6.6 – US IN VIETNAM Unit 6 – The Cold War and Changes at Home
Section 6 – Vietnam
Learning Targets & Key Words
The Students Will Be Able
To (TSWBAT):
• Understand the causes
of the Vietnam War
• Understand why the US
got involved in Vietnam
• Understand the effects of
US involvement and the
growth of the Anti-War
movement
Key Words:
Domino Theory
Containment
Vietcong
Draft
Doves vs. Hawks
Vietnamization
Gulf of Tonkin
EQ: Why did the US go
to war in Vietnam? How
did media shape public
opinion of the war in the
United States?
Prior Knowledge
• What do you already know about Vietnam?
• Was this a popular war?
• How did Americans at home feel about it?
• How did it contribute to a new counter-culture? (HIPPIES!)
I. BACKGROUND
(1945-1954)
France & Vietnam (1945-1953)
• Indochina (later Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) was a French colony • After WWII, they wanted to be
free
• France denied the Vietnamese independence, so they fought back
• Viet Minh • Vietnamese freedom fighters
led by Ho Chi Minh
• Communist
The US & Vietnam • US doesn’t get involved in the conflict until 1949-
1950
• US did not support French colonialism, but they were against Ho Chi Minh’s communism
• Two events caused the US to support France: • China becomes communist in 1949
• The Korean War
• President Truman & Eisenhower believed in the Domino Theory:
• Refers mostly to Asia
• Idea that if one country in a region became communist, then the rest would fall
http://www.history.com/topics/c
old-war/domino-theory/videos
France Falls
(1954-1956)
• France could not defeat the
resistance
• Vietminh guerilla war tactics
were too difficult to defend
against
• Dien Bien Phu (1954)
• Battle where the French were
badly beaten by the Vietminh
• This loss convinced the
French to leave Vietnam
Geneva Accords (1954)
• Agreement to end fighting between
French and Vietminh
• Divided Indochina into 3 countries:
• Vietnam
• Cambodia
• Laos
• Also divided Vietnam into 2
sections:
• Communist north led by Ho Chi Minh
• Pro-Western south led by Ngo Dinh
Diem
II. ESCALATION
(1961-1965)
Vietcong
• Newly organized N.
Vietnamese Guerilla
Army that was based in
S. Vietnam
• Difficult to defeat, so
Diem began to look to
US for more help fighting
the Vietcong (VC)
JFK Becomes
President
• JFK needed to appear tough on communism, so he increased aid and advisors to Vietnam
• Urged Diem to make democratic reforms (had little effect) • Refused to have elections
because he knew he would lose
Diem’s
Unpopularity
• Diem was Catholic and persecuted the Buddhists
• As a response, some Buddhist monks committed self-immolation
Diem’s Downfall
• With US approval, he was overthrown and executed by his generals on November 2, 1963
• Severely weakened the S. Vietnamese gov’t and forced the US to get more involved to help
• JFK was assassinated a few weeks later (November 22, 1963) • Lyndon B. Johnson replaced JFK as
president
Gulf of Tonkin Incident
• August 2nd and 4th, 1964
• Pres. LBJ tells the nation that
Vietnamese ships have fired
upon US destroyers
• He asked Congress to
authorize the use of force to
defend American forces
• In 2005, a declassified study
stated that the second incident
never happened
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
•August 7, 1964
•Authorized the president to “take all necessary measure to repel any armed attack against the forces of the US and to prevent further aggression.”
US Goes to War
•US increases troops
from 1964-66
•US supremely
confident this would
be an easy win
• Majority of public
opinion supported the
war at the beginning
American Leadership in the War
Leading U.S. officials during the war were:
• Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and
• U.S. commander General William Westmoreland
VC Tactics
• Blended in with general
population by not
wearing uniforms
• Who is friend?
• Who is foe?
• Ambushes, booby
traps, guerilla warfare
US Responds to VC
U.S. dropped thousands of bombs on North Vietnam to get rid of VC cover, some which had:
• Napalm • Jellied gasoline that exploded and
left large areas in flames
• Agent Orange • Herbicide used to kill plants & the
enemy’s food supply, but was later found to cause cancer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUZA0GAMmfI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER5rztRzOaM
http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnam-
war-history/videos/vietnam-war-tactics
Increasing Difficulties
• VC did not surrender • They were not giving up their homeland easily and they were willing to accept massive amounts of casualties
• The US also refused to invade N. Vietnam (didn’t want a full scale war with China) • This made it very difficult to win
Ho Chi Minh Trail
• The N. Vietnamese’s
series of jungle supply
paths
• Passed through Laos
and Cambodia
• Because Laos and
Cambodia weren’t in the
war, LBJ refused to bomb
the trail
III. VIETNAM: 1965-1968
Post Gulf of Tonkin
• Many of the president’s advisors supported an expansion of the war effort
• Robert McNamara (Sec. of Defense)
• March 1965 – Operation Rolling Thunder
• Johnson expanded the war by continuously bombing N. Vietnam
• Goal was to overwhelm the N. Vietnamese and convince them to stop supplying the VC
Television War
• At the beginning of the war,
General William
Westmoreland kept
declaring that the enemy is
on the brink of defeat
• The TV news reports a
different story
• Every night Americans saw
young men dying and wounded
and began to doubt the gov’t
reports
Television War, cont.
• A Credibility Gap developed
• It was hard to believe the rosy
gov’t reports
• Vietnam was the first
Television War because
footage of combat was
shown nightly
• This helped lead to an anti-
war movement
Anti-War Movement • Heavily influenced by Civil
Rights Movement
• Teach-Ins
• Students and teachers across US
colleges abandoned their classes
to discuss Vietnam and to protest
• Burning Draft Cards
• Young men who didn’t want to
fight did this to protest
Hawks and Doves
• By 1968, polls showed that
the country was almost split
down the middle on support
for the war
• Doves
• Americans who wanted to
withdraw from Vietnam
• Hawks
• Americans who wanted to stay
in Vietnam
1968 – Boom Goes the Dynamite
• 1968: One of the most violent
years in US history
Tet Offensive
• Year started with a Vietcong
surprise attack on US troops
• VC managed to attack almost all
major US airbases and many S.
Vietnamese cities (Tet Offensive)
• Huge military failure for VC, but
still shocked Americans
• How could an enemy so close to defeat
launch an attack of that size? http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-
war/vietnam-war-history/videos/tet-offensive
1968, cont.
• My Lai Massacre
• March 16, 1968
• US soldiers killed 347 to 504
unarmed citizens in S. Vietnam
• According to US gov’t only 347,
According to Vietnam it was 504
• Negatively affected public
opinion
• When the incident became public
knowledge in 1969, it prompted
widespread outrage around the
world. The massacre also reduced
support at home for the Vietnam
War.
Famous
Tet
Photo
1968, cont.
• Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Assassinated
• Killed in Memphis by James Earl Ray
• Robert Kennedy Assassinated
• JFK’s younger brother and Democratic
presidential candidate killed by Sirhan Sirhan
• Riots in Chicago
• At the Democratic National Convention
• Police vs. protestors, highly publicized http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/chicago-seven/videos
1968, cont.
• Johnson does not run for re-election • Unpopularity of Vietnam
1968, cont.
Election of 1968
• Nixon (Republican) v. Hubert Humphrey (Dem) v. George Wallace (American Independent)
• Nixon wins election of 1968
• 37th president
• Terms: 1969-1974
• Party: Republican
• Nixon wins and promises to “Bring Us Together,” and also end the war
Nixon and ‘Nam
• Vietnamization
• Nixon’s strategy for “peace with honor”
• Gradual withdrawal of US troops
• Turn control of the war over to the S.
Vietnamese
• Invasion of Cambodia (1970)
• Nixon expanded war into Cambodia to stop
VC
• Sparked protests
• Kent State University Protests
• Response to Cambodian invasion
• College protestors killed by National Guard
(May 4, 1970)
http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-
war/vietnam-war-history/videos/a-soldiers-story-
fighting-in-cambodia
Nixon on Kent State:
http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/kent-
state/videos/nixon-on-kent-state-tragedy
Nixon and ‘Nam, cont.
• Paris Peace
Accords
• January 19, 1973
• US and N. Vietnam
reach peace
• US pulls out of the
war
• South Vietnam
falls 1975
Legacy of ‘Nam • Cost: $150 billion
• Deaths:
• Over 58,000 Americans
• Over 3 million total Vietnamese
(Civilian and military)
• Considered by many to be a US
defeat
• Disrespect of troops returning
home • “That was the feeling in the air, that we
were unclean.” – Jan Scruggs, founder of
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Legacy of ‘Nam, cont.
• Americans became more distrustful of government • Pentagon Papers: Secret
study of US involvement in Vietnam that was leaked to the NY Times
• Revealed that American leaders lied to Congress and the American people regarding Vietnam
• War Powers Act • Limited President’s power, had
to get consent from Congress before sending out troops
The Vietnam War in the Movies
• Forrest Gump
• Apocalypse Now
• Good Morning, Vietnam
• Rescue Dawn
• Born on the Fourth of July
• Full Metal Jacket
• Platoon
• Casualties of War
• We Were Soldiers
Vietnam War Illustrated Timeline
•EQ: What were the major turning
points of the Vietnam War?
•Follow the directions! You must focus
on 10 events.
•Write complete sentences and draw a
picture for each. Do not forgot the
name of the event and the date!
Vietnam War Music Analysis
EQ: How did music of the 1960s and 1970s
represent public opinion of the Vietnam War?
• Music was used as a tool for protestors during
Vietnam. Some of the most iconic music in
American history came from this era.
• We will be listening to several songs and
analyzing them in the context of the Vietnam War.