Table of Contents

3-4: Vocab

5-6: Early Years of Vietnam

7-8: 1968

9-10: Later Years of Vietnam

11: 1960s Culture

12-13: Vietnam Timeline

14: Nixon's Presidency

15: Ford and Carter's Presidency

16: Reagan's Presidency

17-19: George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton Presidency

Ho Chi Minh: President of North Vietnam 1954-1969

Dien Bien Phu: decisive engagement int he first Indochina War

Geneva Accords: an agreement that temporarily separated Vietnam into 2 zones

Ngo Dinh Diem: he joined a gov't with the U.S. support, but lost it when he imprisoned and murdered many Buddhists

Vietcong: a member of the communist guerrilla movement in Vietnam

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution: gave LBJ power to oppose communist aggression in Southeast Asia

Ho Chi Minh Trail: a military route by North Vietnam to supply the Vietcong

Napalm: flammable liquid used in war; it sticks to skin and gives severe burns when lit on fire Pentagon Papers: U.S. Department of Defense history in military and political involvement in Vietnam War

War Powers Act: checks the President's powers before committing the U.S. to war

Agent Orange: an herbicide used by the U.S. to eliminate trees and crops in their way

Credibility Gap: difference between what is said, promised, and what happens or is true

Vietnamization: U.S. withdrawing troops and transferring that responsibility to the South Vietnam gov't

Silent Majority: a term used by Richard Nixon for the people that supported his policy and those that demonstrated against

My Lai Massacre: soldiers were on a search and destroy mission but it ended up being a mass murder of unarmed civilians

Kent State University: 4 students were killed and 9 were injured in a shooting by the Ohio National Guard during an open fire demonstration

Early Years of Vietnam

The U.S got involved because we wanted to prevent the spread of communism, especially to South Vietnam. Robert McNamara was the Secretary of Defense and ordered a story on the U.S. role in Indochina, which eventually got leaked: The Pentagon Papers. The Gulf of Tonkin resolution allowed JBJ to take any means necessary to retaliate to maintain peace and and security in southeast Asia. The draft was unfair because minorities were drafted right out of high school, and those with medical issues had to go.

Early Years of Vietnam

Fighting in Vietnam was different than other wars because it was more of a guerrilla organization rather than "traditional" armies, and also because it wasn't a war to take over territories but to fight an uprising. The U.S. support was weakened and decreased because of the Tet Offensive, which is the U.S. causing a mass casualty on the Vietnamese; the U.S. lost support because the public thought we weren't being aggressive towards the Vietnamese.

1968

MLK was assassinated by James Earl Ray at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN on April 4th, 1968. Bobby Kennedy was campaigning in Indianapolis when he announced MLK's death, but he was then assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after winning primaries in the election.

1968

The Tet Offensive was when communist forces attacked South Vietnam, and the U.S. applied force which caused us to lose public support from January 30-September 23, 1968. Walter Cronkite was a CBS news anchor and he was relied on by many Americans for information.

Later Years of Vietnam

Nixon's strategy on Vietnam was Vietnamization, which was to end all U.S. involvement in the war. It reduced the number of U.S. troops by training the South Vietnamese. At Kent State, students were protesting the Cambodia bombing by the U.S., and the Ohio National Guardsmen on campus shot and killed 4 students with 9 injured. William Laws Calley Jr. was convicted for the My Lai Massacre. The U.S. left Vietnam on March 29th, 1973.

Later Years of Vietnam

The soldiers returned home and were portrayed as "baby killers", "psychos", "drug addicts", and "war mongers"; they were treated the exact opposite of what you would expect a soldier that just cam home from war to be treated. 200-250 thousand South Vietnamese soldiers died in the war, and 304,000 Americans were wounded. The U.S. spent $168 billion in the war which includes $111 billion on military operations and $28.5 billion on economic and military aide to Ho Chi Minh cCity in the Saigon regime.

1960s Culture

A hippie was a person that was a part of a countercultural youth movement that opposed nuclear weapons in Vietnam, criticizing middle class, and they embraced Eastern philosophy and were usually eco-friendly while promoting psychedelic drugs.