Vietnam War

Guide Note:

The Vietnam War was fought over the course of 3 decades, from 1959 until 1975. (It's known as a war even though it was never officially declared one by Congress).

American forces, supporting the South Vietnamese "Republic of Vietnam" encountered massive guerrilla resistance from the northern Democratic Republic of Vietnam and their Communist allies, including China. The war eventually took the lives of 1.4 million military personnel and 2 million Vietnamese civilians. It ended with U.S. forces evacuating Saigon, the South Vietnamese capital, on April 30, 1975, after which the city soon fell to the North Vietnamese army, uniting the nation under Communist rule.

Fast Facts:

1. Dates: 1959 - April 30, 1975
2. Locations: Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia
3. Anti-Communist Forces: United States, South Vietnam, South Korea, Australia, Philippines, New Zealand, Thailand, Khmer Republic, Laos
4. Communist Forces: North Vietnam, China, Viet Cong, Khmer Rouge, Soviet Union, North Korea, Pathet Lao
5. Ended with the Fall of Saigon

Outcomes:

1. American withdrawl from Vietnam
2. Reunification of Vietnam under Communism
3. Communism in Laos
4. Khmer Rouge in Cambodia

Casualties:

• U.S. armed services casualties: 58,193

• South Vietnamese armed services casualties: Approx. 250,000

• North Vietnamese armed services casualties: Approx. 600,000

• Vietnamese civilian casualties: Approx. 4,000,000

The French, who had operated colonies in Indochina since the early 19th Century, formally withdrew from their colonies in the region after the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and the signing of the Geneva Accords in 1954. The Geneva agreement had called for national Vietnamese elections no later than July 20, 1956, but the U.S. refused to sign on to this plan, fearing that these elections would turn the nation over to the Communist regime of Ho Chi Minh.

Under the administration of John F. Kennedy, starting in 1960, concerns in America about the spread of Communist influence throughout Southeast Asia grew, particularly following the success of the Communist cause in Vietnam's neighbor, Laos, and the arrest and execution of the U.S.' hand-selected South Vietnamese president, Ngo Dinh Diem, in November 2, 1963. Kennedy was assassinated 3 weeks later, on November 22, 1963.

Vice-President Lyndon Johnson took over the presidency after the death of Kennedy, and soon after, on August 2, 1964, an attack by the North Vietnamese on U.S. ships near the Gulf of Tonkin prompted an armed response. The incident led to the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which authorized President Johnson to pursue military options in Southeast Asia without an official Declaration of War. A three-year bombing campaign against the North Vietnamese began on March 2, 1965, with the first U.S. ground troops dispatched the following week.

In 1967, Nguyen Van Thieu became the new President of South Vietnam, a position he would hold until the end of American involvement in the war in 1975. His refusal to diplomatically meet with the North Vietnamese during Johnson's tenure as president is seen as the main reason for Johnson's failure to bring the war to a close.

On January 31 of 1968, during the Tet (or Lunar New Year) holiday, the North Vietnamese launched a major offensive, in the hopes of inspiring the South Vietnamese people to rise up against the U.S. and their puppet government. The effort was a failure, despite the massive scale of the attacks.

Nixon had promised during the 1968 election that he had a plan to end the war, and that he would bring about "peace with honor." His plan came to be known as "Vietnamization," and was based on the strategies of limiting the size of the conflict, increasing South Vietnamese military participation in place of the U.S. military and negotiating with the Chinese to stop supplying the North Vietnamese army. It soon became clear this strategy would not work - the South Vietnamese army clearly could not defend the nation without aid from the U.S., and the Chinese and Soviets continued supplying the North Vietnamese despite U.S. protest.

During this time, Nixon likewise began bombing on the border between Vietnam and Cambodia, even though the latter country had been declared officially neutral.

During the 1972 election, Nixon's Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, and Vietnamese revolutionary Le Duc Tho started negotiating an end to the war in secret. They convinced President Thieu to sign on to their plan on January 1973, and were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts.

After winning the 1972 election against George McGovern, Nixon declared the suspension of all combat operations against the North Vietnamese, and he signed the Paris Peace Accords ending the war on January 27, 1973. Nixon resigned the following year after the Watergate Scandal.

The 1975 evacuation of U.S. forces from Saigon marked what could be considered the largest helicopter evacuation in history.

In the United States, the Vietnam War had become staggeringly unpopular, and a large counter-culture movement, populated largely by college students and other young people, vigorously protested continued U.S. involvement.

Anger over the draft was increasingly common, culminating in a massive protest outside The Pentagon in October 1967. These protests are considered a major factor in President Johnson's refusal to run for a second term of office. Infamously, four students were killed by Ohio National Guard soldiers in May 4, 1970, during a student action at Kent State University protesting the Cambodian invasion.

The release in 1971 of the Pentagon Papers, government documents detailing plans and strategies for Vietnam, revealed deception on the part of politicians, and fueled the anger of Americans who felt they had been led into the war based on lies.