Transcript The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War
Chapter 33
Vietnam and the French
French Colonialism
– Roads, railroads, and port facilities
– Small farms gone and large plantations
installed
– Vietnamese were shipped to France during
WWI to build trenches
– French was the 2nd official language
– Schools were closed
– 80% were illiterate after 100 years of French
rule
– Censored press, restricted freedom of speech
and assembly
Revolution
Ho Chi Minh organized the
Indochina Communist party
– Other nationalists joined Ho and
formed the Vietminh
After the Japanese were defeated,
the Vietminh established the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam
French forces fought to keep
Vietnam a colony of France
Ho asked for support from Truman,
he was ignored
– Truman believed that communists
everywhere were just pawns of
Moscow
Ho Chi Minh
Vietminh Fight
Bao Dai
Domino Theory
Guerrilla warfare
Bao Dai and the French
puppet government
Truman sent Dai 1 Billion
in aid
Ike believed in the
domino theory
1954 US is paying for
80% of Frances military
expenses
French lose Dien Bien
Phu
Geneva Accord
Vietnam was divided at the 17th parallel
N. Vietnam (Democratic Republic of
Vietnam) – Ho Chi Minh
S. Vietnam (The State of Vietnam) – Bao
Dai
900,000 people move south
80,000 people move north
Pink = North Vietnam
•Communist
•Leader = Ho Chi Minh
•Capital = Hanoi
17th Parallel
division line
Green = South
Vietnam
•French controlled
•Leader = Bao Dai
(puppet)
•Capital =Saigon
Civil Unrest In S. Vietnam
Ngo Dinh Diem overthrows
Bao Dai’s government
Diem claimed that the
Geneva Accords don’t
apply
Diem was a Catholic tyrant
Minh was worse
US organizes Southeast
Asian Treaty Organization
(SEATO)
Ngo Dinh Diem
More Problems
Diem refuses country wide elections
Vietcong fight a guerilla campaign
– The leaders were Communist
– Ike Sent Diem aid to prevent a Communist takeover
– Vietcong were successful at taking over the
countryside
Kennedy sends military supplies to Diem and
authorizes American pilots to fly combat
missions
Diem treated Buddhists poorly
Vietcong influence spreads
When South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem refused to
talk with the Buddhists, a Buddhist monk set himself on fire in a
busy Saigon intersection before a crowd of shocked onlookers.
Tonkin Gulf Resolution
U.S.S. Maddox
Tonkin Gulf Resolution – Gave
the President the power to “take
all necessary measures to repel
any armed attack against armed
forces of the US and to prevent
further aggression.”
It gave President Johnson a blank
check to keep Communism out of
S. Vietnam
Americans Enter the War
S. Vietnam used the Ho Chi
Minh Trail to move supplies
and troops
Operation Rolling Thunder
1968 – 538,000 American
troops were serving in
Vietnam
Search and Destroy Missions
Defoliants used in the Jungle
– side effects
Anti-war Movement
“Make love not war”
10,000 move north
Doves
– US should not be involved in another
country’s civil war
– $25 Billion a year
Hawks
– Fighting the N. Vietnamese was really
protecting the US in the long run
Tet Offensive
Tet Holiday
Funerals and fireworks
Large attack against bases and cities
William Westmorland
Tet Offensive was a huge failure for the
Vietcong
Johnson’s advisors told him to get out
The US Withdraws
Nixon wins the election of
1968
Vietnamization
– It did not work
US continues to bomb
Cambodia and Laos
Students Strike
Kent University
– 4 dead and 9 wounded
– Nixon didn’t understand the
kids
Kent State University anti-war
protest
It Ends
The Senate repeals the Tonkin Gulf
Resolutions
Troops were withdrawn from Cambodia in
1970
US soldier moral plummet
– Drugs, age, training
1972 election, Nixon agrees to pull out
troops, but will send aid to S. Vietnam
January 27, 1973 – US troops leave SV
It Ends
SV still received billions from the US
March 1975, NV takes the capital of
Saigon as Americans flee the embassy
Saigon would be renamed Ho Chi Minh
City