United States in the Vietnam War
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United States involvement in the Vietnam War began shortly after the end of World War II in Asia, first in an extremely limited capacity and escalating over a period of 20 years. The U.S. military presence peaked in April 1969, with 543,000 American combat troops stationed in Vietnam.[1] By the conclusion of the United States's involvement in 1973, over 3.1 million Americans had been stationed in Vietnam.[2][3]
The U.S. involvement in Vietnam began due to a combination of factors: the U.S. war with Japan in the Pacific, domestic pressure to act against communism after the communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong's pledge in 1950 to support the Viet Minh guerrilla forces in the First Indochina War against France's colonial rule, and the indecisive conclusion of the Korean War.[4] However, Stalin and Mao's offer of support to the Viet Minh changed the battlefield dynamic and geopolitical character from an independence struggle to part of the Cold War. In September 1950, the U.S. started to supply the French.[5] From 1950 until 1954, the United States poured more than $3 billion into the war, bankrolling "more than 80 percent of its material costs" over the four-year period.[6] From the 1950s the Domino theory of geopolitics was prominent in U.S. foreign policy thinking. Thus it was feared that communism would spread to neighboring countries unless checked, the overall aim being to prevent communist domination in South-East Asia.[7]
The conflict resulted in 58,279 U.S. military personnel deaths before the official end of U.S. combat operations in 1973.[8] As of 2019, it was estimated that approximately 610,000 Vietnam veterans are still alive, making them the second largest group of American military veterans behind those of the war on terror.[3] The war's lasting impact has been portrayed in the thousands of movies, books, and video games centered on the conflict.[9]
Timeline
Early 20th-century (1913–1949)
- 1919 - The Council of Four ignores a petition written by Ho Chi Minh seeking Vietnamese independence from French rule.[10]
- 1941 - Franklin D. Roosevelt declines repeated requests from the French to assist France's attempts to recolonize Vietnam.[11]
- July 1945 - Members of the occupying Japanese forces.[12]
- August 15, 1945 — Indochina, the Japanese administration allows Hồ Chí Minh to take control over the country, in the August Revolution. Hồ Chí Minh fights with a variety of other political factions for control of the major cities.
- August 1945 — A few days after the August Revolution, Nationalist Chinese forces enter from the north and, as previously planned by the Allies, establish an administration in the country as far south as the 16th parallel north.
- September 26, 1945: OSS officer Lieutenant Colonel A. Peter Dewey — who was working with the Viet Minh to repatriate Americans captured by the Japanese — was killed by a member of the Viet Minh who mistakenly believed him to be French.
- October 1945 — British troops land in southern Vietnam and establish a provisional administration. The British free French soldiers and officials imprisoned by the Japanese. The French begin taking control of cities within the British zone of occupation.
- February 1946 — The French sign an agreement with China. France gives up its concessions in Shanghai and other Chinese ports. In exchange, China agrees to assist the French in returning to Vietnam north of the 17th parallel.
- March 6, 1946 — After negotiations with the Chinese and the Viet Minh, the French sign an agreement recognizing Vietnam within the French Union. Shortly after, the French land at Haiphong and occupy the rest of northern Vietnam. The Viet Minh use the negotiating process with France and China to buy time to use their armed forces to destroy all competing nationalist groups in the north.
- December 1946 — Negotiations between the Viet Minh and the French break down. The Viet Minh are driven out of Hanoi into the countryside.
- 1947–1949 — The Viet Minh fight a limited insurgency in remote rural areas of northern Vietnam.
- 1949 — Chinese communists reach the northern border of Indochina. The Viet Minh drive the French from the border region and begin to receive large amounts of weapons from the Soviet Union and China. The weapons transform the Viet Minh from an irregular large-scale insurgent movement into a conventional army.
1950s
- May 1, 1950 — After the capture of Hainan Island from Chinese Nationalist forces by the Chinese People's Liberation Army, President Truman approves $10 million in military assistance for anti-communist efforts in Indochina. The Defense Attaché Office was established in Saigon in May 1950, a formal recognition of Viet Nam (vice French Indochina). This was the beginning of formal U.S. military personnel assignments in Viet Nam. U.S. Naval, Army and Air Force personnel established their respective attaches at this time.
- September 1950 — Truman sends the Military Assistance Advisory Group (military equipmentto support the French in their effort to fight the Viet Minh forces.
- Following the outbreak of the Korean War, Truman announces "acceleration in the furnishing of military assistance to the forces of France and the Associated States in Indochina...". and sends 123 non-combat troops to help with supplies to fight against the communist Viet Minh.
- 1951 — Truman authorizes $150 million in French support.
- 1953 — By November, French commander in Indochina, General Navarre, asked U.S. General McArthur to loan twelve Fairchild C-119 aircraft, to be flown by French crews, to facilitate Operation Castor at Dien Bien Phu.
- 1954 — In January, Navarre's Deputy asked for additional transport aircraft. Negotiations ended on March 3 with 24 CIA pilots (CAT) to operate 12 U.S. Air Force C-119s, flying undercover using French insignia, but maintained by the USAF.[13]
- 1954 — General Paul Ely, the French Chief of Staff, proposed an American operation to rescue French forces. Operation Vulture was hastily planned but not approved due to lack of consensus.[14][15]
- May 6, 1954 —
- 1954 — The Viet Minh defeat the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. The defeat, along with the end of the Korean War the previous year, causes the French to seek a negotiated settlement to the war.
- 1954 — The Geneva Conference, called to determine the post-French future of Indochina, proposes a temporary division of Vietnam, to be followed by nationwide elections to unify the country in 1956. However the final declaration was left unsigned by all delegates, after the United States and the State of Vietnam stated they wouldn't accept the proposal.[18]
- 1954 — Two months after the Geneva conference, North Vietnam forms Group 100 with headquarters at Ban Namèo. Its purpose is to direct, organize, train and supply the Pathet Lao to gain control of Laos, which along with Cambodia and Vietnam formed French Indochina.
- 1955 — North Vietnam launches an 'anti-landlord' campaign, during which counter-revolutionaries are imprisoned or killed. The numbers killed or imprisoned are disputed, with historian Stanley Karnow estimating about 6,000 while others (see the book "Rudolph Rummel puts the figure as high as 200,000.[19]
- November 1, 1955 — President Eisenhower deploys the Military Assistance Advisory Group to train the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. This marks the official beginning of American involvement in the war as recognized by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.[20]
- April 1956 — The last French troops finally withdraw from Vietnam.
- 1954–1956 — 450,000 Vietnamese civilians flee the Viet Minh administration in North Vietnam and relocate in South Vietnam as part of the US government's Operation Passage to Freedom. Approximately 52,000 move in the opposite direction. Dr. Thomas Dooley writes his memoir about the refugees Deliver Us from Evil.
- 1956 — National unification elections do not occur.
- December 1958 — North Vietnam invades Laos and occupies parts of the country.
- July 8, 1959 — Chester M. Ovnand and Dale R. Buis become the first two American Advisers to die in Vietnam.[21]
- September 1959 — North Vietnam forms Group 959, which assumes command of the Pathet Lao forces in Laos.
1960s
- November 1960 — Coup attempt by paratroopers is foiled after Diệm falsely promises reform, allowing loyalists to crush the rebels.
- December 20, 1960 — The National Liberation Front of South Vietnam(NLF) is founded.
- January 1961 — Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev pledges support for "wars of national liberation" throughout the world. The idea of creating a neutral Laos is suggested to Kennedy.
- May 1961 — Kennedy sends 400 United States Army Special Forces personnel to South Vietnam to train South Vietnamese soldiers following a visit to the country by Vice President Johnson.[22]
- June 1961 — Kennedy meets with Khrushchev in Vienna. He protests North Vietnam's attacks on Laos and points out that the U.S. was supporting the neutrality of Laos. The two leaders agree to pursue a policy of creating a neutral Laos.
- June 1961 — Kennedy said, "Now we have a problem making our power credible and Vietnam looks like the place" to James Reston of The New York Times (immediately after meeting Khrushchev in Vienna).
- August 10, 1961 — Test run of U.S. Operation Trail Dust")
- October 1961 — Following successful NLF attacks, Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamararecommends sending six divisions (200,000 men) to Vietnam.
- February 8, 1962 — The Military Assistance Command Vietnam(MACV) is created by President Kennedy.
- February 1962 — Attempted assassination of Diệmby two dissident Republic of Vietnam Air Force pilots who bombed his palace, fails.
- July 23, 1962 — International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos is signed at Geneva, promising Laotian neutrality.
- August 1, 1962 — Kennedy signs the Foreign Assistance Act of 1962, which provides "... military assistance to countries which are on the rim of the Communist world and under direct attack".
- October 1962 — Operation Ranch Hand begins. U.S. planes spray defoliantsover South Vietnam until 1971.
- January 3, 1963 — NLF victory in the Battle of Ap Bac.
- May 8, 1963 — Buddhists demonstrate in open fire, killing nine.
- May 1963 — Republican Barry Goldwater declares that the U.S. should fight to win or withdraw from Vietnam. Later on, during his presidential campaign against Lyndon B. Johnson, his Democratic opponents accuse him of wanting to use nuclear weapons in the conflict.
- June 11, 1963 — Photographs of protesting Buddhist monk, Saigon, appear in U.S. newspapers.
- Summer 1963 — Madame Nhu, de facto First Lady to the bachelor Diệm makes a series of vitriolic attacks on Buddhists, calling the immolations "barbecues". Diệm ignores U.S. calls to silence her.
- August 21, 1963 — stage raids across the country, attacking Buddhist temples and firing on monks. The cremated remains of Thích Quảng Đức are confiscated from Xá Lợi Pagoda in Saigon. New U.S. ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge rebukes Diệm by visiting Xá Lợi and giving refuge to Buddhist leader Thích Trí Quang. The U.S. calls for Nhu to be dropped by Diệm, and threatens to cut aid to Colonel Lê Quang Tung's Special Forces if they are not sent into battle, rather than used to repress dissidents.
- September 2, 1963 — Kennedy criticises the Diệm regime in an interview with Walter Cronkite, citing the Buddhist repression and claiming that Diệm is out of touch.
- Late October 1963 — Nhu, unaware that Saigon region commander General Tôn Thất Đính is double-crossing him, draws up plans for a phony coup and counter-coup to reaffirm the Diệm regime. Đính sends Nhu's loyal special forces out of Saigon on the pretext of fighting communists and in readiness for the counter coup, and rings Saigon with rebel troops.
- November 1, 1963 — Military officers launch a coup d'état against Diệm, with the tacit approval of the Kennedy administration. Diệm and Nhu escape the presidential residence via a secret exit after loyalist forces were locked out of Saigon, unable to rescue them.
- November 2, 1963 — Diệm and Nhu are discovered in nearby they are executed by Nguyễn Văn Nhung, bodyguard of General Dương Văn Minh. Minh leads the military junta.
- November 1963 — By this time, Kennedy had increased the number of military personnel from the 900 that were there when he became president to 16,000 just before his death.[23]
- November 22, 1963 — .
- August 1964 - USS Maddox is allegedly attacked by North Vietnamese patrol torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin (the attack is later disputed), leading President Johnson to call for air strikes on North Vietnamese patrol boat bases. Two U.S. aircraft are shot down and one U.S. pilot, Everett Alvarez, Jr., becomes the first U.S. airman to be taken prisoner by North Vietnam.
- March 2, 1965 — Operation Rolling Thunder begins.
- March 8, 1965 — First U.S. ground troops arrive in Da Nang composed of 3,500 US Marines of the
- March 10, 1965 — Authored in secret with roots in at least 1964, "Plan of Action for South Vietnam," was a Top Secret rolling document and evolving plan that outlined a significant departure from the public narrative: eradicating communism in indochina, to "avoiding a humiliating US defeat." The report is infamously dated both 10 and 24 March 1965—months and ultimately years before the bulk of US ground troops are to be deployed.[26]
- July 28, 1965 — In a nationally televised speech, President Johnson announced his decision to send an additional 50,000 American troops to South Vietnam, increasing the number of personnel there by two-thirds and to bring the commitment to 125,000. Johnson also said that the monthly draft call would more than double, to more than 1,000 new young men per day (from 17,000 to 35,000) for enlistment and training in the U.S. Armed Forces.
- 1966 — Lyndon B. Johnson expanded the number of troops being sent into Vietnam to 385,000.
- October 1966 - Secretary Of Defense Robert S. McNamara initiates Project 100,000 significantly reducing recruitment standards for the U.S. military in the face of rising manpower needs.[27][28]
- April 20, 1969 - Nixon orders the withdrawal of 150,000 U.S. troops from South Vietnam over the span of 12 months, citing Vietnamization; U.S. troop presence peaks at over 540,000.[1]
- June 8, 1969 - Nixon announces that 25,000 U.S. troops would be withdrawn by the end of September. A month later, troops would begin departing South Vietnam
- July 25, 1969 - The Nixon Doctrine is announced in an informal press conference by President Nixon.
- July 30, 1969 - President Nixon visits South Vietnam for the first and only time.
- October 15, 1969 - Hundreds of thousands of people attend mass protests across the United States for the United States to withdraw from the Vietnam War.
- November 15, 1969 - A second, larger protest takes place in Washington D.C., with an estimated 500,000 people.
- December 1, 1969 - The first draft lottery since 1942 is held.
1970s
- April 20, 1970 - Nixon announces a second withdrawal of 150,000 U.S. troops from South Vietnam over the span of 12 months.
- April 30, 1970 - Nixon announces that U.S. troops were sent into Cambodia, reversing his April 20 decision to withdraw 150,000 troops.better source needed]
- June 3, 1970 - Nixon withdraws half of the 31,000 troops in Cambodia to fight in South Vietnam.
- January 6, 1971 - Secretary of Defense Melvin Lairdsays that the combat mission of U.S. troops were planned to end by summer.
- March 1, 1971 - At 1:32 a.m., a bomb planted by Weather Underground explodes outside the U.S. Capitol in protest of the invasion of Laos.
- April 23, 1971 - A protest tantamount to the November 1969 protest takes place in Washington D.C.
- June 13, 1971 - The Pentagon Papers begin to be published.
- July 26, 1971 - Kissinger announces plans for $7.5 billion in aid to be provided for Vietnam, and for the removal of all U.S. troops within nine months.
- January 13, 1972 - Nixon announces plans for 70,000 U.S. troops to be pulled out of Vietnam, half of the remaining forces.
- February 21, 1972 - Nixon meets Mao Zedong, and becomes the first president in US history to meet with a Chinese Communist leader face to face.
- April 20, 1972 - Nixon announces plans to reduce U.S. troops in South Vietnam to 49,000 by July 1, 1972.
- August 29, 1972 - Nixon announces the further withdrawal of U.S. troops in South Vietnam to only 27,000 by December 1, 1972.
- November 7, 1972 - Nixon wins re-election.
- January 22, 1973 - Lyndon B. Johnson dies.
- January 27, 1973 - U.S. troops are planned to be withdrawn from South Vietnam in 60 days due to the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. North Vietnam and Nixon also agree to withdraw troops from Cambodia and Laos.
- March 29, 1973 - The last American combat troops are withdrawn from Vietnam.
- August 9, 1974 - Richard Nixon resigns due to the Watergate scandal and is succeeded by Gerald Ford.
Under the Kennedy administration
In 1961, the new administration of President John F. Kennedy took a new approach to aiding
The commitment to defend South Vietnam was reaffirmed by Kennedy on May 11 in National Security Action Memorandum 52, which became known as "The Presidential Program for Vietnam". Its opening statement reads:
U.S. objectives and concept of operations [are] to prevent communist domination of South Vietnam; to create in that country a viable and increasingly democratic society, and to initiate, on an accelerated basis, a series of mutually supporting actions of a military, political, economic, psychological, and covert character designed to achieve this objective.[34]
Nevertheless, the Kennedy administration held onto its fundamental belief in nation building.
Kennedy had faced much international pressure against his increasing involvement in Vietnam, non the least from Charles De Gaulle on, but Kennedy held steadfast, stating on September 2:
We hope that he comes to see that, but in the final analysis it is the people and the government itself have to win or lose this struggle. All we can do is help, and we are making it very clear, but I don't agree with those who say we should withdraw. That would be a great mistake.
The
Diệm was already growing unpopular with many of his countrymen because of his administration's nepotism, corruption, and its apparent bias in favor of the
One major frustration among the Kennedy administration was the continued prominent role of Ngo Dinh Nhu, the younger brother of Diem, within the South Vietnamese regime. Nhu held a prominent role in the Diem government, to the chagrin of US officials. Following a meeting with Nhu, Hillsman surmised US frustrations with the Diem government, stating
The American military are still chasing Viet Cong and advising the Vietnamese to chase Viet Cong. They're not adopting the program the President has recommended, our own military are not. Diem has turned the strategic-hamlet program over to Nhu, who's taken the title, the name of it, and nothing else. And in fact, what Diem signed, what we persuaded him to, had not been adopted[37]
Frustrations boiled over following Nhu's American-trained special forces crackdown on Buddhist pagodas in Hue in 1963. More than fourteen hundred Buddhists were arrested.[38] Buddhist monks were protesting discriminatory practices and demanding a political voice. The repression of the protests sparked the so-called Buddhist crisis, during which several monks committed self-immolation, which was covered in the world press. The communists took full advantage of the situation and fueled anti-Diệm sentiment to create further instability. In August, the State Department stated:
We wish to give Diem reasonable opportunity to remove Nhu, but if he remaisn obdurate, then we are prepared to accept the obvious implications that we can no longer support Diem. You may tell appropriate military commanders that we will give them direct support in any interim period of breakdown central government mechanism [37]
It was never, however, the prerogative of the Kennedy administration to remove the Diem government from power. As the McNamara-Taylor report cautioned," Our policy should be to seek urgently to identify and build contacts with an alternative leadership if and when it appears."[37]
Though reluctant to immediately launch full scale U.S. involvement in the Vietnam conflict, the Kennedy Administration would escalate the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam who acted as advisors to the South Vietnamese military.[39] At the time of Kennedy's assassination in 1963, the number of U.S. military advisors in Vietnam had grown to at least 16,000.[39] Nevertheless, the Kennedy administration had expressed desires to wind down US military intervention, without fully withdrawing from Vietnam. On October 2, 1963, the White House outlined its intentions to withdraw 1,000 men from Vietnam by then end of the year.[37]
Reasons for U.S. intervention in Vietnam
The Fear of Communism
A major factor that led President Lyndon B. Johnson to intervene into Vietnam militarily was the fear of communism due to Cold War tensions with communist countries such as China and the Soviet Union. South Vietnam was very important to the U.S. in Asia with it being perceived as a western democratic state. After the intervention of Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong in the Indochina War, the U.S. was fearful of a repeat of the Korean War. Also, if the U.S. intervened, this would have increased the likelihood of China giving military support to the USSR and North Vietnam.[6] But, more importantly, the prevalent threat of communism drove President Truman and his advisers to intervene in Vietnam due to the domestic pressures to oppose and defeat communism and the fear of the consequences if communist expansion continued.[40]
Lyndon B. Johnson's role
A great deal of the blame for U.S. failures in Vietnam has been cast on Lyndon B. Johnson by historians. His decision making was motivated by a variety of reasons, including his personal fear of appearing soft on communism, but also his fear of engaging America in another stalemate like the Korean War.[41] It is largely agreed upon that Johnson inherited a complicated situation from his predecessor, John F. Kennedy. Consequently, Johnson faced a difficult situation regarding whether the costs of intervening outweighed the benefits. In essence, America had reached the point of no return. The pride of America and the pride of Johnson as a strong President means that the individual actions and responses of Johnson in Vietnam are somewhat responsible for the failures resulting from U.S. intervention. Johnson himself did not want to appear weak against communism as he feared the backlash from the U.S. public and his Republican rivals. However, he also did not want to engage America in a costly and humiliating war. Discussing Vietnam with Senator Russell in May 1964, he expressed serious concerns about countering guerrilla tactics, the likely ineffectiveness and probable domestic political impact of conducting a bombing campaign in the north, and a number of other factors.[42] Whilst these challenges would have been faced by any President in office at the time, it is ultimately Johnson's individual decisions and attitudes that brought America into the Vietnam War. Historians have been sympathetic towards Johnson's situation, but others believe that the inevitability of war and Johnson's trapping by previous Presidents like John F. Kennedy is a dubious proposal. Fredrick Logevall believes there were choices available to him debate and fluidity was more of a reality than a Cold War consensus as key figures such as Senator Richard Russell Jr. opposed the war: "exact numbers are hard to come by, but certainly in the Senate a clear majority of Democrats and moderate Republicans were either downright opposed to Americanisation or were ambivalent".[43]
Robert Dean says Robert Mcnamara recognises that Johnson could have avoided war in his 1995 memoirs. Dean believes "the basic explanation McNamara offers is that the Kennedy and Johnson policy makers were blinded by their own rigid anti-communist ideology".[44] Arnold R. Isaacs says that there was limited public pressure to escalate war whilst his political position was already safe because of an electoral vote of 486 in the 1964 presidential election. Isaacs says that engaging in the war would be more damaging politically to Johnson and the Democrats than disengagement because an expensive war meant Great Society reforms would be damaged. According to Isaacs, the view that Johnson was pushed into war by external factors like public pressure and political necessity can be hard to justify and was instead part of the masculine urge to solve international conflicts with war and "that if enough planes could drop enough bombs on a backward Asian country, victory must follow".[45]
Laos or Vietnam?
According to Seth Jacobs, during the 1950s and 1960s, there was a conceptualisation of Asian nations across a hierarchy of good and bad within the American imagination, which affected US policymakers view of how intervention would materialise. Jacobs states:
Americans at the mid century considered some Asians tough and therefore dependable anticommunist allies while consigning other to the ranks of those who, in the words of a State Department working paper "will not fight for themselves" much less for the free world. No Asian was rated lower in American eyes than the Lao[46]
Jacobs writes that Eisenhower and later Kennedy both "reduced the Lao to a set of stereotypes: childlike, lazy, submissive, unfit to fight the free world's battles".[47] Therefore, Kennedy was dissuaded from sponsoring a military intervention in Laos and instead compromised with the Pathet Lao communist forces, which Jacobs argues meant that Kennedy felt he had to intervene elsewhere in Southeast Asia in Vietnam and that the dovish attitude towards Laos was antithetical to the hawkish outlook towards Vietnam. Jacobs argues that Kennedy viewed the Vietnamese people more able to fight communism than the "unfit Lao". Jacobs argues the "American statesmen and the American media constructed a putative Lao national character that differed from South Vietnam's and that made Lao chances of withstanding communist pressure appeal negligible".[48]
Americanization
Gulf of Tonkin
On July 27, 1964, 5,000 additional U.S. military advisers were ordered to the
On the evening of August 2, 1964, the destroyer USS Maddox was conducting an electronic intelligence collection mission in international waters (even as claimed by North Vietnam) in the Gulf of Tonkin when it was attacked by three P-4 torpedo boats of the North Vietnamese Navy.[49] Reports later reached the Johnson administration saying that the Maddox was under attack. Two nights later, after being joined by the destroyer USS Turner Joy, the Maddox again reported that both vessels were under attack.[50] Regardless, President Johnson addressed Congress asking for more political power to utilize American military forces in South Vietnam, using the attack on the Maddox as cause to get what he wanted.
Confusion was abound around the circumstance of the attacks. The USS Turner Joy's reports of the second attack were met with Scepticism from many U.S. officials.[51] While it is 'indisputable' that the first attack occurred, the evidence of the second attack, McNamara contends, "appears probable but not certain".[52] This incited rampant confusion in Washington. Nevertheless, the incident was seen by the administration as the perfect opportunity to present Congress with "a pre-dated declaration of war" in order to strengthen weakening morale in South Vietnam through reprisal attacks by the U.S. on the North.[53] The attack was pivotal in justifying the Johnson administration's intensification of the war.[54] Even before confirmation of the phantom attack had been received in Washington, President Johnson had decided that an attack could not go unanswered. Johnson ordered attacks on North Vietnamese naval instalments almost immediately, and capitalised on the incident by convincing congress to accept intensified military action in Vietnam.[55]
Neither Congress nor the American people learned the whole story about the events in the Gulf of Tonkin until the publication of the Pentagon Papers in 1969. It was on the basis of the administration's assertions that the attacks were "unprovoked aggression" on the part of North Vietnam, that the United States Congress approved the Southeast Asia Resolution (also known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution) on August 7. The law gave the President broad powers to conduct military operations without an actual declaration of war. The resolution passed unanimously in the House of Representatives and was opposed in the Senate by only two members.
National Security Council members, including
Operation Rolling Thunder, 1965–68
In February 1965, a U.S. air base at Pleiku, in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam, was attacked twice by the NLF, resulting in the deaths of over a dozen U.S. personnel. These guerrilla attacks prompted the administration to order retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnam.
Operation Rolling Thunder was the code name given to a sustained strategic bombing campaign targeted against the North by aircraft of the U.S. Air Force and Navy that was inaugurated on March 2, 1965. Its original purpose was to bolster the morale of the South Vietnamese and to serve as a signaling device to Hanoi. U.S. airpower would act as a method of "strategic persuasion", deterring the North Vietnamese politically by the fear of continued or increased bombardment. Rolling Thunder gradually escalated in intensity, with aircraft striking only carefully selected targets. When that did not work, its goals were altered to destroying North Vietnam's will to fight by destroying the nation's industrial base, transportation network, and its (continually increasing) air defenses. After more than 300,000 sorties were flown and three-quarters of a million tons of bombs were dropped, Rolling Thunder was ended on November 11, 1968.[56]
Other aerial campaigns (
Build-up
President Johnson had already appointed General
Meanwhile, political affairs in Saigon were finally settling down — at least as far as the Americans were concerned. On February 14 the most recent military junta, the National Leadership Committee, installed Air Vice-Marshal Nguyễn Cao Kỳ as prime minister. In 1966, the junta selected General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu to run for president with Ky on the ballot as the vice-presidential candidate in the 1967 election. Thieu and Ky were elected and remained in office for the duration of the war. In the presidential election of 1971, Thieu ran for the presidency unopposed. With the installation of the Thieu and Ky government (the Second Republic), the U.S. had a pliable, stable, and semi-legitimate government in Saigon with which to deal[citation needed].
With the advent of Rolling Thunder, American airbases and facilities needed to be constructed and manned for the aerial effort[
The North Vietnamese had already sent units of their regular army into southern Vietnam beginning in late 1964. Some officials in Hanoi had favored an immediate invasion of the South, and a plan was developed to use PAVN units to split southern Vietnam in half through the Central Highlands[
Search and destroy, the strategy of attrition
On November 27, 1965, the Pentagon declared that if the major operations needed to neutralize North Vietnamese and NLF forces were to succeed, U.S. troop levels in South Vietnam would have to be increased from 120,000 to 400,000. In a series of meetings between Westmoreland and the President held in Honolulu in February 1966, Westmoreland claimed that the U.S. presence had succeeded in preventing the immediate defeat of the South Vietnamese government but that more troops would be necessary if systematic offensive operations were to be conducted[citation needed]. The issue then became in what manner American forces would be used[citation needed].
The nature of the American military's strategic and tactical decisions made during this period colored the conflict for the duration of the American commitment. The logistical system in Laos and Cambodia should be cut by ground forces, isolating the southern battlefield[citation needed]. However, political considerations limited U.S. military actions, mainly because of the memory of Chinese reactions during the Korean War.[citation needed] Ever present in the minds of diplomats, military officers, and politicians was the possibility of a spiraling escalation of the conflict into a superpower confrontation and the possibility of a nuclear exchange. Therefore, there would be no invasion of North Vietnam, the "neutrality" of Laos and Cambodia would be respected, and Rolling Thunder would not resemble the bombing of Germany and Japan during the Second World War.
These limitations were not foisted upon the military as an afterthought. Before the first U.S. soldiers came ashore at Da Nang, the Pentagon was cognizant of all of the parameters that would be imposed by their civilian leaders, yet they still agreed that the mission could be accomplished within them. Westmoreland believed that he had found a strategy that would either defeat North Vietnam or force it into serious negotiations. Attrition was to be the key. The general held that larger offensive operations would grind down the communists and eventually lead to a "crossover point" in PAVN/NLF casualties after which a decisive (or at least political) victory would be possible.
It is widely held that the average U.S. serviceman was nineteen years old, as evidenced by the casual reference in a pop song ("
The one-year
American forces would conduct operations against PAVN forces, pushing them further back into the countryside away from the heavily populated coastal lowlands. In the backcountry the U.S. could fully utilize its superiority in firepower and mobility to bleed the enemy in set-piece battles. The cleaning-out of the NLF and the pacification of the villages would be the responsibility of the South Vietnamese military. The adoption of this strategy, however, brought Westmoreland into direct conflict with his
Both sides chose similar strategies. PAVN, which had been operating a more conventional, large-unit war, switched back to small-unit operations in the face of U.S. military capabilities. The struggle moved to the villages, where the "hearts and minds" of the South Vietnamese peasants, whose cooperation was absolutely necessary to military success, would be won or lost. The U.S. had given responsibility for this struggle to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), whose troops and commanders were notoriously unfit for the task.
For the American soldier, whose doctrine was one of absolute commitment to total victory, this strategy led to a frustrating small-unit war. Most of the combat was conducted by units smaller than battalion-size (the majority at the platoon level). Since the goal of the operations was to kill the enemy, terrain was not taken and held as in previous wars. Savage fighting and the retreat of the communists was immediately followed by the abandonment of the terrain just seized. Combined with this was the anger and frustration engendered among American troops by the effective tactics of the NLF, who conducted a war of sniping, booby traps, mines, and terror against the Americans.
As a result of the conference held in Honolulu, President Johnson authorized an increase in troop strength to 429,000 by August 1966. The large increase in troops enabled MACV to carry out numerous operations that grew in size and complexity during the next two years. For U.S. troops participating in these operations (
During the Vietnam War, the use of the helicopter, known as "Air Mobile", was an essential tool for conducting the war. In fact, the whole conduct and strategy of the war depended on it. Vietnam was the first time the helicopter was used on a major scale, and in such important roles. Search and destroy missions, for example, would have been nearly impossible without it. Helicopters allowed American commanders to move large numbers of troops to virtually anywhere, regardless of the terrain or roads. Troops could also be easily resupplied in remote areas. The helicopter also provided another new and vital capability: medical evacuation. It could fly wounded soldiers to aid stations very quickly, usually within the critical first hour. This gave wounded soldiers a higher chance of survival in Vietnam than in any previous war. The helicopter was also adapted for many other roles in Vietnam, including ground attack, reconnaissance, and electronic warfare. Without the helicopter, the war would have been fought very differently.[64]
Tactical nuclear weapons and cluster bombs
Although the use of nuclear weapons was proposed as a contingency plan by the military, President Johnson shut this idea down, approving instead the use of cluster bombs (termed Controlled Fragmentation Munition or COFRAM by the military)[65][66] In the 1964 presidential campaign, Johnson presented himself as the candidate who would be less willing to use nuclear weapons (see "Daisy" ad).[67] As President, LBJ urged the military not to give the president the authority to use tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam. Throughout the war, President Johnson did not change his stance on the use of tactical nuclear weapons against the Vietcong.
Border battles and the Tet Offensive
By mid-1967, Westmoreland said that it was conceivable that U.S. forces could be phased out of the war within two years, turning over progressively more of the fighting to the ARVN.
Most of the PAVN/NLF operational capability was possible only because of the unhindered movement of men along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. To threaten this flow of supplies, the Marine Corps established a combat base on the South Vietnamese side of the Laotian frontier, near the village of Khe Sanh. The U.S. used the base as a border surveillance position overlooking Route 9, the only east–west road that crossed the border in the province. Westmoreland also hoped to use the base as a jump-off point for any future incursion against the Trail system in Laos. During the spring of 1967, a series of small-unit actions near Khe Sanh prompted MACV to increase its forces. These small unit actions and increasing intelligence information indicated that the PAVN was building up significant forces just across the border.
Indeed, PAVN was doing just that. Two regular divisions (and later elements of a third) were moving toward Khe Sanh, eventually surrounding the base and cutting off its only road access. Westmoreland, contrary to the advice of his Marine commanders, reinforced the outpost. As far as he was concerned, if the communists were willing to mass their forces for destruction by American air power, so much the better. He described the ideal outcome as a "Dien Bien Phu in reverse". MACV then launched the largest concentrated aerial bombardment effort of the conflict (Operation Niagara) to defend Khe Sanh. Another massive aerial effort was undertaken to keep the beleaguered Marines supplied. There were many comparisons (by the media, Americans military and political officials, and the North Vietnamese) to the possibility of PAVN staging a repeat of its victory at Dien Bien Phu, but the differences outweighed the similarities in any comparison.
MACV used this opportunity to field its latest technology against the North Vietnamese. A sensor-driven, anti-infiltration system known as Operation Igloo White was in the process of being field tested in Laos as the siege of Khe Sanh began. Westmoreland ordered that it be employed to detect PAVN troop movements near the Marine base and the system worked well. By March, the long-awaited ground assault against the base had failed to materialize and communist forces began to melt back toward Laos. MACV (and future historians) were left with only questions. What was the goal of the PAVN? Was the siege a real attempt to stage another Dien Bien Phu? Or had the battles near the border (which eventually drew in half of MACV's maneuver battalions) been a diversion, meant to pull forces away from the cities, where another PAVN offensive would soon commence?
General Westmoreland's public reassurances that "the light at the end of the tunnel" was near were countered when, on January 30, 1968, PAVN and NLF forces broke the truce that accompanied the Tết holiday and mounted their largest offensive thus far, in hopes of sparking a general uprising among the South Vietnamese. These forces, ranging in size from small groups to entire regiments, attacked nearly every city and major military installation in South Vietnam. The Americans and South Vietnamese, initially surprised by the scope and scale of the offensive, quickly responded and inflicted severe casualties on their enemies. The NLF was essentially eliminated as a fighting force and the places of the dead within its ranks were increasingly filled by North Vietnamese.
The PAVN/NLF attacks were speedily and bloodily repulsed in virtually all areas except
After the Tet Offensive, influential news magazines and newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, Time and The New York Times, increasingly began to characterize the war as a stalemate. What shocked and dismayed the American public was the realization that either it had been lied to or that the American military command had been dangerously overoptimistic in its appraisal of the situation in Vietnam. The public could not understand how such an attack was possible after being told for several years that victory was just around the corner. The Tet Offensive came to embody the growing credibility gap at the heart of U.S. government statements. These realizations and changing attitudes forced the American public (and politicians) to face hard realities and to reexamine their position in Southeast Asia. Moreover, the U.S. media coverage made it even more clear that an overall victory in Vietnam was not imminent. It also massively weakened the domestic support for the Johnson administration at the time.[69] The days of an open-ended commitment to the conflict were over.
The psychological impact of the Tet Offensive effectively ended the political career of Lyndon Johnson. On March 11, Senator
My Lai Massacre
On March 16, 1968, three companies of Task Force Barker, part of the
In 1969, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh exposed the My Lai massacre in print, and the Haeberle photos were released to the world media. The Pentagon launched an investigation headed by General William R. Peers to look into the allegations. After a flurry of activity, the Peers Commission issued its report. It declared that "an atmosphere of atrocity" surrounded the event, concluding that a massacre had taken place and the crime had been covered up by the commander of the Americal Division and his executive officer. Perhaps 400 Vietnamese civilians, mostly old men, women, and children had been killed by Charlie company. Several men were charged in the killings, but only Calley was convicted. He was given a life sentence by a court-martial in 1970, but after numerous appeals, he was finally set free; he had served just over three years of house arrest.
Although My Lai generated a lot of civilian recriminations and bad publicity for the military, it was not the only massacre. The
Vietnamization, 1969–73
Richard Nixon had campaigned in the 1968 presidential election under the slogan that he would end the war in Vietnam and bring "peace with honor". However, there was no plan to do this, and the American commitment continued for another five years. The goal of the American military effort was to buy time, gradually building up the strength of the South Vietnamese armed forces, and re-equipping it with modern weapons so that they could defend their nation on their own. This policy became the cornerstone of the so-called Nixon Doctrine. As applied to Vietnam, it was labeled Vietnamization.
Nixon's papers show that in 1968, as a presidential candidate, he ordered Anna Chennault, his liaison to the South Vietnam government, to persuade them to refuse a cease-fire being brokered by President Lyndon Johnson.
Soon after Tet, General Westmoreland was promoted to
Vietnamization of the war, however, created a dilemma for U.S. forces: the strategy required that U.S. troops fight long enough for the ARVN to improve enough to hold its own against Communist forces. Morale in the U.S. ranks rapidly declined during 1969–1972, as evidenced by declining discipline, worsening drug use among soldiers, and increased "fraggings" of U.S. officers by disgruntled troops.
One of Nixon's main foreign policy goals had been the achievement of a breakthrough in U.S. relations with the
China and the Soviet Union had been the principal backers of North Vietnam's effort through large-scale military and financial aid. The two communist superpowers had competed with one another to prove their "fraternal socialist links" with the regime in Hanoi. The North Vietnamese had become adept at playing the two nations off against one another. Even with Nixon's rapprochement, their support of North Vietnam increased significantly in the years leading up to the U.S. departure in 1973, enabling the North Vietnamese to mount full-scale conventional offensives against the South, complete with tanks, heavy artillery, and the most modern surface-to-air missiles.
Pentagon Papers
The credibility of the U.S. government again suffered in 1971 when
The Pentagon Papers laid out the missteps taken by four administrations in their Vietnam policies. For example, they revealed the Johnson administration's obfuscations to Congress concerning the Gulf of Tonkin incidents that had led to direct U.S. intervention; they exposed the clandestine bombing of Laos that had begun in 1964; and they detailed the American government's complicity in the death of Ngô Đình Diệm. The study presented a continuously pessimistic view of the likelihood of victory and generated fierce criticism of U.S. policies.
The importance of the actual content of the papers to U.S. policy-making was disputed, but the window that they provided into the flawed decision-making process at the highest levels of the U.S. government opened the issue for other questions. Their publication was a news event and the government's legal (Nixon lost to the Supreme Court) and extra-legal efforts (the "Plumbers" break-in at the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist committed to gain material to discredit him, was one of the first steps on the road to Watergate) carried out to prevent their publication—mainly on national security grounds—then went on to generate yet more criticism and suspicion of the government by the American public.
Operation Menu and the Cambodian campaign, 1969–70
By 1969 the policy of non-alignment and neutrality had worn thin for Prince Sihanouk, ruler of Cambodia. Pressures from the right in Cambodia caused the prince to begin a shift away from the pro-left position he had assumed in 1965–1966. He began to make overtures for normalized relations with the U.S. and created a Government of National Salvation with the assistance of the pro-American General Lon Nol. Seeing a shift in the prince's position, President Nixon ordered the launching of a top-secret bombing campaign, targeted at the PAVN/NLF Base Areas and sanctuaries along Cambodia's eastern border.
On March 18, 1970, Sihanouk, who was out of the country on a state visit, was deposed by a vote of the National Assembly and replaced by General Lon Nol. Cambodia's ports were immediately closed to North Vietnamese military supplies, and the government demanded that PAVN/NLF forces be removed from the border areas within 72 hours. On March 29, 1970, the Vietnamese had taken matters into their own hands and launched an offensive against the Cambodian army. A force of North Vietnamese quickly overran large parts of eastern Cambodia reaching to within 15 miles (24 km) of
The incursion also sparked large-scale demonstrations on and closures of American college campuses. The expansion of the conflict into Cambodia was seen as an expansion of the conflict into yet another country, nullifying Nixon's promises of de-escalating the war. During the ensuing protests,
Following the coup, Sihanouk arrived in
Lam Son 719
In 1971 the U.S. authorized the ARVN to carry out an offensive operation aimed at cutting the Ho Chi Minh Trail in southeastern Laos. Besides attacking the PAVN logistical system (which would buy time for the U.S. withdrawal) the incursion would be a significant test of Vietnamization. Backed by U.S. air and artillery support (American troops were forbidden to enter Laos), the ARVN moved across the border along Route 9, utilizing the abandoned Marine outpost of Khe Sanh as a jumping-off point. At first, the incursion went well, but unlike the Cambodian operation of 1970, the PAVN decided to stand and fight, finally mustering around 60,000 men on the battlefield.
The North Vietnamese first struck the flanks of the ARVN column, smashed its outposts, and then moved in on the main ARVN force. Unlike previous encounters during the conflict, the PAVN fielded armored formations, heavy artillery, and large amounts of the latest anti-aircraft artillery. After two months of savage fighting, the ARVN retreated back across the border, closely pursued by the North Vietnamese. One half of the invasion force was killed or captured during the operation, and Vietnamization was seen as a failure.
On August 18, Australia and New Zealand decided to withdraw their troops from the conflict. The total number of U.S. forces in South Vietnam dropped to 196,700 on October 29, 1971, the lowest level since January 1966. On November 12, 1971, Nixon set a February 1, 1972 deadline for the removal of another 45,000 troops.
Easter Offensive
Vietnamization received another severe test in the spring of 1972 when the North Vietnamese launched a massive conventional offensive across the Demilitarized Zone. Beginning on March 30, the Easter Offensive (known as the Nguyễn Huệ Offensive to the North Vietnamese) quickly overran the three northernmost provinces of South Vietnam, including the provincial capital of Quảng Trị City. PAVN forces then drove south toward Huế.
Early in April, PAVN opened two additional operations. The first, a three-division thrust supported by tanks and heavy artillery, advanced out of Cambodia on April 5. The North Vietnamese seized the town of Loc Ninh and advanced toward the provincial capital of An Lộc in Bình Long Province. The second new offensive, launched from the tri-border region into the Central Highlands, seized a complex of ARVN outposts near Dak To and then advanced toward Kon Tum, threatening to split South Vietnam in two.
The U.S. countered with a buildup of American airpower to support ARVN defensive operations and to conduct Operation Linebacker, the first offensive bombing of North Vietnam since Rolling Thunder had been terminated in 1968. The PAVN attacks against Huế, An Lộc, and Kon Tum were contained and the ARVN launched a counteroffensive in May to retake the lost northern provinces. On September 10, the South Vietnamese flag once again flew over the ruins of the Citadel of Quảng Trị City, but the ARVN offensive then ran out of steam, conceding the rest of the occupied territory to the North Vietnamese. South Vietnam had countered the heaviest attack since Tet, but it was very evident that it was totally dependent on U.S. airpower for its survival. Meanwhile, the withdrawal of American troops, who numbered less than 100,000 at the beginning of the year, was continued as scheduled. By June only six infantry battalions remained. On August 12, the last American ground combat division left the country. However, the U.S. continued to operate the base at Long Binh. Combat patrols continued there until November 11 when the U.S. handed over the base to the South Vietnamese. After this, only 24,000 American troops remained in Vietnam and President Nixon announced that they would stay there until all U.S. POW's were freed.
At the beginning of the North Vietnamese invasion, the media, including conservative commentator William F. Buckley, predicted the downfall of the Republic of Vietnam; Buckley even called for the firing of General Creighton Abrams as an incompetent military leader. But the ARVN succeeded in defeating General Giap and his huge invading army. His forces were shattered at the Battle of An Lộc, where he threw several divisions at the entrenched South Vietnamese forces, ultimately losing over half of his army as casualties. General Giap's loss and subsequent retreat was viewed as so great a failure by the North Vietnamese Communist Party that Giap was relieved of his command. Although ARVN troops withstood and repelled the massive PAVN attack at An Lộc, American air power seems to have been a key to the ARVN success, just as it had been a key factor in supporting U.S. ground forces when they operated in South Vietnam prior to 1972. Thus, the 1973 withdrawal of U.S. military support and passage of Congressional resolutions cutting off U.S. funding for combat activities in Indochina (H.R. 9055 and H.J.Res. 636) opened the way for the 1975 defeat of the Republic of Vietnam.
Election of 1972 and Operation Linebacker II
During the run-up to the 1972 presidential election, the war was once again a major issue. An antiwar Democrat, George McGovern, ran against President Nixon. The president ended Operation Linebacker on October 22 after the negotiating deadlock was broken and a tentative agreement had been hammered out by U.S. and North Vietnamese representatives at the peace negotiations in Paris. The head of the U.S. negotiating team, Henry Kissinger, declared that "peace is at hand" shortly before election day, dealing a death blow to McGovern's already doomed campaign. Kissinger had not, however, counted on the intransigence of South Vietnamese President Thieu, who refused to accept the agreement and demanded some 90 changes in its text. These the North Vietnamese refused to accept, and Nixon was not inclined to put too much pressure on Thieu just before the election, even though his victory was all but assured. The mood between the U.S. and North further turned sour when Hanoi went public with the details of the agreement. The Nixon Administration claimed that North Vietnamese negotiators had used the pronouncement as an opportunity to embarrass the President and to weaken the United States. White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler told the press on November 30 that there would be no more public announcements concerning U.S. troop withdrawals from Vietnam since force levels were down to 27,000.
Because of Thieu's unhappiness with the agreement, primarily the stipulation that North Vietnamese troops could remain "in place" on South Vietnamese soil, the negotiations in Paris stalled as Hanoi refused to accept Thieu's changes and retaliated with amendments of its own. To reassure Thieu of American resolve, Nixon ordered a massive bombing campaign against North Vietnam utilizing B-52s and tactical aircraft in Operation Linebacker II, which began on December 18 with large raids against both Hanoi and the port of Haiphong. Nixon justified his actions by blaming the impasse in negotiations on the North Vietnamese. Although this heavy bombing campaign caused protests, both domestically and internationally, and despite significant aircraft losses over North Vietnam, Nixon continued the operation until December 29. He also exerted pressure on Thieu to accept the terms of the agreement reached in October.
Return to Paris
On January 15, 1973, citing progress in peace negotiations, Nixon announced the suspension of all offensive actions against North Vietnam, to be followed by a unilateral withdrawal of all U.S. troops. The Paris Peace Accords on "Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam" were signed on January 27, officially ending direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.
The agreement called for the withdrawal of all U.S. personnel and an exchange of
The first U.S. prisoners of war were released by North Vietnam on February 11, and all U.S. military personnel were to leave South Vietnam by March 29. As an inducement for Thieu's government to sign the agreement, Nixon had promised that the U.S. would provide financial and limited military support (in the form of air strikes) so that the South would not be overrun. But Nixon was fighting for his political life in the growing Watergate scandal and facing an increasingly hostile Congress that withheld funding. The President was able to exert little influence on a hostile public long sick of the Vietnam War.
Thus, Nixon (or his successor
Views on the war
In the post-war era, Americans struggled to absorb the lessons of the military intervention. General Maxwell Taylor, one of the principal architects of the war, noted:
First, we didn't know ourselves. We thought that we were going into another Korean War, but this was a different country. Secondly, we didn't know our South Vietnamese allies ... And we knew less about North Vietnam. Who was Ho Chi Minh? Nobody really knew. So, until we know the enemy and know our allies and know ourselves, we'd better keep out of this kind of dirty business. It's very dangerous.[73]: 23
President
Failure of the war is often placed at different institutions and levels. Some have suggested that the failure of the war was due to political failures of U.S. leadership.[76] The official history of the United States Army noted that "tactics have often seemed to exist apart from larger issues, strategies, and objectives. Yet in Vietnam the Army experienced tactical success and strategic failure ... success rests not only on military progress but on correctly analysing the nature of the particular conflict, understanding the enemy's strategy, and assessing the strengths and weaknesses of allies. A new humility and a new sophistication may form the best parts of a complex heritage left to the Army by the long, bitter war in Vietnam."[77]
Others point to a failure of U.S. military doctrine. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara stated that "the achievement of a military victory by U.S. forces in Vietnam was indeed a dangerous illusion."[78]: 368 The inability to bring Hanoi to the bargaining table by bombing also illustrated another U.S. miscalculation, and demonstrated the limitations of U.S. military abilities in achieving political goals.[73]: 17 As Army Chief of Staff Harold Keith Johnson noted, "if anything came out of Vietnam, it was that air power couldn't do the job."[79] Even General William Westmoreland admitted that the bombing had been ineffective. As he remarked, "I still doubt that the North Vietnamese would have relented."[79] U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote in a secret memo to President Gerald Ford that "in terms of military tactics, we cannot help draw the conclusion that our armed forces are not suited to this kind of war. Even the Special Forces who had been designed for it could not prevail."[80]
Hanoi had persistently sought unification of the country since the Geneva Accords, and the effects of U.S. bombings had negligible impact on the goals of the North Vietnamese government.[81]: 1–10 The effects of U.S. bombing campaigns had mobilised the people throughout North Vietnam and mobilised international support for North Vietnam due to the perception of a super-power attempting to bomb a significantly smaller, agrarian society into submission.[81]: 48–52
The Vietnam War POW/MIA issue, concerning the fate of U.S. service personnel listed as missing in action, persisted for many years after the war's conclusion. The costs of the war loom large in American popular consciousness; a 1990 poll showed that the public incorrectly believed that more Americans lost their lives in Vietnam than in World War II.[82]
U.S Civil Rights Leaders' Opposition to U.S Involvement
In the earlier stages of his career as a prominent civil rights activist, Martin Luther King Jr. focused largely on addressing issues pertaining to racial segregation and unfair treatment of black people. However, in the later stages, he extended his activism to addressing large-scale issues such as his opposition and condemnation of the Vietnam War. In 1967, King addressed the issues he found with the Vietnam War in his speech titled "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence." Although King was initially hesitant to speak about the U.S. government's decision to go to war with Vietnam, he would condemn them and their actions in his speech.[83] Delivered in the heart of New York City, King gave his many reasons as to why the War was an irrational decision, noting how it had moral and ethical implications. King correspondingly touched on how the escalating violence was very destructive and had infinite consequences on the Vietnamese people. In the speech, King also expressed how the war had broader implications for America's moral standing in the world.
Malcolm X was a prominent spokesperson for the black community in America but also did not fear speaking out against larger issues such as the Vietnam War. In 1964, Malcolm X gave his infamous speech titled "The Ballot or the Bullet," where he condemned the war and labeled the United States as hypocrites.[84] In the speech, he declared his philosophy of black nationalism and used the war as an example of how his country and government continue to make irrational decisions. Malcolm X goes as far as saying how his own country has failed him and his people, as the black community still struggles for equal rights yet is being shipped abroad to go to war in places like Korea and Southern Vietnam. He notes how he is himself a victim of America’s so-called democracy, and calls the white people in attendance his "enemies." He noted how the United States was fighting for international freedom in Vietnam, yet was still denying full rights and equality to African Americans at home, labeling them as hypocrites.
Financial cost
U.S. military costs | U.S. military aid to SVN | U.S. economic aid to SVN | Total | Total (2015 dollars) |
---|---|---|---|---|
$111 billion | $16.138 billion | $7.315 billion | $134.53 billion | $1.020 trillion |
Between 1953 and 1975, the United States was estimated to have spent $168 billion on the war (equivalent to $1.65 trillion in 2023).
More than 3 million Americans served in the Vietnam War, some 1.5 million of whom actually saw combat in Vietnam.[88] James E. Westheider wrote that "At the height of American involvement in 1968, for example, 543,000 American military personnel were stationed in Vietnam, but only 80,000 were considered combat troops."[89] Conscription in the United States had been controlled by the president since World War II, but ended in 1973.
As of 2013, the U.S. government is paying Vietnam veterans and their families or survivors more than $22 billion a year in war-related claims.[90][91]
Impact on the U.S. military
By the war's end, 58,220 American soldiers had been killed, more than 150,000 had been wounded, and at least 21,000 had been permanently disabled.
As the Vietnam War continued inconclusively and became more unpopular with the American public, morale declined and disciplinary problems grew among American enlisted men and junior, non-career officers. Drug use, racial tensions, and the growing incidence of fragging—attempting to kill unpopular officers and non-commissioned officers with grenades or other weapons—created severe problems for the U.S. military and impacted its capability of undertaking combat operations. By 1971, a U.S. Army colonel writing in the Armed Forces Journal declared:
By every conceivable indicator, our army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers and non commissioned officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where not near mutinous ....The morale, discipline, and battle-worthiness of the U.S. Armed Forces are, with a few salient exceptions, lower and worse than at any time in this century and possibly in the history of the United States.[98]
Between 1969 and 1971 the U.S. Army recorded more than 900 attacks by troops on their own officers and NCOs with 99 killed.[99]: 44–47
The Vietnam War called into question the U.S. Army doctrine. Marine Corps general Victor H. Krulak heavily criticised Westmoreland's attrition strategy, calling it "wasteful of American lives ... with small likelihood of a successful outcome."[79] In addition, doubts surfaced about the ability of the military to train foreign forces. Furthermore, throughout the war there was found to be considerable flaws and dishonesty by officers and commanders due to promotions being tied to the body count system touted by Westmoreland and McNamara.[100] And behind the scenes Secretary of Defense McNamara wrote in a memo to President Johnson his doubts about the war: "The picture of the world's greatest superpower killing or seriously injuring 1,000 noncombatants a week, while trying to pound a tiny backward nation into submission on an issue whose merits are hotly disputed, is not a pretty one."[101]
Ron Milam has questioned the severity of the "breakdown" of the U.S. armed forces, especially among combat troops, as reflecting the opinions of "angry colonels" who deplored the erosion of traditional military values during the Vietnam War.[102]: 172 Although acknowledging serious problems, he questions the alleged "near mutinous" conduct of junior officers and enlisted men in combat. Investigating one combat refusal incident, a journalist declared, "A certain sense of independence, a reluctance to behave according to the military's insistence on obedience, like pawns or puppets ... The grunts [infantrymen] were determined to survive ... they insisted of having something to say about the making of decisions that determined whether they might live or die."[103] The morale and discipline problems and resistance to conscription were important factors leading to the creation of an all-volunteer military force by the United States and the termination of conscription. The last conscript was inducted into the army in 1973.[104] The all-volunteer military moderated some of the coercive methods of discipline previously used to maintain order in military ranks.[99]: 183
Drug usage
This section needs additional citations for verification. (April 2023) |
The earliest reported use of drugs among US troops in Vietnam was recorded in 1963. During this time the most commonly used drug was marijuana, which was sometimes used in the form of hashish. Soldiers mainly used the drug during downtime in rear areas and commanders expressed concern that it would hinder combat operations. Heroin consumption was also common among US troops and, according to historians such as Robins, was a large problem as an estimated 34% of servicemen consumed it at least once.[105]
Towards the end of US involvement in Vietnam, heroin use spiked. Morale dropped toward the end of US involvement due to lack of support at home, and a feeling that the war was purposeless. Troops used heroin and other drugs to pass time, and to deal with the mental stresses of combat, boredom, and feelings of hopelessness. Robert Steele and Morgan Murphy toured Vietnam in 1971 and discovered that 15% of the US military said they were addicted to heroin.[106]
The military had launched education programs to deal with the growing drug abuse problem among the troops. When it failed, the military began to court martial offenders in large numbers. When the number of court-martials became too high, the military began to discharge troops from the service. The Marines especially believed in punishment to curb drug use. The Marine Commandant at the time, General Wilson Jr., believed it was better for its strength to diminish than to allow heroin-addicted Marines to continue to serve. This method was effective at preventing new troops from becoming users because new troops had become users due to existing troops introducing them to the drugs.[107][irrelevant citation]
See also
- Battle of An Lộc
- History of Vietnam
- History of Laos
- History of Cambodia
- Democratic Kampuchea
- Socialist Republic of Vietnam
- Vietnam People's Army
- Army of the Republic of Vietnam
- Vietnam War casualties
- Phoenix Program
- Tiger Force
- Opposition to the Vietnam War
- Canada and the Vietnam War
- Military history of the United States
- Viet Cong Motivation and Morale Project
- Cold War
- Military history
- United States Air Force In Thailand
- Weapons of the Vietnam War
- Aircraft losses of the Vietnam War
- Cu Chi tunnels
- Prisoner-of-war camp
- Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Studies and Observations Group
- News Media and the Vietnam War
- List of Congressional opponents of the Vietnam War
- United States assistance to Vietnam
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- ^ a b "The History Place - Vietnam War 1961-1964". www.historyplace.com.
- ISBN 978-0-7006-0583-5.
- JSTOR 27725803– via JSTOR.
- ^ "Telephone Conversation Between President Johnson and Senator Richard Russell". Foreign Service Institute – Office of the Historian. April 12, 2023.
- ISBN 978-0-19-992416-5.
- ISBN 1-4051-6570-7.
- ISBN 0801863449.
- ISBN 978-0-19-992416-5.
- ISBN 978-0-19-992416-5.
- ISBN 978-0-19-992416-5.
- ^ Nalty, Bernard C. The Vietnam War: the history of America's conflict in Southeast Asia. Salamander Books, 1998, p. 155.
- ^ Paterson, Lieutenant Pat (February 2008). "The Truth About Tonkin". U.S. Naval Institute. Retrieved December 8, 2019.
- ^ Lawrence, Mark Atwood (2007). The Vietnam War: a concise international history. Oxford University Press. p. 97.
- ^ Rotter, Andrew (1999). Light at the End of the Tunnel: A Vietnam War Anthology. Wilmington: DE. pp. 76–77.
- ^ Terrence Maitland, Setphen Weiss, et al., Raising the Stakes. Boston: Boston Publishing Company, 1982, p. 161.
- ^ Rotter, Andrew (1999). Light at the End of the Tunnel: A Vietnam War Anthology. Wilmington: DE. p. 77.
- ^ Lawrence, Mark Atwood (2007). The Vietnam War: a concise International History. Oxford University Press. p. 97.
- ^ Earl L. Tilford, Setup: What the Air Force did in Vietnam and Why. Maxwell Air Force Base AL: Air University Press, 1991, p. 89.
- ISBN 9781982122942.
- ^ a b "Vietnam: A Television History; Vietnamizing the War (1968 - 1973); Interview with Bui Diem [1], 1981". openvault.wgbh.org. Retrieved June 17, 2018.
- ^ "Statistics about the Vietnam War". Vietnam Helicopter Flight Crew Network. Archived from the original on January 27, 2008. Retrieved October 5, 2008..[unreliable source?](archived from the original on 27 January 2008).
- ^ "lindasog.com". ww12.lindasog.com.[permanent dead link]
- ^ John Paul Vann. John Paul Vann: Information from Answers.com.
- ^ "Vietnamization: 1970 Year in Review", UPI.com.
- ^ "What was the Vietnam War (1955-1975)? - Boot Camp & Military Fitness Institute". bootcampmilitaryfitnessinstitute.com. March 29, 2021. Retrieved May 20, 2023.
- ^ . D. Coleman (1988). Choppers: The Heroic Birth Of Helicopter Warfare. New York, N.Y.: St. Martin's Press. 1–288.
- ^ "Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume VI, Vietnam, January–August 1968 - Office of the Historian". history.state.gov. Retrieved October 3, 2022.
- ^ "Authority for access to COFRAM - information required". Archive.org. (partial copy of document declassified from Top Secret -- paragraph 16 is of particular interest)
- ^ "Daisy" Ad (1964): Preserved from 35mm in the Tony Schwartz Collection, retrieved October 3, 2022
- ^ Don Oberdorfer (December 17, 1967). "The 'Wobble' on the War on Capitol Hill". The New York Times.
- ^ "U.S. Involvement in the Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive, 1968". Archived from the original on December 28, 2018.
- ^ "Text and audio of speech". Archived from the original on September 1, 2006. Retrieved December 15, 2006.
- ^ R. K. Brigham, Guerrilla Diplomacy: the NLF's foreign relations and the Vietnam War, pp. 76–7
- ^ "Vietnam: War Crimes". Los Angeles Times. September 16, 2014. Archived from the original on December 18, 2011.
- ^ a b Karnow 1997
- ISBN 978-0-8139-3475-4.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-55849-693-4.
- ^ Lippman, Thomas W. (April 9, 1995). "McNamara Writes Vietnam Mea Culpa". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on December 28, 2019. Retrieved March 28, 2020.
As recounted by McNamara ... the war could and should have been avoided and should have been halted at several key junctures, one as early as 1963. According to McNamara, he and other senior advisers to President Lyndon B. Johnson failed to head it off through ignorance, inattention, flawed thinking, political expediency and lack of courage.
- ^ Demma 1989.
- ISBN 978-1-891620-87-4.
- ^ a b c Buzzanco, Bob (April 17, 2000). "25 Years After End of Vietnam War, Myths Keep Us from Coming to Terms with Vietnam". The Baltimore Sun. Archived from the original on June 5, 2008. Retrieved June 11, 2008.
- ^ Kissinger 1975.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4696-2835-6.
- ^ "Victory in Europe 56 Years Ago". Gallup News Service. May 8, 2001.
- ^ Eidenmuller, Michael E. American Rhetoric: Martin Luther King, Jr: A Time to Break Silence (Declaration Against the Vietnam War), www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm.
- ^ Malcolm X: The Ballot or the Bullet, www.edchange.org/multicultural/speeches/malcolm_x_ballot.html.
- ISBN 978-0-521-30327-9.
- ^ "How Much Did The Vietnam War Cost?". The Vietnam War. January 22, 2014. Retrieved May 17, 2018.
- ^ a b c "CQ Almanac Online Edition". library.cqpress.com. Retrieved June 14, 2018.
- ^ "Echoes of Combat: The Vietnam War in American Memory". Stanford University. Archived from the original on May 8, 2012. Retrieved December 13, 2022.
- ^ Westheider 2007, p. 78.
- ^ "US still making payments to relatives of Civil War veterans, analysis finds". Fox News. Associated Press. March 20, 2013.
- ^ Jim Lobe (March 30, 2013). "Iraq, Afghanistan Wars Will Cost U.S. 4–6 Trillion Dollars: Report". Inter Press Service.
- ^ a b "The War's Costs". Digital History. Archived from the original on May 5, 2008. Retrieved November 3, 2019.
- ^ Combat Area Casualty File, November 1993. (The CACF is the basis for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, i.e. The Wall), Center for Electronic Records, National Archives, Washington, DC
- ^ "The Drugs That Built a Super Soldier: During the Vietnam War, the U.S. Military Plied Its Servicemen with Speed, Steroids, and Painkillers to Help Them Handle Extended Combat". The Atlantic. April 8, 2016.
- ^ "War Resisters Remain in Canada with No Regrets". ABC News. November 19, 2005. Retrieved February 26, 2010.
- ^ "Vietnam War Resisters in Canada Open Arms to U.S. Military Deserters". Pacific News Service. June 28, 2005. Archived from the original on August 12, 2014. Retrieved August 12, 2014.
- ^ "Proclamation 4483: Granting Pardon for Violations of the Selective Service Act, August 4, 1964 To March 38, 1973". January 21, 1977. Retrieved June 11, 2008.
- ^ Heinl, Robert D. Jr. (June 7, 1971). "The Collapse of the Armed Forces" (PDF). Armed Forces Journal.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-89672-715-1.
- ^ Mohr, Charles (May 16, 1984). "McNamara on Record, Reluctantly, on Vietnam". The New York Times. Retrieved June 3, 2018.
- ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved February 28, 2020.
- ISBN 978-0-8078-3712-2.
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- ^ "Military draft ended by Laird". The Times-News. Hendersonville, NC. Associated Press. January 27, 1973. p. 1.
- S2CID 206974500.
- ^ Spiegel, Alex (January 2, 2012). "What Vietnam taught us about breaking bad habits". NPR.
- ISBN 978-1-349-49346-3
External links
- Why Did Vietnamization of The Vietnam War Fail?
- The short film President John Kennedy's Press Conference on South Vietnam (1963) is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive.
- The short film Laos: The Not So Secret War (1970) is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive.
- The short film Big Picture: Why Vietnam? is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive.
- The short film Big Picture: Operation Montagnard is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive.
- The short film Big Picture: Big Picture: The Unique War is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive.
- The short film Big Picture: U.S. Army Advisor in Vietnam is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive.
Declassified primary sources
Defense Department
The Office of the Secretary of Defense & Joint Staff, FOIA Requester Service Center
- Vietnam & Southeast Asia (very large document collection)
NSA
- Essential Matters: History of the Cryptographic Branch of the People's Army of Vietnam 1945-1975. (1994)
- Gulf of Tonkin records
CIA
- CIA and the Generals Archived March 13, 2013, at the Wayback Machine, Covert Support to Military Government in South Vietnam
- CIA and the House of Ngo, Covert Action in South Vietnam, 1954–63
- CIA and Rural Pacification
- Good Questions, Wrong Answers CIA's Estimates of Arms Traffic through Sihanoukville, Cambodia, During the Vietnam War.
- The Way We Do Things Archived March 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, Black Entry Operations into Northern Vietnam
- Undercover Armies, CIA and Surrogate Warfare in Laos
- CIA collection of Vietnam War documents released under the Freedom of Information Act Archived July 23, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
- CIA's collection of declassified Air America documents Archived December 23, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
State Department
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Under Nixon
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