Vietnam War

1955 - 1975

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Indochina War 1950-54 Indochina used to be a French Colony

Indochina was made of Vietnam, Camboja and Laos The French were suported by the US The war ended with the Genova Conference

It divided Vietnam in two separated countries

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North Vietnam Communist Capital Hanoi Aided by the USSR Led by Ho Chi Minh Vietnam People's Army

South Vietnam Capitalist Capital Saigon Led by Ngo Dinh Diem Aided by the US

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Domino Theory  if one state in a region came under the influence of communism, then the surrounding countries would follow in adomino effect. President Eisenhower

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Ho Chi Minh Communist Leader Lived in the US, UK, France and USSR An intelectual Responsible for the brutal land reform of North Vietnam

The Land lords would be killed “If the USA wants to make war for twentyyears then we shall make war for twenty years. If they want to make peace, we shallmake peace and invite them to afternoon tea."

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Ngo Dinh Diem Catholic Radical anti-communist Killed 12,000 suspected oponents to his government between 1955-57 Persection of other religions

Specially buddhists

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The Vietcong National Liberation Front

NLF Communist guerrillas operating in the south Lightly armed Greatest fear of the americans

But also their greatest victins Specialized in traps and tunnels

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Kennedy I promise to  "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty.“ A government focused in the Cold War

Failure of the Bay of Pigs Construction of the Berlin wall "Now we have a problem making our power credible and Vietnam looks like the place."

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Kennedy Plan At first it would be only economic aid

The Diem forces should defeat the guerrillas by themselves Bad leadership, corruption, and political promotions led Diem’s

army fall down Kennedy decided to deploy men

By 1963, there were 16,000 American military personnel in South Vietnam, up from Eisenhower's 900 advisors

The assassination of Diem The CIA overthrew and executed Diem, along with his brother, on 2 November 1963. 

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Lyndon Johnson Sends 10,000 more men Two american ships are attacked and damaged in 1964

The congress signs the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution  Giving the president war power In that year, 850,000 to nearly a million men were sent to Vietnam

An undated NSA publication declassified in 2005, however, revealed that there was no attack on 4 August

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TET Off ensive Fighting in regions less populated

Supposed to be a good thing for the americans

Now they could unleash all their firepower Unfortunately it showed to be just lack of information; large cities existed in that area

3,000 civilians were killed The public opinion turned against the americans The americans had to face the combined firepower of the vietcongs, the northern army and civilians

TET was a total failure  "it became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it"

Major Booris of 9th Infantry Division

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Public Opinion Turns against the war by 1970 only a third of Americans believed that the U.S.

had not made a mistake by sending troops to fight in Vietnam

Forced drafts Kids as young as 16 Birthday role call on TV

Hippies 1968 student protests

 fatal shooting of four students at Kent State University in 1970 led to nation-wide university protests

Vietnam Veterans Against the War

“ Let me say finally that I oppose the war in Vietnam because I love America. I speak out against this war, not in anger, but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and, above all, with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as the moral example of the world.”

In 1967, Muhammad Ali was convicted of violatingthe Selective Service Act for refusing to go to the Vietnam War. His famous quote:

“I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong. They never called me ‘nigger.”

Richard Nixon Vietnamization

Bring home american soldiers Let the vietnamese fight their own wars

My Lai Massacre 504 unarmed civilians were brutally killed and raped in 1968

Nuclear Threat On 10 October 1969, Nixon ordered a squadron loaded with nuclear weapons to race to the border of Soviet airspace to convince the Soviet Union that he was capable of anything to end the Vietnam War.

Ho Chi Minh dies In 1969

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Paris Peace Treaty of 1973  between North Vietnamese Foreign Minister Lê Ðức

Thọ and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger It would put an end to the war of Vietnam The country would remain with the same borders as in the Genova Conference It also called for free elections

The americans leave Vietnam

A long retreat 1973-75

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Final North Vietnamese off ensive The north vietnamese attack and conquer Saigon

1975  Thieu resigned on the same day, declaring that the United States had betrayed South Vietnam. 2 million vietnamese civilians died during this war 1,170,000 vietnamese soldiers died 58,220 American soldiers died

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Napalm

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Agent Orange

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“The defoliants, which were distributed in drums marked with color-coded bands, included the "Rainbow Herbicides"—Agent Pink, Agent Green, Agent Purple, Agent Blue, Agent White, and, most famously, Agent Orange, which included dioxin as a by-product of its manufacture. About 12 million gallons (45,000,000 L) of Agent Orange were sprayed over Southeast Asia during the American involvement.

In 1961 and 1962, the Kennedy administration authorized the use of chemicals to destroy rice crops. Between 1961 and 1967, the U.S. Air Force sprayed 20 million U.S. gallons (75,700,000 L) of concentrated herbicides over 6 million acres (24,000 km2) of crops and trees, affecting an estimated 13% of South Vietnam's land. In 1965, 42% of all herbicide was sprayed over food crops. Another purpose of herbicide use was to drive civilian populations into RVN-controlled areas.

As of 2006, the Vietnamese government estimates that there are over 4,000,000 victims of dioxin poisoning in Vietnam, although the United States government denies any conclusive scientific links between Agent Orange and the Vietnamese victims of dioxin poisoning. In some areas of southern Vietnam, dioxin levels remain at over 100 times the accepted international standard.

The U.S. Veterans Administration has listed prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, multiple myeloma, Diabetes mellitus type 2, B-cell lymphomas, soft-tissue sarcoma, chloracne, porphyria cutanea tarda, peripheral neuropathy, and spina bifida in children of veterans exposed to Agent Orange.

Although there has been much discussion over whether the use of these defoliants constituted a violation of the laws of war, the defoliants were not considered weapons, since exposure to them did not lead to immediate death or incapacitation.

“The forms of torture used by the US military are wild. They consist mainly in rape, gang rape, rape using eels, snakes, or hard objects, and rape followed by murder; electric shock (‘the Bell Telephone Hour’) rendered by attaching wires to the genitals or other sensitive parts of the body, like the tongue; the ‘water treatment’; the ‘airplane’ in which the prisoner’s arms were tied behind the back, and the rope looped over a hook on the ceiling, suspending the prisoner in midair, after which he or she was beaten; beatings with rubber hoses and whips; the use of police dogs to maul prisoners.”

“The use of the insertion of the 6-inch dowel into the canal of one of my detainee’s ears, and the tapping through the brain until dead. The starvation to death (in a cage), of a Vietnamese woman who was suspected of being part of the local political education cadre in one of the local villages … The use of electronic gear such as sealed telephones attached to … both the women’s vaginas and men’s testicles [to] shock them into submission.”