The Vietnam WarPart 2: Increased U.S

Involvement(1956-1968)

What was John F. Kennedy’s stance on U.S. involvement in Vietnam?

How did the Johnson Administration escalate American involvement?

JFK and Vietnam (1960-1963)Vietnam was divided @ the 1717thth Parallel Parallel

North = Ho Chi Minh (communist)South= Ngo Dinh Diem (pro-West)

Ngo Dinh Diem 1956= refused a nationwide election…feared that it would be “fixed”

Ho Chi Minh and Vietcong = angry, start to arm themselves.

CIVIL WAR

Kennedy = sends 15,000 military advisors to train South Vietnamese army

JFK and Vietnam (1960-1963)Kennedy = Strategic Hamlets: troops armed villages where peasants were moved.

Ho Chi Minh

Ngo Dinh Diem

JFK and Vietnam (1960-1963)Ngo Dinh Diem = not a popular leader

•1963 = He’s Catholic, he outlaws Buddhism

JFK and Vietnam (1960-1963)

Nov. 1, 1963USA aids in the assassination of

DiemGenerals launched a military coup and seized

power

Nov. 22, 1963JFK is assassinated!

Johnson and Vietnam

still part 2…we’re still getting more and more involved in the Vietnam

conflict…

Do we go to Vietnam to contain Communism??

The Truman Doctrine (1947) = Containment Policy

“I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting

attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.”

Biggest Decision for Johnson

Johnson and Vietnam (1963-1968)

1963: Lyndon B. Johnson = President

LBJ has to decide:Do we go to Vietnam? Or Withdraw Troops?

•Johnson decides to go to war = afraid it would look like U.S. gave up, “soft on communism”

1964 Re-Election Year!

Event U.S. Ship is attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin (truth? Propaganda?)

• Gulf of Tonkin – August 2, 1964– LBJ announces that North Vietnamese

torpedo boats fired on 2 American destroyers– Orders American aircraft to attack North

Vietnamese ships and naval facilities• Did not reveal that American ships were helping

South Vietnam conduct spying and commando raids again North Vietnam

Johnson and Vietnam (1963-1968)

2.) Johnson and Vietnam

But, War was never Declared?

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964)Congress gave power of war to the President

“take all necessary measures to repeal any armed attack”

•1965: LBJ sends 50,000 combat troops•Operation Rolling Thunder = bomb N. Vietnam•1968: 500,000 US troops fighting with S. Vietnam troops

Johnson and Vietnam (1963-1968)

Feelings towards involvement in Vietnam• Some advisors worried that if we got too

involved, it would be hard to get out• Most of LBJ’s advisors believed the duty of the

US was to stop communism in Vietnam– Maintain stability in Southeast Asia– Ensure the US’s continuing power and prestige

Johnson and Vietnam (1963-1968)

Warfare in Vietnam• Vietcong = lacked firepower; used guerilla tactics,

ambushes, and booby traps; blended into villages and disappeared

• US = “search and destroy” missions (Bomb positions, destroy supply lines, force out into open for combat)– Destroy landscape so Vietcong can’t hide in jungles– Napalm: jellied gasoline that explodes on contact– Agent Orange: chemical that strips leaves and turns farmland &

forest into wasteland

Johnson and Vietnam (1963-1968)

Agent Orange

• Between 1962 and 1971 the US sprayed nearly 20,000,000 gallons of Agent Orange (herbicide/defoliant) in Vietnam, eastern Laos, and parts of Cambodia– Part of aerial defoliation program known as

Operation Ranch Hand