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The Vietnam War. 1954-1975. Ho Chi Minh. Who Supports the Vietminh?. Who Supports the French back Government?. Marshall Plan. US supported 1.2 billion dollars in military aid under the Marshall Plan
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The Vietnam War 1954-1975
Marshall Plan • US supported 1.2 billion dollars in military aid under the Marshall Plan • The cost of the war had so far been twice what they had received from the United States under the Marshall Plan
French-Vietnam War: 1945-1954 Dein Bien Phu
Video • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th7tImvzutc
Dien Bien Phu Air-supplied base Cut off Viet Minh supply lines Draw the Viet Minh into a fixed battle Viet Minh's possession of heavy artillery and anti-aircraft guns
Battle of Dien Bien Phu March 13 – May 7 Massive Vietnamese causalities Airfield eventually destroyed
Fall of Dien Bien Phu Garrison was a tenth of the total French Union manpower 17,000 dead 10,000 Prisoners 3,290 repatriated
French War weariness • French War weariness • 1946-1952: 90,000 French troops had been killed, wounded or captured • Public dissatisfaction • Damaged prestige • 1954 Algerian War starts • 1956 Moroccan and Tunisian independence. • Sets up Geneva Agreements
Geneva Agreements 1954 • Cessation of hostilities • Supported the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Indochina • Laos and Cambodia to be independent • End of Foreign involvement • Partitioned 17th Parallel into northern and southern zones • Unification on the basis of internationally supervised free elections to be held in July 1956
Refugee Crisis • 300,000 leave North • Secretary of State Dulles “Neither the United States Government nor the Government of Viet-Nam is, of course, a party to the Geneva armistice agreements. We did not sign them, and the Government of Viet-Nam did not sign them and, indeed, protested against them.” • Diem: “skeptical concerning the possibility of fulfilling the conditions of free elections in the North. ”
Authoritarian laws by decree emergency powers Corrupt / Nepotistic Ngo Dinh Diem
Hamlet Protection • Development of the hamlet model • Added security protection • “hearts and minds” Problems • Working in fields • Enemy within
Wife “clap hands at seeing another monk barbecue show” Religious discrimination against Buddhism Religious tensions
Growing unrest • Coup attempt – 1960 • Assassination attempt – 1962 • August 23, 1963 – Buddhist strike and raids • Coup and execution • USA support
Lyndon B Johnson Years 1964-1968 “Hey Hey LBJ How Many Babies did you kill today” Anti War Protest chant
LBJ • 1964 election – ran anti-war • 1964 Election Ad: Daisy Girl (1964) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKs-bTL-pRg • Great Society / Civil Rights movement • Great expansion of US war effort
Gulf of Tonkin Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson authorization, without a formal declaration of war by Congress, for the use of military force in Southeast Asia.
Declassifed NSA report • It is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no attack happened that night. [...] In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on 2 August.
Curtis LaMay • Strategic bombing campaign (Pacific Theatre) of World War II. • States Strategic Bombing Survey • 330,000 people killed, • 476,000 injured, • 8.5 million people homeless • “they’ve got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression, or we’re going to bomb them back into the Stone Age.”
Shifting US attitudes Causes
Horrors of War http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev2dEqrN4i0&feature=channel
Mai Lai Reading: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-485983/Found-The-monster-My-Lai-massacre.html
Agent Orange • 4,000,000 victims of dioxin poisoning (Vietnam Government 2006 estimates) • destroy rice crops (food supply for the Vietcong) • Destroy Jungle cover (enemy were hiding their activities in thick jungle canopy)
Agent Orange • Dr. Huong ushered me into a large room, perhaps twenty-five feet long by fifteen feet wide, its walls covered with floor to ceiling shelves. Everywhere were two-and-a-half gallon, formalin-filled Bell jars, in each of which floated an aborted or full-term fetus. Many were genetic monstrosities: twinned or triple conjoined, hydrocephalic, some covered with cancerous growths, their eyes staring blankly through the glass at sights they would never see. Dr. Huong, sadly told me, "They're not babies. They're monsters." And they were. The genetics of one fetus had gone so awry that its genitals were growing out of the middle of its face!”