Vietnam test

On Nov 25th

Geneva Accords

This agreement temporarily divided Vietnam along the 17^th parallel. 

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

This granted the U.S. president broad military powers in Vietnam. 

Napalm

This was a gasoline-based bomb that set fire to the jungle, used to expose Vietcong tunnels and hideouts.

Domino Theory

This was based on the idea that countries on the brink of communism were waiting to fall to communism one after another.

Ho Chi Minh Trai

This allowed Communists in North Vietnam to supply military arms to the government opposition group in South Vietnam. 

Vietcong (National Liberation Front)

This was a South Vietnamese opposition group that carried out thousands of assassinations of South Vietnamese government officials. 

Tet Offensive

This was a massive surprise attack by the Vietcong on South Vietnamese towns and cities in early 1968.

Vietminh

This group, formed by Vietnamese Communists and other nationalist groups in 1941, declared independence from foreign rule as its single goal.

Credibility Gap

Critics of Johnson’s policies in Vietnam used this term to describe their distrust of what the Johnson administration reported to the public about war.

Search-and-destroy missions

Conducted by U.S. soldiers, these resulted in the uprooting of Vietnamese villagers with suspected ties to the Vietcong, and the burning of their villages.

The New Left

A term that encompassed many different activist groups and organizations of the growing youth movement of the 1960s

Doves

These Americans strongly opposed the Vietnam War and believed that the United States should withdraw 

Hawks

These Americans strongly felt that the Johnson administration wasn’t doing enough to escalate and win the Vietnam War 

Khmer Rouge

This communist group seized power in Cambodia after the U.S. invasion of that country unleashed a brutal civil war.

My Lai Massacre

This was the murder of more that 200 innocent Vietnamese villagers by U.S. troops which shocked Americans when it was finally revealed to the public

War Powers Act

This law requires a president to inform Congress within 48 hours if U.S. forces are sent into a hostile area without a declaration of war.

Pentagon Papers

Publication of this revealed that the Johnson administration had lied to the public about its intentions in Vietnam.

Vietnamization

This called for the gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops in Vietnam.

Kent State University Shootings

A ‘massacre’ at this Midwestern university left four college students dead and others wounded. 

Ho Chi Minh

He led the Indochinese Communist Party and fought French, Japanese and U.S. forces for the independence of Vietnam. 

Ngo Dinh Diem

This anti-Communist South Vietnam president canceled elections that were supported to unify Vietnam. 

Dean Rusk

As Secretary of State in the Johnson administration, he argued for U.S. escalation in Vietnam, claiming that abandoning the South Vietnamese would cause “disaster to peace.”

Robert McNamara

As Secretary of Defense in the Johnson administration, he admitted he “would have thought differently at the start” of the conflict in Vietnam if he had been aware of the Vietcong’s resilience.

General William Westmoreland

As the U.S. commander in South Vietnam, this general introduced the concept of the body count in the belief that as the number of Vietcong casualties rose, the Vietcong would eventually surrender.

Robert F. Kennedy

This 1968 Democratic presidential candidate was assassinated in Los Angeles, June 5, 1968.

Clark Clifford

He was chosen as Lyndon Johnson’s second Secretary of Defense in 1968.

Hubert Humphrey

He was the Democratic nominee for president in 1968.

George Wallace

He ran in the 1968 presidential election as a third-party candidate on a platform of supporting states’ rights and segregation. 

Henry Kissenger

He served as the top U.S. negotiator in Vietnam.

Maya Lin

She designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C.