The Vietnam War

  • Diem’s problem: very restless country

  • Had to bring law and order to keep North at bay

    • Did so very violently
    • Mob in his country - killed hundreds or thousands
    • Killed hundreds or thousands of communists and anyone who stood against him

  • By 1959-60, he had a relatively well running country

  • 1960 - Ho Chi Minh invaded South Vietnam

    • Without tanks ➝ invaded almost silently
    • Came through tunnels, roads in forests
    • Went to South Vietnamese villages, killed the representative, and took over the village
    • Did this one by one
    • Very hard invasion to fight, but Diem tried his best
    • US helped by destroying the tunnels (known as the Ho Chi Minh trail)
    • US bombed it
    • North Vietnam rebuilt the Ho Chi Minh Trail but built it in neighboring country Laos bc the US said they’d never bomb Laos
    • They didn’t and Ho Chi Minh continued to use trails

  • US, under JFK, sent 10K American soldiers to Vietnam as advisors

  • Things were steady, but there was potential to lose the country to N Vietnam

  • Late 1963, Diem’s generals thought they could do a better job of leading and overthrew Diem

    • Done partly in consultation with the American ambassador to South Vietnam
    • Also done partly w the knowledge of JFK

  • In the coup, Diem was killed

  • The 12 generals who took over weren’t able to take over the situation in S Vietnam

    • Made a bigger mess

  • After Diem died, S Vietnam would never get another leader who could hold the country together

  • 1964 - it became clear to the United States that if we were to keep North Vietnam's communism at bay from S Vietnam, the US would have to fight this war

  • With Diem gone, South Vietnam was falling apart

    • The US would have to step up

  • 1964 - under LBJ, the US attacks and declares war on Vietnam. Official start to the war

  • By 1965, LBJ brought ≈550K troops to Vietnam War

  • 1965-68 - US won battles, but not the war

  1. N Vietnamese often avoided battles
  • US had heavy and loud artillery and Vietnam could hear them coming
  • Used tunnels to leave unnoticed
  1. Lack of control of population of S Vietnam

  • No program to keep villagers loyal to US or S Vietnam

  • Had to keep fighting the same villages bc N Vietnamesse kept turning the villagers

  • Marines had a program where they pacified 17 villages and spent time talking to them and making them loyal to them

    • Those 17 villages stayed loyal

  • US military didn't make that a priority

    • Had the military done that on a large scale, the Vietnam War may have turned out differently

  • 1968 - US embassy in South Vietnam was overrun by the N Vietnamese

    • Embassy reclaimed in a few hrs - not a huge deal militarily
    • This attack was broadcast on all major news outlets in the US ➝ massive defeat where we couldn't even keep our embassy + S Vietnam safe
    • Public opinion starts to turn against the war

  • LBJ decides not to run for another term bc he has become associated with the war

  • Richard Nixon promised to end the war with honor

    • Slogan: “ending the war with honor”
    • Won and became pres 1969-1974

  • The Vietnam War wasn’t going well by 1968

  • Nixon promised peace w honor

    • Peace w honor: end the war and win it
    • Reduced # of troops (1965 - 550K, 1970 - 50K)
    • Intensified the bombing of North Vietnam
    • Expanded bombing to include Laos and Cambodia

  • Christmas Bombing of 1972

    • Most destructive bombing of Hanoi (capital of N Vietnam)
    • Brought N Vietnamese to bargaining table
    • N Vietnam agreed to an independent, non-communist S Vietnam
    • We won and prevented communism! Took 19 yrs and killed 58K Americans

  • 1973-74: North Vietnam broke the Paris Peace Accords

    • Determined to get S Vietnam ➝ restarted the invasion
    • Paris Peace Accords said that if this were to happen, the US would come back and assist S Vietnam
    • Same time that Watergate is going on
    • Nixon wasn't gonna get Congress to agree to use funds to start the war in Vietnam
    • S Vietnam is on their own + lost
    • April 30, 1975 - last Americans were airlifted out of Saigon ( S Viet capital)
    • Saigon fell to N Vietnamese
    • Vietnam became one unified communist country

  • 2000 - US and Vietnam started to have POW remains exchanges

  • Today US + Vietnam have decent exchanges

    • Unnecessary war, though we didn't know that at the time