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Origins of the Vietnam War
An NDM Production
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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For each section of the picture discuss with the person next to you what you think is happening
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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‘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."
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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
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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
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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
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this included American atrocities at My Lai
they also witnessed the usage of weapons like napalm and Agent Orange, which devastated the environment
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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”
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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”
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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
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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
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