Vietnam

The United States begins fighting…

NLF

• National Liberation Front – Vietcong – South Vietnam– Overthrow Diem– Get rid of Americans– Reunite North and South

Eisenhower and Kennedy• Send military advisors to train SVA• Geneva Accords - 685 military advisors

– Kennedy : 16,000

• Diem – “strategic hamlet”– Moved whole villages to “fortified villages”

• Peasants did not want to move, land of ancestors

– VC promised peasants more land once united

War Tactics

Vietcong• Ambush• Booby traps• Guerilla tactics

– Blend in

• Underground tunnel systems

United States• Search and destroy missions• Zippo raids• Napalm• Agent Orange

• To destroy crops• To defoliate the jungle.• To eliminate the hiding places of the Viet Cong.

After

Before

• 10 % of South Vietnam was contaminated with 12 million gallons of Agent Orange by airplanes spraying it over the land.

• 1965 - 1970.

EFFECTS

War of Attrition• North Vietnam – aid from

China & Soviet Union• North Vietnam

aid/supplies/arms/leader-ship– Ho Chi Minh Trail

• Go through Jungles of Cambodia and Laos

– Not officially in the War

• US strategy –”war of attrition”

Warm – Up Lesson 12

• In the world of sports, having the “Home Court Advantage” can often determine the outcome of a game…How did the Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army benefit from having “Home Court Advantage” in the war?

The Pivotal Year• 1968 Tet Offensive

– Tet – VN New Year– NVA & VC launched a massive guerrilla

attack on US military airbases in SV • Fought in cities. Many military and civilian

casualties

• US claimed a military victory• NVA won a political victory(Media – Credibility gap)

"The picture of the world's greatest superpower killing 1,000  noncombatants a week, while trying to pound a tiny backward nation into submission on an issue whose merits are highly disputed, is not a pretty one."

Nixon’s plans to end war

• Nixon appoints Henry Kissinger as special assistant for National Security Affairs– Kissinger enters negotiations with NV’s negotiator, Tho– “Vietnamization”

My Lai Massacre

US Soldiers kill 200 - 300 unarmed Vietnamese, many who were women, old men and children

“To kill on military orders and be a criminal, or to refuse to kill and be a criminal is the moral agony of America’s Vietnam War generation…”

Invasion of

Cambodia• US wanted to take out

VC military bases in Cambodia

• US public saw it as widening of war

• Kent State

University

– Student prot

est

in 1970

– Ohio Nationa

l

Guard Soldie

rs

fired on

demonstrator

s

without orde

rs

• Killed 4

• Wounded 9

Pentagon Papers• 1970 – Congress repeals the Gulf of

Tonkin Resolution• 1971 – Pentagon Papers

– Confirmed the fears of many Americans • Govt had not been completely honest with

them– Weary of leaders

• 1971 – 2/3rds of American’s wanted to pull out of Vietnam

• Kissinger – “peace is at hand”• Negotiations broke down

– Christmas Bombings• 12 days of most intense bombing

– 1973 – peace agreement – US withdraws troops– 1975 – NV attacks SV – Saigon Ho Chi Minh City

U.S. exits

The Numbers…

• War cost US $170 Billion• 58,000 US soldiers died• 300,000 US soldiers injured• 1 million N & S Vietnamese soldiers died

• Because the antiwar

protests at home broke

the American spirit and

crushed military

morale?

• Because we didn’t understand our enemy and the reality and strength of a nationalist movement?

Why do you think the U.S.

Lost the War?