In Addition to Parts of Vietnam What Other Areas

The Vietnam War was a long, plush and divisive conflict that pitted the communist regime of North Vietnam against S Vietnam and its principal ally, the U.s.a.. The disharmonize was intensified past the ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. More than 3 one thousand thousand people (including over 58,000 Americans) were killed in the Vietnam State of war, and more one-half of the dead were Vietnamese civilians.

Opposition to the war in the U.s.a. bitterly divided Americans, even after President Richard Nixon signed the Paris Peace Accords and ordered the withdrawal of U.South. forces in 1973. Communist forces ended the war past seizing control of Due south Vietnam in 1975, and the country was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the post-obit year.

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Roots of the Vietnam War

Vietnam, a nation in Southeast Asia on the eastern edge of the Indochinese peninsula, had been under French colonial rule since the 19th century.

During Earth War II, Japanese forces invaded Vietnam. To fight off both Japanese occupiers and the French colonial administration, politician Ho Chi Minh—inspired past Chinese and Soviet communism—formed the Viet Minh, or the League for the Independence of Vietnam.

Following its 1945 defeat in Earth War 2, Japan withdrew its forces from Vietnam, leaving the French-educated Emperor Bao Dai in control. Seeing an opportunity to seize control, Ho's Viet Minh forces immediately rose up, taking over the northern city of Hanoi and declaring a Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) with Ho as president.

Seeking to regain control of the region, France backed Emperor Bao and set up the country of Vietnam in July 1949, with the city of Saigon equally its upper-case letter.

Both sides wanted the aforementioned thing: a unified Vietnam. But while Ho and his supporters wanted a nation modeled after other communist countries, Bao and many others wanted a Vietnam with shut economic and cultural ties to the West.

When Did the Vietnam War Start?

The Vietnam War and agile U.S. involvement in the war began in 1954, though ongoing disharmonize in the region had stretched back several decades.

After Ho's communist forces took power in the north, armed conflict between northern and southern armies continued until the northern Viet Minh's decisive victory in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954. The French loss at the battle ended almost a century of French colonial rule in Indochina.

The subsequent treaty signed in July 1954 at a Geneva briefing split Vietnam forth the latitude known as the 17th Parallel (17 degrees north latitude), with Ho in control in the Due north and Bao in the South. The treaty also called for nationwide elections for reunification to be held in 1956.

In 1955, all the same, the strongly anti-communist politician Ngo Dinh Diem pushed Emperor Bao bated to become president of the Regime of the Republic of Vietnam (GVN), often referred to during that era every bit Due south Vietnam.

READ More: Vietnam State of war Timeline

The Viet Cong

With the Common cold War intensifying worldwide, the U.s. hardened its policies against whatever allies of the Soviet Union, and by 1955 President Dwight D. Eisenhower had pledged his house support to Diem and Due south Vietnam.

With training and equipment from American armed services and the CIA, Diem's security forces cracked downwardly on Viet Minh sympathizers in the southward, whom he derisively called Viet Cong (or Vietnamese Communist), arresting some 100,000 people, many of whom were brutally tortured and executed.

By 1957, the Viet Cong and other opponents of Diem's repressive regime began fighting dorsum with attacks on authorities officials and other targets, and by 1959 they had begun engaging the Southward Vietnamese army in firefights.

In Dec 1960, Diem'south many opponents inside South Vietnam—both communist and non-communist—formed the National Liberation Front (NLF) to organize resistance to the regime. Though the NLF claimed to be autonomous and that nigh of its members were non communists, many in Washington assumed it was a puppet of Hanoi.

Domino Theory

A squad sent by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to report on conditions in Due south Vietnam advised a build-up of American armed forces, economic and technical help in social club to help Diem face up the Viet Cong threat.

Working under the "domino theory," which held that if one Southeast Asian country cruel to communism, many other countries would follow, Kennedy increased U.South. aid, though he stopped short of committing to a large-scale military intervention.

By 1962, the U.South. military presence in South Vietnam had reached some nine,000 troops, compared with fewer than 800 during the 1950s.

Gulf of Tonkin

A coup by some of his own generals succeeded in toppling and killing Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, in November 1963, three weeks earlier Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

The ensuing political instability in Southward Vietnam persuaded Kennedy'southward successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to further increment U.S. military and economic support.

In Baronial of 1964, later DRV torpedo boats attacked two U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, Johnson ordered the retaliatory bombing of armed forces targets in North Vietnam. Congress shortly passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave Johnson broad war-making powers, and U.S. planes began regular bombing raids, codenamed Operation Rolling Thunder, the post-obit year.

The bombing was non limited to Vietnam; from 1964-1973, the United states covertly dropped two million tons of bombs on neighboring, neutral Lao people's democratic republic during the CIA-led "Underground War" in Laos. The bombing campaign was meant to disrupt the flow of supplies across the Ho Chi Minh trail into Vietnam and to foreclose the ascension of the Pathet Lao, or Lao communist forces. The U.S. bombings made Lao people's democratic republic the nearly heavily bombed country per capita in the world.

In March 1965, Johnson made the conclusion—with solid support from the American public—to send U.S. combat forces into battle in Vietnam. By June, 82,000 combat troops were stationed in Vietnam, and armed forces leaders were calling for 175,000 more by the end of 1965 to shore up the struggling South Vietnamese army.

Despite the concerns of some of his advisers about this escalation, and near the unabridged state of war effort among a growing anti-war movement, Johnson authorized the immediate dispatch of 100,000 troops at the end of July 1965 and another 100,000 in 1966. In add-on to the United States, South Korea, Thailand, Commonwealth of australia and New Zealand likewise committed troops to fight in Due south Vietnam (albeit on a much smaller calibration).

William Westmoreland

In contrast to the air attacks on North Vietnam, the U.S.-South Vietnamese war attempt in the south was fought primarily on the basis, largely under the command of General William Westmoreland, in coordination with the government of General Nguyen Van Thieu in Saigon.

Westmoreland pursued a policy of compunction, aiming to kill as many enemy troops equally possible rather than trying to secure territory. By 1966, large areas of South Vietnam had been designated as "gratuitous-fire zones," from which all innocent civilians were supposed to have evacuated and but enemy remained. Heavy bombing by B-52 aircraft or shelling made these zones uninhabitable, as refugees poured into camps in designated rubber areas near Saigon and other cities.

Fifty-fifty equally the enemy body count (at times exaggerated by U.South. and Southward Vietnamese authorities) mounted steadily, DRV and Viet Cong troops refused to stop fighting, encouraged by the fact that they could easily reoccupy lost territory with manpower and supplies delivered via the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Cambodia and Laos. Additionally, supported by aid from Prc and the Soviet Matrimony, North Vietnam strengthened its air defenses.

Vietnam War Protests

By November 1967, the number of American troops in Vietnam was budgeted 500,000, and U.S. casualties had reached 15,058 killed and 109,527 wounded. As the war stretched on, some soldiers came to mistrust the regime'due south reasons for keeping them there, also as Washington's repeated claims that the war was being won.

Coil to Continue

The later years of the war saw increased physical and psychological deterioration among American soldiers—both volunteers and draftees—including drug use, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), mutinies and attacks by soldiers against officers and noncommissioned officers.

READ MORE: Why Were Vietnam State of war Vets Treated Poorly When They Returned Home

Betwixt July 1966 and December 1973, more than than 503,000 U.S. military personnel deserted, and a robust anti-war movement among American forces spawned violent protests, killings and mass incarcerations of personnel stationed in Vietnam as well as within the United States.

Bombarded by horrific images of the war on their televisions, Americans on the home forepart turned against the war also: In October 1967, some 35,000 demonstrators staged a massive Vietnam War protest outside the Pentagon. Opponents of the war argued that civilians, not enemy combatants, were the main victims and that the United States was supporting a decadent dictatorship in Saigon.

Tet Offensive

Past the stop of 1967, Hanoi's communist leadership was growing impatient besides, and sought to strike a decisive blow aimed at forcing the improve-supplied United States to surrender hopes of success.

On January 31, 1968, some 70,000 DRV forces under General Vo Nguyen Giap launched the Tet Offensive (named for the lunar new year), a coordinated series of fierce attacks on more than 100 cities and towns in Due south Vietnam.

Taken by surprise, U.S. and S Vietnamese forces nonetheless managed to strike back apace, and the communists were unable to concur any of the targets for more than a mean solar day or two.

Reports of the Tet Offensive stunned the U.Due south. public, notwithstanding, especially after news bankrupt that Westmoreland had requested an additional 200,000 troops, despite repeated assurances that victory in the Vietnam War was imminent. With his approval ratings dropping in an ballot year, Johnson chosen a halt to bombing in much of North Vietnam (though bombings continued in the southward) and promised to dedicate the rest of his term to seeking peace rather than reelection.

Johnson's new tack, laid out in a March 1968 speech, met with a positive response from Hanoi, and peace talks between the U.S. and North Vietnam opened in Paris that May. Despite the afterwards inclusion of the South Vietnamese and the NLF, the dialogue presently reached an impasse, and after a bitter 1968 election season marred by violence, Republican Richard M. Nixon won the presidency.

Vietnamization

Nixon sought to deflate the anti-war movement by highly-seasoned to a "silent majority" of Americans who he believed supported the war attempt. In an attempt to limit the book of American casualties, he announced a program called Vietnamization: withdrawing U.Due south. troops, increasing aerial and artillery bombardment and giving the S Vietnamese the preparation and weapons needed to effectively control the ground war.

In add-on to this Vietnamization policy, Nixon continued public peace talks in Paris, calculation college-level underground talks conducted by Secretary of Country Henry Kissinger beginning in the spring of 1968.

The Due north Vietnamese continued to insist on consummate and unconditional U.S. withdrawal—plus the ouster of U.S.-backed General Nguyen Van Thieu—as weather of peace, nevertheless, and as a effect the peace talks stalled.

READ MORE: How the Vietnam State of war Ratcheted Up Under 5 U.s.a. Presidents

My Lai Massacre

The next few years would bring fifty-fifty more carnage, including the horrifying revelation that U.Due south. soldiers had mercilessly slaughtered more than than 400 unarmed civilians in the village of My Lai in March 1968.

After the My Lai Massacre, anti-war protests continued to build as the disharmonize wore on. In 1968 and 1969, in that location were hundreds of protest marches and gatherings throughout the country.

On November 15, 1969, the largest anti-war demonstration in American history took place in Washington, D.C., equally over 250,000 Americans gathered peacefully, calling for withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam.

The anti-war movement, which was peculiarly stiff on college campuses, divided Americans bitterly. For some young people, the war symbolized a form of unchecked authorization they had come to resent. For other Americans, opposing the authorities was considered unpatriotic and treasonous.

As the starting time U.S. troops were withdrawn, those who remained became increasingly angry and frustrated, exacerbating bug with morale and leadership. Tens of thousands of soldiers received dishonorable discharges for desertion, and nearly 500,000 American men from 1965-73 became "typhoon dodgers," with many fleeing to Canada to evade conscription. Nixon ended typhoon calls in 1972, and instituted an all-volunteer ground forces the following year.

Kent State Shooting

In 1970, a joint U.Due south-South Vietnamese operation invaded Cambodia, hoping to wipe out DRV supply bases there. The Due south Vietnamese then led their own invasion of Laos, which was pushed back by N Vietnam.

The invasion of these countries, in violation of international constabulary, sparked a new moving ridge of protests on college campuses across America. During one, on May 4, 1970, at Kent State University in Ohio, National Guardsmen shot and killed four students. At another protest 10 days later, two students at Jackson State University in Mississippi were killed past police force.

Past the end of June 1972, however, later a failed offensive into South Vietnam, Hanoi was finally willing to compromise. Kissinger and N Vietnamese representatives drafted a peace understanding past early autumn, but leaders in Saigon rejected it, and in December Nixon authorized a number of bombing raids against targets in Hanoi and Haiphong. Known as the Christmas Bombings, the raids drew international condemnation.

READ More than: Kent State Shootings: A Timeline of the Tragedy

The Pentagon Papers

A top-clandestine Department of Defense force study of U.S. political and military interest in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967 was published in the New York Times in 1971—shedding calorie-free on how the Nixon administration ramped up disharmonize in Vietnam. The report, leaked to the Times past military analyst Daniel Ellsberg, further eroded support for keeping U.S. forces in Vietnam.

When Did the Vietnam War End?

In January 1973, the United States and Due north Vietnam concluded a terminal peace agreement, catastrophe open hostilities between the two nations. War betwixt North and S Vietnam continued, withal, until April 30, 1975, when DRV forces captured Saigon, renaming information technology Ho Chi Minh City (Ho himself died in 1969).

More than 2 decades of violent disharmonize had inflicted a devastating price on Vietnam's population: After years of warfare, an estimated ii million Vietnamese were killed, while 3 1000000 were wounded and another 12 million became refugees. Warfare had demolished the country'due south infrastructure and economic system, and reconstruction proceeded slowly.

In 1976, Vietnam was unified as the Socialist Democracy of Vietnam, though sporadic violence continued over the next 15 years, including conflicts with neighboring China and Cambodia. Under a broad complimentary market policy put in place in 1986, the economic system began to improve, boosted by oil consign revenues and an influx of foreign capital. Trade and diplomatic relations between Vietnam and the U.S. resumed in the 1990s.

In the U.s., the furnishings of the Vietnam War would linger long after the last troops returned home in 1973. The nation spent more than $120 billion on the disharmonize in Vietnam from 1965-73; this massive spending led to widespread inflation, exacerbated past a worldwide oil crunch in 1973 and skyrocketing fuel prices.

Psychologically, the effects ran even deeper. The war had pierced the myth of American invincibility and had bitterly divided the nation. Many returning veterans faced negative reactions from both opponents of the war (who viewed them as having killed innocent civilians) and its supporters (who saw them as having lost the war), forth with physical harm including the effects of exposure to the toxic herbicide Agent Orange, millions of gallons of which had been dumped by U.S. planes on the dense forests of Vietnam.

In 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was unveiled in Washington, D.C. On it were inscribed the names of 57,939 American men and women killed or missing in the war; afterward additions brought that total to 58,200.