Recent scholarship has focused on "myth-busting",[358]:373 attacking the previous orthodox and revisionist schools of American historiography of the Vietnam War. Non-combat deaths account for 30 to 40% of these figures. Westmoreland predicted victory by the end of 1967. A successful effort in Vietnamin Kennedy's words, "the cornerstone of the free world in Southeast Asia"would provide to both allies and adversaries evidence of U.S. determination to meet the challenge of communist expansion in the Third World. Although Eisenhower warned Kennedy about Laos and Vietnam, Europe and Latin America "loomed larger than Asia on his sights. Though each president expressed doubts in private about. [320] General record-keeping was reported to have been sloppy for government spending during the war. An entire American army was sacrificed on the battlefield of Vietnam. [169][170]:104 In Saigon, Viet Cong/PAVN fighters had captured areas in and around the city, attacking key installations and the neighbourhood of Cholon before US and ARVN forces dislodged them after three weeks. [244], R.J. Rummel estimated that 39,000 were killed by South Vietnam during the Diem-era in democide from a range of between 16,000 and 167,000 people; for 1964 to 1975, Rummel estimated 50,000 people were killed in democide, from a range of between 42,000 and 128,000. pp. By 1968, the United States had 548,000 troops in Vietnam and had already lost 30,000 Americans there. [117] In April 1960, North Vietnam imposed universal military conscription for adult males. U.S. public opinion overwhelmingly supported the deployment. By the war's end, 58,220 American soldiers had been killed,[A 8] more than 150,000 had been wounded, and at least 21,000 had been permanently disabled. The ethnic minority peoples of South Vietnam, like the Montagnards (Degar) in the Central Highlands, the Hindu and Muslim Cham, and the Buddhist Khmer Krom, were actively recruited in the war. Ho Chi Minh, then known as Nguyen ai Quac, wrote to US Secretary of State Robert Lansing in 1919, asking for support in securing Vietnamese liberation from French colonial rule In January 1950, the communist states of China and the Soviet Union recognized the Viet Minh's Democratic Republic of Vietnam, based in Hanoi, as the legitimate government of Vietnam. Only five high-ranking congressional officials were informed of Operation Menu. [92][40]:8788 Under the terms of the Geneva Accords, civilians were allowed to move freely between the two provisional states for a 300-day period. [208] Lon Nol began rounding up Vietnamese civilians in Cambodia into internment camps and massacring them, provoking harsh reactions from both the North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese governments. Group 559 was tasked with expanding the Ho Chi Minh trail, in light of the near constant bombardment by US warplanes. He was determined to "draw a line in the sand" and prevent a communist victory in Vietnam. Which president started Vietnam War? [23], The PRC also began financing the Khmer Rouge as a counterweight to North Vietnam at this time. [85]:349351. [79][80][81], Given that there have been several conflicts in Indochina, this particular conflict is known by its primary protagonists' names to distinguish it from others. [16] The North Vietnamese government claimed that, by November 1957, over 65,000 individuals were imprisoned and 2,148 were killed in the process. After North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked two U.S. destroyers on Aug. 5, 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin,. [17] It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. In 1967, all Viet Cong battalions were reequipped with arms of Soviet design such as the AK-47 assault rifle, carbines and the RPG-2 anti-tank weapon. In March 1969 Nixon launched a massive secret bombing campaign, called Operation Menu, against communist sanctuaries along the Cambodia/Vietnam border. The war had begun to shift into the final, conventional warfare phase of Hanoi's three-stage protracted warfare model. Unlike other wars, there was no declaration of the Vietnam War. [330] In 1977, United States president Jimmy Carter granted a full and unconditional pardon to all Vietnam-era draft dodgers with Proclamation 4483. This phase would end when the enemy had been worn down, thrown on the defensive, and driven back from major populated areas. [24]:76 Eisenhower, wary of involving the United States in a land war in Asia, decided against military intervention. [211][40]:576582, Vietnamization was again tested by the Easter Offensive of 1972, a massive conventional PAVN invasion of South Vietnam. [235] The KGB had also helped develop the signals intelligence capabilities of the North Vietnamese, through an operation known as Vostok (named after the Vostok 1).[236]. In 1968, North Vietnamese forces launched the Tet Offensive; though it was a military defeat for them, it became a political victory, as it caused U.S. domestic support for the war to fade. [295][296] According to Amnesty International Report 1979, this figure varied considerably depend on different observers: "included such figures as "50,000 to 80,000" (Le Monde, 19 April 1978), "150,000" (Reuters from Bien Hoa, 2 November 1977), "150,000 to 200,000" (The Washington Post, 20 December 1978), and "300,000" (Agence France Presse from Hanoi, 12 February 1978). "[121] The quality of the South Vietnamese military, however, remained poor. China said that its military and economic aid to North Vietnam and the Viet Cong totaled $20billion (approx. [75]:308309 Further north, at Qung Tr City, the ARVN Airborne Division, the 1st Division and a regiment of the US 1st Cavalry Division had managed to hold out and overcome an assault intended to capture the city. [223]:85 The statement was on air at 2:30pm. [72] U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery, and airstrikes. Early opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam drew its inspiration from the Geneva Conference of 1954. The CIA contacted generals planning to remove Dim and told them that the United States would not oppose such a move nor punish the generals by cutting off aid. President Eisenhower pledged his continued support, and a parade was held in Dim's honor in New York City. Two tanks from the 203rd Tank Brigade of the 2nd Corps crashed through the gates of the Independence Palace and the Viet Cong flag was raised above it at 11:30am local time. Phuoc Binh, the provincial capital, fell on 6 January 1975. Congress also voted in further restrictions on funding to be phased in through 1975 and to culminate in a total cutoff in 1976. The South Vietnamese regime was incapable of winning the peasantry because of its class base among landlords. The war also influenced a generation of musicians and songwriters in Vietnam, the United States, and throughout the world, both pro/anti-war and pro/anti-communist, with the Vietnam War Song Project having identified 5,000+ songs about or referencing the conflict. James Reston of the New York Times, for example, said President Johnson was carrying out an undeclared war in. [97]:655, American women served on active duty performing a variety of jobs. Upper figure initial estimate, later thought to be inflated by at least 30% (lower figure), The figures of 58,220 and 303,644 for U.S. deaths and wounded come from the Department of Defense Statistical Information Analysis Division (SIAD), Defense Manpower Data Center, as well as from a Department of Veterans fact sheet dated May 2010; the total is 153,303 WIA excluding 150,341 persons not requiring hospital care, Shortly after the assassination of Kennedy, when, On 8 March 1965 the first American combat troops, the, A study by Jacqueline Desbarats and Karl D. Jackson estimated that 65,000 South Vietnamese were executed for political reasons between 1975 and 1983, based on a survey of 615 Vietnamese refugees who claimed to have personally witnessed 47 executions. [343], The U.S. Veterans Administration has listed prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, multiple myeloma, Diabetes mellitus type 2, B-cell lymphomas, soft-tissue sarcoma, chloracne, porphyria cutanea tarda, peripheral neuropathy and spina bifida in children of veterans exposed to Agent Orange. [270] 8,040 Vietnamese women came to the United States as war brides between 1964 and 1975. [339] In 2012, the United States and Vietnam began a cooperative cleaning up of the toxic chemical on part of Danang International Airport, marking the first time Washington has been involved in cleaning up Agent Orange in Vietnam. By the time South Vietnam joined the talks, Richard M. Nixon had been elected president. Dung now urged the Politburo to allow him to seize Pleiku immediately and then turn his attention to Kon Tum. [289], Former U.S. Air Force official Earl Tilford has recounted "repeated bombing runs of a lake in central Cambodia. [40]:517 On 27 October 1969, Nixon had ordered a squadron of 18 B-52s loaded with nuclear weapons to race to the border of Soviet airspace to convince the Soviet Union, in accord with the madman theory, that he was capable of anything to end the Vietnam War. Tra calculated that this date would be Hanoi's last opportunity to strike before Saigon's army could be fully trained. Following Vietnamization many Montagnard groups and fighters were incorporated into the Vietnamese Rangers as border sentries. During that period, they stated, they lost 849,018 killed plus approximately 232,000 missing and 463,000 wounded. Others served as nurses and doctors in the battlefield and in military hospitals, or served in South Vietnam or America's intelligence agencies. As South Vietnam was formally part of a military alliance with the US, Australia, New Zealand, France, the UK, Pakistan, Thailand and the Philippines, the alliance was invoked during the war. [69] It lasted almost 20 years, with direct U.S. involvement ending in 1973. In April 1962, John Kenneth Galbraith warned Kennedy of the "danger we shall replace the French as a colonial force in the area and bleed as the French did. The DRV ruled as the only civil government in all of Vietnam for 20 days, after the abdication of Emperor Bo i, who had governed under Japanese supervision. When Diem announced the formation of Republic of Vietnam (later known as South Vietnam) in October 1955, Eisenhower immediately recognized and offered military and economic assistance to the new nation. [100]:575576, Unexploded ordnance, mostly from U.S. bombing, continues to detonate and kill people today and has rendered much land hazardous and impossible to cultivate. [314] Others point to a failure of U.S. military doctrine. However, Thieu outmanoeuvred and sidelined Ky by filling the ranks with generals from his faction. China "armed and trained" the Khmer Rouge during the civil war, and continued to aid them for years afterward. [256] 155,000 refugees fleeing the final North Vietnamese Spring Offensive were reported to have been killed or abducted on the road to Tuy Ha in 1975. Xiaoming, Zhang. [108]:1416, In May 1957, Dim undertook a ten-day state visit to the United States. "Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965-1968." In December 1964, ARVN forces had suffered heavy losses at the Battle of Bnh Gi,[149] in a battle that both sides viewed as a watershed. In some areas of southern Vietnam, dioxin levels remain at over 100 times the accepted international standard. The top-secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, commissioned by the Department of Defense, detailed a long series of public deceptions on the part of the U.S. government. On 23 September 1945, French forces overthrew the DRV government, and declared French authority restored. Stanley Karnow noted that "the main PX [Post Exchange], located in the Saigon suburb of Cholon, was only slightly smaller than the New York Bloomingdale's"[97]:453, Washington encouraged its SEATO allies to contribute troops. Kennedy believed that yet another failure to gain control and stop communist expansion would irreparably damage U.S. credibility. [75]:98 The Viet Minh left roughly 5,000 to 10,000 cadres in the south as a base for future insurgency. [46], U.S. forces established numerous free-fire zones as a tactic to prevent Viet Cong fighters from sheltering in South Vietnamese villages. 20 million gallons of toxic herbicides (like Agent Orange) were sprayed on 6 million acres of forests and crops by the U.S. Air Force. [332] And behind the scenes Secretary of Defense McNamara wrote in a memo to President Johnson his doubts about the war: "The picture of the world's greatest superpower killing or seriously injuring 1,000 noncombatants a week, while trying to pound a tiny backward nation into submission on an issue whose merits are hotly disputed, is not a pretty one. Some have suggested that the failure of the war was due to political failures of U.S.
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