Download - The Vietnam War: 1954-1975
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The Vietnam War: 1954-1975
The End of the War: 1968-1975
Seeking Peace with Honor
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The Paris Peace Talks and the Election of
1968.• Begun May 5, 1968.• No results.• Nixon campaign message claimed he had a secret plan to end the war.
• LBJ - not seeking re-election
• Democratic race included:– VP Hubert H. Humphrey
– Sen. Robert F. Kennedy
– Sen. Eugene McCarthy
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Republican Richard Nixon won in 1968 - a
political comeback.
• Robert Kennedy assassinated in June.
• McCarthy - outspoken anti-war candidate.
• Democratic National Convention - Chicago riot
• Nixon defeated Humphrey.
• Promised to end the war and sought “peace with honor”.
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“Vietnamization” and Peace with Honor
• Plan of removing American troops and replacing them with South Vietnamese soldiers.
• US continued heavy bombing of Vietnam
• US troop strength dropped from 500,000 in 1969 to 24,000 by 1972
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Widening the war into Cambodia… to end it.
• Nixon ordered secret bombing of Viet Cong sanctuaries insided Cambodia (1970)
• US and South Vietnamese troops also invaded Cambodia
• Nixon hoped to win concessions at the bargaining table.
Operation LinebackerB-52s to bomb Cambodia
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Kent State (Akron, Ohio) 1970
• News of Cambodian invasion set off a new round of campus anti-war protests (May 1970)
• Jackson State (MS), 2 killed, 11 wounded
• Kent State - Ohio National Guard confronted hundreds of protesters -- 4 students killed, 9 wounded
• Hundreds of campuses shut down early due to unrest.
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Nixon calls for law and order
• Nixon appealed to the great “silent majority” of Americans.
• “If a vocal minority, however fervent its cause, prevails over
reason and the will of the majoirty, this
nation has no future as a free society.”
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“Hard Hat” riots in New York City in support of
Nixon• Over 100,000 construction workers marched.
• Angry at the student anti-war protestors
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1972 - “Peace is at Hand”
• Paris Peace talks stalled since 1968. Renewed periodically.
• National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger claimed peace was at hand - just before 1972 election.
• December 1972, new round of bombing - “Christmas bombings” (Nixon - a “mad bomber”)
• Bombed Hanoi, North Vietnam
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1973 - Paris Peace Accords
• The United States would withdraw all its forces from South Vietnam within 60 days.
• All prisoners of war would be released.
• All parties to the agreement would end military activities in Laos and Cambodia.
• The 17th parallel would continue to divide North and South Vietnam until the country could be reunited.
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South Vietnam falls• North continued its assault on the South
• Saigon (capital of South) fell to communists in April, 1975
• US evacuates 1,000 remaining Americans and 6,000 Vietnamese to aircraft carriers
• Vietnam united under communist rule
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Saigon - 1975: the final days
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Southeast Asia after the war.
• “Dominoes” of Laos and Cambodia fell to communism - no other SE Asian countries
• Cambodian Khmer Rouge government seized control under Pol Pot.
• Vietnam - 100,000s of South Vietnamese civilians, soldiers, civil servants, professionals forced into ‘re-education’ camps.
• 1.5 million Vietnamese fled the country (100,000s of Cambodians and Laotians also) to the United States.
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Scenes of post-1975 SE Asia
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Legacy of the War
• 58,000 Americans dead• 300,000 wounded• 2,500 POWs• $150 billion• More bomb tonnage than in all Axis countries of WWII - combined
• Millions of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed
• 1994 - end of US embargo
• 1995 - formal US recognition of Vietnam
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The Vietnam Memorial - The Wall…