marched into the rice paddies . . . we
carried, along with our packs and rifles, the
implicit convictions that the Vietcong could be
quickly beaten. We kept the packs and rifles; the
convictions, we lost.”

26. • THE LIVING-ROOM WAR Through the media,
specifically television, Vietnam became America’s
first “living-room war.”
• The combat footage that appeared nightly on the
news in millions of homes showed stark pictures
that seemed to contradict the administration’s
optimistic war scenario.
• Quoting body-count statistics that showed large
numbers of communists dying in battle, General
Westmoreland continually reported that a Vietcong
surrender was imminent. Defense Secretary
McNamara backed up the general, saying that he
could see “the light at the end of the tunnel.”
• The repeated television images of Americans in
body bags told a different story, though. While
communists may have been dying, so too were
Americans—over 16,000 between 1961 and 1967.
Critics charged that a credibility gap was growing
between what the Johnson administration reported
and what was really happening.
• Credibility gap - an apparent difference
between what is said or promised and what
happens or is true.
One woman appeared
to capture the mood of
Middle America
when she told an
interviewer, “I want to
get out, but I don’t
want to give in.”

28. • As Americans’ doubts about the war,
thousands of men attempted to find ways
around the draft
• many of the men who fought in Vietnam
were lower-class whites or minorities
who were less privileged economically.
With almost 80 percent of American
soldiers coming from lower economic
levels, Vietnam was a working-class war.

29. • By 1967, Americans
increasingly found
themselves divided into
two camps regarding the
war.
• Those who opposed the
war and believed the US
should withdraw were
known as doves.
• US should unleash a
greater military force to
win the war were the
hawks.

31. Tet Offensive
• Jan. 31 1968 (week long
truce)
 Vietcong attack over 100
towns and cities in
South Vietnam.
 Attacked 12 US air
bases
 US forces turn back the
onslaught and recapture
most areas.
 From a military point of view,
Tet is a huge defeat for the
Communists, but turns out to
be a political and
psychological victory.
Westmoreland Requests
206,000 More Troops

32. • ANTI- WAR PROTEST

33. • March 31, 1968,
Johnson announced
the United States would
seek negotiations to
end the war.

34. Richard Nixon- 1968
• In January of 1969, Nixon
negotiations U.S. troops
withdraw from South
Vietnam
• Security Adviser Henry
Kissinger propose a plan
to end America’s
involvement in Vietnam,
known as Vietnamization,
called for the gradual
withdrawal of U.S. troops
in order for the South
Vietnamese to take on a
more active combat role in
the war.
• By August of 1969, the
first 25,000 U.S. troops had
returned home from
Vietnam.

35. Nixon policy was aimed at
establishing what the
president called a “peace with
honor.”
Nixon intended to maintain
U.S. dignity in the face of its
withdrawal from war.
With this objective—and even
as the pullout had begun—
Nixon secretly ordered a
massive bombing against
supply routes and bases in
North Vietnam.
The president also ordered
that bombs be dropped on the
neighboring countries of Laos
and Cambodia
Nixon wanted the enemy to
believe he was capable of
anything.

36. • Seeking to win support for
his war policies, Richard
Nixon appealed to what he
called the silent majority—
moderate, mainstream
Americans who quietly
supported the U.S. efforts
in Vietnam. While many
average Americans did
support the president, the
events of the war continued
to divide the country.

37. My Lai Massacre• March 16, 1968
• Charlie Company,(US)
• Searching for Vietcong
• Found no sign of enemy
– "This is what you've been
waiting for -- search and
destroy -- and you've got it,"
• Massacred an entire
unarmed village(more
than 200 innocent
•recalled 22-year-old Private Paul Meadlo. “I poured about four clips into
the group. . . . The mothers was hugging their children. . . . Well, we kept
right on firing.”
•The troops insisted that they were not responsible for the shootings
because they were only following Lieutenant Calley’s orders. When asked
what his directive had been, one soldier answered, “Kill anything that
breathed.” Twenty-five army officers were charged with some degree of
responsibility, but only Calley was convicted and imprisoned

38. • On April 30, 1970, President
Nixon announced that U.S.
troops had invaded
Cambodia to clear out North
Vietnamese and Vietcong
supply centers.
• Upon hearing of the
invasion, college students
across the country burst
out in protest. In what
became the first general
student strike in the
nation’s history, more than
1.5 million students closed
down some 1,200
campuses.
The president
defended his action:
“If when the chips are
down, the world’s
most powerful nation
acts like a pitiful,
helpless giant, the
forces of
totalitarianism and
anarchy will threaten
free nations . . .
throughout the
world.”

39. Kent State University Protest
• May 4, 1970, Ohio
• Student protest due to
bombing of Cambodia
• Student burn ROTC
building.
• Student start protest march
– national guard throws tear
gas at students.
• Students throw rocks at
National Guard.
• Students were killed (4 ad 9
wounded)

40. • Support for the war eroded even
further when in June of 1971 former
Defense Department worker Daniel
Ellsberg leaked what became
known as the Pentagon
Papers.
• The 7,000-page document,
written revealed government plans
for entering the war even as
President Lyndon Johnson
promised that he would not send
American troops to Vietnam.
• Furthermore, the papers showed
that there was never any plan to
end the war as long as the North
Vietnamese persisted.
• For many Americans, the Pentagon
Papers confirmed that the
government had not been honest
about its war intentions. The
document, while not particularly
damaging to the Nixon
administration, supported what
opponents of the war had been
saying.

41. • In March of 1972, the North
Vietnamese launched their
largest attack on South
Vietnam.
• President Nixon responded
by ordering a massive
bombing campaign against
North Vietnamese cities.
• He also ordered that mines be
laid in Haiphong harbor, the
North’s largest harbor, into
which Soviet and Chinese
ships brought supplies.
• The bombings halted the North
Vietnamese attack, but the
grueling stalemate continued.
The Communists
“have never been
bombed like they
are going to be
bombed this time,”
Nixon vowed.

42. • December 16. Two days
later, the president
unleashed a ferocious
bombing campaign
against Hanoi and
Haiphong, known as the
“Christmas bombings,”
• U.S. planes dropped
100,000 bombs over the
course of eleven straight
days, pausing only on
Christmas Day.

43. • calls to end the war from
the halls of Congress as
well as from Beijing and
Moscow.
• Everyone, it seemed, had finally
grown weary of the war.
• The warring parties returned to
the peace table, and on January
27, 1973, the United States
signed an “Agreement on
Ending the War and Restoring
Peace in Vietnam.” Under the
agreement, North Vietnamese
troops would remain in South
Vietnam. However, Nixon
promised to respond “with full
force” to any violation of the
peace agreement. On March 29,
1973, the last U.S. combat
troops left for home. For
America, the Vietnam War had
ended.

44. Start for Home
March 1975 N. Vietnam
launched a full –scale war on S.
Vietnam
•US provided economic aid but
no troops
•Operation Frequent Wind – the
largest evacuation on record.
Start moving all Americans from
Saigon.
•Ford “America can regain its
sense of pride that existed before
Vietnam. But it cannot be
achieved by refighting a war…”
•April 30th
1975 – Saigon falls to
North Vietnam.

45. Painful Legacy
• 15 % of 3.3 million
developed Post-traumatic
stress disorder (some have
recurring nightmares; some
suffered from severe
headaches and memory
lapse; started abusing
alcohol/drugs; some
committed suicide)
• Congress passed the War
Powers Act
– President must inform
Congress within 48 hours of
sending troops into hostile
area
– They can only remain there no
longer than 90 days
• 1971 –Amendment 26
– Lowered the voting age
from 21 to 18

47. Agent Orange side effects

48. Pictures of Victims

52. More Victims

53. Network of Tunnels

54. Land mines left behind

57. • Cambodia: The 'hero rats' sniffing out landmines
• The incredible rodents can detect trace levels of TNT and other explosives in
the soil with their sensitive smell

62. Vietnam Terminology
• BC – body count
• Boonies – the jungle
• Bouncing Betty – a type of mine that when
triggered, is propelled into the air and
explodes at groin to head level.
• Charlie – the VC
• Cobra – heavily armed Army helicopter
• Dear John letter- letter from a girlfriend at
home ending the relationship.

63. Terms
• Dust off – medical evacuation by helicopter.
• Five O’clock follies – slang for the daily
press briefings that reported the BC – body
count.
• Freedom Bird – airplane that returned
troops to home.
• Friendly Fire – accidental attack on your
own force/troops.

64. Terms
• MASH – Mobile Army Surgical Hospital
• MIA – Missing In Action
• Million-dollar wound – a noncrippling
wound serious enough to warrant a
return home to the U.S.
• Newbie- new soldier
• Point Man – man in the front of a squad
on patrol.

65. Terms
• Sky Pilot – a Chaplain
• In the country - Vietnam
• The World – what the troops called the U.S.
• The Zoo – nickname for the North
Vietnamese POW camp near Hanoi –
known as one of the worst camps.
• POW – Prisoner of War

66. Terms
• Puff the Magic
Dragon – U.S. Air
Force
• Punji Stakes –
weapon used by the
VC – sharpened
bamboo stakes
hidden at ground
level often smeared
with poison.

67. OPERATION MENU (BREAKFAST TO DINNER)
In his diary in March 1969, Nixon's chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman, noted that the final decision to carpet
bomb Cambodia 'was made at a meeting in the Oval Office Sunday afternoon, after the church service'.
In his diary on 17 March 1969, Haldeman wrote:
Historic day. K[issinger]'s "Operation Breakfast" finally came off at 2:00 pm our time. K really excited, as is
P[resident].
And the next day:
K's "Operation Breakfast" a great success. He came beaming in with the report, very productive. A lot more
secondaries than had been expected. Confirmed early intelligence. Probably no reaction for a few days, if
ever.
The bombing began on the night of 18 March with a raid by 60 B-52 Stratofortress bombers, based at
Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. The target was Base Area 353, the supposed location of COSVN in
the Fishhook.[10]
Although the aircrews were briefed that their mission was to take place in South Vietnam,
48 of the bombers were diverted across the Cambodian border and dropped 2,400 tons of bombs.[11]
The
mission was designated Breakfast, after the morning Pentagon planning session at which it was devised.
[citation needed]
Breakfast was so successful (in U.S. terms) that General Abrams provided a list of 15 more known Base
Areas for targeting.[12]
The five remaining missions and targets were: Lunch (Base Area 609), Snack (Base
Area 351), Dinner (Base Area 352), Supper (Base Area 740), and Dessert (Base Area 350).[13]
SAC flew
3,800 B-52 sorties against these targets, and dropped 108,823 tons of ordnance during the missions.
[12]
Due to the continued reference to meals in the codenames, the entire series of missions was referred to
as Operation Menu. Studies and Observations Group forward air controllers of the Military Assistance
Command, Vietnam provided 70 percent of the Menu bomb damage intelligence[14]
Nixon and Kissinger went to great lengths to keep the missions secret. In order to prevent criticism of the
bombing, an elaborate dual reporting system of the missions had been formulated during the Brussels
meeting between Nixon, Haig, and Colonel Sitton.[15]