Chapter 22 The Vietnam War and the American Society 1960- 1975

The Vietnam War

     

         The Vietnam War was one of the most tragic events of the cold war. United States went through several presidents from Eisenhower to Nixon. They spent billions of dollars and sent half million soldiers to Vietnam. Time passed and the war consumed more and more resources, so many Americans questioned if the United States should continue involved in the War. At the end of the war the antiwar movement finally convinced politicians to pull out Americans troops out of Vietnam.

        According to President Eisenhower’s domino theory, if one Southeast Asian nation fell to communism, others would soon follow. Ho Chi Minh, a pro-Communist leader in Vietnam, led a group called the Vietminh against French control of his nation before, during, and after World War II.  After the Vietminh successfully defeated the French in 1954, a peace agreement called the Geneva Accords divided Vietnam into Communist North Vietnam and anti-Communist South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh led North Vietnam, while Ngo Dinh Diem led South Vietnam. The United States began providing economic aid to the French in Vietnam in 1950. In 1960, President Eisenhower sent hundreds of military advisors to help South Vietnam’s struggle against the North.

       During the early 1960s, Ngo Dinh Diem’s policies lost him the support of his people. Realizing that the struggle against communism could not be won under Diem’s rule, President Kennedy told South Vietnamese military leaders that the United States would not object to Diem’s overthrow. In 1963, military leaders seized control of South Vietnam and assassinated Diem. Shortly after Diem’s assassination, President Kennedy was assassinated, and Vice President Johnson assumed the presidency. As a result, Communist guerrillas in South Vietnam, known as the Viet Cong, made gains in both territory and loyalty.  The Viet Cong’s political wing was known as the National Liberation Front. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, passed by Congress in 1964, regarded peace and security in Southeast Asia as vital to American national interest, and it gave the President additional powers to assist any Southeast Asian country “requesting assistance in defense of its freedoms.”

       After the election of 1964, President Johnson began a gradual escalation, or expansion of the war. The number of American soldiers stationed in Vietnam rose from about 25,000 at the beginning of 1965 to nearly 536,000 by the end of 1968. On January 30, 1960, the Viet Cong and North Vietnam launched a major offensive. This series of attacks was called the Tet Offensive since it occurred during Tet, the Vietnamese New Year. During and after the Tet Offensive, both sides were guilty of brutal atrocities. Communists slaughtered anyone they labeled an enemy; Americans massacred hundreds of civilians at My Lai, a small village in South Vietnam.

   Organized in 1960, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) had a major impact on the New Left, a political movement that advocated radical changes to deal with problems such as poverty and racism. Begun at the University of Michigan in March 1965, teach-ins, or special sessions at which issues concerning the war could be discussed, soon became a popular means of expressing antiwar sentiment.

      To increase the available fighting force, the United States invoked the Selective Service Act of 1951, drafting young men between the ages of 18 and 26 into the armed forces. Most of those who refused to be drafted in the early 1960s were conscientious objectors, people who opposed fighting on moral or religious grounds.

      Toward the end of his term as President, Johnson had called for peace negotiations to end the Vietnam War. However, the resulting Paris peace talks, which began in May 1968, failed to produce an agreement. President Nixon campaigned on the claim that he had a secret plan to end the war. In June 1969, he began the policy of Vietnamization, replacing American troops in Vietnam with South Vietnamese soldiers. In a 1969 speech, Nixon appealed to those who, he felt, quietly supported his policies. He referred to this group of Americans as “the silent majority.” The violence at Kent State, and a similar incident at Jackson State in Mississippi, horrified Americans.

      At the end when United States started the war many Americans didn’t like the idea they were losing a lot of resources because of the War. The presidents wanted to stop this but they could not do much. The anti war movement finally convinced politics in Washington that it was time to pull out of Vietnam. Americans troops withdrew very slowly, and the fighting was far from over.