VIETNAM WAR.
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Essay Subject:
Examines American foreign & diplomatic policy toward Vietnam War; effects of American public opinion; history; policies of 4 U.S. Presidents.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Examines American foreign & diplomatic policy toward Vietnam War; effects of American public opinion; history; policies of 4 U.S. Presidents.
Paper Introduction:
AMERICAN POLICY TOWARD THE VIETNAM WAR AND PUBLIC OPINION
This research paper examines American foreign and diplomatic policy toward the Vietnam War and the effects of American public opinion on that policy.
From the late 1940s American policy toward Vietnam was dictated by Cold War considerations --i.e. the imperative need as perceived by American foreign policymakers to contain communist expansion in French Indochina, and, after 1954, to prevent a communist takeover in South Vietnam. Up until the escalation of American military involvement in the Vietnam War under President Lyndon Johnson and for some time thereafter, American public opinion was supportive of the government's Vietnam policy. As, however, American casualties mounted and the indeterminable
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the late s American policy toward Vietnam was dictated communist takeover in South Vietnam Up the government's Vietnam policy As however American Tetoffensive in early Attitudes of influential elites of thewar by the Johnson collapse of South Vietnam gradually War II in the th century the United Statespursued means but also by war in militarily and diplomaticallymany times in Central America and the commitments in Europe until German advances forcedit to intervene in the s While European nations to Karnow there was little inclination in America fordominating ii TheVietnamese had a long history of resistance to independence from France astheir ancestors had fought to Vietnam ruthlessly iv After Japan occupied southern Indochina factor in the Japanese decision September when Ho who founded in them and the Vietminh President worse off than they wereat the beginning vi After the Vietnamesenationalists On February the United did not want to destabilizethe French government front in the Western struggle to contain Asian tab viii However the French known as la guerre sale vital interest of the United States ifsomeone sets menaced the French fort at Dienbienphu on the Vietnam-Laosborder intervention Johnson then SenateMajority Leader and Matthew action in Indochina After Josef Stalin died in and Russia agreed with France at the Geneva Conferencein July but in a separate statement The British and later the Frenchbore the onus of reaching United States Britain France Australia NewZealand Pakistan the French withdrawal from Indochina and the toward helping its new leader theCatholic non-communist nationalist Ngo Dinh Americanencouragement refused to participate in the Edmonds said he placed numerous family members in high the regime Diemremained oblivious to the need distant future to undertake the difficult task ofidentifying South Vietnam Communist cadres remained in the South politicalmurders increased from in to in xvi In December Vietnam Quagmire Ambiguities and contradictions characterized attacks and influence among thepeasantry grew The United States up inLaos but Ambassador Averell Harriman in arranged a War American officials in Saigon and in Washington was the Strategic Hamlet Program underwhich to tighten the control of the wars of liberation Kennedy became even more in Vietnam He rejected the recommendations of General to South Vietnam and to increase on November xx In American pilots began flying January two were shot down and two morewere damaged by failed to make effective use of American air support Although escalated into further demonstrationsand repressive the horrifying spectacle ofsaffron-robed Buddhist monks setting fire overthrowDiem which occurred on November Both inVietnam by the media a survey disclosed near the Barry Goldwater and other Republicans lobbied for morevigorous networks commentary critical of theofficial line more pronounced as the United States archaic family dictatorship xxiii Reporters such progress of the war and feltthere was undue optimism about is no way of really knowing what he would have LBJ told Lodge I am not as well as stepped up communist presidentialelections were over to appear neither soft on After one real and a second confusing Congressional votes in the Houseand in the shore installations which he had authorized Rolling Thunder the bombing of North Vietnam byAmerican and eventually reached a peak of in ground invasion of North Vietnam or more destructivebombing of group of pacifists and others opposed U S policy in Vietnam xxx In early demonstrations in Washington and other cities OnMarch attended a grew almostin proportion to the escalation of the conflict years of theJohnson administration the antiwar protest and others more militanttactics Herring xxxiii Nevertheless public support for the war declined war LBJ suffered from a to pay for thewar xxxv He feared that greater Karnow pointed out under JFK the pattern of deception to unprecedentedheights including the Pentagon's was the first living room' war a Vietcong suspect in cold blood werepresented on percentindicated that TV made them nonetheless led to claimsby racial and ethnic minorities mounted The body bags came home in an the American war effort told LBJ in May opinion leaders including Senators William Fulbright surprise offensive during the Tetholiday beginning on January give some very serious thought to up xl Clifford with the helpof the Wise Men which finally ledto the Paris Peace talks which were stalled bombing pauses directly andthrough intermediaries Russian Americansunderestimated as McNamara later admitted atleast most of them grew weary Korean War Nixon's War and the American Public peace terms which wouldenable the South Kissinger and Nixon came to office determined NguyenVan Thieu would have a reasonable chance of in showed that the public was inclined togive the movement was disorganized and leaderless xliii to Wells participants were predominantly white middle class advantage of the growingSino-Soviet split They pursued the opening to formulas to induce the North Vietnamese to cease infiltration which Kissinger finally conceded over Thieu's intensified air raids on theHanoi Haiphong region His students at Kent State and Nixon's fall from power due to the Watergatescandal effectively sealed was contrary to the American national interest Continuation ofthat treasure casualties and dividedpublic opinion American public support for a York Random House Brown Weldon A American World New York Simon Schuster American Imagination ed D Michael Shafer Boston Lyndon Johnson New York Knopf Halberstam David The Making of Knopf Karnow Stanley Vietnam A History New York of Vietnam New York Random House Morrison Wilbur H the AmericanImagination Boston Beacon Press Wells Tom Greenwood Press Ellen Hammer The Struggle for Indochina Stanford Stanford Role in Vietnam Port Washington Hippocrene Books Karnow and Edmonds Lloyd The Making of a Quagmire New York Vietnam Chicago Ivan R Dee Michael Beschloss Within America's Battle Over Vietnam Berkeley University of California York Knopf Karnow Edmonds McNamara Gardner policytoward the Vietnam War and the effects of contain communist expansion in French Indochina Lyndon Johnson and for some time thereafter support for theAmerican war effort in domestic divisions over the war More importantly the American the presidency of RichardNixon Public support Vietnam in particular were oflittle interest or consequence to developing its vast continental resourcesand fulfilling its Manifest Destiny foreign powers against intervening in the affairs of there Britishnaval hegemony in the Atlantic Ocean enabled the United after the Spanish-American war It also annexed Guam the China which was designed to preserve what was leftof Chinese than a blip on theAmerican consciousness and Laos which together they the white man'sburden' was largely a United States responded by restricting worked with Ho ChiMinh's guerrillas Vietnam TheFrench quickly reasserted their rule in Indochina France has had that country for deemed French cooperation in Europe to be muchmore important than Chace said Secretary of State the Korean War and Chinese communist militaryintervention per annum for the French war effortin Indochina By Vietminh strategicand tactical errors by the French on April President Dwight Eisenhower viewed last one will go over strikes to be used there unless Foster Dulles and the Navy and China better than a unified country-wide elections which werescheduled for the summer of The United of the spring and summer Zhou Enlai Inthe fall Dulles formed the Southeast was left of non-communist Indochina but it the Eisenhower administration United Statespolicy sects and won by a percent vote andproclaimed himself Chief of State The narrow political foundations of local village elections in order to place supporters inpositions of Ambassador Elbridge Dubrowprophetically advised the State Department in December favor of launching party purges and launching a Vietcong carried out a number of assassinations ofDiemist as communist elements was formed onorders from at plunging into total war xvii afull-scale American military commitment In civil war amongrival communist neutralist which North Vietnam and the UnitedStates largely ignored for the hearts and minds' of the Vietnamese their support xviii This program alienatedmany peasants because of how Vietnam as an important area in which tocounter what his time in office however Kennedy remainedskeptical of the late However the President did accept in-country advisers increased from or in power and initially caught the although it was outnumbered ten to one which began with Nhu's forces interfering Vietnam War did not beginuntil acceded to Ambassador Henry Lodge's recommendation that ARVN coupplotters be proposed coup sharplydivided the Kennedy administration According to Karnow even situation xxii There was no serious political opposition to all was not well in Vietnam during by sending in hand and the officialposition on the as our activities became more and more involved that American military advisers in said that hadPresident Kennedy lived he would have pulled us Kennedyadministrations to help prevent a communist go theway China went xxvi Continuing the war At first Johnson unimaginable cost xxvii Hepresented himself as destroyerin the Tonkin Gulf on August Johnson obtained public thatAmerican naval units were in the Gulf in support more than Americancasualties and to shore up the unstable regime the American commander inVietnam for American combat reinforcements American senioradviser Under Secretary of State George Ball and massive xxix During this period Johnson enjoyed considerable public support forhis of America's growing involvement in that conflict picketed the WhiteHouse Students led by the Students of the spring teach-ins spread like wild fire across with it by the hugedemonstrations they were able ideology and tactics among various shifting of Americans found the antiwar movement particularly February only percent did xxxiv Other factors which really was a war Therewas to be problem to his exorbitant secretiveness labyrinthinemaneuverings a Agreements and partly to deceive success on thebattlefield by encouraging and publishing false or on innocent civilians and the famous news of adults in the experience was actually morelikely to seen sincethe Korean War helped alienate the younger generation but was the inconclusivenature of the the North sent south McNamara to ship the necessary supplies south Lippmann Walter Cronkite and formergenerals James Gavin and Ridgway joined who succeeded McNamara as Secretary of Defense we are in need of war persuaded Johnson to reject Westmoreland's call for war was accompanied by numerous apparent that they had something to gain from openingtalks Vietnamese and Vietcong to fightand die the war Only two nations South Korea and Australia sent he prolonged it by clinging to the belief that hecould otherNorth Vietnamese diplomats negotiated peace terms settlement under whichall POWs would be repatriated SouthVietnamese of massive arms stores and movement was mired in a slump on October and November drewcrowds of or more Kissinger used triangular diplomacy and linkage to much influence on the decisions of theleadership in Hanoi when theUnited States was willing to the war by secret bombingcampaigns in opposition to the war like no other single event during From then on it was only a policies toward Vietnam andthe Vietnam Wars on the the communist drive to unify Vietnam butat s and constrained policy thereafter Endnotes BibliographyBeschloss Michael Ed Taking NY Kernikat Press Chace James Acheson The LLoyd America's War in Vietnam In The Legacy Chicago Ivan R Dee Goldman Indochina Stanford Stanford University Press Herring George C America's Ed The Vietnam War Opposing Viewpoints San Diego Greenhaven York Hippocrene Books Shafer D Michael History New York Penguin Books Anthony O Edmonds York Simon Schuster Chace Ibid Weldon Wilbur H Morrison The Elephant and The the American Imagination ed D MichaelShafer Boston of Vietnam New York Random House Lloyd C Gardner Ibid Bruno Leone Ed The Vietnam War Opposing Vietnam New York Knopf Ibid Edmonds Gardner AMERICAN POLICY TOWARD THE VIETNAM WAR AND PUBLIC OPINION This byCold War considerations i e the imperative need untilthe escalation of American military casualties mounted and the indeterminable nature of the conflictbecame manifest as well as publicopinion generally were influenced by the administration It later became impatient with eroded and then virtuallyevaporated Pre Background an isolationist foreign policy vis-a-vis events and the MexicanWar of the s Caribbean region as it has there in and again in In vied forspheres of influence on the Asian continent the foreign territories i According to foreign invaders By aseries of steps between and the French oust the Chinese from Vietnam from the in June Chace said theway was open for them to toopen hostilities against the United States and its western allies the Indochinese Communist Party andthe wartime Franklin Roosevelt opposed the return of French war the United States despite seriousreservations about French colonial policy States recognized the puppetregime headed by emperor Bao as it was preparing to make concessions to and globalcommunism Beginning in late June the United position deteriorated due said Edmonds the dirty war ix Vietnam Policy Under Eisenhower up a row of dominoes and which fell to them on June Ridgway Army Chief of Staff opposed thehawks in March the new Soviet leadership wasinterested in easing world to divide Vietnam along the th said that it would view with great concern any renewal a compromise settlement at Geneva where Dullesrefused even to Philippines and Thailand SEATO represented anAmerican attempt emergence ofthe United States as the principal international supporter of Diem to consolidate hisauthority With substantial American aid Geneva-agreed elections In Diem staged sham legislative positions gave large plots of lands to fellow Catholics who to institute real reforms despite rumblingsof discontent within the South and supporting alternative leadership xiv In the In May the communist centralcommittee in North Vietnam authorized the political arm of the Vietcong the National the Vietnam policy ofPresident John Kennedy According to Karnow searched for means of counteringcommunist cease-fire therewith the Soviets This resulted including Kennedy came to place great the plan was to corral Saigon government over rural areas and local government determined as Cold War tensions increased overBerlin and Cuba in Maxwell Taylor and NationalSecurity Advisor Walt Rostow supplies of helicopters transport aircraft helicopters in support of SouthVietnamese Army ARVN operations The the Vietcong at the battle of Ap American casualties were still low Vietnam burst upon theAmerican actions by the Diem regime against American advice to themselves on the streets ofSaigon xxi One Diems were killed Thecontroversy over whether end of that of Americans were paying pursuit of the war including sending American troops Halberstam said In Vietnam there was a sharp and stepped up its commitment to a new as Halberstam Homer Bigart Peter Arnett it at headquarters in Saigon andWashington xxiv done Escalation of the War under Johnson and Public going to loseVietnam I am not going to be insurgency inthe South produced pressures from his military Communism nor frighteninglyready to take the phantom attack which probablynever occurred by North Senate He ordered retaliatory air strikes against Inresponse to further Vietcong attacks including one on American forces planes During the spring and summer December xxviii Johnson chose a middle course betweenwithdrawal which was areas close to the Chinese border the Vietnam War prior to most Americans the pace of protest against the war mounted InFebruary middle teach-in on the war at Ann Arbororganized by University xxxii Although thenation's college youth turned overwhelmingly movement was not decisive in causingpublic disenchantment with the war said public opinion polls make According to oneGallup Poll percent approved of LBJ's credibility gap because Gardner said hechose openness would threaten appropriationsfor his cherished growing militarycommitment in Vietnam was efforts often amounting to self-deception as one in which the bloodand gore of the war including the evening news on television Edmonds however cautionsthat according to more likely to oppose it that they were bearing unfairly the bruntof conscription acceleratingstream The more troops the United there continues tobe no sign that the bombing Mike Mansfield George Aiken Robert Byrd and Eugene was a military defeat for thecommunists but how we explain saying that the enemy did Acheson and other old Cold Warriors on which during the remainder ofJohnson's term British French and others to opennegotiations with Ho's government the power of nationalism tomotivate of such a long inconclusive struggle American diplomacy never In the presidential campaign Nixon said Vietnamese government to survive for a decent interval Nixon's to achieve what Nixoncalled Peace With surviving the expectedcommunist onslaught During Vietnamization the phasedwithdrawal new administration a chance to extricate itself However the largest antiwar demonstrations to date reflecting the widespread and mainstream China and the Soviet-American nuclear arms detente negotiations ofmen and arms into South Vietnam strenuousobjections in To strengthen the American diplomatic position and decision to send a joint ARVN American airassault into communist-controlled JacksonState led to nationwide protests in the fate of South Vietnam policy led to Americanization of the war itself prolonged and inconclusivemilitary engagement in or Prelude to Disaster The American Edmonds Anthony O The War Beacon Press Gardner Lloyd C Pay Any Price Lyndon a Quagmire New York Random Penguin Books Kimball Jeffrey Nixon's Vietnam War Lawrence The Elephant and The Tiger The Full Story The War Within America's Battle Over Vietnam Berkeley UniversityPress Edmonds James Chace Acheson The Secretary of State NY Kernikat Press Edmonds Brown Karnow Ibid Edmonds Gardner America's War in Vietnam The End Random House and Halberstam Robert Ed Taking Charge The Johnson White House Press George C Herring America's McNamara Wells Jeffrey Kimball Nixon's Vietnam American public opinion on thatpolicy From and after to prevent a American publicopinion was supportive of Vietnam declined especially after the communist public lost confidence in the conduct for the Nixon administration's attempt to forestallthe to American policymakers and the Americanpublic prior to World which included territorial expansionin North America by peaceful Latin America Since the United States has intervened States to remainfree of major military HawaiianIslands and part of Samoa sovereignty and to keep China open for American traders According prior to the closing days of World War II called French Indochina Accordingto Hammer Vietnamese nationalists fought for smokescreen to cover an especially vicious brand ofimperialism France exploited the export of highoctane gasoline to Japan which was a against the Japanese were present in Hanoi on resulting in theIndochina War of between nearly one hundred years and the people are the conflict between France and Dean Acheson whose adviceon Indonchina President Harry Truman followed persuaded Acheson and Truman that the Indochina war wasanother it was picking up nearly percent of the and war weariness in France where thewar became the preservation of a non-communist South Vietnam as a very quickly x However whenVietminh forces Congressor the British would support military Air Chiefs of Staff The Britishspurned Dulles' call for united neighbor xi To the discomfiture ofthe Vietminh China States agreed to abide by theterms of the agreement of producedserious challenges to American diplomacy Asia Treaty Organization SEATO themembers of which were the was little more thana fig leaf to cover toward South Vietnam was devoted arigged referendum in In that same year Diem with Diem's rule were laid during thisperiod local power xiii Corruption plagued that we may beforced in the not too brutal landreform program About one million Catholics fled to village officials xv Karnow said the number of such Hanoi President Kennedy and the The situation inthe countryside worsened as Viet Cong and other non-communist factions flared the rest of the Vietnam people One such programwhich was in full swing by it was administered by Diem's brother Nhu whoused it Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev called prospects of employing American ground troops their recommendation to send moreAmerican military advisers to more than at the time of Kennedy's assassination Vietcong at a tacticaldisadvantage However in the Vietcong defeated anARVN division which with peacefuldemonstrations in Hue in May and the summer of when they first saw given the green light to proceed with their plan to with all the attention paid to events the war except from the rightwhere Nixon Senator reports totheir newspapers magazines and other the polarization had become with that of a suspicious unresponsive and thefield were increasingly uneasy about the out of Vietnam xxv However there takeover of South Vietnam Shortly after assuming office political instability in Saigon marked byarmy coups during proceeded cautiouslybecause according to Beschloss he wished until the a peace candidate against Republican challengerGoldwater and won re-election easily authorization torespond as he saw fit from lopsided of secret South Vietnameseraids on North Vietnamese in South Vietnam Johnsonauthorized Operation force levels therereached by the end of escalation Herejected calls for a Vietnam policy According to Leone although a small Aslate as only percent of poll respondents expressed opposition to for a Democratic Society and othergroups held small antiwar America'scampuses xxxi Thereafter Herring said the antiwar movement to organize in the last two elements some of whichfavored peaceful and conventional means of itsradical and hippie' elements more obnoxious than the war itself wereresponsible for disenchantment with the no reserve call up no budget request no tax sanctimonious glossing over reality the plain distortionof truth xxxvi As the American public xxxvii TheJohnson administration carried this inflated body counts ofenemy casualties and desertions Vietnam photograph of South VietnameseGeneral Nguyen Loan shooting increase their support for the war and only its effectswere somewhat muted by college deferments which war itself which by had turned into a militarystalemate Casualties who turned into a insidecritic of xxxix A growing list ofinfluential American the opposition to America's Vietnampolicy The North Vietnamese and Vietcong told LBJ on February we should manymore troops and possibly an emergency call more troops Another pause in the bombing ensued attemptsby the administration often accompanied by Even then there was little give in their position The for their beliefs and values xli The American people or combatforces as compared with during the bomb the North Vietnamese into accepting in Paris between August and January and the South Vietnamese government of weapons proceeded on schedule Public opinion polls xlii Kimball said the left wing of the The proceedings were orderly and dignified According bring anend to the Vietnam War They attempted to take The Johnson administration had tried bombing pauses and variousdiplomatic allow North Vietnamese forces to remain inSouth Vietnam Laos and Cambodia and later theNixon administration The killings of question of whenand not how the war would end assumption that a communist takeover of SouthVietnam great cost to the United States in Charge The Johnson White House Tapes New Secretary of State Who Created the The Vietnam War in the Eric F The Tragedy of Longest War The United States and Vietnam New York Press McNamara Robert S In Retrospect The Tragedy and Lessons Ed The Legacy The Vietnam War in The War in Vietnam Westport A Brown Prelude to Disaster The American Tiger The Full Story of theVietnam War New York Beacon Press Karnow David Halberstam Pay Any Price Lyndon Johnson and the Wars for Viewpoints San Diego Greenhaven Press Tom Wells The War Eric F Goldman The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson New research paper examines American foreign and diplomatic as perceived by Americanforeign policymakers to involvement in the Vietnam War underPresident through the mass media American public antiwar movement in the UnitedStates which both reflected and sharpened the slowpace of American withdrawal from the war during Events in Southeast Asia in general and outside the WesternHemisphere It devoted itself Under the Monroe Doctrine of the United Stateswarned deemednecessary to protect its commercial and strategic interests the Pacific the United States acquired the Philippines as acolony United States pursued anOpen Door Policy toward Edmonds Vietnam was no more took control of Vietnam Cambodia firstcentury A D iii Edmonds said the French version of obtain the oil reserves of the Dutch EastIndies v The inDecember American intelligence officers who had Vietminh proclaimed the Democratic Republic of colonialcontrol over Indochina He said in in Indochina recognized France'sposition there because it Dai which the French established in During Washingtonover allied policy toward Germany vii The outbreak of States extended anaverage of million in military aid to acombination of fierce determination on the part of the As he explained his falling domino theory to the press knocks over the first one itis certain that the Eisenhower refused to permitAmerican ground troops or even air the administration who included Vice President Nixon Secretary ofState John tensions Karnow said that a divided Vietnamsuited parallel between a communistnorth and non-communist south pending of aggression xii The Indochina crisis shake the hand of Chinese Foreign Minister to create the illusion of a collective security umbrellaover what SouthVietnam During the remainder of and support Diem frustrated coupsplotted against him crushed dissident elections to placate the Americans had migrated from thenorth and abolished Vietnamese military and and an unsuccessfulcoup attempt in November American North plans for unification of the country were temporarilyshelved in armed struggle' in the South thatsame year local Liberation Front whichcontained some non-communist as well he rejected withdrawal fromVietnam yet he balked control and strengthening the Diem government while avoiding in an unstable coalition government inLaos the territorial integrity of faith in counterinsurgency programs including measures'to win peasants into armed stockades therebydepriving the Vietcong of and army corruption Kennedy increasingly saw to ensure that South Vietnam did not fall tocommunism Throughout to send combat troops there in and maritime equipment xix The numberof U S helicopters increased ARVN'smobility and fire Bac in the Mekong Delta where consciousness in largely because of television reporting ofthe Buddhist crisis Gardner commented that for most Americans the step led to another and finally in late September Kennedy or not to support the little or no attention' to the ifnecessary The American press in Saigon contributed to public awarenessthat unfortunate polarization of the press reporting on the one high in monetary and military aid and prestige and NeilSheehan and Charles Mohr reported Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara later Opinion Johnson inherited the commitment of the Eisenhower and the President who saw Southeast Asia and most of his civilianadvisers to escalate nation into a war of Vietnamese torpedo boats on an American NorthVietnamese targets He failed to disclose to Congress or the atPleiku on February which inflicted of Johnson acceded tothe requests of General William Westmoreland urged upon him at that time by only one inner for fear of starting WorldWar III either supported or were unaware class and radical womens' peace groups of Michigan faculty members Wells said duringthe rest against the war and theantiwar movement served to dramatize discontent The movement itself was sharply dividedover abundantly clear that a majority handling of the war in butby to go to war without making it plain that it Great Society programs Goldman attributed much of thePresident's kept secret partly because it violated theGeneva well as misleading of the public to document its unseemliest aspects such as the use ofnapalm a Harris Poll for those few who did watch thetelevision xxxviii The increased draft calls which reached levels not and combat The primary cause of domestic war exhaustion States poured in the morereinforcements has reduced Hanoi's will to resist or herability McCarthy and RobertKennedy George Kennan Walter a great psychological victory for them As Clark Clifford not take a victory and yet LBJ reliedfor advice on the by North and South Vietnamese intransigence Johnson's escalation of the The North Vietnamese held firm until when it became a people in this case the North succeeded in winning much foreign supportfor he had a secret plan toend the war Actually National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho and Honor in Vietnam i e a peace of American ground forces and the turning over to the from the war Wells said the antiwar the Moratorium andMobilization Against the War held nature of opposition to the war Nixon and Little evidence hassurfaced that any of this had An armistice became possible only toshore up ARVN Nixon in widened zones in Cambodia in February galvanized the which Kimball said more than students participated xliv which fell in Conclusion Four American presidents conducted their in whichsucceeded temporarily in blunting commitment to Vietnam began to decline in thelate Role in Vietnam Port Washington In Vietnam Westport Greenwood Press Gardner Johnson and the Wars for Vietnam House Hammer Ellen The Struggle for University Press of Kansas Leone Bruno of the Vietnam War New University of California Press Stanley Karnow Vietnam A Who Created the AmericanWorld New Karnow Edmonds Ibid Karnow Ibid of Exceptionalism in The Legacy The Vietnam War in S McNamara In Retrospect The Tragedy and Lessons Tapes New York Simon Schuster Edmonds xxi Longest War The United States and War Lawrence University Press ofKansas Kimball the late s American policy toward Vietnam was dictated communist takeover in South Vietnam Up the government's Vietnam policy As however American Tetoffensive in early Attitudes of influential elites of thewar by the Johnson collapse of South Vietnam gradually War II in the th century the United Statespursued means but also by war in militarily and diplomaticallymany times in Central America and the commitments in Europe until German advances forcedit to intervene in the s While European nations to Karnow there was little inclination in America fordominating ii TheVietnamese had a long history of resistance to independence from France astheir ancestors had fought to Vietnam ruthlessly iv After Japan occupied southern Indochina factor in the Japanese decision September when Ho who founded in them and the Vietminh President worse off than they wereat the beginning vi After the Vietnamesenationalists On February the United did not want to destabilizethe French government front in the Western struggle to contain Asian tab viii However the French known as la guerre sale vital interest of the United States ifsomeone sets menaced the French fort at Dienbienphu on the Vietnam-Laosborder intervention Johnson then SenateMajority Leader and Matthew action in Indochina After Josef Stalin died in and Russia agreed with France at the Geneva Conferencein July but in a separate statement The British and later the Frenchbore the onus of reaching United States Britain France Australia NewZealand Pakistan the French withdrawal from Indochina and the toward helping its new leader theCatholic non-communist nationalist Ngo Dinh Americanencouragement refused to participate in the Edmonds said he placed numerous family members in high the regime Diemremained oblivious to the need distant future to undertake the difficult task ofidentifying South Vietnam Communist cadres remained in the South politicalmurders increased from in to in xvi In December Vietnam Quagmire Ambiguities and contradictions characterized attacks and influence among thepeasantry grew The United States up inLaos but Ambassador Averell Harriman in arranged a War American officials in Saigon and in Washington was the Strategic Hamlet Program underwhich to tighten the control of the wars of liberation Kennedy became even more in Vietnam He rejected the recommendations of General to South Vietnam and to increase on November xx In American pilots began flying January two were shot down and two morewere damaged by failed to make effective use of American air support Although escalated into further demonstrationsand repressive the horrifying spectacle ofsaffron-robed Buddhist monks setting fire overthrowDiem which occurred on November Both inVietnam by the media a survey disclosed near the Barry Goldwater and other Republicans lobbied for morevigorous networks commentary critical of theofficial line more pronounced as the United States archaic family dictatorship xxiii Reporters such progress of the war and feltthere was undue optimism about is no way of really knowing what he would have LBJ told Lodge I am not as well as stepped up communist presidentialelections were over to appear neither soft on After one real and a second confusing Congressional votes in the Houseand in the shore installations which he had authorized Rolling Thunder the bombing of North Vietnam byAmerican and eventually reached a peak of in ground invasion of North Vietnam or more destructivebombing of group of pacifists and others opposed U S policy in Vietnam xxx In early demonstrations in Washington and other cities OnMarch attended a grew almostin proportion to the escalation of the conflict years of theJohnson administration the antiwar protest and others more militanttactics Herring xxxiii Nevertheless public support for the war declined war LBJ suffered from a to pay for thewar xxxv He feared that greater Karnow pointed out under JFK the pattern of deception to unprecedentedheights including the Pentagon's was the first living room' war a Vietcong suspect in cold blood werepresented on percentindicated that TV made them nonetheless led to claimsby racial and ethnic minorities mounted The body bags came home in an the American war effort told LBJ in May opinion leaders including Senators William Fulbright surprise offensive during the Tetholiday beginning on January give some very serious thought to up xl Clifford with the helpof the Wise Men which finally ledto the Paris Peace talks which were stalled bombing pauses directly andthrough intermediaries Russian Americansunderestimated as McNamara later admitted atleast most of them grew weary Korean War Nixon's War and the American Public peace terms which wouldenable the South Kissinger and Nixon came to office determined NguyenVan Thieu would have a reasonable chance of in showed that the public was inclined togive the movement was disorganized and leaderless xliii to Wells participants were predominantly white middle class advantage of the growingSino-Soviet split They pursued the opening to formulas to induce the North Vietnamese to cease infiltration which Kissinger finally conceded over Thieu's intensified air raids on theHanoi Haiphong region His students at Kent State and Nixon's fall from power due to the Watergatescandal effectively sealed was contrary to the American national interest Continuation ofthat treasure casualties and dividedpublic opinion American public support for a York Random House Brown Weldon A American World New York Simon Schuster American Imagination ed D Michael Shafer Boston Lyndon Johnson New York Knopf Halberstam David The Making of Knopf Karnow Stanley Vietnam A History New York of Vietnam New York Random House Morrison Wilbur H the AmericanImagination Boston Beacon Press Wells Tom Greenwood Press Ellen Hammer The Struggle for Indochina Stanford Stanford Role in Vietnam Port Washington Hippocrene Books Karnow and Edmonds Lloyd The Making of a Quagmire New York Vietnam Chicago Ivan R Dee Michael Beschloss Within America's Battle Over Vietnam Berkeley University of California York Knopf Karnow Edmonds McNamara Gardner policytoward the Vietnam War and the effects of contain communist expansion in French Indochina Lyndon Johnson and for some time thereafter support for theAmerican war effort in domestic divisions over the war More importantly the American the presidency of RichardNixon Public support Vietnam in particular were oflittle interest or consequence to developing its vast continental resourcesand fulfilling its Manifest Destiny foreign powers against intervening in the affairs of there Britishnaval hegemony in the Atlantic Ocean enabled the United after the Spanish-American war It also annexed Guam the China which was designed to preserve what was leftof Chinese than a blip on theAmerican consciousness and Laos which together they the white man'sburden' was largely a United States responded by restricting worked with Ho ChiMinh's guerrillas Vietnam TheFrench quickly reasserted their rule in Indochina France has had that country for deemed French cooperation in Europe to be muchmore important than Chace said Secretary of State the Korean War and Chinese communist militaryintervention per annum for the French war effortin Indochina By Vietminh strategicand tactical errors by the French on April President Dwight Eisenhower viewed last one will go over strikes to be used there unless Foster Dulles and the Navy and China better than a unified country-wide elections which werescheduled for the summer of The United of the spring and summer Zhou Enlai Inthe fall Dulles formed the Southeast was left of non-communist Indochina but it the Eisenhower administration United Statespolicy sects and won by a percent vote andproclaimed himself Chief of State The narrow political foundations of local village elections in order to place supporters inpositions of Ambassador Elbridge Dubrowprophetically advised the State Department in December favor of launching party purges and launching a Vietcong carried out a number of assassinations ofDiemist as communist elements was formed onorders from at plunging into total war xvii afull-scale American military commitment In civil war amongrival communist neutralist which North Vietnam and the UnitedStates largely ignored for the hearts and minds' of the Vietnamese their support xviii This program alienatedmany peasants because of how Vietnam as an important area in which tocounter what his time in office however Kennedy remainedskeptical of the late However the President did accept in-country advisers increased from or in power and initially caught the although it was outnumbered ten to one which began with Nhu's forces interfering Vietnam War did not beginuntil acceded to Ambassador Henry Lodge's recommendation that ARVN coupplotters be proposed coup sharplydivided the Kennedy administration According to Karnow even situation xxii There was no serious political opposition to all was not well in Vietnam during by sending in hand and the officialposition on the as our activities became more and more involved that American military advisers in said that hadPresident Kennedy lived he would have pulled us Kennedyadministrations to help prevent a communist go theway China went xxvi Continuing the war At first Johnson unimaginable cost xxvii Hepresented himself as destroyerin the Tonkin Gulf on August Johnson obtained public thatAmerican naval units were in the Gulf in support more than Americancasualties and to shore up the unstable regime the American commander inVietnam for American combat reinforcements American senioradviser Under Secretary of State George Ball and massive xxix During this period Johnson enjoyed considerable public support forhis of America's growing involvement in that conflict picketed the WhiteHouse Students led by the Students of the spring teach-ins spread like wild fire across with it by the hugedemonstrations they were able ideology and tactics among various shifting of Americans found the antiwar movement particularly February only percent did xxxiv Other factors which really was a war Therewas to be problem to his exorbitant secretiveness labyrinthinemaneuverings a Agreements and partly to deceive success on thebattlefield by encouraging and publishing false or on innocent civilians and the famous news of adults in the experience was actually morelikely to seen sincethe Korean War helped alienate the younger generation but was the inconclusivenature of the the North sent south McNamara to ship the necessary supplies south Lippmann Walter Cronkite and formergenerals James Gavin and Ridgway joined who succeeded McNamara as Secretary of Defense we are in need of war persuaded Johnson to reject Westmoreland's call for war was accompanied by numerous apparent that they had something to gain from openingtalks Vietnamese and Vietcong to fightand die the war Only two nations South Korea and Australia sent he prolonged it by clinging to the belief that hecould otherNorth Vietnamese diplomats negotiated peace terms settlement under whichall POWs would be repatriated SouthVietnamese of massive arms stores and movement was mired in a slump on October and November drewcrowds of or more Kissinger used triangular diplomacy and linkage to much influence on the decisions of theleadership in Hanoi when theUnited States was willing to the war by secret bombingcampaigns in opposition to the war like no other single event during From then on it was only a policies toward Vietnam andthe Vietnam Wars on the the communist drive to unify Vietnam butat s and constrained policy thereafter Endnotes BibliographyBeschloss Michael Ed Taking NY Kernikat Press Chace James Acheson The LLoyd America's War in Vietnam In The Legacy Chicago Ivan R Dee Goldman Indochina Stanford Stanford University Press Herring George C America's Ed The Vietnam War Opposing Viewpoints San Diego Greenhaven York Hippocrene Books Shafer D Michael History New York Penguin Books Anthony O Edmonds York Simon Schuster Chace Ibid Weldon Wilbur H Morrison The Elephant and The the American Imagination ed D MichaelShafer Boston of Vietnam New York Random House Lloyd C Gardner Ibid Bruno Leone Ed The Vietnam War Opposing Vietnam New York Knopf Ibid Edmonds Gardner
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