1. Origins of the Vietnam War
An NDM Production

2. Origins of the Vietnam War
Indo-China was originally a French colony
It consisted of what are now three separate countries: Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos.
In 1940 French Indo-China was occupied by the Japanese during the Second World War.

3. Ho Chi Minh
Opposition to French and then Japanese rule in Vietnam was led by Ho Chi Minh.
He was a nationalist who opposed the Japanese control of his country.
He was also a Communist.
Ho Chi Minh’s guerrilla force played a useful role in tying down and helping to defeat Japanese forces during the war

4. The French War in Vietnam, 1946-54
Predictably war broke out in 1946 between the French, who wanted Vietnam back, and the Vietnamese, led by Ho Chi Minh, who wanted to rule it themselves as an independent country.

5. What happened at battle of Dien Bien Phu?
French heavily defeated
Marked the end of the French war in Vietnam
French could not cope with the guerrilla tactics of the Vietnamese army
It is argued that the Americans failed to learn the lessons taught here when they fought the Vietnamese army later.

6. For each section of the picture discuss with the person next to you what you think is happening

12. What did the US do?
The USA supported Ngo Diem - the leader of South Vietnam. They sent money, supplies and military equipment
1959 Communist government in North Vietnam ordered the Vietminh to begin a terror campaign against Diem’s government.

13. Diem had a poor record on human rights but his rule was in the era of the "Domino Theory"
anybody who was anticommunist in the Far East was likely to receive American backing - regardless of their unsavory background.
Ngo ruled as a dictator along with his brother - Nhu. Their government was corrupt and brutal but nevertheless, it was backed by America.

14. Vietnam was a country 9000 miles away from the United States
Vietnam was a country 9000 miles away from the United States. Why did US get involved there?
One explanation lies in the fear caused by the spread of communism at that time. The following incidents led many Americans to fear that the communists were taking over the world and must be stopped.
The communist take-over of China (1949)
The Korean War ( )
Communist victory over the French in Vietnam (1954)
The US government believed that by helping the South Vietnamese government resist the attacks of the communist North they were helping to prevent the spread of communism around the world.

15. Diem's unpopularity was so great that in November 1963, the South Vietnamese Army overthrew and killed him.
This alarmed the new American president Lyndon Johnson (JFK was also assassinated in Nov. 1963), who had asked his military chiefs to make plans should a full-scale war break out.
The one proviso the chiefs-of-staff had
was that America had to be seen as the
victim rather than the aggressor.

16. ‘Domino Theory’ President Eisenhower outlines the Domino Theory:
"You have a row of dominoes set up. You knock over the first one,
and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will
go over very quickly."

17. AMERICAN ESCALATION AND MILITARY INVOLVEMENT
this phase originated with
“Ike” and JFK but was
intensified under Lyndon
Baines Johnson (LBJ), who
assumed the presidency
after JFK’s assassination
The U.S. never formally
issued a declaration of war, but
after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident,
where 2 American
destroyers were apparently
fired upon by the North
Vietnamese, Congress
passed the Gulf of Tonkin
Resolutions (August 1964)
- here Congress gave LBJ
their support in sending
American personnel and materiel

18. in spite of ongoing escalation
throughout the 1960s, the US
experienced a lack of success
against the Vietnamese
guerrilla forces in S.
Vietnam (the Vietcong) as the
US Army was unprepared for
their tactics and mentality
The US was also never entirely
successful in shutting
down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a
supply line that ran between
North and South Vietnam via
difficult jungle terrain,
often underground and
through neighbouring nations
like Cambodia

19. the war definitely turned against the US in 1968, when the NVA’s General Giap began the Tet
Offensive, a surprise offensive on a major Vietnamese holiday that saw attacks all over the country, including in Saigon itself
ongoing US casualties and losses saw an increase in antiwar sentiment on the American Home Front,
in large part because Vietnam was a TV War where American audiences saw the brutality of war firsthand

20. this included American atrocities at My Lai
they also witnessed the usage of weapons like napalm and Agent Orange, which devastated the environment

21. as the Counterculture gathered momentum (Hippies, Flower Children, etc
as the Counterculture gathered momentum (Hippies, Flower Children, etc.), protests became widespread and began to polarize the nation
this was intensified after the Kent State Massacre
National Guardsmen opened fire on student protestors in Ohio, killing four, and by Senator William Fulbright’s (Chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee) admission that the war was a “mess”

22. increasingly the American people came to perceive the “Credibility Gap”, i.e. they no longer
believed that LBJ was telling them the truth about events in the war
in 1968, LBJ chose not to run for president, and Republican Richard M. Nixon was elected on a platform of “Peace with Honour”

23. Nixon wanted the South Vietnamese to play a greater role in the war, a policy he labeled Vietnamization
in spite of that, he continues carpet bombing Hanoi and orders a secret invasion of Cambodia
He relied on the diplomacy of Henry Kissinger to achieve peace and/or an American withdrawal
the US does manage to extricate itself by Jan. 27, 1973

24. PHASE 3 – VIETNAMESE CIVIL WAR, 1973-75
the NVA easily defeated the South by 1975; the South had appealed to Nixon for aid, which had been promised, but by 1975 Nixon was embroiled in the domestic Watergate Crisis, and he was in essence a “lame duck”
1975 – the US abandoned its embassy in Saigon, which was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in the newly unified and communist Vietnam