Chapter 29, Section 2

“Escalation in Vietnam”

Johnson Sends Ground Troops• Assassination of Pres. Diem brought

chaos to S. Vietnam• N. Vietnam kept aiding the Viet Cong

rebels in the south where they controlled much of the countryside

• to try to win, Pres. Johnson increased U.S. efforts in Vietnam

• Johnson wanted to bomb N. Vietnam to get Ho Chi Minh to negotiate an end to the war but he needed Congress’s approval

• U.S. destroyer Maddox, patrolling in the Gulf of Tonkin, reported being shot at by North Vietnamese

• Gulf of Tonkin Resolution – gave Pres. Johnson power to use military force in Vietnam

• Johnson began bombing N. Vietnam and sent the 1st U.S. combat troops to S. Vietnam in early 1965

• Escalation – policy of increasing military involvement in Vietnam (over 500,000 U.S. soldiers there by 1968)

• William Westmoreland – commander of all U.S. forces in Vietnam (left with LBJ)

President Johnson announcing that U.S. troops are heading to Vietnam

- Ho Chi Minh Trail – supply line that started in North Vietnam and went through neighbor nations Laos and Cambodia used to supply the Viet Cong

- After attacks on U.S. soldiers the Vietcong or North Vietnamese army would sometimes slip back into these nations for safety from counter-attack

Ho Chi Minh Trail

Search and Destroy Missions• search and destroy

missions – U.S. tactic to search for Viet Cong and then burn villages that were thought to be sheltering them

• tactics failed as VC would return after missions and the Vietnamese people turned even more against the S. Vietnamese govt.

U.S. soldiers search for Viet Cong on search and destroy missions

U.S. soldiers land at a LZ (landing zone) and head off on missions

Stripping the Jungle• U.S. relied on chemicals to

reveal and destroy Viet Cong hideouts in the jungle

• napalm – jellied gasoline dropped by U.S. planes that burn violently

• Agent Orange – chemical sprayed by planes to kill jungle plants

• these chemicals worked but they hurt Vietnamese villagers which made them support the U.S. even less

Napalm

Agent Orange

Victims of Agent Orange

Birth defects affect the next generation of Vietnamese children and also affected returning U.S.

soldiers

A Frustrating War• Most thought the powerful U.S.

would win a quickly, but it fought a limited war to keep China out

• 2 million U.S. soldiers served in the Vietnam War

• U.S. forces inexperienced as average age of soldiers there was 19 and served only one year tours of duty

• as Viet Cong mixed in with the general population the enemy was hard to find, and there was no frontline like in WWII

• The Viet Cong hid in underground tunnels and filled the jungles with land mines and booby traps

• guerrilla warfare – a fighting tactic where small bands of fighters use surprise attacks on a stronger enemy (used by Viet Cong)

• the hot climate and jungle plants and insects made it hard on the U.S. soldiers

• the Viet Cong took heavy losses but didn’t give up against the invading U.S.

The Surprise Tet Offensive• by 1967 neither side was

near victory• Tet Offensive – a surprise

attack in January of 1968 on U.S. bases and over 100 S. Vietnamese cities by Viet Cong starting on the Vietnamese New Year’s Day (Tet)

• Viet Cong smuggled weapons into the cities and couldn’t be spotted amongst all the refugees and visitors heading into the cities

• during the VC attacks they killed enemy soldiers as well as govt. leaders, teachers, doctors and priests

• the offensive was a military defeat for the VC as all the cities were taken back from them and they lost far more lives in the battles

• Americans didn’t see it as a victory, and many thought we could not win the war, except for too high of a price

U.S. soldiers (left) and South Vietnamese soldiers (right) defend the capitol, Saigon

• many Americans began to question whether we should fight a war in which to defend its people we were destroying its cities and countryside

• Nation became divided between hawks (those who supported the war) and doves (those opposed to the war)

• Credibility gap – gap between what the govt. told people about the war (that we were winning), and what they believed about the war from watching on TV (that we were losing)

Hawks

Doves

Beginning of the End of the War• the Tet Offensive was the

turning point in the war as Pres. Johnson refused General Westmoreland’s request for more soldiers (end of escalation)

• Johnson announced in March of 1968 that he would stop bombing N. Vietnam, that he would seek an end to the war, and that he would not run for re-election as President

A frustrated President Lyndon Johnson contemplates what to do about the Vietnam War

U.S. Morale Sinks• U.S. soldiers in Vietnam fought

hard but lost faith that the U.S. could win

• South Vietnamese govt. didn’t have the support of the people and its army often refused to fight

• My Lai Incident – the massacre of a few hundred Vietnamese citizens (mostly women, children, and old men) by U.S. soldiers in March 1968

• It’s seen as an example of the breakdown of morale and discipline in our armed forces

Victims of My Lai massacre

S. Vietnamese officer kills V.C.