[281] In the period up to the conventional phase in 1970, the Viet Cong and PAVN were primarily limited to 81mm mortars, recoilless rifles, and small arms and had significantly lighter equipment and firepower in comparison with the US arsenal. Vietnam War - The Nixon administration and the Vietnam War [124]:201206 During the battle the South Vietnamese had lost 83 soldiers and 5 US war helicopters serving to ferry ARVN troops that had been shot down by Vietcong forces, while the Vietcong forces had lost only 18 soldiers. Opposition to the Vietnam War tended to unite groups opposed to U.S. anti-communism and imperialism,[227] and for those involved with the New Left, such as the Catholic Worker Movement. As the PAVN/VC recovered from their 1968 losses and generally avoided contact, Creighton Abrams conducted operations aimed at disrupting logistics, with better use of firepower and more cooperation with the ARVN. Vietnam | JFK Library 812. [40]:7576 Throughout the conflict, U.S. intelligence estimates remained skeptical of France's chance of success. The DRV ruled as the only civil government in all of Vietnam for 20 days, after the abdication of Emperor Bo i, who had governed under Japanese supervision. It has also been called the "Second Indochina War"[78] and the "Vietnam conflict". By 30 March 100,000 leaderless ARVN troops surrendered as the PAVN marched victoriously through Da Nang. On 22 March, the PAVN opened the siege of Hu. Congress also voted in further restrictions on funding to be phased in through 1975 and to culminate in a total cutoff in 1976. [111], In September 1960, COSVN, North Vietnam's southern headquarters, gave an order for a full scale coordinated uprising in South Vietnam against the government and 1/3 of the population was soon living in areas of communist control. After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, President Lyndon B. Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara slowly increased military pressure on the coast of North Vietnam, aiding the South in offensive strikes and intelligence-gathering.. How One Epic Document Exposed the Secrets of the Vietnam War - The New Fact check: Which U.S. presidents led the nation into new wars? By 1968, the number of US forces surpassed 500,000. The Vietnam War (article) | 1960s America | Khan Academy [273] A number of women volunteered on the North Vietnamese side as embedded journalists, including author L Minh Khu embedded with PAVN forces,[274] on the Ho Chi Minh trail as well as on combat fronts. "Stabbed in the Back! 2144, Combat Area Casualty File, November 1993. Which US president started the Vietnam War? ", "Newly released documents on the land reform", "America's Stakes in Vietnam Speech to the American Friends of Vietnam, June 1956", United States Army Center of Military History, "It's Time to Stop Saying that JFK Inherited the Bay of Pigs Operation from Ike", The case of John F. Kennedy and Vietnam Presidential Studies Quarterly, "A Special Supplement: Kennedy's Private War", "304. In the early morning hours of 30 April, the last U.S. Marines evacuated the embassy by helicopter, as civilians swamped the perimeter and poured into the grounds. [338] Although a variety of birth defects have been observed, the most common deformity appears to be spina bifida. Bombing was not restricted to North Vietnam. In particular, they helped man anti-aircraft batteries, rebuild roads and railroads, transport supplies, and perform other engineering works. [282], After the Tet Offensive, many PAVN units incorporated light tanks such as the Type 62, Type 59 tank., BTR-60, Type 60 artillery, amphibious tanks (such as the PT-76) and integrated into new war doctrines as a mobile combined-arms force. [131] General Paul Harkins, the commander of U.S. forces in South Vietnam, confidently predicted victory by Christmas 1963. In June 1961, he bitterly disagreed with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev when they met in Vienna to discuss key U.S.Soviet issues. Within the United States, the war gave rise to what was referred to as Vietnam Syndrome, a public aversion to American overseas military involvements,[76] which, together with the Watergate scandal contributed to the crisis of confidence that affected America throughout the 1970s. Lyndon Johnson presidency The major initiative in the Lyndon Johnson presidency was the Vietnam War. At the 1954 Geneva Conference, Vietnam was temporarily partitioned at the 17th parallel. Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon oversaw the conflict, which ratcheted up in intensity as the years passed by. For example, the website "African-American Involvement in the Vietnam War" compiles examples of such coverage,[277] as does the print and broadcast work of journalist Wallace Terry whose book Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans (1984), includes observations about the impact of the war on the black community in general and on black servicemen specifically. Ami Pedahzur has written that "the overall volume and lethality of Viet Cong terrorism rivals or exceeds all but a handful of terrorist campaigns waged over the last third of the twentieth century", based on the definition of terrorists as a non-state actor, and examining targeted killings and civilian deaths which are estimated at over 18,000 from 1966 to 1969. [85]:349351 The U.S. military had long been schooled in offensive warfare. As a result, by the war's completion in 1975, black casualties had declined to 12.5% of US combat deaths, approximately equal to percentage of draft-eligible black men, though still slightly higher than the 10% who served in the military. "[121] The quality of the South Vietnamese military, however, remained poor. During the land reform, testimony from North Vietnamese witnesses suggested a ratio of one execution for every 160 village residents, which extrapolated resulted in an initial estimation of nearly 100,000 executions nationwide. [193]:349350[194]:166175 At home, desertion rates quadrupled from 1966 levels. American History: Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War Encounter Books, December 2022. [185][186], In September 1969, Ho Chi Minh died, aged seventy-nine. Vietnam War - Wikipedia Among the internal refugees were many young women who became the ubiquitous "bar girls" of wartime South Vietnam, "hawking her waresbe that cigarettes, liquor, or herself" to American and allied soldiers. [142]:78 The resolution granted the president power "to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression" and Johnson would rely on this as giving him authority to expand the war. The above figures on missing and wounded were calculated using Hanoi's declared casualty ratios for the period of 1945 to 1979, during which time the Communists incurred 1.1 million killed, 300,000 missing, and 600,000 wounded. "[128] The numbers for U.S. troops deployed to Vietnam during the same period were much lower: 2,000 in 1961, rising rapidly to 16,500 in 1964. Thus, the total for 1954 to 1975 is 81,000, from a range of between 57,000 and 284,000 deaths caused by South Vietnam. China sent 320,000 troops and annual arms shipments worth $180million. Building up on the success of ARVN units in Cambodia, and further testing the Vietnamization program, the ARVN were tasked to launch Operation Lam Son 719 in February 1971, the first major ground operation aimed directly at attacking the Ho Chi Minh trail by attacking the major crossroad of Tchepone. Unlike other wars, there was no declaration of the Vietnam War. [161] Up to the war's end, the Viet Cong and PAVN would initiate 90% of large firefights, of which 80% were clear and well-planned operations, and thus the PAVN/Viet Cong would retain strategic initiative despite overwhelming US force and fire-power deployment. In July 1965, at the beginning of this steady escalation, President Johnson attempted to explain the need for increased military intervention in Vietnam in a press conference announcing that draft inductions would increase from 17,000 to 35,000 per month. [202] In the post-Tet environment, membership in the South Vietnamese Regional Force and Popular Force militias grew, and they were now more capable of providing village security, which the Americans had not accomplished under Westmoreland. The war claimed the lives of more than 3 million people which included more than 58,000 American soldiers, and more than half of the casualties were Vietnamese civilians. Official figures from the Vietnamese government estimate 1.1 million dead and 300,000 missing from 1945 to 1979, with approximately 849,000 dead and 232,000 missing from 1960 to 1975. But revelations of the 1968 My Lai Massacre,[40]:518521 in which a U.S. Army unit raped and killed civilians, and the 1969 "Green Beret Affair", where eight Special Forces soldiers, including the 5th Special Forces Group Commander, were arrested for the murder[190] of a suspected double agent,[191] provoked national and international outrage. By ignoring ARVN units, the U.S. commitment became open-ended. 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. Northern forces, their morale boosted by their recent victories, rolled on, taking Nha Trang, Cam Ranh and Da Lat. In total, the Soviets sent North Vietnam annual arms shipments worth $450million. [358]:373 According to Kuzmarov, Richard Nixon is primarily responsible for creating the drug myth. Although Eisenhower warned Kennedy about Laos and Vietnam, Europe and Latin America "loomed larger than Asia on his sights. All-female units were present throughout the entirety of the war, ranging from front-line combat troops to anti-aircraft, scout and reconnaissance units. James Reston of the New York Times, for example, said President Johnson was carrying out an undeclared war in. [295][296] According to Amnesty International Report 1979, this figure varied considerably depend on different observers: "included such figures as "50,000 to 80,000" (Le Monde, 19 April 1978), "150,000" (Reuters from Bien Hoa, 2 November 1977), "150,000 to 200,000" (The Washington Post, 20 December 1978), and "300,000" (Agence France Presse from Hanoi, 12 February 1978). This time, Tr could travel on a drivable highway with regular fueling stops, a vast change from the days when the Ho Chi Minh trail was a dangerous mountain trek. Some, like in the WAFC, served in combat with other soldiers. U.S. officials began discussing the possibility of a regime change during the middle of 1963. [158] The operation was the first large scale helicopter air assault by the U.S., and first to employ Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers in a tactical support role. For two bloody weeks, severe fighting raged as the ARVN defenders made a last stand to try to block the PAVN advance. [citation needed] However, heightened oil prices meant that many of these assets could not be adequately leveraged. Why did America go to war with Vietnam? [165] The first few days were considered a success but the momentum had slowed after fierce resistance. [40]:284285 These tactics continued in 19661967 with operations such as Masher, Thayer, Attleboro, Cedar Falls and Junction City. The modern classical composer George Crumb composed a string quartet, a threnody, regarding the war in 1970 titled Black Angels. [33] Between 195,000 and 430,000 South Vietnamese civilians died in the war. [16] The North Vietnamese government claimed that, by November 1957, over 65,000 individuals were imprisoned and 2,148 were killed in the process. [40]:649663 Nixon pressured Thieu to accept the terms of the agreement or else face retaliatory military action from the U.S.[212], On 15 January 1973, all U.S. combat activities were suspended. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson had not been heavily involved with policy toward Vietnam;[135][A 10] however, upon becoming president, Johnson immediately focused on the war. Vietnam War - Origin of the Vietnam War | Britannica [34]:263 The chemicals used continue to change the landscape, cause diseases and birth defects, and poison the food chain. The 1970 deposing of the Cambodian monarch, Norodom Sihanouk, resulted in a PAVN invasion of the country (at the request of the Khmer Rouge), and then a U.S.-ARVN counter-invasion, escalating the Cambodian Civil War. [40]:704707 An embittered and tearful president Thieu resigned on the same day, declaring that the United States had betrayed South Vietnam. Operation Frequent Wind had been delayed until the last possible moment, because of U.S. Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge on 17 April 1975, while the 1975 spring offensive saw the Fall of Saigon to the PAVN on 30 April, marking the end of the war; North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year. [89] The official US Department of Defense figure was 950,765 PAVN/VC forces killed in Vietnam from 1965 to 1974. Other Vietnam War films include Hamburger Hill (1987), Casualties of War (1989), Born on the Fourth of July (1989), The Siege of Firebase Gloria (1989), Forrest Gump (1994), We Were Soldiers (2002) and Rescue Dawn (2007).[24]. A counter-offensive in 1971 as part of Operation Chenla II by the PAVN would recapture most of the border areas and decimate most of Lon Nol's forces. On 13 December 1974, North Vietnamese forces attacked Phc Long. On the collapse of U.S. morale, historian Shelby Stanton wrote: In the last years of the Army's retreat, its remaining forces were relegated to static security. [258]:7 First Lieutenant Sharon Lane was the only female military nurse to be killed by enemy gunfire during the war, on 8 June 1969. To hasten a collapse and foment panic, the PAVN shelled Tan Son Nhut Airport and forced its closure. [100]:575576, Unexploded ordnance, mostly from U.S. bombing, continues to detonate and kill people today and has rendered much land hazardous and impossible to cultivate. This freed North Vietnamese army units for combat in the South. Early in 1963, the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) launched Operation Nightingale, an intensive effort to recruit nurses to serve in Vietnam. [46] Benjamin Valentino estimates 110,000310,000 deaths as a "possible case" of "counter-guerrilla mass killings" by U.S. and South Vietnamese forces during the war. More than 20% of South Vietnam's forests and 3.2% of its cultivated land was sprayed at least once. "[97]:546 The American public and media began to turn against Johnson as the three offensives contradicted claims of progress made by the Johnson administration and the military. Other aerial campaigns, such as Operation Barrel Roll, targeted different parts of the Viet Cong and PAVN infrastructure. [139] Findings from RAND's Viet Cong Motivation and Morale Project bolstered his confidence that an air war would weaken the Viet Cong. [34]:450453, According to figures released by the Vietnamese government there were 849,018 confirmed military deaths on the PAVN/VC side during the war. [97]:644645 Nixon and Thieu had sought to use this event to show-case victory simply by capturing Tchepone, and it was spun off as an "operational success". [75]:89, In October 1956, Dim launched a land reform program limiting the size of rice farms per owner. [258]:57 One civilian doctor, Eleanor Ardel Vietti, who was captured by Viet Cong on 30 May 1962, in Bun Ma Thut, remains the only American woman unaccounted for from the Vietnam War. [97]:18 Despite Johnson and Westmoreland publicly proclaiming victory and Westmoreland stating that the "end is coming into view",[162] internal reports in the Pentagon Papers indicate that Viet Cong forces retained strategic initiative and controlled their losses. Massive aerial bombardment against the Pathet Lao and PAVN forces were carried out by the US to prevent the collapse of the Royal central government, and to deny the use of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Scientific reports have concluded that refugees exposed to chemical sprays while in South Vietnam continued to experience pain in the eyes and skin as well as gastrointestinal upsets. [249]:77 During their visits to transit detention facilities under American administration in 1968 and 1969, the International Red Cross recorded many cases of torture and inhumane treatment before the captives were handed over to South Vietnamese authorities. [40] Likewise, Ho Chi Minh and other communist officials always won at least 99% of the vote in North Vietnamese "elections". [40]:218219 Lyndon Johnson commented to Undersecretary of State George Ball that "those sailors out there may have been shooting at flying fish. [342] As of 2006[update], the Vietnamese government estimates that there are over 4,000,000 victims of dioxin poisoning in Vietnam, although the United States government denies any conclusive scientific links between Agent Orange and the Vietnamese victims of dioxin poisoning. [195] ROTC enrollment decreased from 191,749 in 1966 to 72,459 by 1971,[196] and reached an all-time low of 33,220 in 1974,[197] depriving U.S. forces of much-needed military leadership. Beginning in September, the Khanh government was succeeded by a bewildering array of cliques and coalitions, some of which stayed in power less than a month. They relied on ambushes, superior stealth, planning, marksmanship, and small-unit tactics to face the disproportionate US technological advantage. [97]: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. Most Asian countries were unwilling to accept these refugees, many of whom fled by boat and were known as boat people. By the war's end, 58,220 American soldiers had been killed,[A 8] more than 150,000 had been wounded, and at least 21,000 had been permanently disabled. [249]:77 During their visit to the Con Son Prison in 1970, U.S. congressmen Augustus F. Hawkins and William R. Anderson witnessed detainees either confined in minute "tiger cages" or chained to their cells, and provided with poor-quality food. 20 million gallons of toxic herbicides (like Agent Orange) were sprayed on 6 million acres of forests and crops by the U.S. Air Force. John F. Kennedy was the 35th President of the United States from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. [46], U.S. forces established numerous free-fire zones as a tactic to prevent Viet Cong fighters from sheltering in South Vietnamese villages. [265][264] Other women were embedded with troops on the front-lines, serving as doctors and medical personnel. In Vietnam, the diary has often been compared to The Diary of Anne Frank, and both are used in literary education. Forces. The first deployment of 3,500 in March 1965 was increased to nearly 200,000 by December. [85]:19 John F. Kennedy, then a U.S. senator, said in a speech to the American Friends of Vietnam: "Burma, Thailand, India, Japan, the Philippines and obviously Laos and Cambodia are among those whose security would be threatened if the Red Tide of Communism overflowed into Vietnam."[106]. [24] Many songwriters and musicians supported the anti-war movement, including Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Peggy Seeger, Ewan MacColl, Barbara Dane, The Critics Group, Phil Ochs, John Lennon, John Fogerty, Nina Simone, Neil Young, Tom Paxton, Jimmy Cliff and Arlo Guthrie. The U.S. entered the Vietnam War in an attempt to prevent the spread of communism, but foreign policy, economic interests, national fears, and geopolitical strategies also played major roles. [211][40]:576582, Vietnamization was again tested by the Easter Offensive of 1972, a massive conventional PAVN invasion of South Vietnam. Milestones: 1969-1976 - Office of the Historian [306] After several failed attempts to negotiate by both sides, Vietnam invaded Democratic Kampuchea in 1978 and ousted the Khmer Rouge, who were being supported by China, in the CambodianVietnamese War. Vietnam War - John F. Kennedy and the domino theory Eisenhower was born in Texas, raised in Kansas then educated at the West Point military academy, graduating in 1915. America's Vietnam | Miller Center [16] By early 1959, however, Dim had come to regard the (increasingly frequent) violence as an organized campaign and implemented Law 10/59, which made political violence punishable by death and property confiscation. People who had been farming land for years had to return it to landlords and pay years of back rent. [40]:517 On 27 October 1969, Nixon had ordered a squadron of 18 B-52s loaded with nuclear weapons to race to the border of Soviet airspace to convince the Soviet Union, in accord with the madman theory, that he was capable of anything to end the Vietnam War. In 1964, South Vietnam began conducting a series of attacks and missions along the North Vietnamese coasts, backed by the United States. May 12, 1975, "Chapter I, Background to the Crisis, 1940-50", "Stabbed in the back! [103]:140 The United States said, "With respect to the statement made by the representative of the State of Vietnam, the United States reiterates its traditional position that peoples are entitled to determine their own future and that it will not join in any arrangement which would hinder this". Ho Chi Minh, then known as Nguyen ai Quac, wrote to US Secretary of State Robert Lansing in 1919, asking for support in securing Vietnamese liberation from French colonial rule Vietnam War | Facts, Summary, Years, Timeline, Casualties, Combatants [40]:514 After news reports of American military abuses, such as the 1968 My Lai Massacre, brought new attention and support to the anti-war movement, some veterans joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War. The Vietnam War has been featured extensively in television, film, video games, music and literature in the participant countries. Which president started Vietnam War? - Short-Fact [320], As of 2013, the U.S. government is paying Vietnam veterans and their families or survivors more than $22billion a year in war-related claims.[321][322]. The ostensibly neutral Laos had become the scene of a civil war, pitting the Laotian government backed by the US against the Pathet Lao and its North Vietnamese allies. United States Vietnam Relations, 19451967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, vol. [288]:4,10, The U.S. dropped over 7million tons of bombs on Indochina during the war, more than triple the 2.1million tons of bombs the U.S. dropped on Europe and Asia during all of World War II and more than ten times the amount dropped by the U.S. during the Korean War. [84] The French colonial empire gradually retook control of Indochina. However, "their methodology was reviewed and criticized as invalid by authors. [108]:1416, In May 1957, Dim undertook a ten-day state visit to the United States. [71]:16 U.S. involvement increased under President John F. Kennedy, from just under a thousand military advisors in 1959 to 23,000 by 1964. [40]:686, The success of the 19731974 dry season offensive inspired Tr to return to Hanoi in October 1974 and plead for a larger offensive the next dry season. "This article", noted Peter Church, "proved to be the only one of the Paris Agreements which was fully carried out. "[100]:575 An estimated 200,000 to 400,000 Vietnamese boat people died at sea, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Logistics would be upgraded until the North was in a position to launch a massive invasion of the South, projected for the 19751976 dry season. [122] Kennedy rejected the idea but increased military assistance yet again. China "armed and trained" the Khmer Rouge during the civil war, and continued to aid them for years afterward. As broad-based opposition to his harsh tactics mounted, Dim increasingly sought to blame the communists. [134], President Kennedy was assassinated on 22 November 1963. Following the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution that gave President Lyndon B. Johnson broad authority to increase U.S. military presence in Vietnam, without a formal declaration of war. The M14 was a powerful, accurate rifle, but it was heavy, hard-recoiling, and especially unwieldy in jungle fighting, as it was unsuited for the combat conditions, often suffering from feed failure. Over time, this policy damaged the public trust in official pronouncements. [146], The objective of stopping North Vietnam and the Viet Cong was never reached. One major issue Kennedy raised was whether the Soviet space and missile programs had surpassed those of the United States. Two Douglas A-4C Skyhawk fly past the anti-submarine aircraft carrier. The conflict between Hmong rebels and the Pathet Lao continued in isolated pockets. [202], In 1970, Nixon announced the withdrawal of an additional 150,000 American troops, reducing the number of Americans to 265,500. South Vietnam entered a period of extreme political instability, as one military government toppled another in quick succession. Martial law was declared. [200]:357 William Westmoreland, no longer in command but tasked with investigation of the failure, cited a clear dereliction of duty, lax defensive postures and lack of officers in charge as its cause. $160billion adjusted for inflation in 2022) during the Vietnam War;[23] included in that aid were donations of 5million tons of food to North Vietnam (equivalent to North Vietnamese food production in a single year), accounting for 1015% of the North Vietnamese food supply by the 1970s. [40]:131, The Strategic Hamlet Program was initiated in late 1961. The bombing halt achieved no breakthrough but rather brought on a period of prolonged bickering between the United States and its South Vietnamese ally about the terms and procedures to govern the talks. Even the Special Forces who had been designed for it could not prevail. [272], Women also played a prominent role as front-line reporters in the conflict, directly reporting on the conflict as it occurred. [348][349] It was difficult to distinguish between civilians and military personnel on the Viet Cong side as many persons were part-time guerrillas or impressed labourers who did not wear uniforms[350][351] and civilians killed were sometimes written off as enemy killed because high enemy casualties was directly tied to promotions and commendation. [188]:649650[352][353], Between 275,000[65] and 310,000[66] Cambodians were estimated to have died during the war including between 50,000 and 150,000 combatants and civilians from US bombings. The Kennedy administration remained essentially committed to the Cold War foreign policy inherited from the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. [160]:153156 Despite the continual conductance of major operations, which the Viet Cong and PAVN would typically evade, the war was characterised by smaller-unit contacts or engagements. [94][95][40]:9697 The exodus was coordinated by a U.S.-funded $93million relocation program, which included the use of the Seventh Fleet to ferry refugees. The indigenous forces numbered in the tens of thousands and they conducted direct action missions, led by paramilitary officers, against the Communist Pathet Lao forces and their North Vietnamese supporters. [85]:353354 The idea that the government of South Vietnam could manage its own affairs was shelved. [96] The northern, mainly Catholic refugees gave the later Ng nh Dim regime a strong anti-communist constituency. ICYMI: Philippines, US close 2023 Balikatan exercises | Philippines In April 1962, John Kenneth Galbraith warned Kennedy of the "danger we shall replace the French as a colonial force in the area and bleed as the French did. The Vietnam War had its origins in the broader Indochina wars of the 1940s and '50s, when nationalist groups such as Ho Chi Minh 's Viet Minh, inspired by Chinese and Soviet communism, fought the colonial rule first of Japan and then of France. [183][184] Nixon had also sought dtente with the Soviet Union and rapprochement with China, which decreased global tensions and led to nuclear arms reduction by both superpowers; however, the Soviets continued to supply the North Vietnamese with aid. Which US president started the Vietnam War? [243]:251 One example cited by Turse is Operation Speedy Express, an operation by the 9th Infantry Division, which was described by John Paul Vann as, in effect, "many M Lais". Marilyn B. Lyndon B. Johnson - Election and the Vietnam War | Britannica The U.S. also conducted a large-scale strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam,[40]:371374[73] and continued significantly building up its forces, despite little progress being made.