Presentation Transcript

1. Objective: To examine the causes and effects of the Vietnam War.
2. The Two Vietnams · Vietnam, a former French colony, was divided into two sections in 1954.
3. · North Vietnam, led by Ho Chi Minh, was communist and backed by the Soviet Union. · South Vietnam, led by Ngo Dinh Diem, was democratic and backed by the U.S.
4. · Many South Vietnamese distrusted Diem and joined the Vietcong, a communist guerilla group supported by North Vietnam. An execution of a Vietcong prisoner Feb. 1, 1968
5. South Vietnamese paratroopers jump from U.S. Air Force transports in an air assault against the Viet Cong, March 1963
6. A Viet Cong base camp burns as Pfc. Raymond Rumpa of St. Paul, Minnesota, walks away with his 45-pound 90mm rifle in My Tho, Vietnam, April 1968
7. Growing American Involvement · The U.S. believed that if South Vietnam fell to the communists, the rest of the nations in Southeast Asia would as well in a theory called the domino theory.
8. Robert McNamara Robert McNamara: “We seek an independent on Communist South Vietnam. We do not require that it serve as a Western base or as a member of a Western Alliance. South Vietnam must be free, however, to accept outside assistance as required to maintain its security. This assistance should be able to take the form not only of economic and social measures but also police and military help to root out and control insurgent elements. Unless we can achieve this objective in South Vietnam, almost all of Southeast Asia will probably fall under Communist dominance. “
9. Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Johnson served as the 37th President of the United States (1963-1969) Johnson would succeed the presidency following the assassination of John F. Kennedy Johnson completed Kennedy’s term, and then was elected in the 1964 election.
10. Johnson Domestic Policy Johnson was responsible for designing his “Great Society” legislation. This included laws that upheld civil rights, Medicare, Medicaid, environmental protection, and aid to education. Also his War on Poverty, legislation that was introduced as a response to the national poverty rate of near 20% in the United States
11. Johnson Shortly before his death Kennedy had announced his intent to withdraw US forces from South Vietnam. “In the final analysis, it’s their war” he declared. Whether Kennedy would have in fact withdrawn from Vietnam remains a matter of debate. Johnson would escalate the nation’s role in Vietnam and would lead the US into what would become America’s longest war.
12. War under Johnson When Lyndon Johnson took over the presidency Vietnam was not a priority. The decision in the early months of his presidency was to hold it down and delay decisions. Too many other things took primacy over it, including Johnson’s Great Society, and War on Poverty. Things would however change in 1964
13. Robert McNamara McNamara was one of the most forceful figures of the Johnson Administration on Vietnam. Was a business executive and was the Secretary of defense under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. McNamara would be extremely influential in escalating the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. Distressed about what he saw in Vietnam he formulated covert operations against the North known as 34A. He would also be instrumental in presenting the Gulf of Tonkin crisis to Congress.
14. Dean Rusk United States Secretary of State under the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations. Rusk along with McNamara and Bundy would help escalate American involvement in the Vietnam War.
15. USS Maddox In 1964 the war in Vietnam was not going well for the South, and the United States sent the USS Maddox, an American destroyer, to provoke the North Vietnamese radar in the Gulf of Tonkin. Using expensive and sophisticated equipment, the Maddox could simulate an attack on the North, thus forcing the Chinese Communists and the North Vietnamese to turn on their radar. T this time the Americans could pinpoint where the other side’s radar installations were located.
16. Maddox Cont… On August 2 the Maddox sighted three North Vietnamese PT boats, was attacked by them, and destroyed one. Robert McNamara would claim that the Maddox was attacked when she was thirty miles from the North Vietnamese coast. In truth the attacked began when the Maddox was thirteen miles from a North Vietnamese island. Out of this, and a subsequent incident was to come the Tonkin Gulf incident, the first bombing of the North, and almost immediately the Tonkin Resolution. But in particular, out of all this would come the sense that we had been attacked, and we were the victims.
17. The next day the Maddox was sent back into the same dangerous waters as a sign that the United States would not back down. Almost immediately the North Vietnamese appeared to challenge them, in what would become the second Tonkin incident. Whether there had been an attack was somewhat unclear (in fact, much of the Tonkin Gulf controversy centered around whether or not an attack really took place )
18. Gulf of Tonkin Resolution In response to the attacks on the Maddox Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on August 7, 1964. The resolution gave the President the authorization, without a formal declaration of war by Congress, to use military force in Southeast Asia. Although we call it the Vietnam war, war was never actually declared by Congress. Through this resolution the Johnson administration escalated the US involvement in Vietnam from just advisors, to actual military forces.
19. · By 1968, over half a million Americans were fighting in the Vietnam War. · As the fighting escalated, the U.S. relied on the draft for raising troops.
20. The War The United States entered the war in Vietnam believing that its superior weaponry would lead it to victory over the Vietcong. However, the jungle terrain and the enemy's guerrilla tactics soon turned the war into a frustrating stalemate. Adding to the enemy’s elusiveness was a network of elaborate tunnels that allowed the Vietcong to launch surprise attacks on American soldiers and then disappear quickly.
21. Of the 2.7 million Americans that served in the Vietnam war… 300,000 were wounded in action 75,000 were disabled Of the casualties listed on The Wall, approximately 1,300 remain missing in action 58,129 were killed The average age was 19
22. Vietnamese Losses On the Vietnamese side it is estimated… 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong (Southern resistance soldiers) were killed Over 2 million North and South Vietnamese citizens were killed
23. On Aug. 4, 1964, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara reported to Pres. Johnson that an American destroyer in the region was under torpedo attack by the North Vietnamese. That brief conversation was the tipping point for the entire Vietnam War. Video: Defense Secretary Robert McNamara speaks about the attack that precipitated our involvement in the Vietnam War
24. Video Clip: Platoon The Uncertain Enemy · Jungle warfare was difficult, and it was hard to locate the enemy. · In addition, it was very difficult to identify which South Vietnamese were our allies and which were supporting the Vietcong. Ex Vietcong showing secret tunnels, November 7, 2004
25. Question How did the Tonkin Gulf Resolution lead to greater U.S. involvement in Vietnam?
26. Working Class War Because many middle class and upper class American youths were able through college and other means to avoid military service, most of the soldiers who fought in Vietnam were from the lower economic classes of American society. Many soldiers who fought in Vietnam were drafted into combat under the country’s Selective Service System. Under this system, which had been established in the 1940s during World War II, all males had to register with their local draft boards when they turned 18.
27. African Americans and Women in Vietnam African Americans served in disproportionate numbers in ground combat troops. During the first several years of the war, blacks ccounted for more than 20 percent of American combat deaths despite representing only about ten percent of the U.S. population. Many African Americans experienced the same racism in Vietnam that they endured at home. Throughout the war racial tensions between white and black soldiers ran high in many platoons. In some cases, the hostility led to violence. In 1967, a race riot erupted at the US Army stockade at Long Binh, Vietnam.
28. Women While the US military in the 1960s did not allow females to serve in combat, nearly 7,500 women served in Vietnam as army and navy nurses. Thousands more volunteered their services in Vietnam to the American Red Cross and the United States Organization, which delivered hospitality and entertainment to the troops.
29. A guerrilla in the Mekong Delta paddles through a mangrove forest defoliated by Agent Orange (1970).
30. This Pulitzer Prize winning photograph is of Kim Phuc Phan Thi, center, running down a road near after a napalm bomb was dropped on her village by a plane of the Vietnam Air Force. The village was suspected by US Army forces of being a Viet Cong stronghold. Kim Phuc survived by tearing off her burning clothes.
31. in spite of ongoing escalation throughout the 1960s, the US experienced a lack of success against the Vietnamese guerrilla forces in S. Vietnam (the Vietcong) as the US Army was unprepared for their tactics and mentality The US was also never entirely successful in shutting down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a supply line that ran between North and South Vietnam via difficult jungle terrain, often underground and through neighboring nations like Cambodia
32. The Tet Offensive: A Turning Point · In January of 1968, the Vietcong launched surprise attacks on cities throughout South Vietnam. · The American embassy was attacked as well in the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon.
33. · The attacks were known as the Tet Offensive because they occurred during Tet, the Vietnamese News Year’s holiday. · The Tet Offensive proved to the world that no part of South Vietnam was safe, even with the presence of half a million American troops. The Tet Offensive: An Audio Description by NPR
34. Tet and TV the war definitely turned against the US in 1968, when the NVA’s General Giap began the Tet Offensive, a surprise offensive on a major Vietnamese holiday that saw attacks all over the country, including in Saigon itself ongoing US casualties and losses saw an increase in antiwar sentiment on the American Home Front, in large part because Vietnam was a TV War where American audiences saw the brutality of war firsthand
35. Protests at Home · Thousands of Americans protested against the war, especially on college campuses. Video: Country Joe and the Fish, Woodstock Music Festival (1969) 3:18 Anti-Vietnam War protests, Ohio State University
36. · On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard killed 4 anti-war protesters at Kent State University. This Pulitzer Prize winning photo shows Mary Ann Vecchio screaming as she kneels over the body of student Jeffrey Miller at Kent State University. National Guardsmen had fired into a crowd of demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine.
37. “Ohio” Crosby Stills Nash & Young Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin'.We're finally on our own.This summer I hear the drummin'.Four dead in Ohio.(chorus) Gotta get down to it.Soldiers are cutting us down.Should have been done long ago.What if you knew her andFound her dead on the ground?How can you run when you know? Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na.Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na.Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na.Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na. (chorus) Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin'.We're finally on our own.This summer I hear the drummin'.Four dead in Ohio. (9X)
38. McNamara Defense Secretary Robert McNamara confessed his early frustration over the Vietcong’s resilience to a reporter in 1966. “I didn’t think these people had the capacity to fight this way. If I had thought they would take this punishment and fight this well,…I would have thought differently at the start.”
39. Chemical Warfare? Over a ten-year period from 1961 to 1971 the US used an estimated 77 million liters of herbicides as chemical weapons for "defoliation and crop destruction" in Vietnam. Unable to control the Viet Minh's access to food supplies or their grassroots village support, the US military response was simple: Killing food crops was both a military strategy and - with the procurement of tens of millions of liters of toxic herbicides from US chemical companies - it was also a very profitable business. Indeed, the notion of killing what can't be controlled suited perfectly the logic of the agro-chemical industry.
40. "Napalm is the most terrible pain you can imagine," said Kim Phuc. “Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius. Napalm generates temperatures of 800 to 1,200 degrees Celsius.“ Phuc sustained third-degree burns to half her body and was not expected to live. Thanks to the assistance of South Vietnamese photographer Nick Ut, and after surviving a 14-month hospital stay and 17 operations, Phuc eventually recovered.
41. Agent Orange was the nickname given to a herbicide and defoliant used by the U.S. military in its Herbicidal Warfare program during the Vietnam War. Cropdusting in Vietnam during Operation Ranch Hand lasted from 1962 to 1971.
42. Effects of Agent Orange Images taken from Agent Orange: "Collateral Damage" in Vietnam by Philip Jones Griffiths
43. Agent Orange
44. The war also witnessed the usage of weapons like Napalm and Agent Orange, which devastated the environment.
45. · In April of 1975, the communists captured the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon, renamed it Ho Chi Minh City, and reunited Vietnam under one communist flag. Video: People rush to leave Saigon as the city falls to the Vietcong. April 30, 1975 (9 min.)
46. Civil War in Cambodia · The U.S. and South Vietnamese began to secretly bomb communist bases in Cambodia used by the North Vietnamese.
47. · Cambodia soon fought a civil war, which was won by the communist Khmer Rouge in 1975, whereupon they changed the name of the country to Kampuchea. · The Khmer Rouge were brutal leaders, killing approximately two million people in just a few short years. Cambodia: Khmer Rouge 1975 to 1979 (2:55)
48. Vietnam Balance Sheet · Between 1961 and 1973 over 58,000 Americans died in the Vietnam War. · During the same time period, over 1,500,000 Vietnamese died as well. Vietnam War Memorial, Washington, D.C.
49. Televised War The horrors of war entered the living rooms of Americans for the first time during the Vietnam War. For almost a decade in between school, work, and dinners, the American public could watch villages being destroyed, Vietnamese children burning to death, and American body bags being sent home. Though initial coverage generally supported U.S involvement in the war, television news dramatically changed its frame of the war after the Tet Offensive.
50. Media-then and now By the mid-1960's, television was considered to be the most important source of news for the American public, and, possibly, the most powerful influence on public opinion itself. Throughout the Korean War, the television audience remained small. What is the impact of television on news today? In Iraq? Afghanistan? Libya? Does Social Media play a role?
51. Nixon Nixon would win the Presidency and began what was known as Vietnamization. This was a plan for the gradual withdrawal of US troops in order for the South Vietnamese to take on a more active combat role in the war. Over the next three years the number of American troops in Vietnam dropped from more than 500,000 to less than 25,000.
52. Peace Without Victory · In January 1973, the U.S. reached a cease-fire agreement with North Vietnam and brought their troops home. · However, the U.S. continued to send billions of dollars in support of the South Vietnamese.
53. Veterans At first, rather than giving returning veterans of the war welcoming parades, Americans seemed to shun the 2 million plus Americans who went to Vietnam. Virtually nothing was done to aid veterans and their loved ones who needed assistance in adjusting. Then a torrent of fiction, films, and television programs depicted Vietnam vets as drug crazed psychotic killers, as vicious executioners in Vietnam and equally as menaces at home. Not until after the 1982 dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washing DC did American culture acknowledge their sacrifice and suffering.
54. Vets Come Home Many Vietnam veterans readjusted successfully to civilian life. However about fifteen percent of the soldiers deployed developed delayed stress syndrome. These veterans had recurring nightmares about their war experience. Many began to abuse drugs or alcohol and several thousand would commit suicide.
55. Lily Jean Lee Adams “In the bus terminal, people were staring at me and giving me dirty looks. I expected the people to smile, like, “Wow, she was in Vietnam, doing something for her country – wonderful.’ I felt like I had walked into another country, not my country. So I went into the ladies’ room and changed”
56. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hDjvKF_X78&feature=related