AMST 3100 The 1960s Vietnam 19641968

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AMST 3100 The 1960sVietnam 1964-1968

• Powerpoint 10
• Read Chafe Chapter 10 Farber Chapter 7

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Vietnam, 1964

• The assassination of Kennedy placed LBJ in power
  immediately, and he inherited a Vietnam policy
  that was in shambles with the killing of Diem
  only weeks earlier.
• South Vietnam was in chaos due to the military
  coup. Perhaps 40 of southern Vietnamese were
  supporters of Ho Chi Minh in 1964.
• The Americans thus far had not won over the
  hearts and minds of the indigenous population.
  The Viet Cong were growing in popularity, and
  ARVN soldiers (who were conscripts) were
  deserting.
• By 1964, the Americans had repeated many of the
  same errors the French had committed. What would
  follow would be a series of failed puppet
  governments in South Vietnam, all propped up by
  the Americans. None would be popular among the
  Vietnamese people.

Vice President Johnson toured South Vietnam in
1961. He is seen here meeting with Diem. Diem had
been a stubborn ruler, and with his death in late
1963 Johnson had an opportunity to pursue his own
plans for Vietnam. Diem would not approve of a
massive incursion of U.S. troops and was secretly
negotiating with the North for a peace. His death
removed a key obstacle in escalating the war.
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LBJ

• To any outside observer, the events of late 1963
  were clear warning signs that the U.S.
  nation-building effort was failing.
• Yet the military brass never acknowledged this,
  and neither did LBJ.
• Their hawkish advice to LBJ ignored CIA warnings
  that Vietnam might be un-winnable.
• Johnsons advisors urged him to step up the
  bombing of North Vietnam and increase the ground
  war and that is what he wanted to hear. LBJ, a
  hawk, did not like dovish counsel from his
  advisors.

LBJ surrounded by war advisors. Their advice
escalate the war.
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Vietnam, 1964

• Unlike JFK, LBJ was not interested in any exit
  strategies. To LBJ, Vietnam was a commitment, he
  would honor it, and he felt the worlds strongest
  superpower could build South Vietnam.
• LBJ continued JFKs Operation Ranch Hand,
  involving spraying defoliant over the countryside
  to reduce Viet Cong hiding cover. Agent Orange
  was one of the defoliants.
• LBJ continued Operation Sunrise, the Strategic
  Hamlet program begun under JFK. By early 1964
  there were more than 11,000 strategic hamlets
  constructed.
• LBJ decided to expand the air war against North
  Vietnam, but not excessively. LBJ ignored CIA
  evidence that bombing attacks would have little
  overall effect.
• The American problem was the same the French had
  encountered. This brought a tough question
• How do you bomb an indigenous peasant population,
  distributed throughout the rural countryside,
  into compliance? Who do you target?
• The Americans had adopted a conventional warfare
  strategy, just as the French had done, and like
  the French, the Americans were losing.

Operation Ranch Hand was highly unpopular among
Vietnamese peasants, as it damaged their crops,
livestock, and livelihood and caused serious
health problems.
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Vietnam, 1964

• Johnson stepped up the war, yet Vietnam policy
  continued to drift in the early months of his
  administration.
• By the summer of 64, there were roughly 20,000
  advisors in Vietnam.
• 1964 was an election year, and the Goldwater
  Republicans felt they could make gains on the
  Democrats disorganized foreign policy. The
  Republicans, trying to out-hawk the Democrats,
  called for even more military actions.
• LBJ felt he had to show toughness because he
  feared being labeled soft on communism.
• LBJ felt needed to take a bold step. To justify
  escalating the war, LBJ took advantage of a small
  naval incident in August 1964 at the Gulf of
  Tonkin.

Barry Goldwater was even more hawkish than LBJ.
LBJ feared being labeled soft on communism and
this was an election year.
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Gulf of Tonkin, August 1964

• The Gulf of Tonkin incident was an alleged pair
  of attacks on U.S. warships by the North
  Vietnamese.
• This incident probably never happened as it was
  described at the time, but it gave the military
  brass and Johnson the excuse they were looking
  for.
• Johnson went on national TV and declared that the
  U.S. would fight to defend itself.
• The next morning, LBJ pressured Congress to give
  the President more war-making powers and
  Congress overwhelmingly approved the Gulf of
  Tonkin Resolution. This resolution allowed
  Johnson to militarily assist any Southeast Asian
  country whose government was endangered by
  communist aggression.
• The resolution provided Johnsons legal
  justification for dramatically escalating the
  Vietnam War. Now he could do as he pleased.

This photo was reportedly taken on August 2, 1964
and is said to depict three North Vietnamese
patrol boats closing in on the USS Maddox, a
destroyer that the U.S. claimed was in
international waters. The Pentagon claimed that
more than 20 torpedoes were fired at U.S.
warships over a series of two attacks, but none
found their mark and the attacking ships were
damaged, with one destroyed. Johnson used this
attack to secure the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.
Subsequent evidence suggests the U.S.
characterization was inaccurate.
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Vietnam and LBJ

• While Eisenhower got the U.S. into Vietnam, LBJ
  bears the brunt of the responsibility for
  escalating the war.
• Johnson did get some opposing opinions from
  George Ball, Hubert Humphrey and Bill Moyers, but
  he chose to ignore their advice.
• Johnson set up an office that consisted mostly of
  yes men and allowed groupthink to take over.
• In groupthink, the advisors are afraid to rock
  the boat with debate and negativity because the
  overall peer pressure is toward consensus and
  agreement with the leader. In groupthink,
  discrepancies are ignored in order to conform to
  an emerging consensus.
• Johnson wanted hawks in his inner circle. He set
  up an office of hawks and then deceived himself
  into thinking he was being objective in
  deciding to escalate the war.

LBJ is seen here with Robert McNamara, who was
Secretary of Defense from 1961-1968. McNamara
was a key advisor who was hawkish on the Vietnam
War. After the war, he publicly renounced his
hawkish policies on Vietnam. See the
Oscar-winning 2004 documentary, Fog of War for
a closer examination.
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Vietnam 1965-1967 Escalation of the War

• The first combat troops arrived in Vietnam in
  early 1965. It would be a jungle war.
• LBJ initiated Operation Rolling Thunder in 1965,
  a sustained aerial bombardment campaign of mostly
  the southern region of North Vietnam. This
  operation was the most intensive air-ground
  battle of the war and would continue into 1968.
• LBJ limited the scope of the bombing to specific
  targets only approved by his staff. This
  infuriated the generals, who wanted to pummel the
  North and hit military targets they had
  prioritized.
• Between 1965 and 1967 LBJ would increase troop
  strength from roughly 200,000 to almost 500,000.
• To accomplish this, LBJ escalated the draft
  system. In 1965, 106,000 were drafted. By 1966,
  339,000 were drafted. In doing so, he helped
  polarize the youth culture against his war
  policies.

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LBJ

• To some extent, Johnson was convinced of his own
  position too strongly to waver, but he secretly
  wondered by the mid-60s whether the war might be
  un-winnable. He compounded the problem by
  consistently deceiving the American people and
  Congress about the progress of the war.
• The credibility gap would finally catch up with
  him by January 1968 when the Tet Offensive
  occurred.
• Johnson was obsessed with keeping control in his
  own hands and this is partly what did him in.
• His initially cocky sense that the U.S. could
  defeat the Viet Cong despite obvious cues to
  the contrary and his dogged determination to
  press on as though we were winning the war
  ultimately destroyed him and tore the United
  States apart.

LBJ, in 1968, listening to a tape sent to him
from a soldier in Vietnam. By now he was
anguishing over his war policies.
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U.S. Troop Strength, Vietnam
Troop Deaths (rough estimate)
537,000
1965 1900
1966 5100
1967 9300
1968 16800
1969 9400
Total GI deaths 58,000
Total Vietnamese deaths 3-5 million
1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution leads to dramatic
escalation.
1966 heaviest bombing raids of the war.
1968 Tet Offensive credibility gap is apparent
Nixon elected.
1967 massive anti-war demonstrations ML King
denounces the war.
1969 Moratorium March.
1965 LBJ escalates the draft first major war
protests first combat troops arrive.
1970 Nixon invades Cambodia Kent State.
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LBJ A Limited War

• The Johnson administration found itself trapped
  in a difficult situation. He had chosen to
  escalate the war, yet an all out war against
  North Vietnam might trigger a world war. He
  recalled the Korean War experience with China.
• Given this situation, he chose a limited war
  using a conventional army to achieve limited
  political and military objectives.
• The goal was to create a relatively stable South
  Vietnam that could stand on its own.
• The purpose of his limited bombing of the North
  was to get them to bargain away the South and
  bring them to talks.
• The Vietnam war became a war of attrition. LBJ
  would not cater to Republican hawks like Curtis
  LeMay, who wanted to bomb North Vietnam back
  into the Stone Age or to liberal Democratic
  doves, who were not committed to nation building.
  He took what he saw as the middle ground.

LBJ visits with the troops in 1966. To right-wing
hawks, Johnson needed to use more military force,
particularly by heavily bombing military targets
in Hanoi and the North, while to left-wing doves
Johnson was carrying out a policy of military
imperialism in Vietnam in violation of Americas
own principles.
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Selling the War

• Fighting a limited war had liabilities. It was
  difficult to define what progress meant. There
  was no front line to claim victory or defeat by.
  There were no capitals or kings to capture.
• Instead LBJ had to create and sell indicators of
  progress to an increasingly skeptical public.
  Enemy body counts were emphasized from 1965 to
  1967, and the creation bizarre terms like
  pacification zones played to the image of
  geographic success.
• To many, it appeared that the administration was
  resorting to a Public Relations campaign to sell
  the war.

U.S. soldier examines dead Viet Cong, Ia Drang
Valley battle, 1965.
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Selling the War

• In 1967, the Johnson administration launched an
  extensive public relations campaign to convince
  Americans that there was light at the end of the
  tunnel.
• Johnson brought in General William Westmoreland,
  the top American commander, to highlight American
  progress in the war. Initially it appeared he may
  have succeeded a bit, but in January of 1968 the
  Viet Cong and North Vietnamese launched their Tet
  Offensive.

LBJ meets with General Westmoreland, who assured
Americans we were winning the war while
consistently requesting that more troops be sent
to Vietnam.
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Khe Sahn, January 1968

• The Tet Offensive was preceded by the siege at
  Khe Sahn.
• On January 21, 1968, the North Vietnamese army
  attacked a remote American outpost. The surprise
  attack conjured up fears that this could be a
  repeat of the infamous French defeat at the 1954
  battle of Dien Bien Phu.
• Military commanders ordered the soldiers at Khe
  Sahn to hold the fort, despite being surrounded
  by the well dug-in enemy. The highly-televised
  siege lasted 2 months and the enemy was finally
  turned back after the Americans reinforced the
  base.
• The image Americans at home got of this
  media-saturated siege was that our military was
  not in control the way the generals and President
  had claimed. The fort had almost been overrun.
• But this was just the beginning. The subsequent
  Tet Offensive was much more damaging to Johnsons
  credibility.

American soldiers held out valiantly at Khe Sahn.
Indeed, the Americans never lost a battle in
Vietnam. But this point obscures two realities
(1) the communists used guerilla style tactics
and thus were not playing for winning battles per
se and (2) the American public was getting weary
of the war, which had proved to be very costly.
This drawn out siege helped change the publics
mind about the war and LBJs credibility.
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Tet Offensive, January 1968

• The Tet Offensive is generally regarded as the
  turning point in the war for the Americans. After
  this point, most Americans would not delude
  themselves into thinking there was light at the
  end of the tunnel.
• On the morning of January 31, 1968, ten days
  after the start of the Khe Sahn seige, the Viet
  Cong and the North Vietnamese army launched
  attacks on more than 100 cities across South
  Vietnam, including 35 of the 44 provincial
  capitals.
• Even Saigon was attacked, and the American
  embassy was briefly penetrated by the Viet Cong.
• The Tet Offensive caught the Americans off guard,
  especially after General Westmorelands earlier
  reassurances that we were in control. If the war
  was being won, how could the enemy mount such a
  massive campaign?

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Tet Offensive

• The Tet Offensive was very bloody and overlapped
  with the siege at Khe Sahn. In January and
  February of 1968 there was daily television and
  newspaper coverage of events that seared the
  horror of Vietnam into the American public mind.
• It ultimately took several months for the U.S. to
  reestablish quasi-control of all the provinces,
  but by then the American press and public were
  beginning to turn against the war.

A suspected Viet Cong was spontaneously executed
on the streets of Saigon during the Tet
Offensive. This film, along with other war
scenes, was shown on national TV. Americans were
shocked to see the visceral horror of war. Many
began to shift against it at this point.
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Tet Offensive

• The Tet Offensive highlighted something new about
  warfare Vietnam was the first televised war.
  Americans could see how the media coverage
  compared with what the administration said.
• Before 1968, media coverage largely echoed what
  the administration claimed. But 1968 was the
  turning point in media coverage of the war.
• By January 1968 the American press began to ask
  tough questions about the war. It was CBSs
  Walter Cronkite (the most trusted man in
  America) who openly began to challenge the
  administrations version of the war. Cronkite
  famously claimed in a Feb. 27, 1968 TV editorial
  that the war was headed for a stalemate.
• LBJ and his generals were caught in a credibility
  gap the reality of the situation contradicted
  their rosy characterization. He had lost the
  peoples trust.
• When Johnson heard about Cronkites comment he
  said, Thats it I've lost middle America." LBJ
  would withdraw from the Presidential race on
  March 31 and he would begin to pursue peace
  negotiations after the events of early 1968.

A village is attacked with napalm by ARVN planes.
This famous photograph captures a little girl
whose clothes and skin are burning from napalm as
she and others run from the attack. She survived,
after many treatments, and later moved to the
U.S. Images such as these affected American
attitudes toward the war.
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Tet Offensive

• While the Tet Offensive was ultimately a military
  victory for the Americans, it was a political
  victory for the Viet Cong.
• According to researcher Dennis Simon, the
  American public was strongly affected by the
  offensive, judging from Gallop polls.
• 
  Pre-TET
  Post-TET
• Approves Johnson's handling of job as president
  48 36
• Approves Johnson's handling of Vietnam
  39 26
• Regards war in Vietnam as a mistake
  45 49
• Proportion classifying themselves as hawks
  60 41

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Support for the Vietnam War
SUPPORT FOR THE WAR AS MEASURED BY "NO" RESPONSES
TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTION "In view of
developments since we entered the fighting in
Vietnam, do you think the U.S. made a mistake
sending troops to fight in Vietnam?" (Gallup)
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1968 the Turning Point

• By early 1968, the tide had turned and Americans
  were openly re-thinking their role in Vietnam.
• This was due to the huge casualty tolls, the
  failure to clearly define the terms of success,
  the fallout from the Tet Offensive, an
  increasingly skeptical media, a widening
  credibility gap, political pressure from the
  left, and the rise of a massive counterculture
  that had galvanized to oppose the Vietnam War.

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AMST 3100
End