The Vietnam War, the first televised war, pitted South Vietnam and the United States against Communist North Vietnam. It was feared that the fall of South Vietnam would lead to the fall of other South East Asian nations to Communism as well, in what was known as the "Domino Effect." Yet, at the same time, it was feared that extensive military involvement would lead to Chinese and Soviet intervention, resulting in a nuclear World War III. And the antiwar movement defined a generation of Americans.
United States involvement in Vietnam began in the early 1950s. The Truman administration supported France's colonial war against the Communist nationalists, known as the Viet Minh, in their contention for independence. The Eisenhower administration continued this support with military aid. However, France was unable to keep fighting. In 1954, the Geneva Accords were signed. The agreement split Vietnam at the 17th parallel until unified elections, which were to be held in 1956. It also forbid the presence of foreign troops in Vietnam. Since the United States refused to sign the Geneva Accords, it remained as the primary supporter of anti-communist efforts in South Vietnam.
The government in North Vietnam was a Communist dictatorship led by Ho Chi Minh. It suppressed civil liberties and freedoms. Dissenters, and sometimes others, were executed. The government in South Vietnam was not much better. After an unnecessarily rigged election, Ngo Dinh Diem turned the government into a corrupt dictatorship, suspending certain freedoms and persercuting Buddhists.
The 1956 elections for a unified Vietnam government were never carried out because of fears by Diem and the Eisenhower administration that Ho Chi Minh would win. China, fearing another Korean War, did not object as did the Soviet Union, which was busy with problems in East Europe. From 1956 through 1963, when Diem was killed in a military coup in November, the United States increased its military assistance and antigovernment guerrilla operations rose. In 1960, the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, more commonly known as the Viet Cong, was established. Secretly directed by North Vietnam, the Viet Cong carried out propoganda and attacks. North Vietnamese troops began to take part in the battle for South Vietnam in 1964.
President Kennedy increased the number of U.S. military personnel to 16,200, but refused the proposal to increase that number to 200,000. Kennedy did, however, begin American air support of South Vietnam forces.
The decision to send a large quantity of troops to Vietnam was made by President Johnson after an incident in the Gulf of Tonkin in which North Vietnamese gunboats attacked the U.S.S. Maddox. At this point in time, public opinion was greatly in favor of the U.S. involvement in the war.
When eight Americans were killed in a Viet Cong attack upon a U.S. encampment, President Johnson responded by ordering the bombing of North Vietnam. The bombing lasted until March 1968 with almost no stop. These bombings set international public opinion against the United States.
At a time when up to 500,000 U.S. troops were stationed in Vietnam at a time, North Vietnam gained supporters by stressing nationalism over Communism. North Vietnam leaders also had their confidence strengthened by the growing antiwar movement in the United States. From January through February of 1968, the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong attacked towns and cities in the Tet Offensive. With this, President Johnson announced that the bombings would end and that U.S. involvement would be reduced. South Vietnam was to eventually have the primary responsiblity of defending themselves. Peace negotiations also began in Paris in May 1968 and lasted until January 1973.
Under President Nixon, the United States extended the war to the neighboring countries of Cambodia and Laos, through which North Vietnam sent its troops disguised as peasants along a network of trails, roads, and installations, called the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and into South Vietnam at various points. This sparked more antiwar protests as the U.S., especially when Nixon ordered the U.S. invasion of Cambodia, an operation which upset the political balance of Cambodia to the extent that the brutal Khmer Rouge government was able to come to power.
Secret negotiations led to an agreement between the United States and North Vietnam which guarenteed the withdrawal of U.S. troops. After the treaty was signed in 1973 and American troops were withdrawn, the U.S. was limited to supplying South Vietnam forces and giving air support. The fighting continued, and on April 17, 1975, Saigon was captured by North Vietnamese forces and renamed Ho Chi Minh City, ending the Vietnam War.
