The Vietnam War

Chapter 29

Where is it?

Who owned it? French controlled up to WWII After Japanese surrendered French tried to

regain control U.S. sent troops to assist

Ho Chi Minh – wanted Vietnam independence and supported communism

Vietminh – League for the Independence of Vietnam

Domino Theory

The idea that if Vietnam fell to communism, the surrounding countries would also fall to communism

French Surrender

French forces at Dien Bien Phu (military base) are attacked and eventually surrender

Geneva Accords – give independence to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, Vietnam divided into two; free elections

Communist Rebellion

US aides Ngo Dinh Diem – anti-communist leader of South Vietnam, not popular, Catholic, very little support

Vietcong – National Liberation Front rebel group that wanted Vietnam to reunite as a communist nation

Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO)– tried to contain communism and stop its spread in Southeast Asia

U.S. in Vietnam

Kennedy sends 15,000 “advisors” 1961 Diem is overthrown & later assassinated -

1963 Kennedy is assassinated – 3 weeks later Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara General William Westmoreland

Advocated larger military force in Vietnam Operation Rolling Thunder

US Continued

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution – authorized the President to take any means necessary, gave Johnson much war power.

Napalm – sticky jellied gasoline Agent Orange – herbicide Doves – against war Hawks – supported war and Johnson Draftees- those drafted into service

Anti-War Movements

Teach-ins – In March 1965 a group of faculty members and students at the University of Michigan abandoned their classes and joined together in a teach-in.

Teach-ins as a form of war protests began to spread in America. In May 1965 122 colleges held a ‘National Teach-in’ by radio for more than 100,000 antiwar demostrators.

The Credibility Gap Vietnam became the first ‘television’ war or war that

was televised on national TV.

Day after day millions of people saw images of wounded and dead Americans and began to doubt government reports.

In the view of many, a credibility gap had developed, meaning it was hard to believe what the Johnson Administration had been saying about the war.

’68 the Pivotal Year

The Tet Offensive – on Jan. 30 1968, Tet, or the Vietnamese New Year was celebrated.

On this day the Vietcong and North Vietnamese launched a massive surprise attack.

At first the Vietcong and North Vietnam made major advances on American strong holds like the embassy in Saigon.

However, the US and South Vietnamese forces pushed them back and defeated the Communist regimes.

’68 the Pivotal Year

The President’s Administration looked at the Tet Offensive as a failed military plan by the enemy.

However, America had realized that winning in Vietnam might not be possible due to the fact that an enemy supposedly on the verge of defeat could launch a large-scale attack.

Confusion in the United States

Martin Luther King Jr. April 4, 1968 Robert Kennedy June 5, 1968 Protesters at the Democratic convention

Richard Nixon victorious in the 1968 election. Moves war into Cambodia Kent State My Lai Pentagon Papers

Terms

Paris Peace Accords – January 1973 – a cease-fire, U.S. troop withdrawal, & POWs returned

War Powers Act- President must consult with Congress before committing forces

Henry Kissinger – Nixon’s National Security Advisor & Sec of State

President Nixon and Soviet Leader Leonid Brezhnev

SALT I and II

Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty SALT I – limits on antiballistic missiles, & deployment of intercontinental ballistic missiles

SALT II Treaty – Set limit on number of weapons each side could hold - 1979

Intercontinental Ballistic Missles ICBM, in full intercontinental ballistic missile,  Land-

based, nuclear-armed ballistic missile with a range of more than 3,500 miles (5,600 km). Only the United States, Russia, and China field land-based missiles of this range. The first ICBMs were deployed by the Soviet Union in 1958; the United States followed the next year and China some 20 years later. The principal U.S. ICBM is the silo-launched Minuteman missile. Submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) with ranges comparable to ICBMs include the Trident missile, deployed by the United States and Britain, and several systems deployed by Russia, China, and France.

Antiballistic missile antiballistic missile (ABM), Weapon designed to

intercept and destroy ballistic missiles. Effective ABM systems have been sought since the Cold War, when the nuclear arms race raised the spectre of complete destruction by unstoppable ballistic missiles. In the late 1960s both the U.S. and the Soviet Union developed nuclear-armed ABM systems that combined a high-altitude interceptor missile (the U.S. Spartan and Soviet Galosh) with a terminal-phase interceptor (the U.S. Sprint and Soviet Gazelle). Both sides were limited by the 1972 Treaty on Antiballistic Missile Systems to one ABM location each

Review for Test - People

Earl Warren – Chief Justice of Supreme Court

Esther Peterson – Director of the Women’s Bureau of the Dept of Labor under Kennedy

Neil Armstrong – First man on the moon Thurgood Marshall – NAACP’s chief counsel Fannie Lou Hamer – Organized the

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

Martin Luther King Jr. – Minister that preached nonviolence (following Gandhi) in the effort to end segregation, registered African Americans to vote and gain equality for all, president of Southern Christian Leadership Conference, gave the “I Have a Dream” speech, arrested for protests, feared that Vietnam would overshadow Civil Rights Movement, youngest man to receive Nobel Peace Prize, assassinated in 1968

Marion Barry – SNCC’s first chairperson James Farmer – Founder of CORE (the

congress of Racial Equality Stokely Carmichael – leader of the Student

Nonviolent Coordinating Committee James Meredith – first African American to

attend the University of Mississippi Linda Brown – Brown v. Board of Education

Ho Chi Minh – communist leader who wanted Vietnam reunited

Robert Kennedy – Assassinated brother of JFK, Democratic front runner at the time of death for 1968 election

Henry Kissinger – Nixon’s National Security Assistant

Le Duc Tho – peace negotiator for the North Vietnamese

Terms

Head Start - Preschool program for disadvantaged

Medicare – Health insurance/care for the elderly

Medicaid – Health insurance/care for the poor

Kennedy

Elections – TV, debates & advertisements New Frontiers – spend (deficit) on space (moon)

& defense Flexible response – conventional weapons Assassination – Warren Commission Alliance for Progress – w/ Latin America Cuban Missile Crisis Bay of Pigs

Warren Court

Reynolds v. Sims – voting districts-political power to the cities, each vote equal

Reapportionment – increased power of African Americans

Civil Rights

Plessy v. Ferguson – separate but equal Southern Manifesto – encouraged white

southerners to NOT obey the law (defy) Little Rock, AK – National Guard deployed Selma, AL – chosen because of population

majority, but voting minority Kerner Commission – white society & racism

made issues worse

Southern Christian Leadership Conference – end segregation & get African Americans registered to vote

Civil Rights Act of 1957 – protect these voting rights

Malcolm X – an integrated (non separated) society is possible, Representative of the black power movement

Vietnam Vietminh – originally wanted independence

from Japan Truman assists France due to Korean War &

fall of China to communism Eisenhower – sends military advisors initially

to assist South Vietnam Johnson – wants to prevent China from

entering Vietnam, does not attack supply line due to its location in non-warring countries

Gulf of Tonkin – gave war powers to Prez. Educational Hearings – explain to Senate

Tet Offensive – showed willingness of North Vietnam to continue the fight, U.S. media begins to speak against war (criticize)

Operation Rolling Thunder – bombing campaign of North Vietnam

Nixon – expands war to Cambodia, U.S. public outcry against action, Gulf of Tonkin Resolution repealed

Pentagon papers – Government was NOT honest to public or Congress about Vietnam