22) Thursday, April 12. Fighting Communism

Story Line: US economic support to Vietnam began in 1950 when President Truman provided France with $100 million in an effort to prevent a Viet Minh victory in Indochina. By the time peace was declared in January 1973, in the Nixon presidency, some 58,000 Americans had died. By 1975, for all the sacrifice, South Vietnam was be absorbed into the communist state of Vietnam. The best and the brightest had lost. Review Questions for Discussion XI   [Lecture 21] Outline [Lecture 23]

Readings for lecture 22 DJ2306200073 - Causes of the Vietnam War JFK on the Bay of Pigs, 1961 JFK, Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 LBJ to the Nation, to Limit the War and not to Run Again, 1968 Charles Mohr on The Tet Offensive, January 1968,NYT Lee Lescaze on The Tet Offensive, February 1968, Washington Post Richard Nixon, to the nation, Vietnamization speech, 1969 Kissinger and Harvard by Mike Kinsley, Harvard Crimson, May 1970

Images for lecture 22: Advisors Arriving in Vietnam Vietnamese Buddhist Monk Immolates Self Establishing a Beachhead "Crop-Dusting" Vietnam-Style Fighting Conditions in Southeast Asia Execution in Vietnam

I-The US involvement in Vietnam–early stages

• France; Viet Minh; Dien Bien Phu (May 5, 1954); 17th parallel: Ngo Dinh Diem; Ho Chi Minh; the Buddhist population

II-The Kennedy legacy

• General Maxwell Taylor and Walt Rostow; Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Secretary of Defense McNamara; Undersecretary of State George Ball; economist John Kenneth Galbraith

1) The Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missiles Crisis

2) The Berlin Wall (Khrushchev)

3) Diem as a liability

• Ngo Dinh Nhu; Madame Nhu, "the dragon lady." "Bonze barbecue"
• Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge.

4) Consequences of Diem's removal

• General Westmoreland

III-Johnson's Turn

1) Johnson and the "Best and the Brightest"

• (as David Halberstam called them): McNamara, Rusk, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, Rostow, George Ball; Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs General Maxwell Taylor

2) The 1964 election and the Gulf of Tonkin Incident

• Senator Barry Goldwater

3) Ground troops, the July 28, 1965 Announcement and the Credibility Gap

• Vice President Humphrey "in limbo"

4) The Tet Offensive

Conclusion: Personal and collective tragedy

• Troop strength peaks at 538,000 in 1968; Norman Morrison; Senator Eugene McCarthy

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