readiness standards comprise 65% of the u. s. history test

Readiness standards comprise 65% of the U. S. History Test

8 B & E

Readiness Standard (8)The student understands the impact of

significant national & international decisions & conflicts in the Cold War on the United

States.

The Student is expected to:(B) Describe how Cold War tensions were

intensified by the arms race, the space race, McCarthyism, & the House Un-American

Activities Committee (HUAC), the findings of which were confirmed by the Venona Papers



States.The Student is expected to:

(B) 1 Describe how Cold War tensions were intensified by the

arms race (1941-1991)

Strategic nuclear missiles, warheads and throw-weights of United States and Soviet Union, 1964-1982

YearLaunchers Warheads Megatonnage

United States

Soviet Union

United States

Soviet Union

United States

Soviet Union

1964 2,416 375 6,800 500 7,500 1,000

1966 2,396 435 5,000 550 5,600 1,200

1968 2,360 1,045 4,500 850 5,100 2,300

1970 2,230 1,680 3,900 1,800 4,300 3,100

1972 2,230 2,090 5,800 2,100 4,100 4,000

1974 2,180 2,380 8,400 2,400 3,800 4,200

1976 2,100 2,390 9,400 3,200 3,700 4,500

1978 2,058 2,350 9,800 5,200 3,800 5,400

1980 2,042 2,490 10,000 7,200 4,000 6,200

1982 2,032 2,490 11,000 10,000 4,100 8,200

Strategic nuclear missiles, warheads and throw-weights of United States and Soviet Union, 1964-1982

The Cold War Arms Race--Background

• The first nuclear weapon was created by U.S. during the World War II & was developed to be used against the Axis powers.

• A ring of spies operating within the Manhattan Project, (including Klaus Fuchs & Theodore Hall) had kept Stalin well informed of American progress They provided the Soviets with detailed designs of the implosion bomb and the hydrogen bomb.

• Fuchs’ arrest in 1950 led to the arrests of many other Russian spies, including Harry Gold, David Greenglass, and Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.

• In the years immediately after the Second World War, the United States had a monopoly on specific knowledge of and raw materials for nuclear weaponry. American leaders hoped that their exclusive ownership of nuclear weapons would be enough to draw concessions from the Soviet Union but this proved ineffective.

• Behind the scenes, the Soviet government was working on building its own atomic weapons. While American experts had predicted that the Soviet Union would not have nuclear weapons until the mid-1950s, the first Soviet bomb was detonated on August 29, 1949, shocking the entire world.

• Both governments spent massive amounts to increase the quality and quantity of their nuclear arsenals. Both nations quickly began the development of a hydrogen bomb and the United States detonated the first hydrogen bomb on November 1, 1952.

• Again, the Soviets surprised the world by exploding a deployable thermonuclear device in August 1953 although it was not a true multi-stage hydrogen bomb. However, it was small enough to be dropped from an airplane, making it ready for use. The development of these two Soviet bombs was greatly aided by the Russian spies Harry Gold and Klaus Fuchs.

The Cold War Arms Race

• The most important development in terms of delivery in the 1950s was the introduction of intercontinental ballistic missiles, ICBMs. Missiles had long been regarded the ideal platform for nuclear weapons, and were potentially a more effective delivery system than strategic bombers, which was the primary delivery method at the beginning of the Cold War.

• On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union showed the world that they had missiles able to reach any part of the world when they launched the Sputnik satellite into Earth orbit. The United States launched its own satellite on the October 31, 1959. The Space Race showcased technology critical to the delivery of nuclear weapons, the ICBM boosters, while maintaining the appearance of being for science and exploration.


• This period also saw some of the first attempts to defend against nuclear weapons. Both superpowers built large radar arrays to detect incoming bombers and missiles. Fighters to use against bombers and anti-ballistic missiles to use against ICBMs were also developed. Large underground bunkers were constructed to save the leaders, and citizens were told to build fallout shelters and taught how to react to a nuclear attack.

• The Nuclear arms race of the cold war lasted from 1941-1991. None of these defensive measures were secure, and in the 1950s both the United States and Soviet Union had nuclear power to obliterate the other side. Both sides developed a capability to launch a devastating attack even after sustaining a full assault from the other side (especially by means of submarines), called a second strike.


• This policy was part of what became known as Mutual Assured Destruction: both sides knew that any attack upon the other would be devastating to themselves, thus in theory restraining them from attacking the other.

• In addition to the United States and the Soviet Union, three other nations, the United Kingdom (1952), People’s Republic of China (1964), & France (1960) also developed far smaller nuclear stockpiles.

• The Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the very brink of annihilation. That sober realization no doubt contributed to the more balanced & rational diplomacy that distinguished Soviet-American foreign policy in the years that followed 1962.


• Economic problems caused by the arms race in both powers, combined with China’s new role and the ability to verify disarmament led to a number of arms control agreements beginning in the 1970s. This period known as détente allowed both states to reduce their spending on weapons systems. Strategic Arms Limitations agreements (I in 1972 & II in 1979) limited the size of the states’ arsenals. Bans on nuclear testing, anti-ballistic missile systems, and weapons in space all attempted to limit the expansion of the arms race through the Partial Test Ban Treaty.

• These treaties were only partially successful. Both states continued building massive numbers of nuclear weapons and researched more effective technology. Both superpowers retained the ability to destroy each other many times over.


• Towards the end of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, and continued strongly through the subsequent presidency of Ronald Reagan, the United States rejected disarmament and tried to restart the arms race through the production of new weapons and anti-weapons systems.

• The central part of this strategy was the Strategic Defense Initiative, a space based anti-ballistic missile system derided as “Star Wars” by its critics. However, the SDI would require technology that had not yet been developed, or even researched, such as space and earth based laser battle stations sensors on the ground, in the air, and in space with radar, optical, and infrared technology to detect incoming missiles.


• During the second part of 1980s, the Soviet economy was teetering towards collapse and was unable to match American arms spending. The Soviets feared the SDI because the U.S. would have an edge if it ever came to nuclear war.

• Numerous negotiations by Mikhail Gorbachev attempted to come to agreements on reducing nuclear stockpiles, but the most radical were rejected by Reagan as they would also prohibit his SDI program. However, due to enormous costs and far too complex technology for its time, the project and research was cancelled.


• During the mid-1980s, the U.S-Soviet relations significantly improved. Mikhail Gorbachev assumed control of the Soviet Union after the deaths of several former Soviet leaders, and announced a new era of perestroika and glasnost, meaning restructuring and openness respectively.

• Much of the Soviet Union began to declare independence and slowly became free of Soviet influence. One of the most iconic events of the collapse of the Soviet Union was the destruction of the Berlin Wall on November 10, 1989.

• On December 8, 1991, the Soviet Union dissolved and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was established. This event marked the end of the 50- year-long Cold War.






space race

• The Space Race was a 20th-century (1955-1972) competition between two Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union (USSR) and U. S., for supremacy in spaceflight capability.

• The technological superiority required for such supremacy was seen as necessary for national security, and symbolic of ideological superiority. The Space Race spawned pioneering efforts to launch artificial satellites, unmanned probes of the Moon, Venus, & Mars, & human spaceflight in low Earth orbit & and to the Moon.

• The Soviets won the first “lap” with the October 4, 1957 launch of Sputnik 1.

The Space Race

• The Race reached its zenith with the July 20, 1969, U.S. landing of the first humans on the Moon on Apollo 11, and concluded in a period of détente (partial easing of strained relations) with the April 1972 agreement on a co-operative Apollo-Soyus Test Project, which resulted in the July 1975 meeting in Earth orbit of a US astronaut crew with a Soviet cosmonaut crew.

• The Space Race had its origins in the missile-based arms race that occurred just after the end of the World War II, when both the Soviet Union and the United States captured advanced German rocket technology and personnel.

The Space Race

• The Space Race sparked increases in spending on education and pure research, which led to beneficial spin-off technologies. An unforeseen effect was that the Space Race contributed to the birth of the environmental movement by providing sharp color images of the global Earth taken by astronauts in trans-lunar space.

• By 1959 American observers believed that the Soviet Union would be the first to get a human into space, because of the time needed to prepare for Project Mercury's first launch.

• On April 12, 1961, the USSR launched Yuri Gargarin into orbit around the Earth on Vostok 1. Although he had the ability to take over manual control of his spacecraft in an emergency by opening an envelope he had in the cabin that contained a code that could be typed into the computer, it was flown in an automatic mode as a precaution.

The Space Race

• Medical science at that time did not know what would happen to a human in the weightlessness of space. Vostok 1 orbited the Earth for 108 minutes and made its reentry over the Soviet Union, with Gagarin ejecting from the spacecraft at 7,000 meters (23,000 ft), and landing by parachute.

• Under Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (International Federation of Aeronautics) FAI qualifying rules for aeronautical records, pilots must both take off and land with their craft, so the Soviet Union kept the landing procedures secret until 1978, when they finally admitted that Gagarin did not land with his spacecraft.

The Space Race

Yuri Gargarin—They dubbed Gagarin the

first cosmonaut, roughly translated from Russian and Greek as “sailor of

the universe.”

http://georgesjournal.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/yuri_gagarin_illustration1.jpg

The Book . . . & the Subsequent Movie

• When the flight was publicly announced, it was celebrated around the world as a great triumph, not just for the Soviet Union, but for all mankind. Yet it once again shocked and embarrassed the United States.

• The United States called their space travelers astronauts (“star sailors” from the Greek). On May 5, 1961, when Alan Shepard became the first American in space, launched on a suborbital mission Mercury-Redstone 3, in a spacecraft named Freedom 7.

• Almost a year after the Soviet Union put a human into orbit, astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, on February 20, 1962.

His Mercury-Atlas 6 mission completed three orbits in the Friendship 7 spacecraft, and splashed-down safely in the Atlantic Ocean, after a tense reentry, due to what falsely appeared from the telemetry data to be a loose heat-shield.

The Space Race

President Kennedy’s Rice Speech•We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency.•Delivered at Rice University, Houston, September 12, 1962

The Space Race

The United States’ Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the

Moon, on July 20, 1969•There have been six manned U. S. landings (between 1969 and 1972) and numerous unmanned landings, with no soft landings happening from 1976 until December 14, 2013.•A total of twelve men have landed on the Moon. This was accomplished with two US pilot-astronauts flying a Lunar Module on each of six NASA missions across a 41-month time span starting on July 20, 1969 UTC, with Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin on Apollo 11, and ending on 14 December 1972 UTC with Gene Cernan & Jack Schmitt on Apollo 17. Cernan was the last to step off the lunar surface.

The Space Race

“One small step for man . . . one giant leap for

mankind.”




(B) 3 Describe how Cold War tensions were intensified by

McCarthyism

The first recorded use of the term McCarthyism was in a

political cartoon by Washington Post editorial

cartoonist Herbert Block (aka Herblock), published on March

29, 1950.

The cartoon depicted four leading Republicans trying to push an elephant (the traditional symbol of the Republican Party) to stand on a teetering

stack of ten tar buckets, the topmost of which was labeled “McCarthyism.”

The “Red Scare” & McCarthyism

• A national anxiety about communism abroad and 5th column infiltration at home

• The Soviets gained atomic power in 1949

• The Rise of Joe McCarthy and His Four and a Half Year Crusade

McCarthyism • McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or

treason without proper regard for evidence. It also means “the practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially in order to restrict dissent or political criticism.”

• The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from 1950 to 1956 and characterized by heightened fears of communist influence on American institutions & espionage by Soviet agents.

• Originally coined to criticize the anti-communist pursuits of Republican U. S. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, “McCarthyism” soon took on a broader meaning, describing the excesses of similar efforts. The term is also now used more generally to describe reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries.

McCarthyism • During the McCarthy era, thousands of Americans were

accused of being communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations and questioning before government or private-industry panels, committees and agencies.

• The primary targets of such suspicions were government employees, those in the entertainment industry, educators and union activists. Suspicions were often given credence despite inconclusive or questionable evidence, and the level of threat posed by a person’s real or supposed leftist associations or beliefs was often greatly exaggerated.

McCarthyism • Many people suffered loss of employment and/or destruction of their

careers; some even suffered imprisonment. Most of these punishments came about through trial verdicts later overturned, laws that would be declared unconstitutional, dismissals for reasons later declared illegal or actionable or extra-legal procedures that would come into general disrepute.

• The most famous examples of McCarthyism include the speeches, investigations, and hearings of Senator McCarthy himself; the Hollywood blacklist, , associated with hearings conducted by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC); and the various anti-communist activities of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under Director J. Edgar Hoover.



States.

The Student is expected to:(B) 4 Describe how Cold War

tensions were intensified by the House Un-American Activities

Committee (HUAC)

House Un-American Activities Committee

• The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) was an investigative committee of the U. S. House of Representatives. It was created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having Communist ties.

• The House Committee on Un-American Activities became a standing (permanent) committee in 1945. Under the mandate of Public Law 601, passed by the 79th Congress the committee of nine representatives investigated suspected threats of subversion or propaganda that attacked “the form of government guaranteed by our Constitution.”


• Under this mandate, the committee focused its investigations on real and suspected communists in positions of actual or supposed influence in the United States society. A significant step for HUAC was its investigation of the charges of espionage brought against Alger Hiss in 1948. This investigation ultimately resulted in Hiss’s trial and conviction for perjury, and convinced many of the usefulness of congressional committees for uncovering communist subversion.

• In 1947, the committee held nine days of hearings into alleged communist propaganda and influence in the Hollywood motion picture industry. After conviction on contempt of Congress charges for refusal to answer some questions posed by committee members, the “Hollywood Ten” were blacklisted by the industry. Eventually, more than 300 artists—including directors, radio commentators, actors and particularly screenwriters—were boycotted by the studios.

• Made U. S. government the object of suspicion in the eyes of the world; it appeared it was trying to combat totalitarian methods by totalitarian means

• In the wake of the downfall of Senator McCarthy (who never served in the House, nor HUAC), the prestige of HUAC began a gradual decline beginning in the late 1950s. By 1959, the committee was being denounced by former President Truman as the “most un-American thing in the country today.”






findings of which were confirmed by the Venona Papers

The Venona Papers• The Venona project was a counter-intelligence program initiated by the

United States Army Signal Intelligence Service that lasted from 1943 to 1980. The program attempted to decrypt messages sent by Soviet Union intelligence agencies, including its foreign intelligence service and military intelligence services.

• During the program's four decades, approximately 3,000 messages were at least partially decrypted and translated. The project produced some of the most important breakthroughs for western counter-intelligence in this period, including the discovery of the Cambridge spy ring and the exposure of Soviet espionage targeting the Manhattan Project.

• The project was one of the most sensitive secrets of United States intelligence. It remained secret for over a decade after it ended and was not officially declassified until 1995.

The Venona Papers• Significance: The decrypted messages gave important insights into Soviet

behavior in the period during which duplicate one-time pads were used. With the first break into the code, Venona revealed the existence of Soviet espionage

at Los Alamos National Laboratories.

• Identities soon emerged of American, Canadian, Australian, and British spies in service to the Soviet government. Others worked in Washington in the State Department, the Treasury, Office of Strategic Services, and even the White House.

• The decrypts show the U.S. and other nations were targeted in major espionage campaigns by the Soviet Union as early as 1942. Among those identified are Julius & Ethel Rosenberg; Alger Hiss; Harry Dexter White, the second-highest official in the Treasury Department; Lauchlin Currie, a personal aide to Franklin Roosevelt; and Maurice Halperin, a section head in the Office of Strategic Services.

The Venona PapersJulius and Ethel Rosenberg

•Venona has added significant information to the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, making it clear Julius was guilty of espionage, but also showing that Ethel was probably no more than an accomplice, if that. Venona and other recent information has shown, while the content of Julius’ atomic espionage was not as vital as alleged at the time of his espionage activities, in other fields it was extensive.




(E) Analyze the major issues & events of the Vietnam War such as the Tet Offensive, the escalation of forces,

Vietnamization, & the fall of Saigon




(E) 1 Analyze the major issues & events of the Vietnam War such as

the Tet Offensive

Tet Offensive—Jan. 30-Feb. 25, 1968

• The Tet Offensive was one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War, launched on January 30, 1968 by forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army against South Vietnam, the U. S., & their allies. It was a campaign of surprise attacks against military & civilian commands and control centers throughout South Vietnam.

• The operations are referred to as the Tet Offensive because there was a prior agreement to “cease fire” during the Tet Lunar New Year celebrations. Both North and South Vietnam announced on national radio broadcasts that there would be a two-day cease-fire during the holiday.


• Nonetheless, the Communists launched an attack that began during the early morning hours of January 30, 1968, the first day of Tet. In Vietnamese, the offensive is commonly called Tết Mậu Thân (Tet, year of the monkey). Military planners called it the “General Offensive and Uprising” (Cuộc Tổng tiến công và nổi dậy).

• When the main communist operation began the next morning, Jan. 31, the offensive was countrywide and well-coordinated, eventually more than 80,000 Communist troops striking more than 100 towns and cities, including 36 of 44 provincial capitals, five of the six autonomous cities, 72 of 245 district towns, and the southern capital. The offensive was the largest military operation conducted by either side up to that point in the war.


• The initial attacks stunned the US and South Vietnamese armies and caused them to temporarily lose control of several cities, but they quickly regrouped to beat back the attacks, inflicting massive casualties on Communist forces.

• Although the offensive was a military defeat for the Communists, it had a profound effect on the US government and shocked the U.S. public, which had been led to believe by its political and military leaders that the Communists were, due to previous defeats, incapable of launching such a massive effort.


• Although the Tet Offensive was a significant victory for allied forces, in terms of casualties and control of territory, it was a sound defeat when evaluated from the point of view of strategic consequences: it became a turning point in America's involvement in the Vietnam War because it had a profound impact on domestic support for the conflict. Despite the military failure for the Communist forces, the Tet Offensive became a political victory for them and ended the career of president Lyndon B. Johnson, who declined to run for re-election as his approval rating slumped from 48 to 36 percent.





the escalation of forces

Escalation as reflected by U. S.

war deaths in Vietnam

The war dead peak in 1968, the same year that Richard Nixon was elected as the

new president.

Escalation—Background

• It was David vs. Goliath, with U.S. playing Goliath.• On August 2, 1964, gunboats of North Vietnam allegedly fired on ships

of the United States Navy stationed in the GULF OF TONKIN. They had been sailing 10 miles off the coast of North Vietnam in support of the South Vietnamese navy.

• When reports that further firing occurred on August 4, President Johnson quickly asked Congress to respond. With nearly unanimous consent, members of the Senate and House empowered Johnson to “take all necessary measures” to repel North Vietnamese aggression. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution gave the President a “BLANK CHECK” to wage the war in Vietnam as he saw fit. After Lyndon Johnson was elected President in his own right that November, he chose escalate the conflict.

Escalation—1965-68• Emboldened by the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, in February 1965,

the United States began a long program of sustained bombing of North Vietnamese targets known as OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER. At first only military targets were hit, but as months turned into years, civilian targets were pummeled as well.

• The United States also bombed the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a supply line used by the North Vietnamese to aid the VIETCONG. The trail meandered through Laos and Cambodia, so the bombing was kept secret from the Congress and the American people. More bombs rained down on Vietnam than the Allies used on the Axis powers during the whole of World War II.

Escalation—1965-68• Additional sorties delivered defoliating agents such as AGENT ORANGE and

napalm to remove the jungle cover utilized by the Vietcong. The intense bombardment did little to deter the communists. They continued to use the Ho Chi Minh trail despite the grave risk. The burrowed underground, building 30,000 miles of tunnel networks to keep supply lines open.

• By the end of 1965, there were 189,000 American troops stationed in Vietnam. At the end of the following year, that number doubled. Casualty reports steadily increased. Unlike World War II, there were few major ground battles.

• Most Vietnamese attacks were by ambush or night skirmishes. Many Americans died by stepping on landmines or by triggering BOOBY TRAPS. Although Vietnamese body counts were higher, Americans were dying at rate of approximately 100 per week through 1967. By the end of that year there were nearly 500,000 American combat troops stationed in Vietnam.

Escalation—1965-68• As historian Robert Dallek writes, “Lyndon Johnson’s escalation

of the war in Vietnam divided Americans into warring camps. . . cost 30,000 American lives by the time he left office, (and) destroyed Johnson's presidency. . . . His refusal to send more U.S. troops to Vietnam was seen as Johnson's admission that the war was lost. It can be seen that the refusal was a tacit admission that the war could not be won by escalation, at least not at a cost acceptable to the American people. As Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara noted, “the dangerous illusion of victory by the United States was therefore dead.”





Vietnamization

Vietnamization• Severe communist losses during the Tet Offensive allowed U.S. President Nixon to

begin troop withdrawals. His plan, called the Nixon Doctrine, was to build up the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), so that they could take over the defense of South Vietnam.

• The policy became known as “Vietnamization.” The new approach had much in common with the policies of the Kennedy administration. One important difference, however, remained. While Kennedy insisted that the South Vietnamese fight the war themselves, he attempted to limit the scope of the conflict.

• Vietnamization was a policy of the President Nixon administration during the Vietnam War to end the U.S.’ involvement in the war and “expand, equip, and train South Vietnam’s forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily reducing the number of U.S. combat troops.” The new policy did not, however, reject combat by the U. S. Air Force.

Vietnamization• Nixon said Vietnamization had two components. The first was “strengthening the

armed force of the South Vietnamese in numbers, equipment, leadership and combat skills,” while the second was “the extension of the pacification program [i.e. military aid to civilians] in South Vietnam.”

• Nixon said in an announcement, “I am tonight announcing plans for the withdrawal of an additional 150,000 American troops to be completed during the spring of next year. This will bring a total reduction of 265,500 men in our armed forces in Vietnam below the level that existed when we took office 15 months ago.”

• Nixon also began to pursue détente with the Soviet Union and rapprochement with China. This policy helped to decrease global tensions. Détente led to nuclear arms reduction on the part of both superpowers. But Nixon was disappointed that China and the Soviet Union continued to supply the North Vietnamese with aid. In September 1969, Ho Chi Minh died at age seventy-nine.

Vietnamization• Revelations of the My Lai Massacre, in which a U.S. Army platoon raped and

killed civilians, and the 1969 “Green Beret Affair” where eight Special Forces soldiers, including the 5th Special Forces Group Commander were arrested for the murder of a suspected double agent provoked national and international outrage.

• Beginning in 1970, American troops were being taken away from border areas where most of the fighting took place, and instead put along the coast and interior, which is one reason why casualties in 1970 were less than half of 1969’s totals.

• President Nixon took the opportunity to launch a massive bombing campaign, called Operation Menu, against communist sanctuaries along the Cambodia/Vietnam border. Only five high-ranking Congressional officials were informed of the operation.

Vietnamization

• U.S. and ARVN forces launched an incursion into Cambodia to attack NVA and Viet Cong bases and end the communist encirclement of Phnom Pehn. This incursion sparked nationwide protests as Nixon had promised to deescalate the American involvement, including the Kent State Protest in which four students were killed.

• The reaction to the incident by the Nixon administration was seen as callous and indifferent, providing additional impetus for the anti-war movement. The U.S. Air Force continued to heavily bomb Cambodia in support of the Cambodian government as part of Operation Freedom Deal.

• On January 15, 1973, Nixon announced the suspension of offensive action against North Vietnam. The Paris Peace Accords on “Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam” were signed on January 27, 1973, officially ending direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. A cease-fire was declared across North and South Vietnam. U.S. prisoners of war were released. Accords stipulated a sixty-day period for the total withdrawal of U.S. forces.

Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho shake hands after initialing the Vietnam Peace Agreement -Paris,

1/22/1973. The next day President Nixon would announce the end

of the war




(E) 4 Analyze the major issues & events of the Vietnam War such as the fall of Saigon

Fall of Saigon

• The Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People’s Army of Vietnam & the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (aka Viet Cong) on April 30, 1975. The event marked the end of the Vietnam War & the start of a transition period leading to the formal reunification of Vietnam into a Socialist Republic governed by the Communist Party.

• The fall of the city was preceded by the evacuation of almost all the American civilian and military personnel in Saigon, along with tens of thousands of South Vietnamese civilians associated with the southern regime. The evacuation culminated in Operation Frequent Wind, the largest helicopter evacuation in history.

South Vietnamese refugees arrive on a U.S. Navy vessel during Operation Frequent Wind.

Fall of Saigon

• Various names have been applied to these events. The Vietnamese Government usually calls it the Reunification Day (Ngày Thống nhất), but Fall of Saigon is commonly used in Western accounts.

• The rapidity with which the South Vietnamese position collapsed in 1975 was surprising to most American and South Vietnamese observers, and probably to the North Vietnamese and their allies as well.

• The rapid North Vietnamese advances of March and early April led to increased concern in Saigon that the city, which had been fairly peaceful throughout the war and whose people had endured relatively little suffering, was soon to come under direct attack. Many feared that once communists took control of the city, a bloodbath of reprisals would take place.

Marines throwing Vietnamese back over the American Embassy wall, Saigon, R. South Vietnam

The Evacuation

Fall of Saigon

A North Vietnamese tank rolls through the gate of the Presidential Palace in Saigon, signifying the fall

of South Vietnam.Smoke rises from the southwestern part of Saigon on May 7, 1968 as residents stream

across a bridge leaving the capital to escape heavy fighting between the Viet Cong and

South Vietnamese soldiers. (AP Photo)

readiness standards comprise 65% of the u. s. history test

Documents

cold war tensions

cold war arms racethe

weights of united states

theworld war

strategic nuclear missiles

nuclear arsenals

nuclear weaponry

soviet bombs