Transcript Vietnam War Ends - Thomasville High School

Vietnam War Ends
29.4
Main Idea
• President Nixon eventually ended US
involvement in Vietnam, but the war had
lasting effects on the US and Southeast Asia.
Vietnamization
• Nixon’s plan to train South Vietnamese
soldiers to continue the war, while US with
drawls.
– Plan brings US troop numbers down to just 24,000
in 1972.
Laos and Cambodia
• Attempting to destroy the Ho Chi Minh Trail,
Nixon authorizes the bombing of Cambodia
and Laos in 1969.
– Ground troops also invade Cambodia to target
communist bases.
– News of this is kept secret from the press.
– Wanted to show N. Vietnam that the US was
determined to win.
– Strategy backfires, N. Vietnamese more
determined.
Antiwar Movement
• 1970: antiwar protests get out of hand at Kent
State University
– National Guard called in to protect campus.
– Protesters throw rocks at NG, which fires into the
crowd.
– 4 people killed, many others injured.
– Over the next few weeks more protests across the
nation end in violence.
Kent State
My Lai
• Recall: Guerilla warfare was brutal, difficult to
identify enemy.
• US troops on a routine mission attempt to find
Vietcong.
• Untrusting of villagers, commander ordered
soldiers to execute everyone in the village:
450 women, children, and elderly men.
• Once US public hears this they turn even more
antiwar.
Pentagon Papers
• 1971: Top secret documents that showed that
the Johnson administration had exaggerated
the Gulf of Tonkin Incident were published in
the media.
– Government loses SC case New York Times v. US,
SC states that top secret docs. Can be published.
– Immediately Americans feel they were lied to
about the war.
– Antiwar pressure at an all time high, Nixon must
act.
New York Times v. US
26th Amendment
• Recall: Draft of young men one of the key
antiwar protests.
• Must be 21 to vote, 18 to be drafted. What’s
the paradox?
• 26th Amendment: 18 year olds can vote
1972 Election
• Nixon, who widened
the war, campaigns on a
platform of ending the
war.
• Surprisingly wins very
easily.
Paris Peace Accords
• For once, Nixon keeps his
promise.
• US negotiates a
withdrawal from war in
1973.
• War continues! North v.
South
• Effects of Vietnam War
– 1.5 million Vietnamese
dead
– 58,000 US dead
– Birth defects , increased
cancer from Agent Orange
– US vets not treated like
heroes
– post-tramatic stress
– 700,000 flee SE Asia for US
– Severe ecological damage
Legacy of Vietnam
• War Powers Act
– Limits the president’s
use of armed forces
without the exact
permission of Congress.
– Direct result of power
given to the president in
the Gulf of Tonkin
Resolution
• US public and war
– US government less
likely to use military
today because of the
credibility ruined by the
Pentagon Papers, My Lai,
and other antiwar
efforts.
The Fall of Saigon
• 1975
– 2 years after the US
leaves, South Vietnam falls
to North Vietnam.
– President Gerald Ford
attempts to get
authorization to re-enter
and aid S. Vietnamese, but
Congress denies using the
War Powers Act.
– Today, Vietnam is one
nation- a communist
nation.