America in Vietnam

Tonkin Gulf Resolution  Aug 1964: NVA boat fires on USS Maddox  Not hit  Maddox reports more gunfire  Later said they saw nothing  LBJ orders bombing strikes on N. Vietnam  Asks Congress for military authority

Robert McNamara: Sec of Defense

Dean Rusk: Sec of State

US Escalation  1965: 180,000 US soldiers in Vietnam  Gen. Westmoreland calls for more troops  Says ARVN can’t fight very well  500,000 troops by 1967

Jungle Fighting  Hit and run guerilla warfare  Hiding in cities, spies everywhere  Tunnels throughout the country  Booby traps all over the jungle

American tactics  Use of napalm to firebomb the jungles  Agent Orange: Leaf killing toxin  Cancer-causing agent  Search and destroy missions  Destroy villages with suspected NVA spies

War becomes unpopular  Protest movements sprout up  College youth and left-leaning Americans  Protests became resistance

LBJ doesn’t run in ‘68  He is unpopular, war is unpopular  Robert Kennedy runs for president  Going to win Democratic nomination  Assassinated in Los Angeles  Nixon defeats VP Humphrey

“Peace with honor”  Slow pull out of Vietnam  1968: 500,000 troops  1972: 25,000 troops  USA pulls out of the war, 1973  South falls to the communists, 1975