The Vietnam War
Between 1945 and 1954, the Vietnamese waged an anti-colonial war against France and received $2.6 billion in financial support from the United States. The French defeat at the Dien Bien Phu was followed by a peace conference in Geneva, in which Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam received their independence and Vietnam was temporarily divided between an anti-Communist South and a Communist North. In 1956, South Vietnam, with American backing, refused to hold the unification elections. By 1958, Communist-led guerrillas known as the Viet Cong had begun to battle the South Vietnamese government.
To support the South’s government, the United States sent in 2,000 military advisors, a number that grew to 16,300 in 1963. The military condition deteriorated, and by 1963 South Vietnam had lost the fertile Mekong Delta to the Vietcong. In 1965, Johnson escalated the war, commencing air strikes on North Vietnam and committing ground forces, which numbered 536,000 in 1968. The 1968 Tet Offensive by the North Vietnamese turned many Americans against the war. The next president, Richard Nixon, advocated Vietnamization, withdrawing American troops and giving South Vietnam greater responsibility for fighting the war. His attempt to slow the flow of North Vietnamese soldiers and supplies into South Vietnam by sending American forces to destroy Communist supply bases in Cambodia in 1970 in violation of Cambodian neutrality provoked antiwar protests on the nation’s college campuses. From 1968 to 1973 efforts were made to end the conflict through diplomacy. In January 1973, an agreement reached and U.S. forces were withdrawn from Vietnam and U.S. prisoners of war were released. In April 1975, South Vietnam surrendered to the North and Vietnam was reunited.
While our Vietnam War section concentrates on the time period from 1960 to 1975, you will find material on the French involvement as well as the events after the fall of Saigon.
From an American viewpoint, the Vietnam War is not well understood. Even though it was part of the American daily life for some fifteen years, there is no consensus as to its purpose and result. Some Americans believe that Vietnam was a national policy blunder costing some 58,000 American lives and billions of tax dollars. That it divided the country at a time when it most needed to be unified leaving scars that are yet to be healed. Others believe the war was a noble cause similar to the United Nations effort that kept South Korea free. A brief look at the war itself reveals that it started out rather benignly with the sending of American advisors to assist the South Vietnamese train its growing army. The stated objective was to allow the South Vietnamese Army to resist aggression from the North and to preserve their sovereignty as a democratic nation.
As the 1960s wore on, the war divided the United States. Protests and riots erupted. Politicians straddled both sides.
By the late 1960s, the American government realizing that the conflict would be endless, entered into negotiations with the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese in Paris. As a show of good faith, the American combat strategy evolved into a mostly defensive operation. The resultant deleterious effect on troop morale made the situation on the ground worse.
When, in the early 1970s, a peace agreement was reached, the American Congress, anxious to be rid of the divisive issue of Vietnam, slowly pulled logistical aid from the South Vietnamese. The North Vietnamese, disregarding many parts of the agreement, overran the remaining areas controlled by South Vietnam.
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The war had ended but the pain and confusion from this misunderstood war remains to this day.
Explore our Vietnam section and expand your understanding of the war. Select a topic area from the upper left-hand menu.
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