Vietnam Presentations

How does your topic connect to the Vietnam War?

Questions/issues to think about during presentations

1. What short term and long term events caused the Vietnam War?

2. Was the United States involvement in Vietnam a manifestation of anti-communist Cold War policy?

3. A nation’s belief in a cause determines what its people are willing to sacrifice for that cause.

4. Wars are fought because of ideological differences and/or competition between nations.

Self Determination

Self DeterminationA free, open-minded, and

absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims,

based upon a strict observance of the principle that in

determining all such questions of

sovereignty the interests of the

populations concerned must

have equal weight with the equitable

claims of the government whose

title is to be determined.

French Indochina

Imperialism Link

Guess and connect

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4d7Wp9kKjA

Imperialism

Did I ever tell you how the Vietnamese dance?

Russian Revolution

Where is the next slide from?

LeninImperialism is

the highest level of

capitalism. Capitalism

needs more markets and

must expand! So….

Back to the Cold War Power Point

Japan Occupies Indochina During WWII

French Indochina War 1946-1954

Look at those silly fans

Must be warm to dance with all that

on

Must be warm to dance with all that

on

Dien Bien Phu (ends the war)

We will defeat the French and kick them out!

1954 Geneva AccordsSplits country in two (temporarily)

Calls for elections in both North and South to reunify the entire country in 1956 (two years after)

Ho Chi Minh’s Letter to Truman 1946

Vietnamese Declaration of Independence 1945

• They have enforced inhuman laws; they have set up three distinct political regimes in the North, the Center, and the South of Vietnam in order to wreck our national unity and prevent our people from being united.

• They have built more prisons than schools. They have mercilessly slain our patriots; they have drowned our uprisings in rivers of blood.

• They have fettered public opinion; they have practised obscurantism against our people.• To weaken our race they have forced us to use opium and alcohol.• In the field of economics, they have fleeced us to the backbone, impoverished our people, and

devastated our land.• They have robbed us of our rice fields, our mines, our forests, and our raw materials. They have

monopolized the issuing of bank notes and the export trade.• They have invented numerous unjustifiable taxes and reduced our people, especially our peasantry, to a

state of extreme poverty.• They have hampered the prospering of our national bourgeoisie; they have mercilessly exploited our

workers.• For these reasons, we, members of the Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam,

solemnly declare to the world that Vietnam has the right to be a free and independent country-and in fact is so already. The entire Vietnamese people are determined to mobilize all their physical and mental strength, to sacrifice their lives and property in order to safeguard their independence and liberty.

Vietnamese NationalismFrom the Vietnamese perspective, what was this

war about? Connect to Dream Deferred. What happens to a dream deferred?Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet?Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.Or does it explode?

Ho Chi Minh 1890-1969 Education

Ho Chi Minh as a Communist

Ngo Dinh Diem 1901-1963

First President of South Vietnam

Ngo Dinh Diem and US SupportSupported by the US (President Eisenhower)

Buddhist Protest

Diem Assassination 1963

Gulf of Tonkin August 1964 USS Turner Joy

Robert Macnamara

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution 1964

Resolution• "To promote the maintenance of international peace and security in Southeast Asia.• "Whereas naval units of the communist regime in Vietnam, in violation of the principles

of the Charter of the United Nations and of international law, have deliberately and repeatedly attacked United States naval vessels lawfully present in international waters, and have thereby created a serious threat to international peace; and

• "Whereas these attacks are part of a deliberate and systematic campaign of aggression that the communist regime in North Vietnam has been waging against its neighbors and the nations joined with them in the collective defense of their freedom; and

• "Whereas the United States is assisting the peoples of Southeast Asia to protect their freedom and has no territorial, military or political ambitions in that area, but desires only that these peoples should be left in peace to work out their own destinies in their own way: Now, therefore, be it

• "Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Congress approves and supports the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.

Lyndon B. Johnson in Office 1963-1969

Johnson and Escalation after Gulf of Tonkin

Escalation

Tet Holiday The festival which best epitomizes Vietnam's cultural identity is

Vietnamese New Year or Tet

Tet Offensive January of 1968US troops fighting in Saigon (Capital)

South Vietnamese troops capture a Vietcong fighter during the attacks

Tet Offensive Continued

Meanwhile In AmericaCould you believe what those South

Vietnamese soldiers did to that prisoner?

How could we support such a government?

Search and Destroy Missions

How the US military was fighting in Vietnam

Wake up!Load up the helicopters

Exit the helicopterLook for the enemy

Ask the enemy if they are the enemy

Are you supporting the North?

My Lai Massacre March 16, 1968

Meanwhile In AmericaCould you believe

what our troops did in that village?

Pentagon Papers 1947-1967Published in 1971 (Nixon was President )

Tunnel Rats

Ho Chi Minh 1890-1969

President of Democratic Republic of VietnamAdvocating and leading for Vietnamese Independence since WWI

1968 ElectionMy Great Society has

been overshadowed by that war in

Vietnam

Vietnamization

I Richard Nixon will help America out of the Turbulent 60s.

As for the war in Vietnam I will let the

South fight the ground war and…

Bomb Vietnam using Operation Linebacker

Robert McNamara 1961-1968 Secretary of Defense

There are limited resources and soldiers fighting for the

Vietnamese. Therefore, we will fight a war of attrition. Eventually,

they will run out.

1969 Draft Lottery

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p5X1FjyD_g

Estimated 125, 000 left the country to avoid service

650,000 drafted during the Vietnam War

Lon Nol Prime Minister in Cambodia

Cambodia 1970-1975A civil war erupts in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge wants to remove Lon Nol from power. The Khmer Rouge were communists led by Pol Pot

What will the United States do in Cambodia?

Pol Pot removes Lon Nol in 1975

I am going to kill

everybody!

Ho Chi Minh Trail

Tunnels go from North through Cambodia and into the South

The US has no authority in Cambodia

The US cannot win in Vietnam without dealing with the tunnels in Cambodia

What to do?

Bomb Cambodia and support Lon Nol

Paris Peace Accords 1973

• Bombing Halt• Withdrawal of US troops• Determine the fate of the South• US to rebuild

Operation Frequent Wind the US leaves Vietnam in 1975