1. Vietnam How did America get involved? Why was this a war which America could not win?

2. South East Asia

3. “You have a row of dominoes set up. You knock over the first one, and … the last one … will go over very quickly … Asia, after all, has already lost some 450 millions of its people to the Communist dictatorship, and we simply can’t afford greater losses.” Eisenhower, 1954. Domino Theory

4. The Truman Doctrine  After World War Two President Truman made a promise to help: "free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.”  This is the Truman Doctrine it committed America to help anyone fighting Communism around the world.

5. Introduction The Vietnam War is considered by some as the only major military defeat that America has faced, and its effects are still felt today. The memorial in Washington DC has the names of 58,132 American people who died or are still classified as missing in action. 700,000 war veterans have suffered from psychological disorders since returning to the USA, and more of them have committed suicide than were killed in the fighting. Vietnam still has not recovered from a war that saw 2,000,000 men, women and children killed and large areas of the country destroyed. Vietnam was reduced from a major exporter of rice to a country that could not feed itself.

6. Vietnam – One war - Three Presidents Kennedy. Initial involvement low key to restrict Communists. Special military advisors sent to ‘prop up’ South Vietnam. Johnson Increases US involvement in war. Bombing of North Vietnam and mass troop use. Draft introduced. Nixon Downscales the war. Looks for way out. Vietnamisation hands the war back over to Vietnamese.

7. Background Vietnam had been part of French Indo-China until 1954. This was part of the French Empire in Asia. In May 1954 the French army were defeated by a Vietnamese Nationalist army (the Vietminh who later became known as the Vietcong), at a place called Dien Bien Phu. The Vietminh independence movement was dominated by Communists and led by Ho Chi Minh. Peace talks were held and it was decided to divide Vietnam into two parts: The north would be controlled by the Communist leader Ho Chi Minh with its capital at Hanoi. The south would be lead by someone called Ngo Dinh Diem, who was not a Communist, and its capital would be Saigon. The South would become very reliant upon the American’s to support it, they did this because of the Truman Doctrine to stop the Communists from taking the whole country.

8. Steps to war The North Vietnamese people hoped that when elections were held, the country would be united again, under a Communist leadership. The USA didn't want this to happen and continued to give military and financial support to the south as it had done to the French. This was to help prevent the spread of Communism. The USA believed in the 'domino theory', that is, if South Vietnam fell to the Communists, then one country after another in South-East Asia would follow, soon big countries like India may fall victim to Communism. Things now began to escalate:

9. Steps to war At first the America reaction by President Kennedy was to send military advisors to help the South Vietnamese government resist the North and train the army. The number of these advisors began to steadily increase. The North Vietnamese and Vietcong moved troops and military supplies to the south along the Ho Chi Minh trail, which ran through the neighboring countries of Laos and Cambodia. This was difficult to track and meant that they could undermine the government in the South easily and then disappear back into the North again.

10. And then fate intervenes President Kennedy assassinated. Vice-President Johnson takes over.

11. The steps to out and out war After Kennedy’s assassination Johnson became President and sent the US army into Vietnam after the Vietcong attacked American ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. The President also now had the power to help any Asian government resisting Communism after the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was passed. America was now committed to a full scale military campaign and began to bomb North Vietnam using B52 aircraft. Soon they would be drafting the youth of America into the Army. The USA also established bases in South Vietnam from which bombing campaigns against the north could be launched, and by sending more and more troops to support the South Vietnamese army. In March 1965 the first US combat troops arrived.

12. Vietnam soon became a nightmare war for America – one which they could not win. Why couldn't the USA win? Recognising the Vietcong was a major problem for the US army. The Vietcong didn't wear uniforms, which meant they could easily mix with ordinary people. Added to this, many South Vietnamese supported the Vietcong

13. Why couldn't the USA win? Many South Vietnamese supported the Vietcong because the South Vietnamese government was very unpopular. They wanted to reunite their country. Vietnam had a large peasant population and Communism was attractive to them. The Vietcong would often hide in villages. They would also hide weapons and ammunition in amongst crops. The Vietcong would also infiltrate towns and even the capital Saigon, and attack without warning, supported by sympathisers who would provide them with shelter.

14. Why couldn't the USA win? When the the American troops took action against villages or supposed collaborators it turned even more of the Vietnamese against them. They were seen as the enemy and the aggressor, why were they there? This happened at My Lai, where American troops massacred between 3 and 5 hundred unarmed Vietnamese civilians. “Soldiers went berserk, gunning down unarmed men, women, children and babies. Families which huddled together for safety in huts or bunkers were shown no mercy. Those who emerged with hands held high were murdered.... Elsewhere in the village, other atrocities were in progress. Women were gang raped; Vietnamese who had bowed to greet the Americans were beaten with fists and tortured, clubbed with rifle butts and stabbed with bayonets. Some victims were mutilated with the signature "C Company" carved into the chest.”

15. Why couldn't the USA win? Guerrilla warfare The Vietcong fought a guerrilla war against the US troops. This means that rather than fight the American’s in the open in major battles they decided to hit and run in small skirmishes. The Vietcong employed clever tactics, they knew that they would lose a straight fight against the SuperPower of America so they used their local knowledge to help them strike against American troops. The Vietcong used complicated systems of tunnels to launch surprise attacks on the US soldiers and employed a variety of different booby traps. Whilst on patrol through the jungle, suffering from the effects of the heat, the US soldiers were vulnerable to attack at any time. Eventually this began to play heavily on the minds of the US soldiers who felt under siege.

16. Guerrilla Warfare

18. Why couldn't the USA win? The North Vietnamese and Vietcong were determined to keep fighting; they were not going to give in. They saw the Americans as invaders who were preventing their county from being united again. Men, women and children helped the war effort in the north by working quickly to repair essential supply routes damaged by the American bombing campaign. In the south, peasants hid supplies or in some cases led American soldiers to Vietcong booby traps. If the Vietcong had defeated the French, they saw no reason why they could not force the Americans to withdraw. The Vietnamese were also eagerly backed by the USSR who supplied weapons and financial assistance to help grind down the American towards a humiliating withdrawal. To sum it up the Vietnamese were prepared to take more pain than the American’s could give.

19. Why couldn't the USA win? US soldiers Most US soldiers were draftees (which meant their military service was compulsory). They were inexperienced and increasingly unwilling to fight. Their tours of duty were for one year, and for many soldiers their main concern was getting back home rather than winning the war. In 1971 over 350 unpopular officers were shot by their own men. There was a problem with drug addiction amongst many of the soldiers. The US soldiers were struggling to cope with the psychological strain of fighting against an enemy who was difficult to find and destroy, and who seemed to just disappear into the jungle.

20. The B52 Bomber Between 18 June 1965 and 15 August 1973, USA scheduled 126,663 B-52 combat sorties and launched 126,615. Of these, 125,479 actually reached the target, and 124,532 released bombs. Each B52 can carry 31500 Kg of bombs. More than 55 percent of these sorties were flown in South Vietnam, 27 percent in Laos, 12 per-cent in Cambodia, and 6 percent in NVN. Altogether, the USAF lost 31 B-52s, 18 to enemy fire over NVN. Half of the American money spent on the war, about $200 billion, was spent on US aerial operations."

21. USA and chemical weapons During the war about 10% of Vietnam was intensively sprayed with 72 million litres of chemicals. These included Napalm, Agent Blue and Agent Orange. Some of this landed on their own troops and soon after the war ended veterans began complaining about serious health problems. A report published in 2003 claimed that 650,000 people in Vietnam were still suffering from chronic conditions as a result of the chemicals dropped on the country during the war. Since the war the Vietnamese Red Cross has registered an estimated one million people disabled by Agent Orange. It is estimated that 500,000 people in Vietnam have died from the numerous health problems created by these chemical weapons.

22. Changing public opinion By 1971, opinion polls showed that 71% of Americans believed that sending troops to Vietnam had been a mistake and 58% thought that the war was immoral. Images of war Images of the war, like children running from a napalm attack on their village, or South Vietnam's chief of police executing a Vietcong officer captured in Saigon, showed vividly what was happening. This was beamed directly into the homes of viewing Americans.

23. “Hey! Hey! LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?” Chanted by protesters outside the White House. ‘LBJ’ is President Johnson. “I sent them a good boy, and they made him a murderer...” the mother of one of the soldiers who took out their aggression on innocent Vietnamese – gunning down everyone in the village.

24. Public Opinion

25. Changing public opinion Television coverage This was the first war to be shown on live television and in colour. Pictures like these had an important influence on American public opinion. Public protests Television beamed home the facts that by 1970, 160 US soldiers were being killed every week. This sparked off protests against the war throughout the United States. At Kent state University 4 students protesting were shot dead on 4 th May 1970. A new President In 1968 Nixon was elected President and was determined to withdraw the troops from Vietnam. A peace treaty was finally signed in January 1973.

26. More bombs were dropped in the Vietnam War than in the whole of World War II Over 2,000,000 Vietnamese men, women and children were killed and many more maimed and left homeless. Some 700,000 US soldiers suffered ‘flash-backs’ and psychological effects. More war veterans ended up committing suicide than were killed in Vietnam. Vast tracts of tropical rainforest and important farmland were destroyed by napalm. Feeding the population became a major problem. Consequences of Vietnam

28. 1930 - Ho Chi Minh founds the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP). 1941 - ICP organises a guerrilla force, Viet Minh, in response to invasion by Japan during World War II. 1945 - The Viet Minh seizes power. Ho Chi Minh announces Vietnam's independence. 1946 - French forces attack Viet Minh in Haiphong in November, sparking the war of resistance against the colonial power. 1950 - Democratic Republic of Vietnam is recognised by China and USSR. 1954 - Viet Minh forces attack an isolated French military outpost in the town of Dien Bien. The attempt to take the outpost lasts two months, during which time the French government agrees to peace talks in Geneva. At the Geneva conference, Vietnam is split into North and South at the 17th Parallel. 1957 - Beginning of communist insurgency in the South. 1959 - Weapons and men from North Vietnam begin infiltrating the South. 1960 - American aid to Diem increased. 1962 - Number of US military advisors in South Vietnam rises to 12,000. 1963 - President Diem is overthrown and killed after losing USA support. Vietnam Chronology 1

29. 1964 - US destroyer allegedly attacked by North Vietnamese patrol boats. This triggers start of pre-planned American bombing raids on North Vietnam. This is known as the Gulf of Tonkin incident. 1965 - 200,000 American combat troops arrive in South Vietnam. 1966 - US troop numbers in Vietnam rise to 400,000, then to 500,000 the following year. 1968 - Tet Offensive - a combined assault by Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese army on US positions - begins. More than 500 civilians die in the massacre at My Lai. 1969 - Ho Chi Minh dies. President Nixon begins to reduce US ground troops in Vietnam as domestic public opposition to the war grows. 1970 - Nixon's national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, and Le Duc Tho, for the Hanoi government, start talks in Paris. 1973 - Ceasefire agreement in Paris, US troop pull-out completed by March. 1975 - North Vietnamese troops invade South Vietnam and take control of the whole country after South Vietnamese President Duong Van Minh surrenders. Vietnam Chronology 2

30. Key Question 1 Why did the USA get involved in Vietnam?

31. Key Question 2 Why was Vietnam a war America could not win?