Causes of the Vietnam War 1. 1954 Geneva Accords – after winning independence from France, Vietnam was divided into North (communist/Ho Chi Minh) and South (not-communist/Ngo Dinh Diem); the plan was to unify the country through general elections in the future (elections never took place since Ho Chi Minh would have won) 2. Vietnamese Civil War – North and South Vietnam begin a Civil War in the 1950s; rebels in the South known as Vietcong fought to overthrow Diem’s government; Ike and JFK gave significant financial and military aid to support South Vietnam’s government using the Domino Theory as justification (if Vietnam fell to communism, so would the rest of Southeast Asia) 3. Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (8/64) – after two American boats were attacked by North Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin, Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution giving the president a “blank check” to do whatever was necessary to protect American interests in Vietnam (war was never officially declared) War Strategies 4. Escalation to 1968 – in 1965, the US began Operation Rolling Thunder by bombing North Vietnam (more bombs would be dropped on Vietnam then by both sides in WW2); later that year ground troops entered the war and by 1968 the US built up its military force in Vietnam to roughly 500,000 troops; the basic military goal was to kill enough Vietnamese so they would give up (war of attrition, not a war of conquest) Divisions at Home 5. Hawks v. Doves – early in the war, most of the American public supported the war; beginning in the late 1960s, a clear division emerged in the country:  Hawks – supported any effort to fight communism in the world and feared any sign of US weakness would bolster the Soviets  Doves – opposed the war on a number of grounds including the death of Americans, the financial cost, a lack of trust in the message from the government (credibility gap), and the feeling that it was a small civil war in Vietnam that did not affect the US  The greatest opposition came from young people on college campuses who might be at risk of being drafted; many young people avoided the draft (legally and illegally) Election of 1968 6. 1968 Democratic National Convention – LBJ decides not to run for re-election because of the problems created by Vietnam; LBJ’s VP Hubert Humphrey wins the Democratic nomination, but the story of the DNC was the violent rioting outside the hall between antiwar protestors and police intent on keeping order; Democrats and Humphrey were weakened by the disorder as Americans tire of the protests of the 1960s 7. Nixon – Richard Nixon was nominated as the Republican candidate promising a “secret plan” to win the war and restoration of law and order; George Wallace ran on the American Independence Party ticket against integration and war protests; Nixon won a relatively close popular vote but 57% percent of Americans (silent majority/Joe Six Packs) voted for Nixon or Wallace showing significant support for an end to the stormy 1960s Nixon’s War 8. Vietnamization – Nixon began Vietnamization or turning the war over to the South Vietnamese and by 1972 there were fewer than 30,000 American troops in Vietnam; he did expand the air war and bombed neighboring Cambodia and Laos to weaken North Vietnamese supply lines; he sought “Peace with Honor” and did not want the US to lose a war 9. 26th Amendment (1971) – reduced the voting age to 18 Credibility Gap 10. Kent St (1970) – protests over the expansion of the war into Cambodia result in 4 students being killed when National Guard troops shot into a crowd 11. Pentagon Papers (1971) – a study of US policy in Vietnam that was leaked by Daniel Ellsburg to The New York Times; it included evidence of several instances of outright lies or misleading information the government had presented to the public regarding Vietnam 12. NY Times v US (1971) – President Nixon tried to prevent the publication of the Pentagon Papers, but the Supreme Court ruled in favor of freedom of the Press End of the Vietnam War 13. 1973 Paris Peace Accords – in 1973 the US, North Vietnam, and South Vietnam agreed to a cease fire; the US promised to help South Vietnam if hostilities resumed; by 1975 North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam, the US did not re-enter the war 14. War Powers Act (1973) – Congress passed a law over Nixon’s veto stating that the president must inform Congress within 48 hours if troops are sent abroad and they can only stay for 60 days without congressional approval (there is a 30 withdrawal period); unclear if the law in constitutional