Panama Canal and Vietnam WarPanama Canal and Vietnam War

The Need for a Panama CanalThe Need for a Panama Canal

• After the Spanish American War, the new president Teddy Roosevelt realized the need of a short cut between the Pacific and the Atlantic coast.

Speak Softly,Speak Softly,But Carry a Big Stick!But Carry a Big Stick!

Speak Softly,Speak Softly,But Carry a Big Stick!But Carry a Big Stick!

T.R. and the Panama CanalT.R. and the Panama CanalA canal could cut sailing distance

from NYC to San Francesco from 13,000 to 5,200 miles

A French company failed to complete canal and sold rights to U.S.

U.S. Columbia negotiations failedU.S. present when Panamanian

rebels declared independence from Columbia in 1903

Teddy Roosevelt," I took Panama!”U.S. makes a deal with Panama to

build and control the canal

The Canal was Built at a Huge The Canal was Built at a Huge CostCost

Built 1904 – 1914Challenges: volcanic soil, disease

(malaria and yellow fever), dangerous conditions

Over 43, 000 workers employed5,600 die during construction

(accidents + disease)Cost U.S. about $380 millionU.S. paid Columbia $25 million for lost

land

Constable of the WorldConstable of the WorldConstable of the WorldConstable of the World

Handover of the Canal

• In 1977, president Carter signed two treaties, agreeing to return the Canal to Panamanians in 1999

Vietnam War• As Cold War

intensified, the key to stopping the spread of Communism was Vietnam

• France gave up its control in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in what was called French Indochina

Containment Policy/Domino Theory

• North Vietnam Communist leader Ho Chi Minh led a war of independence to unify the partitioned Vietnam

• Eisenhower saw the danger and made his Domino Theory speech in 1954 and laid the foundation for US involvement in Vietnam

Tonkin Bay Incident

In 1964, after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, where two American destroyers were apparently fired upon by the North Vietnamese, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolutions and gave president Johnson the power “to defend Vietnam at any cost.”

The War Intensified

• LBJ started sending troops to Vietnam in 1965

• By 1968, more than half a million US troops were fighting in Vietnam

• After the “Tet Offensive”, a surprise attack by the North Vietnam army in 1968, the US public began to doubt the government and its claim of winning the war

My Lai massacre, the use of napalm, public execution of suspects gradually turned the US

opinion against the war

Nixon won the Whitehouse in 1968 and began his Vietnamization policy

• Nixon and his advisor Henry Kissinger wanted to gradually withdraw U.S. troops & replace them with South Vietnamese soldiers

• But he instead increased bombing Hanoi and ordered an invasion of Cambodia

Protests Continued/ Draft Dodgers /Kent State Massacre

The Fall of Saigon• In a series of peace

talks, the US finally got out of Vietnam in 1973 after all parties signed a ceasefire

• In 1975, North Vietnamese violated the ceasefire, toppled the South Vietnamese government and unified the country