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{{Image|Vietnam_War_Memorial_Washington_DC_Maya_Lin.jpg|right|300px|The revered [[Washington, D.C.]] Vietnam Veterans Memorial designed by [[Wikipedia|Maya Lin]]}}
The '''Vietnam War''' was a mid-20th century struggle between the [[Communist Party of Vietnam]] and [[South Vietnam]], the [[United States]], and, depending on when the war is thought to have begun, [[France]]. It is correct to say that there were varying levels of warfare, or covert preparations, between 1945 and 1975. These do break into at least two hot wars, one against the French colonial administration, and one primarily between the Communist north and non-Communist south. The United States and other countries, especially in the latter war, were involved, sometimes intensely.
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The '''Vietnam War''' (1955-1975) was an international [[Cold War]] conflict that killed 3.8 million people, in which [[North Vietnam/Definition|North Vietnam]] and its allies fought [[United States of America|U.S.]] forces and eventually took over [[South Vietnam]], forming a single Communist country, [[Vietnam]].  


This is not to suggest that 1945-1975 was the only conflict seen in the region. A Japanese invasion in 1941 triggered U.S. export embargoes to Japan, which affected the Japanese decision to attack Western countries in December 1941; see [[Vietnam, war, and the United States ]]. Vietnamese nationalism goes back through the first French presence, but there was opposition to Chinese influence dating back to the [[Two Trung Sisters]] in the first century A.D.  
==Impact on American culture==
A significant portion of [[Baby Boom|Baby Boomers]], the U.S. generation who were young during the protracted Vietnam War, grew up seeing continual bloody footage of active combat on television every nightAs the war progressed, an avalanche of young people in the U.S. protested against the war, resulting in considerable domestic turmoil.  The protests were in part because of the military draft that sent unwilling young men to their likely death or maiming, but also in part because young people did not see the aims of the war as worth the cost.  This pitted the young across the nation against the [[World War II]] generation, who viewed encroachments by Communists during the Cold War as an important continuation of the wars fought by the U.S. since 1940.  To prevent protests during the [[Iraq War]], the U.S. military stopped allowing TV journalists to film actual combat.<ref>It's worth mentioning that, in addition to banning TV from showing film of combat, the U.S. military also tried to reduce the number of deaths during the Iraq War with improved medical triage. The result was that, though more soldiers survived, many of them returned home with severe disablement, including especially lots of brain injuries which meant they would likely be dependent for life on care by their families.</ref> 


In English-speaking circles, it is said to have begun in 1954 or 1959 and ended in 1975.<ref>For example, the ''[[Encyclopedia Britannica]]'' puts the starting year at 1954 or 1955, while ''[[Encarta]]'' puts it at 1959Many historians date it earlier, to include what some call the "[[First Indochina War]]," but this usage is not widely known or followed by the general public.</ref> Nevertheless, the following article follows a common usage by historians, to cover a two-part conflict that began in 1945 and ended in 1975.
Because the U.S. lost the Vietnam War, by the 1980's it became unpopular even to refer to it, and the press began avoiding the topic, while surviving veterans went without adequate benefits for post-traumatic treatment and, unable to cope with life, became homeless by the thousands. This phenomenon was the main subject of [[Wikipedia:Sylvester Stallone|Sylvester Stallone]]'s 1982 action film [[Wikipedia:First Blood|First Blood]], which was panned by critics as too violent even though only a single person died (due to his own stupidity).  Several subsequent Stallone films about First Blood's main character, Rambo, were indeed mindlessly violent, unlike the original film, which was conceived and written by Stallone (who played Rambo) in protest for public abandonment of Vietnam veteransThis film also depicted the aftermath of U.S. military having sprayed the jungles of Vietnam with [[Agent Orange]], a herbicide containing dioxin which resulted in many exposed soldiers and civilians later getting cancer, the horror of which had barely begun to be recognized by the public in 1982The only prior major film about the Vietnam War was Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 ''Apocalypse Now'', an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's story “Heart of Darkness” to Vietnam. Coppola's film was indeed violent, a direct and nightmarish depiction of the devastation of war, but critics praised it, and it won multiple awards, in contrast to Stallone's ''First Blood'' which had touched a nerve with its social criticism of American culture.


From the perspective of some Vietnamese, the war was the military effort of the Communist Party of Vietnam under [[Ho Chi Minh]] to defeat France (1946-54), and the same party, now in control of [[North Vietnam]], to overthrow the government of South Vietnam (1958-75) and take control of the whole country, in the face of military intervention by the United States (1964-72). Others discuss the [[Viet Minh]] resistance, in the colonial period, to the French and Japanese, and the successful Communist-backed overthrow of the post-partition southern government, as separate wars. Unfortunately for naming convenience, there is a gap between the end of French rule and the start of partition in 1954, and the Northern decision to commit to controlling the South in 1959.
==Strategic Summary==
The war had four distinct periods characterized by the nature of the conflict and the nationality of the combatants: a period of civil war (1957-1964), the Americanization (1964-1969), the Vietnamization (1969-1973), and the end (1974-1975).  


Without trying to name the wars, the key timeline events in modern history are:
The Vietnam War originated from the unresolved antagonisms implicit in the Geneva Accords (1954) and French and U.S. [[Cold War]] ambitions, namely to [[Containment policy|"contain" the spread of communism]]. The Geneva Accords promised elections in 1956 to determine a national government for a united [[Vietnam]]. Neither the United States government nor Ngo Dinh Diem's State of Vietnam signed anything at the 1954 Geneva Conference. With respect to the question of reunification, the non-communist Vietnamese delegation objected strenuously to any division of Vietnam, but lost out when the French accepted the proposal of Viet Minh delegate Pham Van Dong,<ref>''The Pentagon Papers'' (1971), Beacon Press, vol. 3, p. 134.</ref> who proposed that Vietnam eventually be united by elections under the supervision of "local commissions".<ref>''The Pentagon Papers'' (1971), Beacon Press, vol. 3, p. 119.</ref> The United States countered with what became known as the "American Plan," with the support of South Vietnam and the United Kingdom.<ref>''The Pentagon Papers'' (1971), Beacon Press, vol. 3, p. 140.</ref> It provided for unification elections under the supervision of the [[United Nations]], but was rejected by the Soviet delegation and North Vietnamese.<ref>''The Pentagon Papers'' (1971), Beacon Press, vol. 3, p. 140.</ref>
*1941: Japanese invasion of French Indochina
 
*1945: End of [[World War II]] and return of Indochina to French authority
Due to the stalemate, North Vietnam created two organizations.  The [[National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam]] (NLF) was a political organization to establish civil government for the South Vietnamese regions controlled by its military arm, the [[Viet Cong]] (VC).  The political/military actions of the NLF and VC against the Diem regime in South Vietnam, and Diem's escalation against the NLF/VC, essentially started a civil war.  The climatic event of the civil war period was the Buddhist crisis in 1963 ending in the assassination of Ngo by a [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA-backed]] operation authorized by President Kennedy.
*1954: End of French control and beginning of partition under the Geneva agreement; CIA covert operation started
*1955: First overt U.S. advisors sent to the South
*1959: North Vietnamese decision, in May 1959 to create the 559th (honoring the date) Transportation Group and begin infiltration of the South
*1964: [[Gulf of Tonkin incident]] and start of U.S. combat involvement; U.S. advisors and support, as well as covert operations, had been in place for several years
*1972: Withdrawal of last U.S. combat forces as a result of negotiation
*1975: Overthrow of the Southern government by regular Northern troops, followed by reunification under a Communist government.
==Summary==
In terms of terminology, over 90% of civilian and military writers and analysts use "Vietnam War" but some use "First Indochina War" (for 1946-54, when the French played a major role) and "Second Indochina War" (for 1954-75, when the U.S. played a major role). <ref>William J. Duiker, ''Vietnam: Nation in Revolution,'' (1983) uses First and Second, pp. 43, 53; also William S. Turley, ''The Second Indochina War: A Short Political and Military History, 1954-1975'' (1986).</ref>  


In terms of scholarly articles in refereed journals, 94% of article titles and abstracts in one database search used "Vietnam War" while only 6% used "Indochina War." Such searches admittedly do not establish whether historians are using "Vietnam War" to name a conflict that began in 1945, however.
Americanization of the war began by the [[Lyndon B. Johnson|Johnson Administration]] in 1964 following the [[Gulf of Tonkin Incident]].  The U.S. began sending ground combat troops in 1965, and troop strength continued to escalate through 1968.  The climatic event during the Americanization period was the [[Tet Offensive]].  Following a change in presidential administrations in the 1968 election, [[Richard M. Nixon|President Nixon]] followed a strategy of de-escalation and "[[Vietnamization]]" of the conflict, while also escalating the conflict through incursions into Cambodia and Laos, and bombings of North VietnamAt various times, the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces were joined by [[Republic of Korea|South Korean]], [[Philippines|Filipino]], [[New Zealand]], [[Thailand|Thai]] and [[Australia|Australian]] troops.  


The first stage, 1946-1954, or '''First Indochina War''' involved driving out the French colonial power. During that period, the Communist-dominated military wing of the anticolonialist force was called the Viet Minh, which had earlier fought the Japanese who had invaded in 1941. The U.S. became deeply involved from 1950, and soon was paying for 90% of the French effort.  
As Vietnamization went into effect, and the [[Paris Peace Talks]] completed in 1972, the U.S. role changed again [[South Vietnam's ground war, 1972-1975|South Vietnam fought its own ground war]], with U.S. ground combat troops withdrawing between 1968 and 1972, with the last air attacks in 1972. After that, the U.S. provided limited replacements of supplies, and maintained a large, diplomatic Defense Attache Office that monitored the RVN until the [[fall of South Vietnam]] in 1975.


1955 marked the first year in which the  U.S. sent overt military advisers to train the [[Army of the Republic of Vietnam]] (ARVN) in 1955; a [[Central Intelligence Agency]] mission, including paramilitary specialists, began in 1954. The first U.S. military advisor accompanying combat troops, as well as combat fighting began in Laos, covertly in 1959 and more overtly in 1961; the first American soldier was killed in 1962. When President [[John F. Kennedy]] first increased the commitment to Southeast Asia, he expected the area of conflict in Laos, not Vietnam.
After the U.S. withdrawal, [[fall of South Vietnam| South Vietnam collapsed]] after being invaded by the DRV in 1975. Memorable pictures of desperate people clinging to helicopters reflect the evacuation of diplomatic, military, and intelligence personnel, and some Vietnamese allies. Other than for the immediate security of the evacuation, no U.S. combat troops or aircraft had been in South Vietnam since 60 days after the signing of the [[Paris Peace Talks|peace treaty in Paris]].
===War between North and South===
War between North and South began in the late 1950s when the Communists used supporters in the South, officially called the [[National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam]] or "National Liberation Front" (NLF)<ref name=Pike>{{citation
| title = Viet Cong
| first = Douglas | last = Pike
| publisher = MIT
| year = 1966}}</ref> (the term "Viet Cong" was widely used but considered derogatory by the NLF)  to destabilize and overthrow the government. The key date was May 1959, when the orders for creating the [[Ho Chi Minh]] trail were issued.


For a time, the NLF did have noncommunist leadership, primarily as figureheads. The term VC, however, most precisely referred to the military wing of the NLF, a common practice in [[insurgency|insurgencies]], as with, the somewhat oversimplified example of [[Sinn Fein]] and the [[Irish Republican Army]] The military of the North was officially the [[People's Army of Viet Nam]] ([[PAVN]], also called the [[North Vietnamese Army]] ([[NVA]])
The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities.  The most detailed demographic study calculated 791,000 to 1,141,000 war-related deaths for all of Vietnam,<ref>Charles Hirschman et al., "Vietnamese Casualties During the American War: A New Estimate," Population and Development Review, December 1995.</ref> while the Vietnamese government claimed that over 3 million Vietnamese died during the conflict.<ref name="afp1995">{{cite news |title=20 Years After Victory, Vietnamese Communists Ponder How to Celebrate |author=Philip Shenon|first=Philip |last=Shenon |url=http://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/23/world/20-years-after-victory-vietnamese-communists-ponder-how-to-celebrate.html |date=23 April 1995 |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |accessdate=24 February 2011 }}</ref><ref>Associated Press, 3 April 1995, "Vietnam Says 1.1 Million Died Fighting For North."</ref>  195,000-430,000 South Vietnamese civilians died in the war.<ref name="Lewy">Lewy, Guenter (1978). ''America in Vietnam''. New York: Oxford University Press. Appendix 1, pp.450-453</ref><ref>Thayer, Thomas C (1985). ''War Without Fronts: The American Experience in Vietnam''. Boulder: Westview Press. Ch. 12. </ref> 50,000-65,000 North Vietnamese civilians died in the war.<ref>Wiesner, Louis A. (1988). ''Victims and Survivors Displaced Persons and Other War Victims in Viet-Nam''. New York: Greenwood Press. p.310</ref><ref name="Lewy"/>  The Army of the Republic of Vietnam lost between 171,331 and 220,357 men during the war.<ref>Thayer, Thomas C (1985). ''War Without Fronts: The American Experience in Vietnam''. Boulder: Westview Press. p.106.</ref><ref name="Lewy"/> The official US Department of Defense figure was 950,765 communist forces killed in Vietnam from 1965 to 1974. Defense Department officials believed that these body count figures need to be deflated by 30 percent. In addition, Guenter Lewy assumes that one-third of the reported "enemy" killed may have been civilians, concluding that the actual number of deaths of communist military forces was probably closer to 444,000.<ref name="Lewy"/>  Some 200,000–300,000 Cambodians,<ref name="Heuveline, Patrick 2001">Heuveline, Patrick (2001). "The Demographic Analysis of Mortality in Cambodia." In Forced Migration and Mortality, eds. Holly E. Reed and Charles B. Keely. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.</ref><ref name="Marek Sliwinski 1995">Marek Sliwinski, Le Génocide Khmer Rouge: Une Analyse Démographique (L'Harmattan, 1995).</ref><ref name="Banister, Judith 1993">Banister, Judith, and Paige Johnson (1993). "After the Nightmare: The Population of Cambodia." In Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge, the United Nations and the International Community, ed. Ben Kiernan. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies.</ref> 20,000–200,000 Laotians,<ref>Warner, Roger, [[Shooting at the Moon (book)|Shooting at the Moon]], (1996), pp366, estimates 30,000 Hmong.</ref><ref>Obermeyer, "Fifty Years of Violent War Deaths from Vietnam to Bosnia", ''British Medical Journal,'' 2008, estimates 60,000 total.</ref><ref>T. Lomperis, ''From People's War to People's Rule,'' (1996), estimates 35,000 total.</ref><ref>Small, Melvin & Joel David Singer, ''Resort to Arms: International and Civil Wars 1816–1980'', (1982), estimates 20,000 total.</ref><ref>Taylor, Charles Lewis, ''The World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators,'' estimates 20,000 total.</ref><ref>Stuart-Fox, Martin, ''A History of Laos,'' estimates 200,000 by 1973.</ref> and 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict.


In South Vietnam, there was a gradual evolution from early military advice, beginning in 1955, trying to build the ARVN into a conventional military , rather like that of [[South Korea]], and then various kinds of [[counterinsurgency]] advice and assistance.
==U.S. replaces France==
[[Image:Vietnam relief 2001.jpg|right|thumb|Vietnam as the lightly shaded area.]]
After the [[Geneva accords]] of 1954 split the former [[French Indochina]] into the [[Republic of Vietnam]] (South) and [[Democratic Republic of Vietnam]] (North), France no longer had colonial authority. After certain procedural matters were resolved in early 1955, the United States took up a major role in training and funding what was now the [[Army of the Republic of Vietnam]] in the South. U.S. intelligence collection personnel had been in the area since the latter part of the [[Second World War]]. In 1954, [[Edward Lansdale]], a [[United States Air Force]] officer seconded to the [[Central Intelligence Agency]], came to [[Saigon]] under the cover of Assistant Air Attache leading the Saigon Military Mission, which was a CIA operation whose immediate activities included sending Vietnamese personnel north, to set up stay-behind intelligence collection and covert action teams for future use.


In Vietnam proper, American advisors began accompanying  ARVN troops into battle in 1962-1963, most visibly at the [[Battle of Ap Bac]] in January 1963. U.S. began to bring in combat troops with a limited mission of protecting advisors. While there had been covert operations against North Vietnam well before, the first overt attack by U.S. air came in August 1964, in response to the [[Gulf of Tonkin incident]]. By 1965, U.S. combat aircraft were in the RVN, with [[battalion]]-strength units providing ground security. Larger units began operations in mid-1965.  
It has been argued, certainly with some justification, that the U.S. unwisely supported the French before 1954, and still had a pro-French view after 1954.  Part of this was due to U.S. diplomatic strategy that saw French cooperation in Europe as essential to NATO and to Western stability, and taking a pro-French position in the former Indochina obtained cooperation from France.   The Vietnamese were not seen as important, in Cold War terms, in the 1940s and 1950s, even though, perhaps ironically, it was Japanese expansion into French Indochina that triggered U.S. [[economic warfare]] against Japan, and eventually the [[Japanese decision for war in 1941]].


The U.S. moved from financial aid and advice (before 1964), to large scale military involvement, beginning 1965, to save the government in the South in order to maintain the credibility of its Cold War policy of containment. At first, American involvement was through the embassy staff, but military involvement grew. First, a Military Assistance & Advisory Group was formed, one for Indochina and then one for Vietnam.  When U.S. combat and combat support troops became directly involved, the [[Military Assistance Command, Vietnam]], was created as a major command, a "sub-unified command" of the [[United States Pacific Command]]. There continued to be diplomatic, foreign aid (U.S. [[Agency for International Development]]), and [[CIA activities in Vietnam|Central Intelligence Agency]] linkages; coordinating the many U.S. and other country agencies became immensely complex.  
Later, the U.S. would support anticommunist Vietnamese, never neutralists.


The U.S. sent in over 500,000 troops (about a fifth in combat roles, the rest in support roles), in addition to many others at airbases in Thailand and elsewhere. Over 2.5 million Americans rotated through Vietnam, usually on a strict 365-day policy.
===The strategic balance===
While Vietnamese Communists had long had aims to control the whole of Vietnam, the specific decision to conquer the South was made, by the Northern leadership, in May 1959.<ref>An enabling Party resolution was passed in January, but this was the date of starting to build infrastructure; combat use of that infrastructure was still two or more years away. See [[Vietnamese Communist grand strategy]]</ref> The Communist side had clearly defined political objectives, and a grand strategy to achieve them; there was a clear relationship between long-term goals and short-term actions, within their strategic theory of [[North Vietnamese cadre|''dau tranh'']]. Some of their actions may seem to be from Maoist and other models, but they have some unique concepts that are not always obvious.


As the U.S. involvement increased, so did the effect of the war on U.S. domestic politics, as well as on both U.S. and Vietnamese relationships with the allies of both. Vietnam-related conflict had a direct relationship to [[Lyndon Baines Johnson]] not seeking re-election, and for the 1968 Presidential victory of [[Republican]] [[Richard Nixon]] over [[Democrat]] [[Hubert Humphrey]], Johnson's Vice President.
Apart from its internal problems, South Vietnam faced difficult military challenges. On the one hand, there was a threat of a conventional, cross-border strike from the North, reminiscent of the [[Korean War]]. In the 1950s, the U.S. advisors focused on building a "mirror image" of the [[U.S. Army]], designed to meet and defeat a conventional invasion. <ref name=PntV1Ch05Sec0314-346>{{citation
| title =The Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, Volume 2
| contribution = Chapter 6, "The Advisory Build-Up, 1961-1967," Section 1, pp. 408-457
| url = http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon2/pent11.htm}}</ref> Ironically, while the lack of counterguerrilla forces threatened the South for many years, the last two blows were  Korea-style invasions. With U.S. air support, the South were able to largely repel  a [[South Vietnam's ground war, 1972-1975|conventional invasion by North Vietnam]]. The 1975 invasion which defeated the South was not opposed by U.S. forces.


===Intense U.S. ground combat===
===Early U.S. noncombat advisory and support roles===
Massive American firepower significantly weakened the NLF, which in the "[[Tet Offensive]]", of February 1968, made an all-out effort to attack government offices throughtout the South. The NFL was beaten back everywhere, and virtually destroyed as an operating unit.  From then on Hanoi used it own PAVN regular soldiers.  The North was aided by China and the Soviet Union; the South was aided by the U.S., South Korea, Australia and other countries.  [[Thailand]] and the [[Philippines]] provided major American air bases. 


Tet had a devastating impact on U.S. President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]], who had tried to keep the war quiet so it would not interfere with the [[Great Society]] domestic programs. Anti-war protests, led by university students, escalated in the U.S. and worldwide, reaching a climax in 1968. Republican [[Richard Nixon]] was elected president and in 1969 he began to "Vietnamize" the war by turning the fighting over to the South Vietnamese military, and systematically withdrew American forces.
[[Harry S. Truman]], as soon as the [[Second World War]] ended, was under great pressure to return the country to normal civilian conditions, and he demobilised rapidly to release funds for domestic spending. There were no such pressures to demobilize, however, on [[Josef Stalin]] and [[Mao Zedong]]. Truman has been blamed for "losing" Eastern Europe and China, but it is less clear what could have been done to stop it. The decision to cut military commitment came home to roost in the [[Korean War]], when Truman had few forces to dispatch.
===Withdrawal of U.S. combat forces===
Virtually all U.S. soldiers were gone by 1971, but the U.S. Air Force played a major role in 1972 in stopping a large-scale Communist invasion from North Vietnam, and in bombing campaigns against Hanoi. After years of negotiations in Paris, peace was signed in January 1973. All the American POW's were released, and all American forces removed from Vietnam, although large-scale shipment of military supplies continued.


In 1975 the [[People's Army of Vietnam]] (i.e., the North Vietnamese army, known as the NVA or PAVN) invaded and conquered South Vietnam. The U.S. did not intervene, but did rescue many Vietnamese supporters.  The conquest was a major defeat for the American Cold War policy of containment of Communist expansion, but under Nixon and his top adviser [[Henry Kissinger]] the U.S. had turned away from containment toward détente  with China and the Soviet Union.
From 1955, the U.S. took over the role of training and significantly funding the Southern [[Army of the Republic of Viet Nam]] (ARVN). In 1959, the first U.S. advisers to go into combat in the area were in Laos, not Vietnam. With a negotiated settlement to the Laotian civil war in 1962, U.S. attention shifted to South Vietnam. Communications intercepts in 1959, for example, confirmed the start of the Ho Chi Minh trail and other preparation for large-scale fighting. This information may not have been fully shared with the South Vietnamese, due to security concerns over the intelligence methods used to get the information.


Estimates of total casualties, 1960-75, vary widely. Of the Americans, 31,000 died in combat (not counting accidents), of whom 66% were from the Army, 26% Marines, 4% Navy, and 4% Air Force. South Vietnam suffered at least 110,000 soldiers killed in action, plus at least 400,000 civilians. 4400 soldiers from South Korea were killed, along with 423 from Australia, 351 from Thailand, and 83 from New Zealand. Estimates of the deaths of Communist soldiers have run from 670,000 to 1.1 million.<ref> Spencer C. Tucker, "Casualties," in Tucker, ed. ''Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War'' (2001) [http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0195135253/ref=sib_dp_srch_bod?v=search-inside&keywords=casualties&go.x=6&go.y=14&go=Go!# p. 64 online]</ref> 
==Interactions of South Vietnamese & U.S. politics==


After the defeat of the South in 1975 a million Vietnam refugees fled to the U.S.  The war spilled over into [[Laos]] and [[Cambodia]], which came under Communist control in 1975. Otherwise, the long-feared "domino effect" whereby other countries in the region would turn Communist, did not happen.
After the French colonial authority ended, Vietnam was ruled by a nominally civilian government, led by first [[Bao Dai]] and then, from 1954, by [[Ngo Dinh Diem]]; neither were elected. Communist statements frequently spoke of it as a U.S. "puppet" government, although the Northern government had not been elected and had little more claim to democratic legitimacy. Both governments were clients of the different major sides in the [[Cold War]].


Nixon shifted American foreign policy away from containment to détente with China and the Soviet Union, and they in turn reduced their support for the North. Vietnam was united under Communist control but in 1979 China and Vietnam fought a border war. In the U.S., bitter, even violent debates inside the Democratic Party cost it the presidency.  The war, deeply impressed upon the American psyche, became a defining moment for American politics, diplomacy, military policy and popular culture.
Diem was strongly anti-communist, but authoritarian, and there were increasing protests against his rule. He was a Catholic in a Buddhist-majority country, but gave preference to Catholics. While personally ascetic, he tolerated a serious level of corruption in the government.
==Origins==
To appreciate the complexity it is necessary to start with French colonialism in the 19th century, or, quite possibly, to go to Vietnamese drives for independence in the 1st century, with the Trung Sisters' revolt against the Chinese; the citation here mentions the 1968th anniversary of their actions.<ref name=VNN2008-03-14>{{citation
| title =Ha Noi celebrates Trung sisters 1,968th anniversary
| date = 14 March 2008
| url = http://www.vietnamnews.com.vn/showarticle.php?num=02CUL140308
| journal = Viet Nam News}}</ref>
===French Indochina Background===
In the late 19th century the French expanded their global empire to southeast Asia, by acquiring control of Vietnam, and the neighboring countries of Cambodia and Laos. The Chinese war lords who had been in charge were expelled, replaced by a French governor supported by rotating units of the French army and several thousand French civil servants. Few Frenchmen permanently settled in Indochina. Below the top layer of imperial control, the civil service comprised French-speaking Catholic Vietnamese; a nominal "Emperor" resided in Hue. Paris had hoped to make a profit from its empire, but instead the expenses of building roads, railroads, ports, utilities, schools and other infrastructure, not to mention the military and civil service salaries, far outpaced the modest profits from rice and rubber exports. Little industry developed and 80% of the population lived in villages of about 2000 population; they depended on rice growing. Most were nominally Buddhist; about 10% were Catholic. Minorities included the Chinese merchants who controlled most of the commerce, and Montagnard tribesmen in the thinly populated Central Highlands. Vietnam was a relatively peaceful colony; sporadic independence movements were quickly suppressed by the efficient French secret police.  


[[Ho Chi Minh]] (1890–1969) and fellow students founded the Vietnamese Communist Party party in Paris in 1929, but it was of marginal importance until World War II.<ref>By the 1960s, Ho was primarily a symbol rather than an active leader. William J. Duiker, ''Ho Chi Minh: A Life'' (2000) </ref> In 1940 and 1941 the Vichy regime yielded control of Vietnam to the Japanese, and Ho returned to lead an underground independence movement (which received a little assistance from the O.S.S., the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency [[CIA]]).<ref name=Patti>{{cite book
===Effect on military efficiency===
| title = Why Viet Nam?: Prelude to America's Albatross
| author = Patti, Archimedes L. A
| publisher = University of California Press
| year = 1980
| ISBN-10 = 0520041569
}}</ref> 


President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] (in office 1933-45) detested French colonialism, but [[Harry S. Truman]] (in office 1945-53)  was more interested in helping restore French prestige in Europe, so he helped them to return in 1946.  An [[Office of Strategic Services]] (OSS was the predecessor to CIA) observed the situation from Kunming, China, starting in 1942, and then in French Indochina, including direct discussions with [[Ho Chi Minh]].<ref name=Patti />
Not only under Diem, appointing officers to the command of military units, and also to posts in the separate hierarchy of district and province chiefs, often were made as political loyalty as the first criterion, possibly bribes or favors at the next, and military proficiency sometimes as a last consideration. Officers were shifted from post to post, in the interest of breaking up potential coup plots.  


In contrast with other Asian colonies like India, Burma, the Philippines and Korea, Vietnam was not given its independence after the war. As in Indonesia (the Dutch East Indies), an indigenous rebellion demanded independence. While the Netherlands was too weak to resist the Indonesians, the French were strong enough to just barely hold on. As a result Ho and his Viet Minh<ref>Originally a Communist-led  anti-Japanese insurgency, such as the Hukbalahap in the Phillipines. Unfortunately, Vietnam had no [[Ramon Magsaysay]] to form a unity government</ref> launched a guerrilla campaign, using Communist China as a sanctuary when French pursuit became hot.  
In practice, the most powerful military positions were the commanders of the four Corps tactical zones (CTZ), also known as military regions. Even though a CTZ was geographic, and province and district chiefs were usually military officers, the province/district reporting went through the Ministry of the Interior rather than the military Joint General Staff.  


When the [[Korean War]] erupted in 1950, and [[NSC-68]] redefined American objectives, Washington saw Vietnam as another target of Communist expansion, and began to fund about three-fourths of the French military efforts. However, the goals of Washington and Paris were incompatible. Washington wanted a democratic Vietnam independent of both France and Communism, while Paris was more interested in restoring its old empire than in fighting Communism. In 1950 the U.S. officially recognized the theoretical independence of the "State of Vietnam," even though Paris kept control of its foreign and military policy.
Especially powerful units might, in the interest of interfering with coups, be shifted from one chain of command for another. At the [[Battle of Ap Bac]], for example, the potent [[armored personnel carrier]]s (APC) had been shifted from the operational control of the military commander to that of the province chief. Before the unit commander would commit his resources to battle, at the urging of a U.S. adviser to the [[division (military)|division]] commander, the commanding officer of the APC company had to obtain province chief as well as military approval, significantly increasing the time before this unit could intervene in battle.


===Dien Bien Phu ===
===Conflicting goals===
To cut Viet Minh supply lines from China, the French built a fort at remote [[Dien Bien Phu]]. In 1954, 12,000 defenders were surrounded and battered by General [[Vo Nguyen Giap]] (1911- ), who were surprised by the enemy's artillery, supplied by China but carried by human porters over seemingly impassible terrain. <ref> Cecil B. Currey, ''Victory at Any Cost: The Genius of Viet Nam's Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap'' (2005)</ref> Paris begged Washington for air strikes. The US Navy wanted to send its aircraft carriers into action but the US Army demurred, arguing it would be "a dangerous strategic diversion of limited U.S. military capabilities... [to] a non-decisive theatre." For the Army, containment meant holding back the Russian divisions in central Europe, not chasing guerrillas in Asian jungles. President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] (in office 1953-61), the man who led the war against Germany in 1944-45 and who commanded NATO in 1950, agreed with the Army. With the Korean stalemate resolved only a few months earlier, he rejected the advice of hawkish aides (including Vice President [[Richard Nixon]]) and refused to fight another land war in Asia.
Vietnamese and U.S. goals were also not always in complete agreement. Until 1969, the U.S.A. was generally anything opposed to any policy, nationalist or not, which might lead to the South Vietnamese becoming neutralist rather than anticommunist. There is evidence that the U.S. supported attempts to replace governments that were considering forming a neutralist coalition that might include the [[National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam]], a communist-dominated opposition. The Cold War [[containment policy]] was in force through the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson Administrations, while the Nixon administration supported a more multipolar model of [[detente]].


Dien Bien Phu surrendered, the French government collapsed, and a Socialist government with Communist support came to power in Paris, pledged to get out of Vietnam in 30 days. The American policy of bankrolling the French had failed.
While there were still power struggles and internal corruption, there was much more stability between 1967 and 1975. Still, the South Vietnamese government did not enjoy either widespread popular support, or even an enforced social model of a Communist state. It is much easier to disrupt a state without common popular or decision maker goals.
===Geneva accords===
At the 1954 [[Geneva Conference]], the French signed agreements with the Viet Minh that amounted to a surrender; the French did not consult the government in Saigon. Vietnam was split into the [[Democratic Republic of Vietnam]] (DRV) (Communist North Vietnam}, and the [[Republic of Vietnam]] (RVN) (South Vietnam, supported by the United States). The split was a result of a Geneva conference, which also created an [[International Control Commission]] (ICC). The ICC, composed of [[Canada]], [[India]] and [[Poland]], provided some communications between the sides, but had little effect.  


Because of American pressure, however, Paris did not give Ho Chi Minh all he demanded (he demanded all of Vietnam). A permanent cease fire was promised, and the country was split along the 17th parallel, with the north turned over to Ho's [[Democratic Republic of Vietnam]] (DRV). The French promised to leave the southern half, which for the time being would continue as the independent State of Vietnam with the Emperor as head of state and a Catholic anti-communist as premier. The Geneva Accords called for "free general elections by secret ballot" in 1956 to unify the country.  
===Instability===
The association of the U.S. with the RVN government, however, was sufficiently strong that instability there both reflected adversely on the U.S. role, and seen as interfering with the fight against Communism. While Diem ruled between 1954 and 1963; there followed a period of frequent changes of government, some lasting only weeks, between 1964 and 1967, until moderate stability came in 1967.


Washington and Saigon both rejected the Geneva Accords: they were both determined to build an independent, anti-Communist South Vietnam, but, in the militant anticommunism of the time, a democratic Vietnam was not a priority.  
Protests generally called the [[Buddhist crisis of 1963]], which also involved other Vietnamese sects, such as the [[Cao Dai]] and [[Hoa Hao]], were a major disruption by June. These protests were seen by the U.S. as strengthening the Communist insurgency, and, after rejecting earlier initiatives for a military coup, agreed that Diem had to go.  


A [[Central Intelligence Agency]] team, the "Saigon Military Mission", that came to Saigon in 1954, just before partition had attempted to set up intelligence and covert action networks in the North. had been covert political operations and preparation for guerilla warfare in the North prior to partition in 1954.  
In November 1963, Diem was overthrown and killed in a military coup. The United States was aware of the coup preparations and, through CIA officer [[Lucien Conein]], had given limited financial support to the generals involved. There is no evidence that the U.S. expected Diem, and his brother and closest political adviser, [[Ngo Dinh Nhu]] to be killed; U.S. Ambassador [[Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.]] had offered him physical protection.
===Promoting the Diem Regime, 1954-63=== 
The United States rejected the Geneva Accords as a violation of the principle of  containment. It worked to build up the new, independent Republic of Viet Nam (RVN) in the south as an anti-Communist bulwark, by funding local and national economic and administrative infrastructures.  


In July 1954 Ngo Dinh Diem became premier in Saigon. Diem and his powerful brothers were nationalists who were both anti-French, of an authoritarian Mandarin/Confucianist ethos and anticommunist. As leaders of the Catholic minority, they won considerable sympathy and support in the  Catholic anticommunist circles in the US, notably from [[Francis Cardinal Spellman]] of New York and the [[Kennedy family]]. As soon as the Communists came to power in the North, some 800,000 refugees (mostly Catholic) fled to South Vietnam. They provided most of the leadership and support for its government (GVN) and its army (ARVN), in part because the Diem government discriminated against mainstream Buddhists and various Vietnamese sects, such as the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao. American financial aid and military advisors replaced the French, and SVN under Diem took its place among the world's newly independent nations.
The leaders of the November coup were replaced by a nominal civilian government really under military control, which was overthrown by yet another military coup (involving some of the same generals) in January 1964.  


The Eisenhower Administration, eager to formalize the containment system by treaty, in 1954 set up the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). The US promised to aid SEATO signatories that were attacked by a Communist power. The French, still committed to the Geneva Accords, vetoed membership for the RVN. To get around this French veto, Washington had inserted in the Treaty a vague protocol that seemed to give Saigon some sort of guarantee, even though it was not allowed to sign the Treaty or become part of SEATO.  
Between 1964 and 1967 there was a constant struggle for power in South Vietnam, and not just from within the military. Several Buddhist and other factions often derived from religious sects, which became involved in the jockeying for political power, such as the [[Cao Dai]] and [[Hoa Hao]]. Even the [[Vietnamese Buddhism|Vietnamese Buddhists]] were not monolithic, and had their own internal struggles. At varying times, sects, organized crime syndicates such as the [[Binh Xuyen]], and individual provincial leaders had paramilitary groups that affected the political process; while the [[Montagnard]] ethnic groups wanted autonomy for their region. [[William Colby]] (then chief of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]]'s , Far Eastern Division in the operational directorate) observed that civilian politicians "divided and sub-divided into a tangle of contesting ambitions and claims and claims to power and participation in the government." <ref>William Colby, ''Lost Victory'', 1989, p. 173, quoted in McMaster, p. 165</ref> Some of these factions sought political power or wealth, while others sought to avoid domination by other groups (Catholic vs Buddhist in the Diem Coup).  


Furthermore, Eisenhower decided not to sign a mutual defense treaty with the RVN in order to avoid over-commitment. Instead the US relied on the SEATO Treaty, which was ratified by the Senate with little discussion of Vietnam. By default it became the chief legal base for US involvement in Vietnam, until the subsequent Congressional resolution granted to Lyndon Johnson in response to the claim that the North Vietnamese had attacked U.S. Navy vessels in the [[Gulf of Tonkin incident]].
After a period of overt military government, there was a gradual transition to at least the appearance of democratic government, but South Vietnam neither developed a true popular government, nor rooted out the corruption that caused a lack of support.


In 1960, Eisenhower had 900 American advisors in SVN to bring its army up to what were perceived as basic standards, against the sort of conventional invasion launched by North Korea in 1950. That same year Hanoi's ruling Politburo established the NLF as its political arm in the South, and the [[Viet Cong]] as the military arm.  
==Covert operations==
Well before the Gulf of Tonkin and overt operations, there were a number of covert operations, some ostensibly with U.S. advisers to South Vietnamese crews, and some, especially in Laos, of which no public announcement was made. Certain of these operations became public in postwar historical analyses, official announcements at the time, or press reporting that eventually was confirmed.
===US activity before independence===
Still, there was U.S. activity in [[Southeast Asia]], which grew out of covert operations directed more at China. In August 1950, the CIA bought the assets of [[Civil Air Transport]] (CAT), an airline founded after the [[Second World War]] by Gen. Claire L. Chennault and Whiting Willauer. While CAT continued commercial operations, it acted as a CIA "proprietary", or covert support organization under commercial cover. CAT aircraft, for example, dropped personnel and supplies over mainland China during the [[Korean War]].<ref name=Leary>{{citation
|  title = CIA Air Operations in Laos, 1955-1974, Supporting the "Secret War"
| author = William M. Leary
| journal = Studies in Intelligence
  | url = https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/winter99-00/art7.html
| date = Winter 1999-2000
| publisher = [[Central Intelligence Agency]]}}</ref>  CAT later became part of [[Air America]].


The rank and file were southerners, the leadership was northern, but it is incorrect to say that the NLF was solely led by northerners. North Vietnamese certainly dominated it, but they were politically astute enough to have visible southern opponents of the RVN, who were not Communist-identified. Like many insurgencies, the NLF acted as a shadow government in contested areas, both providing services, but also demanding taxes and draftees.  
When [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] succeeded Truman as President in 1952, after a campaign that had attacked Truman's "weaknesses" against communism and in Korea, he formulated a strong policy of containing Communism. There was much sensitivity over "softness" exemplified by the excesses of Senator [[Joe McCarthy]]. While the Eisenhower Administration avoided becoming too enmeshed in the French problem of the [[Indochinese revolution]], airlift was provided by CAT pilots. [[United States Air Force]] [[C-119 Flying Boxcar]] transports, repainted with French insignia. CAT trained the crews at Clark Air Force base in the Philippines, and then flew the aircraft to [[Gia Lam Airport]] in [[Hanoi]]. They made airdrops to French forces in Laos between May and July. Eventually, CAT flew logistics missions to [[Dien Bien Phu]], in March to May 1954; one aircraft was shot down and others damaged.


The NLF kept a low profile in the cities, in part because its intelligence services had deply penetrated the GVN; the leadership of the Johnson Administration was baffled why it did so well in the country side. Defense Secretary [[Robert S. McNamara]] (in office 1961-68) told President [[John F. Kennedy]] (in office 1961-63) in 1961 it was "absurd to think that a nation of 20 million people can be subverted by 15-20 thousand active guerrillas if the government and the people of that country do not wish to be subverted."<ref> Rusk/McNamara memorandum.Nov. 11, 1961, [http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon2/pent3.htm online at ''Pentagon Papers'']</ref>  McNamara, a manufacturing executive and expert in statistical management, had no background in [[guerilla warfare]] or other than Western culture, and rejected advice from area specialists and military officers. He preferred to consult with his personal team, often called the "Whiz Kids"; his key foreign policy advisor was a law professor, John McNaughton, while economist Alain Enthoven was perhaps his closest colleague.
===Laos===
After France left the region, the Royal Lao Government (RLG) quietly asked the United States to replace the former French funding of the Lao military, and to add military technical aid from the increasingly active Communist insurgency, the Pathet Lao. This assistance started in January 1955, directed by a new part of the Embassy, with the nondescript name Program Evaluation Office (PEO). At first, the PEO simply dispensed funds, but took on a much larger role in 1959.  


Neither side holding power was interested in democratic reform.  The Communists would never permit free campaigning against Communism. The southern leader, [[Ngo Dinh Diem]] (1901-63) refused to hold free and honest elections in the Republic of Vietnam, reserving power for a largely Catholic minority.  
When the first direct military assistance began in July 1959, the PEO was operated by the U.S. [[Central Intelligence Agency]] using military personnel acting as civilians. <ref name=Haas>{{cite web
 
| url = http://aupress.au.af.mil/Books/Haas/Haas.pdf
===Weaknesses of South Vietnam===
| title = Apollo’s Warriors: US Air Force Special Operations during the Cold War
While Diem himself was an ascetic that probably did not personally profit, members of his family, and numerous southern officials, were motivated by opportunities for corruption rather than government by the consent of the governed. Diem demonstrated no real understanding of democracy, and kept power with the Catholic minority. Increasingly bitter interactions with a Buddhist opposition led to a crisis in 1963, with iconic images of monks burning themselves alive in protest. Eventually, Diem was overthrown by a military coup, but, while there was a parliament, general democratic governement never emerged.
| author = Haas, Michael E.
| publisher = Air University Press
| year = 1997
}}, p. 165</ref> CIA sent a unit from [[United States Army Special Forces]], who arrived on the CIA proprietary airline [[Air America]], wearing civilian clothes and having no obvious US connection. These soldiers led [[Meo]] and [[Hmong people#The "Secret War"|Hmong]] tribesmen against Communist forces. The covert program was called [[Operation Hotfoot]]. At the US Embassy, BG John Heintges was designated the head of the PEO. <ref name=>{{cite web
| url = http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cgi-bin/showfile.exe?CISOROOT=/p4013coll2&CISOPTR=979&filename=980.pdf
| title=Seminole Negro Indians, Macabebes, and Civilian Irregulars: Models for the Future Employment of Indigenous Forces
| organization=US Army Command and General Staff College
| author = Holman, Victor
| year = 1995
}}</ref>


Just as Diem's government (GVN) was factionalized and inefficient, its army, the ARVN, was a typical third world operation based on patronage, favoritism, and corruption. Commands and promotions went to political insiders, regardless of their competence or (more often) incompetence. Food, uniforms, munitions and information were sold for cash. Intrigue was the game, and the generals usually spent most of their time on politics rather than command. Few senior officers had any real military training. Draftees did not want to fight any more than their officers did. Although hardware was abundant and of good quality, training was mediocre, food and pay were unattractive, and morale was poor. Desertion rates were high (home was nearby); this hardly upset the officers because they kept the absent soldiers on the rolls and pocketed their paychecks.<ref> Robert K. Brigham, ''ARVN: Life And Death in the South Vietnamese Army'' (2006)</ref>
In April 1961, [[Chief of Staff of the Air Force]] [[Curtis LeMay]]’s began to approve certain covert operations, such as JUNGLE JIM. He denied them to the press. They were, however, a response to President Kennedy's challenge for the military to develop a force capable of fighting the “Communist
revolutionary warfare”, regarded as proxy wars for the U.S. and Soviet Union. One of the first to
respond to the call for combat control volunteers<ref>Haas, pp. 212-214, 221-224</ref>


Diem (and his successors) were primarily interested in using the ARVN as a device to secure power, rather than as a tool to unify the nation and defeat its enemies. Despite monumental American efforts from 1960 through 1972, the situation never decisively improved. Saigon would ultimately lose the war because its large and very well equipped army lacked spirit, motivation and patriotism.  
===CIA, MACV-SOG and OPPLAN34A===
John F. Kennedy approved, on May 11, 1961, a [[Central Intelligence Agency]] plan for covert operations against North Vietnam. These included ground, air, and naval operations. Eventually, the operations were transferred to officially military control, in a unit, [[MACV-SOG]], principally reporting to MACV but with an approval chain that often ran to the White House.  


===Viet Cong guerrillas and regular North Vietnam Army===
CIA naval operations, under Tucker Gougelmann, in 1961,<ref name=Shultz>{{citation|
The North had clearly defined political objectives, and a grand strategy, involving military, diplomatic, covert action and psychological operations to achieve those objectives. Its military first focused on guerilla and raid warfare in the south, simultaneously improving the air defensives of the north.
title = the Secret War against Hanoi: the untold story of spies, saboteurs, and covert warriors in North Vietnam
| first = Richard H., Jr. | last = Shultz
| publisher = Harper Collins Perennial | year = 2000}}, p. 18</ref> starting with motorized junks. The first [[fast attack craft|motor torpedo boats]] were transferred to CIA in October 1962. At the end of 1962, raids began.  


Eventually, following  the Maoist doctrine of protracted war, , the final "Phase III" offensive was by conventional forces, the sort that the U.S. had tried to build a defense against when the threat was from guerrillas. [[T-54]] [[tank (military)|tank]]s that broke down the gates of the Presidential Palace in Saigon were not driven by ragged guerrillas.  
They received their improved Norwegian Nasty-class boats in 1963.<ref>Shultz, p. 176</ref> These more sophisticated craft were crewed by Norwegian and German mercenaries as well as South Vietnamese; U.S. Navy SEALs conducted the training in Danang.  
MACV-SOG was formed in January 1964, and took over the "modest" CIA maritime operation, based in [[Danang]], now given the cover name Naval Advisory Detachment, actually branch OP37 of MACV-SOG. The attacks, under the command of MACV-SOG, were actually carried out by the Coastal Security Service of the RVN [[Strategic Technical Directorate]].


In the Viet Cong, and in the North Vietnam regular army ([[PAVN]]), every unit down to the company level had a cadre of political officers who monitored ideological correctness on a daily basis. The Viet Cong had many unwilling draftees of its own; tens of thousands deserted to the government, which promised them protection. The Viet Cong executed deserters if it could, and threatened their families, all the while closely monitoring the ranks for any sign of defeatism or deviation from the party line.<ref> Pike, ''PAVN'' (1986)</ref>
So, at least a year before the Gulf of Tonkin, there had been some raids against North Vietnam. Independent of MACV-SOG, the U.S. Navy began to conduct [[signals intelligence]] patrols for the [[National Security Agency]], close to North Vietnam but in international waters. These were called the DESOTO patrols, and used overt U.S. Navy [[destroyer]]s, with a van packed with electronics and technicians mounted on their decks.


In December 1963, a decisive meeting of the Communist Party (VWF) Central Committee in Hanoi set basic policy. Le Duan (1907-86) was in full control.  Overruling Giap (who wanted to build up the regular army), and Ho (who, like the Soviets, did not want to antagonize the U.S.), Le Duan and the new leadership decided that the government of South Vietnam was on the verge of collapse. They escalated NLF attacks, but did not send regular troops.  
On the night of July 30, 1964, four MACV-SOG boats shelled North Vietnamese shore installations, after a series of earlier maritime operations. The North Vietnamese went on high naval alert.


At this time, the Soviet Union and China were bitterly contesting control of the Communist movement worldwide. Hanoi's decision marked a decisive break with the Soviets, who had recommended that instead of overthrowing the South and risking a major war with the U.S., it was better to concentrate on rapid development of the poverty-striken economy of North Vietnam.<ref> Although still nominal president, Ho Chi Minh was a powerless figurehead. William J. Duiker, ''Ho Chi Minh: A Life'' (2001), [http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/078688701X/ref=sib_dp_bod_toc?ie=UTF8&p=S009# pp 534-37 online]; Ilya Gaiduk, ''Confronting Vietnam: Soviet Policy toward the Indochina Conflict, 1954-1963''
On July 31, 1964, there was a DESOTO patrol.<ref name=McMaster>{{citation
(2003) [http://books.google.com/books?id=TAfATu5SF-cC&pg=PA203&dq=%22central+committee%22+%22le+duan%22+plenum+1963&sig=ACfU3U29FH06x6M65aOmfA6HfKSv0p8fsQ online pp 203-4]</ref>
| author = [[H. R. McMaster]]
  | title = Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam
| publisher = Harpercollins | year = 1997}}, pp. 120-134</ref> The timing after the MACV-SOG operation may have been coincidental, although there have been suggestions that the increased North Vietnamese activity was a rich environment for SIGINT collection. There is no strong indication that the DESOTO patrols were trying to provoke North Vietnamese response; they carefully stayed in international waters and were fully identifiable as U.S. ships.


From 1959 to the end of 1963, more than 40,000 PAVN troops, primarily soldiers born in South Vietnam who had gone north, were sent back to South Vietnam. Included were 2,000 senior and midlevel officers (field grade and above) and technical personnel. As of 1963, they constituted, half the full-time soldiers and 80% of the officers and technical cadres in command and leadership organizations of the Communist army in South Vietnam. Those that had gone north often still had family and village ties. Unwilling villagers, however, were impressed into the Communist forces.
==U.S. buildup and overt combat involvement==
This section focuses on the period when U.S. forces became involved in large-scale, direct combat. Wherever possible, the national-level decisions that went into a change of military action will be presented, but, in a number of situations, an action may have been the result of a perceived need to "do something" rather than having a direct effect on the enemy. Such decision-making style is not unique to this period. [[George Kennan]], considered a consummate diplomat and diplomatic theorist, observed that American leaders, starting with the 1899-1900 [[Open Door Policy|"Open Door" policy]] to China, have a <blockquote>neurotic self-consciousness and introversion, the tendency to make statements and take actions with regard not to their effect on the international scene but rather to their effect on those echelons of American opinion, congressional opinion first and foremost, to which the respect statesmen are anxious to appeal. The question became not: How effective is what I am doing in terms of the impact it makes on our world environment? but rather: how do I look, in the mirror of American domestic opinion, as I do it?<ref name=Kennan>{{citation
| first = George F. | last = Kennan
| title = Memoirs 1925-1950
| publisher = Little, Brown | year = 1967}}, pp. 53-54</ref></blockquote>


To provide logistic support from 1961 through 1963, 559th Transportation Group (the [[Ho Chi Minh Trail]] command] transported to the South 165,600 weapons of all types, including artillery, mortars, and anti-aircraft machine guns. In addition in 1962-63, 759th Sea Infiltration Group, using transport vessels camouflaged as fishing junks, delivered 25 shiploads totaling 1,430 tons of weapons and ammunition to covert docks and landing sites in the Mekong Delta and in the coastal provinces east of Saigon.
Even when leaders' goals are sincere, the need to be seen as doing the popular thing can become counterproductive. There were many times, in the seemingly inexorable advance of decades of American involvement in Southeast Asia, where reflection might have led to caution. Instead, the need to be seen as active, as well as the clashes of strong egos, separate the needs of policy from the dictates of politics. The personalities of different Presidents and key advisers all had an effect. Many, but by no means all,  of the key political decisions were under Johnson, but Presidents from Truman through Ford all had roles.


==American perspective==
Although Americans died in supporting South Vietnamese involvement beginning in 1962, the greatest U.S. involvement was from mid-1964 through 1972. U.S ground troops began reducing in 1968 and much more sharply in 1969. So, much of the detailed U.S. political action with other countries will be in [[Joint warfare in South Vietnam 1964-1968]], [[Vietnamization]], and [[air operations against North Vietnam]].  
{{main|Vietnam, war, and the United States }}
Psychologically, the Vietnam War was almost as traumatic as the Civil War. It is still a painful memory and the subject of ill-tempered debates regarding victory and defeat, imperialism and Communism, good intentions and limited resources, deceit and patriotism. Misinformation abounds on the topic &mdash; many have the idea that the [[United States Army]] was defeated in combat by a Viet Cong guerrilla force &mdash; something that definitely did not happen. United States military forces left the Republic of Vietnam under the [[command and control#Usage that may be confusing |civilian control of the military]], and at the orders of a U.S. government that recognized American public opinion did not regard the survival of South Vietnam as a critical issue.<!--Commented out "this article is primarily from a U.S. perspective." If it continues to be so, retitle it "U.S. perspective on the Vietnam war.-->


Several other factors were important in the formation of public opinion. This was the first war to have near-real-time battle footage televised to the American public. It was also a time of much general social change, from the civil rights movement to increased drug use to "free love" to the assassination of several charismatic leaders. A social revolution saw many people (especially blacks, students and feminists) in revolt against tight restrictive rules and roles that confined individuals into boxes of race, gender, age and class. Favorite targets of the revolt included all traditional sources of order, discipline and hierarchy, such as the police, the military, and the government itself. The social revolt of the 1960s was by no means limited to the US--parallel upheavals took place in Europe, Japan, and even China.<ref>Jeremi Suri, ''Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Detente'' (2005) [http://www.amazon.com/Power-Protest-Global-Revolution-Detente/dp/0674017633/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/103-4827826-5463040?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191639845&sr=8-2 excerpt and text search]</ref>
Vietnam's climate has a major effect on warfare, especially involving vehicles and aircraft.
Major operations usually took place in the dry season. While the most southern parts tend to have a generally tropical climate, there are two major climactic periods:
*Monsoon season of heat, rain, and mud, with limited mobility (May to September)
*Warm and dry conditions (October to March)


While the United States lost none of the battles, it lost the war as it had completely lost sight that winning wars is ultimately political. In a way, this was not surprising, as it  From 1964 to 1972 debate raged between "doves" (who wanted the US to cut its losses and get out) and "hawks" (who wanted to win, for some definition of "win"). From 1945 to 1964, people with expertise in the area, but with no special ornithological definition, argued about the proper role of the United States in the region. Speaking of wars in general, {{quotation|Nothing is more divisive for a government than having to make peace at the price of major concessions. The proces of ending a war almost inevitably invokes an intense internal struggle if it means abandoning an ally or giving up popularly accepted objectives...the power structure of a government is not made of one piece &mdash; even in dictatorships. Political factions contend for influence, government agencies and military service maintain their own separate loyalties and pursue partisan objectives, and popular support keeps shifting.|Fred Charles Iklé, <ref name=Ikle>{{citation
===Combat support advisory phase===
|title = Every War Must End, revised edition
[[John F. Kennedy]] and his key staff, came from a different elite than that which had spawned the Cold Warriors of the Eisenhower Administration. While the form was different, a militant anti-Communism was underneath many of the Kennedy Administration policies. <ref name=Halberstam>{{citation
| first = Fred Charles | last =Iklé
| first = David | last = Halberstam
| publisher = Columbia University Press|year = 1991}}</ref> pp. 59-60}}
  | title = The Best and the Brightest
| publisher = Random House | year = 1972}}, pp. 121-122</ref> Its rougher operatives had a different style than [[Joe McCarthy]], but it is sometimes forgotten that Robert Kennedy (RFK) had been on McCarthy's staff. <ref>{{citation
| journal = Washington Monthly
| date = October  2000
| title = Bobby: Good, Bad, And In Between - Robert F. Kennedy
| first = Evan | last = Thomas
|url = http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_10_32/ai_66495287/print?tag=artBody;col1}}</ref>


Many believe victory, although the criteria for "victory" were never clearly defined, was thrown away because, as General [[Hamilton H. Howze]] said when Saigon finally fell to the Communists in 1975, "America itself lost much of its will to fight and the politicians and the press began their program of vilification." Howze's rhetoric says more about the military's role in society and its own battered self image than it does about Vietnam. Much of the intensity of the debate during the 1960s sprang not from what was happening in Asia, but what was happening on the home front.  
Where Republicans during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations blamed Democrats who had "lost China", the Kennedy Administration was not out to lose anything. The first covert operations in the region began in the Eisenhower Administration, but Kennedy increased both operations in Laos and Vietnam.


A comment from one mid-level soldier, to become an apparently victorious commander in a later war, may be illustrative. A lieutenant colonel hospitalized for back surgery at the time, wrote (his emphasis)
===Intensification===
{{quotation|I ''hated'' what Vietnam was doing to the United States and I ''hated'' what it was doing to the Army. It was a nightmare that the American public had withdrawn its support: our troops in World War I and World War II had ''never'' had to doubt for one minute that the people on the home front were fully behind them. We in the military hadn't chosen the enemy or written the orders &mdash; our elected leaders had. Nevertheless, we were taking much of the blame. |H Norman Schwarzkopf Jr., <ref name=Schwarzkopf1992>{{citation
Guerrilla attacks increased in the early 1960s, at the same time as the new [[John F. Kennedy]] administration made Presidential decisions to increase its influence. Diem, as other powers were deciding their policies, was facing disorganized attacks and internal political dissent. There were conflicts between the government, dominated by minority Northern Catholics, and both the majority [[Vietnamese Buddhism|Buddhists]] and minorities such as the [[Montagnard]]s, [[Cao Dai]], and [[Hoa Hao]]. These conflicts were exploited, initially at the level of propaganda and recruiting, by stay-behind Viet Minh receiving orders from the North.
| first = H Norman, Jr. | last = Schwarzkopf
| title = It Doesn't Take a Hero
| publisher = Bantam
| year = 1992}}</ref>, p. 181}}


COL (ret.) Harry Summers, a strategic analyst and author, observed that the protest movement was directed not at the civilian makers of policy, but at the uniformed executors of policy. <ref name=Summers>{{citation
U.S. personnel went into the field with ARVN personnel starting in 1962. The term "adviser" was popular but not always accurate. While many U.S. personnel indeed did advise their counterparts, and U.S. forces did not take a direct combat role, a substantial part of field activity was devoted to tactical airlift of ARVN troops, and a wide range of technical support. The first American soldier to die in combat was not with ARVN infantry, but part of a [[signals intelligence]] team, doing [[direction finding]] on Viet Cong radio transmitters in the field, whose team was ambushed.
| title=On Strategy: a Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War
| first = Harry G., Jr. | last = Summers
| publisher = Presidio | year = 1995}}</ref> Other soldiers, however, have described the U.S. involvement as essentially in support of U.S. domestic political agendas, starting from a reflexive, Eisenhower-Dulles militant anticommunism. <ref name=McMaster>{{citation
| first = H.R. | last = McMaster
| title = Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam
| publisher = Harper | year = 1998}}</ref>


The Vietnam War inevitably became the target of opportunity. The history of the small war is unusually complicated because it lasted so long, involved so many twists and turns of policy and strategy. The turnover of Americans was unusually high (2.5 million were stationed there), so that the many veterans each have a different story to tell.
Th [[Battle of Ap Bac]], fought on January 2, 1963, did involve both U.S. advisers to ARVN commanders, as well as U.S. aviation support. [[John Paul Vann]] was the senior tactical adviser, and his outrage about ARVN performance both stimulated aggressive investigative journalism, as well as infuriating the U.S. command.


==Increased U.S. combat role==
===Deterioration and reassessment===
It was the position of the Johnson Administration that the entire opposition was organized and directed by Hanoi, a position consistent with the strict Communist vs. anti-Communist view of the fifties. This view, at times, may have interfered with pressuring for reforms in the South Vietnamese government, such as removing inefficient officers with good political connections, and reducing corruption.  
By November 1963, after Diem was killed, there was mixed feelings among the JCS if covert operations alone could have a significant effect. <ref name=PntV3Ch01Sec1pp1-56>{{citation
| title =The Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, Volume 3
| contribution = Chapter 1, "U.S. Programs in South Vietnam, Nov. 1963-Apr. 1965," Section 1, pp. 1-56
| url = http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon3/pent1.htm}}</ref> [[Chief of Staff of the Air Force]] GEN [[Curtis LeMay]] pushed his JCS colleagues for "more resolute, overt military actions." He was joined by Commandant of the Marine Corps GEN [[David Shoup]], and gained stronger support from the Army and Navy chiefs, GEN [[Earle Wheeler]] and ADM [[David McDonald]]. ADM [[Harry Felt]], commander of [[United States Pacific Command]], also believed covert actions alone would not be decisive.  LeMay said "we in the military felt we were not in the decision-making process at all [Chairman of the JCS Maxwell] Taylor might have been but we didn't agree with Taylor in most cases."<ref>McMaster, pp. 59-60</ref> 


With the [[Gulf of Tonkin resolution]] as authority, the U.S. sent more and more combat units into South Vietnam, also bringing in allied nations. In some cases, such as with the excellent South Korean troops, the U.S. paid their expenses.  
To senior civilian officials, with the Joint Chiefs receiving it via Secretary of Defense McNamara, Johnson stated his policy decision in classified National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 273, of November 26, 1963. The key point was the U.S. goal was to strengthen South Vietnam to win its own contest; the U.S. expected to begin to withdraw troops. "It remains the central object of the United States in South Vietnam to assist the people and Government of that country to win their contest against the externally directed and supported Communist conspiracy. The test of all U.S. decisions and actions in this area should be the effectiveness of their contribution to this purpose.


The Administration also was of the position that any Communist government was unacceptable, and was dismissive of any neutralist roles. Other than a general fear of Communist expansion, no U.S. administration clearly articulated a direct threat to the U.S. that justified large-scale U.S. land involvement in Asia. For some policymakers, the general threat was sufficient reason. For others, as seen in the McNaughton memo, it was more that the U.S. had no clean way to reduce its involvement without harming its "role as a guarantor".Perhaps the most telling document of the lack of strategic vision of McNamara and his staff was a 1965 memorandum from McNaughton, attempting to define goals. McNaughton defined the U.S. aims as:
He made pacification of the Mekong Delta the highest priority, but also ordered planning for increased yet deniable activity against North Vietnam. "With respect to Laos, a plan should be developed and submitted for approval by higher authority for military operations up to a line up to 50 kilometers inside Laos, together with political plans for minimizing the international hazards of such an enterprise." These operations would change from CIA to MACV control. A "favorable influence", but no operations in, Cambodia was desired.  
*"70%--To avoid a humiliating US defeat (to our reputation as a guarantor).
*20%--To keep SVN (and then adjacent) territory from Chinese hands.
*10%--To permit the people of SVN to enjoy a better, freer way of life. Also-To emerge from crisis without unacceptable taint from methods used. Not--To "help a friend," although it would be hard to stay if asked out." <ref name=McNaughton>{{citation
| first = John T. | last = McNaughton
| title =  Paper Prepared by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (McNaughton): Action for South Vietnam
| volume = Foreign Relations of the United States, "McNaughton Paper 1965 - FRUS
193"
| date = 10 March 1965
| url = http://vietnam.vassar.edu/ladrang03.html}}</ref>


Note that generic anticommunism was not an objective, and the welfare of South Vietnam was low on the list. McNaughton's emphasis on Chinese domination ignored a history of Vietnamese enmity to the Chinese, going back to the revolt of the Two Trung Sisters in the first century A.D. North Vietnam was Stalinist, not Maoist, and far more a Soviet than Chinese client.  
A high priority was producing "as strong and persuasive a case as possible to demonstrate to the world the degree to which the Viet Cong is controlled, sustained and supplied from Hanoi, through Laos and other channels."<ref name=NSAM>{{citation
| author = [[Lyndon B. Johnson]]
| title = National Security Action Memorandum 273: South Vietnam
| date = November 26, 1963
| url = http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/Johnson/archives.hom/NSAMs/nsam273.asp}}</ref>


The Johnson Administration always insisted that aggression was organized and directed by Hanoi; it rejected arguments by opponents of intervention in Vietnam that Hanoi was innocent, or intermediate positions that there were southern dissidents used by the North. U.S. opposition had no single cause, but one theme was that it was extremely unwise to become involved in a land war in Asia, with no critical U.S. interests at stake. Others, perhaps more naive, saw it as purely a civil war.  
The JCS responded to NSAM 273 with a January 22, 1964 memorandum to McNamara. Significant differences with the Presidential decision, which emphasized assisting South Vietnam, was a JCS goal of "victory" as the goal of U.S. military operations.


There was never a unified command in South Vietnam, as there was in South Korea, for complex reasons. Since there was no multinational mandate, such as the UN issued for the [[Korean War]], there was sensitivity about the U.S. creating the perception of being a colonial power making the RVN a "puppet", which was already a Communist propaganda theme. Had this issue not existed, there were concerns about Communist intelligence agents in the Southern government.
===Gulf of Tonkin Incident===
===Weak Diem regime===
[[Image:NH 96349.jpg|thumb|right|300px|{{NH 96349.jpg/credit}}<br />Track chart of USS ''Maddox'' (DD-731) and three North Vietnamese motor torpedo boats, during their action on 2 August 1964. Attacks by aircraft from [[USS Ticonderoga (CV-14)|USS ''Ticonderoga'' (CVA-14)]] are also shown.]]
Even if the Communist military threat could be countered by U.S. action, there remained an enormous problem with  the Diem regime itself-- militarily ineffective and politically unpopular. It tried to suppress the non-Communist opposition by large-scale arrests. Its downfall came when it bungled the demands of organized Buddhist monks for a larger voice in political affairs. The multiple interest groups and centers of power in the nation had become alienated from Diem, and gave him no support as he raided the pagodas and arrested demonstrators. Furthermore, he increasingly rejected American demands for political and economic reforms. Washington sadly concluded that Diem had outlived his usefulness, so it stood silent during a military coup on November 1, 1963, that assassinated Diem and installed the first of a long series of unstable governments.<ref> Washington did not approve or order the coup, but it did not try to stop it.</ref>


Kennedy himself was assassinated three weeks later, and [[Lyndon Johnson]] took charge. Diem's death  led to chaos; the [[strategic hamlet]] program collapsed, and the Viet Cong recouped their losses and pressed forward across the countryside. ARVN battalions one after another crumbled under intense local attacks. The CIA gave GVN only an "even chance" of surviving.<ref> Quoted in [http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon3/pent1.htm ''Pentagon Papers'' v. 3 ch. 1]</ref>
On August 2, 1964, a DESOTO Patrol destroyer (USS ''Maddox'', DD-731) was believed to have been approached, and possibly fired upon, by the North Vietnamese. After much declassification and study, the incident largely remains shrouded in what German military theorist [[Carl von Clausewitz]] has called the "fog of war," but questions have been raised about whether the North Vietnamese believed they were under attack, about who fired the first shots, and, indeed, if there was a true attack. There has not been a clear indication from the North Vietnamese if they thought the DESOTO and 34A operations were part of the same programs, and, if so, if destroyer-sized vessels represented an escalation. Later on the 2nd, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, [[Maxwell Taylor]], ordered that DESOTO patrols should not be made at the same time as 34A operations.  
====Fear of China, 1960-1964====
Rusk worried that a Communist victory in Vietnam would cause neighboring countries to fall like dominoes to pro-Chinese Communists. The threat was greatest in Indonesia, an island nation with a large population, significant oil wealth, and an active Communist movement. Rusk was concerned about what was called the "falling domino" effect; he thought the fall of neighboring states would be rapid, but others looked for great damage in slow motion, as in a a 1964 CIA estimate: <blockquote>We do not believe that the loss of South Vietnam and Laos would be followed by the rapid, successive communization of other states of Southeast Asia. Instead of a shock wave passing from one to the next, there would be a simultaneous, direct effect on all Far Eastern countries. With the possible exception of Cambodia, it is likely that no nation of the area would quickly succumb to communism as a result of the fall of Laos and South Vietnam. Further, a spread of communism in the area would not be inexorable, and any spread that would happen would take time &mdash; time in which the situation might change in any of a number of ways unfavorable to the Communist cause....The loss of South Vietnam and Laos to the Communists would be profoundly damaging to the US position in the Far East, most especially because the US has committed itself persistently, emphatically, and publicly to preventing Communist takeover of the two countries.<ref name=Kent1964-06-09>{{citation
|  title = Memo 6-9-64 (for the Director of Central Intelligence): Would the Loss of South Vietnam and Laos precipitate a "Domino Effect"
| author = Sherman Kent for the Board of National Estimates
| url = http://cryptome.org/cia-domino/cia-domino.htm}}</ref></blockquote>


In 1965, however, the anti-communist army seized power and totally destroyed the Communist movement in Indonesia with wholesale arrests and executions. This was a surprise to the U.S., which was giving [[CIA activities in Asia-Pacific#Indonesia 1965|covert aid]] to some anti-communist factions, but the Army action followed Communist killing of several generals.
There is some question as to whether the second patrol (increased to two ships with air cover) was actually attacked, or if there were merely North Vietnamese warships in their area. Declassified NSA intercepts of North Vietnamese communications, on the 4th, show considerable confusion on the DRV side. Operating under Presidential authority, Johnson launched Operation PIERCE ARROW (air strikes against North Vietnamese naval facilities and the oil refinery at Vinh) on the evening of the 4th (Washington time), and gave a speech regarding the same approximately 90 minutes before the Navy aircraft reached their targets.<ref name=McMaster>{{citation
 
  | title = Dereliction of Duty : Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam
 
  | first = H.R. | last = McMaster
===Escalation by Viet Cong===
  | publisher = HarperCollins
In the early 1960s the Viet Cong escalated its attacks; the Diem regime lost ground every month. In 1961 the Viet Cong had 25,000 regular soldiers and 17,000 underground operatives. The NLF controlled villages containing about a fifth of the rural population of ten million (six million people lived in SVN's cities and towns, where the NLF remained weak.) American observers reported that the Saigon regime lacked legitimacy in the villages. The GVN never generated spontaneous support or a sense of patriotism because it was too much like the French system: too autocratic, too urban, Catholic, aloof, corrupt, arrogant, inefficient, self-indulgent and predatory. The challenge was not to restore legitimacy but get it in the first place.
  | year = 1997 | isbn=0060187956
 
}}</ref>  
In January 1963, an apparently overwhelming ARVN force, with armored vehicles, artillery and air support, and U.S. advisors including [[John Paul Vann]] went confidently against an inferior force at the [[Battle of Ap Bac]], and were routed. <ref name=Sheehan>{{citation
| first = Neil | last = Sheehan
| title = A Bright and Shining Lie
| publisher = Vintage | year = 1989}}</ref>.  This has been considered the triggered for an increasingly skeptical, although small, American press corps in Vietnam.
 
By October, 1963, Kennedy had sent 16,000 advisors who were working feverishly to shape up the ARVN; 100 had already been killed. The U.S. Air Force began training pilots; the Army sent in helicopter transports. The choppers terrorized the Viet Cong, until they figured out how to ambush them when they landed. After 9,000 combat sorties, 21 airplanes and 13 helicopters had been shot down. Viet Cong influence had been pushed back, but the NLF still controlled a tenth of the rural villages. 
===NLF as shadow government===
By contrast, peasants at first found the NLF appeared to be honest, caring and basically like themselves. It had considerable support--it especially appealed to idealistic youth, and in any case was always feared by the villagers who knew the assassination squads would eliminate any dissent. From 1957 through 1972, the Viet Cong Security Service carried out 37,000 assassinations of government officials, religious and civic leaders, teachers, informers, landowners, and moneylenders.
 
The role of landowners was critical to the dissatisfaction of villagers with the government. Absentee landlords formed a significant part of Diem's power base, in a quasi-feudal system that contained resentments the NLF could exploit. Much of Vietnamese rural culture was tied to the ancestral lands where they were located, yet the villagers did not own their fields and homes.<ref name=Gibson>{{citation
  | title = The Perfect War: Technolwar in Vietnam
| first = James William | last = Gibbs
| publisher = Atlantic Monthly Press | year = 1986
}}pp. 70-71</ref> Gibson quotes a landlord interviewed by Samson: <blockquote>In the past, the relationship between the landlord and his tenants was paternalistic. The landlord considered the tenant as an inferior member of his extended family. When the tenant's father dieed, it was the duty of the landlord to give money to the tenant for the funeral; if his wife was pregnamt, the landlord gave mone for the birth; if he was in financial ruin, the landlord gave assistance; therefore, the tenant had to behave as an inferior member of the extended family. The landlord enjoyed great prestige vis-a-vis the tenant. <ref name=Samson>{{citation
  | first = Robert L. | last = Samson
  | title = The Economics of Insurgency in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam
  | publisher = MIT Press | year = 1970}} p. 29</ref></blockquote>


During this period of paternalism, the landlord also received 40 to 60 percent of the tenants' crops as rent. When the Viet Minh fought the French, they also fought an economic war, and drove large landowners into the cities, or variously lowered or ended rent payments. According to Gibson, when Diem's ARVN forces established security, they put landlords back in control, often demanding back rent. <ref>Gibson, pp. 71-72</ref> 
President Johnson asked for, and received, Congressional authority to use military force in Vietnam after the [[Gulf of Tonkin Incident]], which was described as a North Vietnamese attack on U.S. warships. Congress did not "declare war," which is its responsibility under the Constitution; nevertheless, it launched what effectively was at the time the longest war in U.S. history, and even longer if the covert actions before the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin situation are included. The [[Gulf of Tonkin Resolution]], although later revoked, was considered by Lyndon Johnson as his basic authority to conduct military operations in Southeast Asia. It serves as an example of how outright declarations of war have become extremely rare since the [[Second World War]].


Separarately from the land reform and economic issues, Government of Vietnam were unable to provide security for the villages. The Diem government response was to create defensible "strategic hamlets" and forcibly move the villagers to them. The strategic hamlet might have government-appointed or military leaders; the villagers' locally chosen leadership was destroyed. The tombs of ancestors was abandoned, in a culture where it was proper to show ancestral respect.  
===Beginning of air operations===
[[Image:Boeing B-52 bombing run.jpg|thumb|right|300px|{{Boeing B-52 bombing run.jpg/credit}}<br />A U.S. Air Force [[B-52 Superfortress|Boeing B-52F-70-BW ''Stratofortress'']] drops Mk 117 750 lb (340 kg) bombs over Vietnam, ''circa'' 1965-1966.]]
Immediately after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, there was a period of retaliation for specific attacks, [[Operation FLAMING DART]], and then a steady but incremental pressure under [[Operation Rolling Thunder]] operations against North Vietnam. There was also extensive air support overtly inside South Vietnam, and, at different times, in Laos and Cambodia; some of these are discussed above in the section on covert activity.


<!--The only effective government response was to hunt the guerrillas down, or target their leaders, but that was too dangerous for the dispirited ARVN. Instead Diem's defensive strategy was the "strategic hamlet" program. Millions of villagers were relocated into new hamlets that the ARVN and local militia forces could defend. The villagers resented the dislocation and the central government's replacement of local leaders.-->
From a current doctrinal standpoint, these campaigns should be evaluated according to an examination of air operations relying on a planning model at the level of [[operational art]]. This model distinguishes ''effectiveness'', or the results of the campaign, from the tactical aspects of weapons ''effects''.  Several factors need to be considered to determine effectiveness. The campaigns in Laos and Cambodia were far more effective than [[Operation Rolling Thunder]], as they were not executed as a subtle means of "signaling", but had clear objectives measurable in military terms. The objectives here, as well as in [[Operation Linebacker I]], were military. [[Operation Linebacker II]] also was effective, but it had well-defined objectives at the level of grand strategy: [[compellence]] to return to negotiations. <ref name=JP5-0>{{citation
==Lyndon Johnson's War, 1963-65==
|title = Department of Defense Joint Publication 5-0: Joint Operation Planning
Johnson would have to do something unless he wanted to be known as the Democrat who "lost Vietnam." As a believer in the "domino theory," he worried that other countries in Southeast would fall to Communism if the line was not held. The only alternative to containment, he believed, was rollback as advocated by Barry Goldwater. "Why Not Victory?" Goldwater asked; because it means nuclear war, Johnson retorted, as he used the rollback issue to overwhelm Goldwater in the 1964 election. (Whereupon the Air Force revised its manual of air doctrine, to state that "total victory in some situations would be an unreasonable goal."<ref> Quoted in Lieutenant General John W. Pauly, "The Thread of Doctrine," [http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1976/may-jun/pauly.html  ''Air University Review, May-June 1976'' online] </ref>
|author = [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]]
===Domestic politics===
| date = 13 February 2008
Equally important to Johnson than what happened in Asia was what was happening at home, especially in the minds of the voters.<ref name=McMaster /> Vietnam was a "political war" only in the sense of U.S. domestic politics, not a political settlement for the Vietnamese.
|url = http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/new_pubs/jp5_0.pdf}}</ref>
#What conditions are required to achieve the objectives?
#What sequence of actions is most likely to create those conditions?
#What resources are required to accomplish that sequence of actions?
#What is the likely cost or risk in performing that sequence of actions?


The President always put domestic politics first, especially his far-reaching reform progran called the [[Great Society]]. Having been a Democratic Senate leader in the early 1950s who had to defend against Republican charges that the Democrats had "lost" China and failed in Korea, Johnson was determined that a similar political disaster had to be avoided at all costs.
===Major ground combat phase===
<blockquote>"I am not going to be the president who saw Southeast Asia go the way China went," he vowed.<ref> Phillip B. Davidson, ''Vietnam at War: The History: 1946-1975'' (1991) [http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0195067924/ref=sib_books_pg?ie=UTF8&keywords=%26%2334%3Bsaw%20Southeast%20Asia%20go%20the%20way%20China%20went&p=S08V&checkSum=K3IhTdGczWfDBu1lYKVqKE80z7KFvL4%252BQ%252FQ7E5X2CWg%253D  quoted p. 304] </ref></blockquote>
{{seealso|Vietnam War military technology}}
 
Secretary of Defense [[Robert McNamara]], who had been appointed by Kennedy, became Johnson's principal adviser, and continued to push an economic and signaling grand strategy. Johnson and McNamara, although it would be hard to find two men of more different personality, formed a quick bond. McNamara appeared more impressed by economics and Schelling's  [[compellence]] theory <ref name=Carlson2005>{{citation
He tried several different strategies, but running through them all was a policy of controlling popular perceptions.  The American people were never to become alarmed at the magnitude of the problem; White House policy was to keep reassuring the nation that everything was going fine in Vietnam, and that LBJ could be trusted to handle the situation in his own way.<ref name=McMaster /> This was the only war in American history in which Washington did not try to rouse patriotic fervor behind the cause; indeed, Johnson tried to subdue any spontaneous outpourings of patriotism. The reason was that a surge of patriotism would lead to demands for victory and rollback--Goldwaterism--and risk nuclear destruction from Russian missiles. Even if the nation escaped nuclear war, a frenzy of pro-war patriotism would doom funding for Johnson's domestic programs, his "[[The Great Society]]". The Johnson solution was to keep the war quiet.
 
On the other hand, allowing the Communists to take over a U.S. client was unacceptable to Johnson; as shown in the McNaughton Memo, the key position was avoiding a decisive blow to Johnson's deep commitment to containment. <ref name=McNaughton /> "The central lesson of our time," Johnson told a John Hopkins audience in April 1965, "is that the appetite of aggression is never satisfied. To withdraw from one battlefield means only to prepare for the next." He continued, We must say in southeast Asia--as we did in Europe--in the words of the Bible: 'Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further.'" Privately he felt that if he lost Vietnam to the communists, everything he wanted to work for at home--civil rights, the War on Poverty, and his Great Society--would also be lost.
<blockquote>"I'd be  giving a big fat reward to aggression," he explained years later, and "there would follow in this country an endless national debate--a mean and destructive debate--that would shatter my Presidency, kill my administration, and damage our democracy."<ref> Quoted in Doris Kearns, ''Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream'' (1976), p. 252.</ref> </blockquote>
====Johnson's plan to settle war====
Johnson did have a plan for settling the conflict, one that conformed to containment policy, and to New Deal liberalism. Johnson believed that all disputes arose out of mutual misunderstandings, and could be resolved through negotiation. His strategy was to offer Hanoi billions of dollars in foreign aid if they would play along, or else bomb them into negotiations, from which a permanent peace would result that allowed South Vietnam to continue as an independent nation.
 
Johnson did not reject the possibility that the Communists could become part of some sort of coalition government. He apparently was unaware that Vietnamese history was against him, as when the [[VNQDD]] was purged from the "broad front" Viet Minh by the Communists.
 
The military, which saw its mission in terms of winning wars, not facilitators for negotiations, never agreed with Johnson, or, perhaps more to the point, with McNamara. In the 1950s, when [[Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff]] Arthur Radford recommended major U.S. intervention at [[Dien Bien Phu]], possibly including [[nuclear weapon]]s, Eisenhower was quite confident in refusing Radford. The other members of the JCS had not supported Radford.
 
By the time Johnson took office, there was already a significant U.S. involvement in Vietnam,. although large-scale combat forces had not been committed. McNamara, who had been appointed by Kennedy, continued to push an economic and signaling grand strategy to Johnson. Johnson and McNamara, although it would be hard to find two men of more different personality, formed a quick bond. McNamara appeared more impressed by economics and Schelling's  compellance theory <ref name=Carlson2005>{{citation
  | title = The Failure of Coercive Diplomacy: Strategy Assessment for the 21st Century
  | title = The Failure of Coercive Diplomacy: Strategy Assessment for the 21st Century
  | first = Justin | last = Carlson  
  | first = Justin | last = Carlson  
  | journal = Hemispheres: Tufts Journal of International Affairs  
  | journal = Hemispheres: Tufts Journal of International Affairs  
| url = http://ase.tufts.edu/hemispheres/2005/Carlson.doc}}</ref> than by Johnson's liberalism or Senate-style deal-making, but they agreed in broad policy.
| url = http://ase.tufts.edu/hemispheres/2005/Carlson.doc}}</ref> than by Johnson's liberalism or Senate-style deal-making, but they agreed in broad policy.
<ref name=>{{citation
| title = Deterrence Now
| first = Patrick M. | last = Morgan
| year = 2003
| publisher = Cambridge University Press
| url =http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/22572/sample/9780521822572ws.pdf}}</ref>


Johnson responded by picking new generals who would play along, and by closely monitored them to make sure that he would never encounter another MacArthur-type insubordinate commander. Ironically, after Johnson said he would not run for re-election in 1968, [[Creighton Abrams]], who took over MACV from [[William Westmoreland]], was far more oriented toward a holistic approach to [[peace operations|nation building]] than Westmoreland's attritional strategy.
They directed a [[Joint warfare in South Vietnam 1964-1968|plan for South Vietnam]] that they believed would end the war quicklyNote that the initiative was coming from Washington; the unstable [[Government of the Republic of Vietnam|South Vietnamese government]] was not part of defining their national destiny.  The plan selected was from GEN [[William Westmoreland]], the field commander in Vietnam.  
 
====Congress====
With the Pentagon under control, Johnson kept Congress out of the policy making process, and Congress did not assert its authority over the making of war. He ignored antiwar "doves" like Senator [[William Fulbright]], the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee. More of a political threat were "hawks" like GOP Senator [[Barry Goldwater]], articulate spokesman for the nascent conservative movement, and Democratic Senator [[John Stennis]], the chair of the powerful Armed Services Committee.<ref> Joseph A. Fry, ''Debating Vietnam: Fulbright, Stennis, and Their Senate Hearings.'' (2006); Michael S. Downs,  "Advise and Consent: John Stennis and the Vietnam War, 1954-1973." ''Journal of Mississippi History'' 1993 55(2): 87-114. Issn: 0022-2771  </ref> Johnson feared that if Congress had a voice it would push for a more aggressive, expensive war that would sabotage his high- spending low-tax "Great Society" domestic program. War taxes would be politically disastrous in the next election. Even worse, Congress might reject his forced-negotiations strategy and insist upon a roll-back strategy aiming at the defeat and conquest of North Vietnam. The surest lesson Johnson and the liberals had learned in Korea was that MacArthur's roll-back strategy had led to Chinese intervention and humiliation. Under no circumstances would they accept a roll-back policy.<ref> The Army's "Campaign Plan--North Vietnam" of 1955 envisioned eight American and five ARVN divisions using tactical (battlefield) nuclear weapons to invade and conquer North Vietnam in one year; it assumed China would not intervene. It is not publicly known whether there were later invasion plans. Spector (2005) 270-1; ''Pentagon Papers''  4:299</ref> 
 
Johnson, committed to containment, refused to withdraw, but also refused to take decisive action.  Since South Vietnamese were unable to defeat the threat with American advice and supply; Johnson made the fateful decision to supplement them US combat troops. He planned to first rescue GVN (Government of South Vietnam) from imminent collapse by guerrilla attacks, then negotiate a settlement with Hanoi that would allow it to survive. He vetoed two other options: US command and control of the ARVN (unwise because GVN would never learn to defend itself) and invasion of North Vietnam to strike the threat at its source.
 
In mid-1964, LBJ assembled a new team. <!--Burke was made CNO over even more senior admirals. Was he a yes-man as well? --> Looking for a yes-man, he passed over 43 more senior generals to promote [[Harold Johnson]] (1912-83) to [[Chief of Staff of the Army]]. Maxwell Taylor moved from the position of [[Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff]] to became [[ambassador|Ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam]].<!--normal Chief of Mission authority, with authority over all diplomatic, CIA and military operations in Vietnam.--> General [[Earle Wheeler]] (1908-75) replaced Taylor at Chairman of the JCS; his mission was to keep the senior commanders loyal to the White House.<ref>Charles F. Brower, "Strategic Reassessment in Vietnam: the Westmoreland "Alternate Strategy" of 1967-1968." ''Naval War College Review'' 1991 44(2): 20-51. Issn: 0028-1484 </ref>
 
General [[William Westmoreland]] (1914-2005) became head of [[Military Assistance Command, Vietnam]] (MACV), with authority over US Army and Marine ground operations, and some naval and tactical air operations. He was one of the few senior officers since 1940 not to have attended the military's internal school system, especially the [[Command and General Staff College]] (although he was an instructor there) and the various war colleges. However he had studied at Harvard Business School, and his freedom from standard doctrine and his interest in quantification attracted him to McNamara.<ref>Samuel Zaffiri, ''Westmoreland: A Biography of General William C. Westmoreland'' (1994)  </ref>
 
Admiral Ulysses S. Grant Sharp (1906-2001) at Pearl Harbor, became head of all US forces in the Pacific. He had charge of the naval blockade that kept Hanoi from running supplies by sea, and most importantly, of strategic bombing operations over North Vietnam (which were launched from Sharp's four [[aircraft carrier]]s or from Air Force [[B-52]] bases in Thailand and Guam). Nominally Westmoreland reported to Taylor, Sharp, [[Harold Johnson]] and Wheeler; in practice he dealt directly with McNamara or LBJ. Westmoreland could always be counted upon for a public statement exuding optimism; he reassured LBJ that the war would be won in time for the 1968 elections. The intricate division of responsibility was set up so that there would be no powerful theater commander like MacArthur; it also guaranteed a steady flow of disputes that could only be resolved by McNamara or the president. The military thus never had control of the war it was called upon to fight, or of the tactics to use.
 
===Gulf of Tonkin incident: 1964===
In early August 1964 Johnson seized on an ambiguous incident in which North Vietnamese PT boats reportedly fired on a US destroyer; this became known as the [[Gulf of Tonkin incident]]. The public message was that the destroyer was on general patrol.
 
Less well known, however, were that simultaneous covert attacks on the North Vietnamese coast, coordinated by MACV-SOG operating under [[Gulf of Tonkin incident#covert operations| Operations Plan (OPPLAN) 34A]], and the North Vietnamese were on high alert. The destroyer was actually collecting [[signals intelligence]] under a program called the [[Gulf of Tonkin incident#DESOTO patrols and naval response|DESOTO patrol]],<REF name=NSAtonkin>{{cite web
  | last = National Security Agency
  | authorlink = National Security Agency
  | title = Gulf of Tonkin
  | work = declassified materials, 2005 and 2006
  | date = 11/30/2005 and 05/30/2006
  | url = http://www.espionageinfo.com/An-Ba/Army-Security-Agency.html
  | accessdate =  2007-10-02}}</ref> and tecently declassified [[National Security Agency]] [[signals intelligence]] reports  indicate that the U.S. commanders knew that the North Vietnamese were uncertain if the destroyers were part of the same attacks as 34A. There has never been clear-cut [[geophysical MASINT#acoustic MASINT|sonar]] or SIGINT information that the North Vietnamese initiated an attack on the destroyer patrol, although one of the destroyers may have fired warning shots.
 
Although there was no immediate and continuing threat to U.S. forces, Johnson ordered retaliatory airstrikes on the North. His television address to the U.S. public, explaining he had ordered it under his authority as commander-in-chief, was delivered while the strikes were still inbound and the North Vietnamese air defenses not yet alerted. According to McMaster, Johnson insisted on an early announcement so that he would be sure to make the late evening news, as well as the deadline for morning newspapers. <ref name=McMaster />
 
However, the North Vietnamese had indeed sunk an American ship in May,{{fact}} and had begun to kill American advisors; they were clearly testing Washington. He immediately rammed the "[[Gulf of Tonkin incident#Gulf of Tonkin resolution|Gulf of Tonkin Resolution]]" through Congress, saying it would deter Hanoi. The Resolution was itself vague, endorsing the Commander-in-Chief's right to "take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack...and to prevent further aggression."
 
Not only did the Resolution give Johnson a boost during his heated 1964 reelection campaign, it also provided just enough legality for him to avoid going back to  Congress; see [[War Powers Resolution]] and [[Creighton Abrams#Total Force concept|the Total Force concept]] developed by [[Creighton Abrams]] (the last commander of U.S. combat forces) as future checkpoints on Presidential adventurism. The role of the President and Congress in initiating combat, however, remains intensely controversial. See [[Vietnam, war, and the United States]].
 
In the election Johnson battled Republican Senator [[Barry Goldwater]], warning vehemently that Goldwater's "Why Not Victory" rollback strategy would produce a nuclear war with the Soviets. Surprisingly little discussion of Vietnam took place. Virtually all the information and advice that reached Johnson and McNamara in 1963-65 was deeply pessimistic: the consensus was that the South Vietnam government was too corrupt, and its army was too inefficient, to withstand the Communists. The only chance for containment--a slim one--was to have American soldiers take command of the war and defeat the Viet Cong forces on the ground, while hurting North Vietnam just enough to convince them to negotiate. 
 
At the time of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, North Vietnamese air defense was fairly unsophisticated, but steadily improved. As opposed to the North Koreans in the Korean War, they established an [[integrated air defense system#North Vietnam]], and seemed more intent on training their own people rather than rely on Russian, Chinese  or Korean pilots.  In many cases, they got quite good performance out of obsolescent weapons, such as the [[MiG-17]] fighter, of which they had more than the first-line [[MiG-21]].
 
===Escalation 1965=== 
Immediately after his triumphant landslide, Johnson made his move. The NLF was on the verge of announcing a provisional government in the northernmost six provinces; three elite regiments from the North Vietnamese Main Force moved into South Vietnam. Hanoi thought it could win quickly and that America was a paper tiger. It was a tragic miscalculation that would bring endless misery to the Vietnamese. Johnson sent in the first American combat troops in March, 1965, to protect the air bases. Rejecting the Air Force's strategy of strategic bombing against 94 critical targets<ref>The  document listing these targets, 7 Sep 1964 JCS Talking Paper for CJCS, "Next Courses of Action for RVN" [ indeed starts with 1 and ends with 94, but it only contains 93 distinct targets</ref> in the North, Johnson and McNamara instead launched an alternative air power strategy called "Rolling Thunder." It entailed retaliatory bombing anytime Communists struck at American forces, together with a gradual buildup of  22 bombing attacks against small military targets in the North. There was to be no bombing of cities or villages, and no attacks on the ships bringing Russian and Chinese arms to the port of Haiphong. To reverse the downhill slide in the villages, Westmoreland called for 24 more maneuver [[battalion]]s (of approximately 800-1000 men each) added to the 20 he had, plus more artillery, aviation (helicopters), and support units; McNamara rounded the total to 175,000 troops, with 27 more maneuver battalions to come in 1966. Westmoreland's "ultimate aim" was:
<blockquote>"To pacify the Republic of [South] Vietnam by destroying the VC—his forces, organization, terrorists, agents, and propagandists—while at the same time reestablishing the government apparatus, strengthening GVN military forces, rebuilding the administrative machinery, and re-instituting the services of the Government. During this process security must be provided to all of the people on a progressive basis."<ref> John M. Carland, "Winning the Vietnam War: Westmoreland's Approach in Two Documents." ''Journal of Military History" 2004 68(2): 553-574. Issn: 0899-3718 in [[Project Muse]], with full text of "DIRECTIVE NUMBER 525-4  (MACJ3) 17 September 1965: TACTICS AND TECHNIQUES FOR EMPLOYMENT OF US FORCES IN THE REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM."  </ref> </blockquote> 
 
Westmoreland complained that, "we are not engaging the VC with sufficient frequency or effectiveness to win the war in Vietnam."  He said that American troops had shown themselves to be superb soldiers, adept at carrying out attacks against base areas and mounting sustained operations in populated areas. Yet, the operational initiative— decisions to engage and disengage—continued to be with the enemy. He told American commanders to use better  intelligence to find better ways to take the fight to the enemy. Only by doing so could U.S. forces make the best use of America's twin advantages of firepower and mobility. Westmoreland's strategy was to hunt down and attack enemy infantry formations.
 
Simple search and destroy approach that consisted of attacking and blocking forces would not work in Vietnam's jungles because the VC had the uncanny the ability to "slip out from between the hammer and the anvil" in these operations. Thus, the Americans needed to cover all likely escape routes. Westmoreland rejected the Marine Corps alternative program of building up a close rapport with the peasant and defending their villages.
 
McNamara realized that Westmoreland's search and destroy plan would be costly, with perhaps 500 Americans killed every month. Washington having explicitly rejected rollback and victory had a goal of containment that would allow South Vietnam to continue to exist as a non-Communist state.
 
====Antiwar movement====
While Washington tried to keep the war quiet, radical college students in the US launched a noisy antiwar protest movement with teach-ins and rallies. Their efforts were counterproductive, because they forced millions of Americans who might have had doubts about the war to support the Administration for patriotic reasons. 
 
The antiwar credo focused on the illegality and immorality of  American action, and praised the heroic peasants fighting western imperialism. Much was made of napalm and forced resettlement, to create a sense of American guilt rather than reflect empathy with the Vietnamese. After the war, protesters maintained the guilt theme, but forgot about the Vietnamese. Senator Fulbright, the most prominent dove, lacked empathy with the Vietnamese. As a believer in white supremacy, he believed white Americans should not die to save an inferior colored race.<ref>  Randall Bennett Woods, ''Fulbright: A Biography'' (2006), p, 115 </ref> The most prominent military "dove" was retired Marine Corps Commandant David Shoup. He argued in 1967 that Americans should ignore the issue of freedom in Asia because, "I don't think the whole of Southeast Asia, as related to the present and future safety and freedom of the people of this country, is worth the life and limb of a single American." The Vietnamese, he added, "have no idea of our meaning of freedom." <ref> Howard Jablon, "General David M. Shoup, U.S.M.C.: Warrior and War Protester." ''Journal of Military History'' 1996 60(3): 513-538 at pp. 532. 537 [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0899-3718%28199607%2960%3A3%3C513%3AGDMSUW%3E2.0.CO%3B2-S in JSTOR]</ref> Until Tet in early 1968, the clear majority of Americans (including students) took a "hawkish" stance on the war. 
 
By the end of 1965 there were 184,000 Americans inside Vietnam, plus 22,400 Allies (from Korea, Australia and New Zealand). Having quietly become so deeply involved, meant the US could no longer easily back out; the war had become a quagmire. On the other hand it had to be kept low key lest it interfere with Johnson's domestic goals, and the geostrategic goals became increasingly vague.
 
===Rolling Thunder: The Failure of Strategic Bombing===  
 
Johnson had to prove that containment was a viable project, and that American power could deter an invasion and protect a friend without the necessity of widening the war and invading the enemy. The operation had to be an object lesson to Moscow and Peking to not try anything like this anywhere else in the world ever again. The Joint Chiefs who wanted to win quickly and get out were echoing a roll-back strategy that Johnson was committed to refute. Roll-back meant Douglas MacArthur, Barry Goldwater, John Stennis, and defeat for LBJ and his Great Society--and it could well mean nuclear missiles raining down on American cities. At all costs Johnson felt compelled to make his policy work. 
 
Johnson and McNamara adopted a three-tier strategy to save SVN.
#Protect US bases and repel enemy ground attacks with U.S. ground troops
#Attack the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos.
#Initiate [[Operation ROLLING THUNDER]] bombing over North Vietnam.
 
ROLLING THUNDER The latter had a triple purpose: to boost Saigon's morale, weaken Hanoi's war- making capabilities, and force them to the bargaining table. To the civilian decisionmakers of the Johnson Administration, who prepared detailed bombing plans at Tuesday luncheons from which anyone with military bombing experience was included, bombing seemed a cheap solution: the Air Force and Navy had plenty of air power to spare, and the raids would cause few American casualties. The extremely detailed bombing orders, down to the number and type of bombs and the direction of approach, rarely considered how to attack targets while minimizing the effectiveness of enemy air defense.
 
The targets were primarily transportation lines, bridges, railway yards, storage dumps, and oil tanks; civilian areas were to be avoided. In line with a "signaling" model proposed by Harvard economist Thomas Schelling, LBJ refused to allow the most valuable installations, those around Hanoi and Haiphong, to be attacked. The idea was that damage future was more harrowing than damage present. In practice, the slow escalation gave Hanoi time to camouflage and decentralize its installations, and thus minimize the damage.The raids were closely controlled by the White House, which saw them as "signals" in a negotiating process with Hanoi. There is no indication, however, that Hanoi even perceived that signals were sent.
 
Raids were calibrated so that each month they became more punitive, at least in the American value system. The theory was that sooner or later Hanoi's pain threshold would be crossed and they would agree to negotiate a plan that would allow SVN to survive.
 
A classic error, which generations of professional intelligence analysts have been taught to avoid, is [[cognitive traps for intelligence analysis#The Other Side is Different|'''mirror-imaging''']]. The Johnson Administration treated the North Vietnamese as mirror images of themselves, rather than people with a radically different mindset. Johnson was sensitive to the cycle of getting legislation passed, as well as frequent public opinion polling, while he was dealing with opposing leaders that had focused on their goal since the 1930s or earlier. 
 
Historians (on all sides) are quite unanimous that Rolling Thunder was a total failure.<ref> Col. Dennis Drew, ''Rolling Thunder 1965: Anatomy of a Failure'' (1986);  Merle L., Pribbenow, II, "Rolling Thunder and Linebacker Campaigns: the North Vietnamese View." ''Journal of American-East Asian Relations'' 2001 10(3-4): 197-210. Issn: 1058-3947  </ref>  North Vietnam was a very poor agricultural country with few likely targets in the first place. Unlike Germany and Japan in World War Two, it did not manufacture its own munitions, but imported them from China and Russia. LBJ vetoed plans to mine Haiphong harbor and cut the railroad lines at the Chinese border. Johnson, who had been a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee in 1950, vividly remembered the Chinese intervention in Korea that year, and refused to permit any military action that might somehow trigger another intervention. In striking contrast to the attacks on Berlin, Tokyo and a hundred other World War Two targets, the vast majority of bombs landed on empty jungle.
===Air war in the south===
Vietnamese jungle caused much military difficulty. In the 1964 election, [[Barry Goldwater]] never recovered from speculation about possibility of using low-yield nuclear weapons to defoliate infiltration routes in Vietnam, he never actually advocated the use of nuclear weapons against the North Vietnamese. Nevertheless, the Democrats easily painted Goldwater as a warmonger who would drop atomic bombs on Hanoi.<ref name=ThisDay>{{citation
| date = September 22, 1964
| title = Goldwater attacks Johnson's Vietnam policy
| author = The History Channel
| url = http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=1373
}}</ref> 
 
Under [[Operation RANCH HAND]], the U.S. military sprayed large areas with a defoliant called [[Agent Orange]]. While Agent Orange itself was considered nontoxic to humans, and was primarily composed of conventional herbicides 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, many batches had an exceptionally toxic byproduct of the manufacturing process, which caused caused significant contamination, and long-term health consequences, including defects, on both Vietnamese and Americans. This was also used by Canadian Forces in Canada, who documented the later-understood health effects. <ref name=CForange>{{citation
| author = Defence Canada
| title = The Use of Herbicides at CFB Gagetown from 1952 to Present Day
| url = http://www.dnd.ca/site/reports/defoliant/index_e.asp
}}</ref>
 
As in the schoolboy joke about making your head feel good by stopping the hammer blows, Johnson from time to time experimented with bombing pauses that would make Hanoi eager to come to terms. They never did. It cost the US a billion dollars a year to destroy $100 million in PAVN supplies--but Washington had the tens of billions and Hanoi did not have the tens of millions. It did have friends, however, and Moscow and Peking doubled their shipments of munitions. Moscow sent in sophisticated air defense systems; 922 planes went down. Rolling Thunder dropped 640,000 tons of bombs, but pilots protested angrily that political restrictions radically reduced their effectiveness. As one Navy flier growled in his diary:
<blockquote>We fly a limited aircraft, drop limited ordnance, on rare  targets in a severely limited amount of time. Worst of  all we do this in a limited and highly unpopular war....What I've got is personal pride pushing against a tangled web of frustration.<ref> Quoted in Clodfelter, p. 134</ref></blockquote> 
 
Rolling Thunder did reduce the southward flow of arms somewhat, and definitely forced Hanoi to divert more and more of its resources to logistics, air defense and rebuilding. More than half of the North's electric power, oil storage, bridges and railroad yards had to be rebuilt. Supplies were hidden in small caches or buried underground, which further attenuated Hanoi's logistics capability. The raids made it quite impossible for PAVN to send large units or tanks into the south. The suffering of its people held a lower priority for the Politburo than its quest for victory, and its actions were consistent with its goals, especially considered in Mao's concept of protracted war.
 
McNamara and other civilians, who had placed blind trust in the invincibility of air power, developed a growing sense of frustration and defeatism. McNamara himself concluded the bombing was a failure, and that therefore the whole war was doomed. The President, however, more empathy with the South Vietnamese than his advisors <!--(perhaps because he was highly sensitive to the plight of nonwhites.) How do we know this?--> He pushed on.
 
After Nixon replaced Johnson, the new national security team reviewed the situation. [[Henry Kissinger]] asked the [[Rand Corporation]] to provide a list of policy options, prepared by [[Daniel Ellsberg]]. On receiving the report, Kissinger and Schelling asked Ellsberg about the apparent absence of a victory option; Ellsberg said "I don't believe there is a win option in Vietnam." While Ellsberg eventually did send a withdrawal option, Kissinger would not circulate something that could be perceived as defeat. <ref>Gibson, p. 170</ref>.
 
===Westmoreland's Attrition Strategy===  
Westmoreland in 1965 got 175,000 of the best soldiers in the world. MACV was delighted that the skills and esprit of the American troops were outstanding. The most ambitious young officers and the most experienced NCOs volunteered at once. Despite some shortages, the US Army had never been in nearly as good shape at the start of a war. The basic infantry unit was the rifle platoon of 41 men commanded by a lieutenant. It was subdivided into three rifle squads (commanded by sergeants), and a weapons squad carrying two excellent M60 light machine guns. The company, commanded by captain, had three rifle platoons and a [[mortar]] platoon that provided on-the-spot light artillery. The infantry maneuver battalion, about 1,000 men strong and commanded by a lieutenant colonel, had five companies. At peak Westmoreland had 100 infantry battalions, the main maneuver and fighting unit of the war. Routinely it received 500 hours a month of helicopter support from corps' command. Above the battalion were brigades and divisions; in this war they handled paperwork, letting the battalions do the fighting. Overall, 20% of the soldiers were in "teeth" (combat) roles; the rest were "tail," assigned to advisory missions, logistics, maintenance, construction, medicine and administration. 
 
Westmoreland's first challenge was figuring out a strategy to defeat the Viet Cong.
*Phase I: stabilize the situation (by the end of 1965)
*Phase II: (scheduled for 1966-67) would push the enemy back in key areas
*Phase III: total victory (1968).
====Marine plan====
The Marines, with responsibility for "I Corps," the northern third of the country, had a plan for Phase I. It reflected their historic experience in pacification programs in Haiti and Nicaragua early in the century. <ref name=USMC-SW>{{citation
| title = Small Wars Manual (Reprint of 1940 Edition)
| author = United States Marine Corps
| url = http://www.smallwars.quantico.usmc.mil/sw_manual.asp}}</ref>
 
Noting that 80% of the population lived in 10% of the land, they proposed to separate the Viet Cong from the populace. It was a major challenge, since the NLF controlled the great majority of villages in I Corps. Working outward from Da Nang and two other enclaves, 25,000 Marines of the III Marine Amphibious Force<ref>The normal Marine term is "[[Marine Air-Ground Task Force#Marine Expeditionary Force|Marine Expeditionary Force]]", but "Expeditionary" had unfortunate colonialist connotations in Vietnam. Current USMC terminology is MEF.</ref> systematically eliminated Viet Cong soldiers and guerrilla forces, and sought to weed out NLF cadres from the villages.
 
The main device was the [[Foreign internal defense|Combined Action Platoon]], with a 15-man rifle squad and 34 local militia. Rather than having separate "advisory" units, the bulk of the CAP members served alongside the local militia, building personal relationships. It would "capture and hold" hamlets and villages. The Marines put heavy stress on honesty in local government, land reform (giving more to the peasants) and MEDCAP patrols that offered immediate medical assistance to villagers. In some respects, the CAP volunteers had assignments similar to the much more highly trained [[United States Army Special Forces]], but they would make use of whatever skills they had. One young Marine, for example, was a graduate of a high school in an agricultural area in the U.S., came from a family hog farm that went back several generations, and won competitions for teenagers who raised prized hogs. While he was no military expert, he was recognized as helping enormously with the critical pork production in villages.
 
Marines in CAP had the highest proportion of volunteering for successive Vietnam tours of any branch of the Marine Corps. Many villages considered the CAP personnel part of their extended family.  Westmoreland distrusted the Marine village-oriented policy as too defensive for Phase II--only offense can win a war, he insisted. The official slogan about "winning hearts and minds" gave way to the Army's "Get the people by the balls, and their hearts and minds will follow." Ambassador Taylor welcomed the Marine strategy as the best solution for a basically political problem; it would also minimize American casualties.<ref>David M. Berman, "Civic Action," in Spencer Tucker, ed. ''Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War'' [http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0195135253/ref=sib_dp_bod_ex?ie=UTF8&p=S00M#reader-link p. 73-74] </ref>
 
While the Army and Marines had their approaches to the village, yet another came from a joint project of the CIA and [[United States Army Special Forces]]. The CIDG (Civilian Irregular Defense Groups) program was created for  the Montagnard peoples in the sparsely populated mountanous areas of the Central Highlands.  The Montagnards disliked all Vietnamese, and had supported first the French, then the Americans. About 45,000 were enrolled in militias whose main role was defending their villages from the Communists. In 1970 the CIDG became part of the ARVN Rangers.<ref>Tucker, ed., [http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0195135253/ref=sib_dp_srch_pop?v=search-inside&keywords=mentagnard&go.x=0&go.y=0&go=Go!#  ''Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War (2000) pp 74-75, 276-77 ]</ref>  Indeed, the tensions were high between the Army (which was in charge) and the Marines.
 
In 1968, Westmoreland sent his deputy [[Creighton Abrams]] to take command of I Corps, and gave his Air Force commander control of Marine aviation. The Marines protested vehemently but were rebuffed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.<ref>William C. Westmoreland, ''A Soldier Reports''  (1976), pp 164-66. Marine General Victor Krulak devotes ch 13 of his memoirs, ''First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps'' (1984) to the dispute. [http://books.google.com/books?id=3WegnB4hNP8C&pg=PA195&dq=marines+army+westmoreland+krulak&sig=ACfU3U3DCjpctKg9qwPJmkM8TtQ7wOSEgw#PPA195,M1 ''First to Fight'' pp 195-204 online]; see also Douglas Kinnard, ''The War Managers American Generals Reflect on Vietnam'' (1991) [http://books.google.com/books?id=D6BvIfyvxmMC&pg=PA60&dq=marines+army+westmoreland&sig=ACfU3U04bmb_yaYQ5192TCC4NyTjf6bm6Q discusses the tension on p 60-1, online]</ref>


====Westmoreland vs. Taylor====
This model regarded the enemy forces in the field as the opposing [[centers of gravity (military)|center of gravity]], as opposed to the local security and development of [[pacification]]. The enemy, however, had a different idea of centers of gravity; see [[Vietnamese Communist grand strategy]].  
Taylor's strategy was to use superior American mobility and firepower to locate, attack and destroy the Viet Cong main forces. Once they were destroyed, he reasoned, the villages would be easy to pacify. Westmoreland proposed instead a "search and destroy" strategy that would win the war by attrition. The idea was to track down and fight the larger Viet Cong units, hoping to grind them down faster than they could be replaced. The measure of success in a war of attrition was not battles won or territory held or villages pacified, it was the body count of dead enemy soldiers. The body counts often were demanded by the chain of command, under pressure from Washington, even though the numbers were guesses and had little to do with realistic [[battle damage assessment]]. A number of field commanders and CIA analysts found that a much better predictor was the number of weapons recovered from a battlefield.


Westmoreland promised his three phase strategy could get the job done--whereas the defensive enclaves would prolong the conflict indefinitely into the future. Johnson could not wait forever, so he bought Westmoreland's plan and removed Taylor.  
Over time, the U.S. developed tactics increasingly appropriate to the environment and foe, given the Westmoreland's assumption that the center of gravity was the enemy main force. Some of the early operations included:
{{r|Operation ATTLEBORO}}
{{r|Operation Starlight}}
{{r|Operation CEDAR FALLS}}
{{r|Operation JUNCTION CITY}}
There were many such operations, variously by U.S. only, U.S. and ARVN, and ARVN forces. The term "search and destroy" was often used to describe ground operations against [[Viet Cong]] and [[People's Army of Viet Nam]] troops.


While there have been exceptions, especially in recent wars, Marines and Army troops do not always mix well, as they have some very different doctrinal assumptions. Army troops have much heavier artillery, and will wait for it to suppress the enemy before attacking on the ground, while Marines rely both on fast movement, and their own air support substituting for heavy artillery (i.e.,[[Marine Air-Ground Task Force]]s, which put land and air elements under a common commander). In 1968, Westmoreland sent his deputy [[Creighton Abrams]] to take command of I Corps, and gave his Air Force commander control of Marine aviation. The Marines protested vehemently but were rebuffed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  
The [[UH-1]] "Huey", as well as other types of [[helicopter]]s, are iconic of the Vietnam War. The full capabilities of units with integrated helicopter support were shown by the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) at the [[Battle of the Ia Drang]] and the [[Battle of Bong Son]].


Johnson had quietly committed the United States to a major venture. Containment was the original goal, but with the commitment itself came another goal--the nation's honor and credibility now had to be preserved.
These operations continued, some joint with ARVN troops and some by U.S. and third country forces alone. [[Australia|Australian]] units, integrated into large U.S. forces, were highly regarded. Less mobile but potent [[division (military)|divisions]] came from [[South Korea]] and [[Thailand]].


Hanoi was stunned by Westmoreland's highly effective strategy. Once so close to easy victory, now it had to fall back and rethink strategy and tactics. General Vo Nguyen Giap, head of the PAVN since 1946, rushed fresh 500-man battalions down the Ho Chi Minh Trail before the full force of the US mobilization could take effect. The flow rose from 3,000 a month in 1965 to 8,000 a month throughout 1966 and 1967, and then 10,000 in 1968. By November 1965 the enemy had 110 battalions in the field, with 64,000 combat troops, 17,000 in combat support, and 54,000 part- time militia. It was too little too late.
Immense fire support, from ground and air platforms, supported these operations. Close air support both from [[fighter aircraft|fighter-bombers]] and early [[armed helicopter]]s was common, but new techniques came into wide use. [[ARC LIGHT]] was the general code name for operations using [[B-52]] heavy bombers against targets in South Vietnam. The term grew to encompass B-52 operations against targets in Cambodia and Laos, principally against the [[Ho Chi Minh trail]]. B-52 use in the major [[Operation Linebacker I]] and [[Operation Linebacker II]] operations against North Vietnam are generally not considered ARC LIGHT missions; see the respective operations.


===First Airmobile Battles: Ia Drang and Bong Son=== 
There were also technical measures to clear jungle, both mechanical and chemical. See [[Vietnam War military technology]].
{{seealso|Battle of the Ia Drang}}
{{seealso|Battle of Bong Son}}
At Ia Drang (river Drang) in late 1965 the first major confrontation shaped up between Giap and Westmoreland. Giap wanted to continue his successful guerrilla war, but was overruled by the Politburo; they demanded victory in a hurry. The new plan was for Giap to use three regiments, but with a new controlling divisional headquarters,  across the neck of SVN, cutting the country in two. The division threatened the Plei Me special forces camp with one regiment, but put a second regiment across the road over which South Vietnamese forces, without helicopters, would have to drive to Plei Me from the larger base in Pleiku. Intelligence identified the presence, but at first not the position, of a third regiment, which could attack Pleiku if the reserve based there went to the assistance of Plei Me.


The South Vietnamese recognized they were stretched too thin, and asked for U.S. help. The U.S. Field Force (corps equivalent) commander for the area, MG Stanley Larsen, told GEN Westmoreland that he thought the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) was ready, and got permission for it to use its mobility to bypass the road ambushes. Since the PAVN along the road had planned to ambush trucks, there was not an issue of not being able to find the relieving troops. While the heliborne U.S. troopers could be heard miles away, their actual attack zones could not be determined until they swooped to a landing.
Unquestionably, Westmoreland's approach inflicted immense casualties on the enemy forces. Even so, the North Vietnamese seemed willing to accept them. During the second half of 1967, the North Vietnamese intensified operations in the border regions of South Vietnam, in at least regimental strength. Unlike the usual hit-and-run tactics used by communist forces, these were sustained and bloody affairs. Beginning at [[Battle of Khe Sanh#Battle of Con Thien|Con Thien]] and [[Battle of Khe Sanh#Battle of Song Be|Song Be]] in October 1967, then at [[Battle of Khe Sanh#Battle of Dak To|Dak To]]


It should be noted that the PAVN's practice of listening for helicopters was realized by Harold Moore, promoted to brigade command after leading a battalion in the Ia Drang. In the larger [[Battle of Bong Son]] approximately a month later, Moore used obvious helicopters to cause the PAVN to retreat onto very reasonable paths to break away from the Americans -- but different Americans had silently set ambushes, earlier, across those escape routes.
There had long been fighting in the [[Battle of Khe Sanh|Khe Sanh]] area, but the North Vietnamese greatly intensified their attacks in early January 1968, before the [[Tet Offensive]]. They continued operations there until April.


Giap's troops infiltrated the area of operations, carrying their supplies, hiding from reconnaissance during the day. They contested the helicopter landing zones, but never tried to hold ground; pitched battles were avoided, unless they could not break contact. If there was no exit, they did try to kill as many Americans as possible, with seemingly little concern about their own losses.
===Tet Offensive===
By 1968, and perhaps in 1967, Johnson's chief adviser on the war, McNamara, had increasingly less faith in the Johnson-Westmoreland model. McNamara quotes GEN [[William DuPuy]], Westmoreland's chief planner, as recognizing that as long as the enemy could fight from the sanctuaries of Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam, it was impossible to bring adequate destruction on the enemy, and the model was inherently flawed.<ref name>Gen. William E Dupuy, August 1, 1988 interview, quoted by McNamara, pages 212 and 371.</ref>


The PAVN preferred hit-and-run [[ambush]]es, or what they called "catch and grab." When their retreat was blocked, their next tactic was called
Opposition against him peaked in  1968; see [[Tet Offensive]].  On March 31, 1968, Johnson said on national television, <blockquote>"I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president"</blockquote>  
"hugging the belt" <ref name=Moore>{{citation
| first1 = Harold | last1 = Moore | first2=Joseph | last2 = Galloway
| title = We were soldiers once, and young: Ia Drang--The Battle That Changed The War In Vietnam
| publisher = Random House| year = 1992}}</ref> the Americans would not dare calling in artillery and gunships because of the risk of friendly fire casualties. The surprise attack would give a short window of opportunity before superior American mobility could be brought to bear. 


Giap was surprised that the U.S. and RVN knew the positions of two of his three regiments, and had an approximate location for the third. PAVN launched a series of violent attacks against the Americans, who clustered around their landing zonesOnly four choppers were shot down. Heavy doses of tactical air power, including [[B-52# Vietnam|area, then radar-controlled]] saturation bombing from B-52s, overwhelmed the PAVN. The invasion was stopped; the survivors fled back into their Cambodian sanctuaries. Giap excused his failure by saying he only wanted to discover the American's tactics; he convinced the Politburo that it was necessary to return to low-level guerrilla tactics (force the Yankees to "eat rice with chopsticks") because he could not beat the Americans in battle. The 101st Airborne Division converted to an airmobile formation, but the true airmobile structure was not used by other units. Nevertheless, helicopter augmentation became far more common.
In March, Johnson had also announced a bombing halt, in the interests of starting talks. The first discussions were limited to starting broader talks, as a ''quid-pro-quo'' for a bombing halt.:<ref name=Kissinger>{{citation
  | author = [[Henry Kissinger]]
  | title = Ending the Vietnam War: A history of America's Involvement in and Extrication from the Vietnam War|publisher=Simon & Schuster|year =1973}}, p. 50</ref>


==Westmoreland selects new tactics==
===Vietnamization phase===
The tide had turned, and Westmoreland called for more troops and helicopters to enlarge the search and destroy operation across the country. McNamara and LBJ agreed, doubling the number of infantry maneuver battalions from 35 in October 1965 (22 Army, 13 Marines) to 70 a year later (50 and 20). The number of artillery battalions also doubled to 79. By the end of 1966 the US Army had 244,000 personnel in Vietnam, the Marines 69,000, Air Force 57,000 and Navy 25,000, a total of 395,000. They faced 100,000 enemy riflemen in 152 combat battalions and two hundred separate companies. The doubling of combat forces, Washington realized, would entail a doubling of US losses from 400 deaths a month to 800. 
During the Presidential campaign, a random wire service story headlined that Nixon had a "secret plan for ending the war, but, in reality, Nixon was only considering alternatives at this point. He remembered how Eisenhower had deliberately leaked, to the Communist side in the [[Korean War]], that he might be considering using nuclear weapons to break the deadlock. Nixon adapted this into what he termed the "Madman Strategy".<ref>Karnow, p. 582</ref>
[[Image:Viet-patrol.jpg|thumb|325px|Infantry Patrol in a Clearing, U.S. Army combat painting by Roger Blum, 1966]]
Most of the fighting in Vietnam was done by companies that deliberately went in harms way for a couple days at a time-- into the jungles of the Central Highlands, or the rice paddies of the heavily populated lowlands. As Marine Lt. Philip Caputo observed, "There was no pattern to these patrols and operations. Without a front, flanks or rear, we fought a formless war against a formless enemy who evaporated like the morning jungle mists, only to materialize in some unexpected place."<ref> Philip Caputo 88</ref>
===Number and causes of casualties===
Of two million small unit operations, 99% never encountered the enemy. What are now called [[improvised explosive devices]], "booby traps" at the time, and [[land mines]] together caused a third of American deaths. The war was fought out in the other one percent, and most of the time combat was initiated by "Charlie" (the Viet Cong). The "hot landing zone" (enemy attacking choppers as they landed) accounted for 13% of the fights. American platoons on patrol were hit by ambush in 23% of the engagements, and their camps were hit by rocket or grenade attacks in 30%. In 27% of the battles the Americans took the initiative, including 9% ambushes, 5% planned attacks on known positions, and 13% attacks on unsuspected enemy positions. In 7% of the engagements both sides were surprised as they stumbled upon each other in the jungle.  


The casualties mounted. By the end of the war, 30,600 soldiers and 12,900 Marines had been killed in combat (together with 1,400 sailors and Navy pilots, and 1,000 Air Force fliers.) Nine times out of ten the enemy took heavier casualties and retreated, especially when gunships showed up. They could not win, they could scarcely replace their losses, yet they kept trudging down the Ho Chi Minh Trail day after day.
He told [[H. R. Haldeman]], one of his closest aides, <blockquote>"I call it the madman theory, Bob.I want the North Vietnamese to believe that I've reached the point that I might do anything to stop the war. We'll just slip the word to them that for God's sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about communism. We can't restrain him when he's angry, and he has his hand on the nuclear button, and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace."<ref name=Madman>{{citation
| title = Nixon's madman strategy | first = James | last = Carroll  | date =  June 14, 2005 | journal = Boston Globe | url = http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/06/14/nixons_madman_strategy/}}</ref></blockquote>
====Nixon decisionmaking structure====
After the election of [[Richard M. Nixon]], a review of U.S. policy in Vietnam was the first item on the national security agenda. [[Henry Kissinger]], the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, asked all relevant agencies to respond with their assessment, which they did on March 14, 1969.<ref>Kissinger, p. 50</ref>


===Communist concept of attrition and American understanding of it===
"Controlling the policy were a small group of men, President Richard M. Nixon, and which included the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs, Henry A. Kissinger; the President’s Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs, Major General Alexander M. Haig; and a few National Security Council officials trusted by Kissinger."<ref name=FRUS-VIII>{{citation
The enemy, however, was willing to accept those casualties. <ref name=Adams>{{citation
  | title = Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976
| author = Adams, Sam
  | volume = Volume VIII, Vietnam
| title = War of Numbers: An Intelligence Memoir
  | date = January–October 1972
| publisher = Steerforth Press | year= 1994}}</ref> McNamara was insistent that the enemy would comply with his concepts of cost-effectiveness, of which Ho and Giap were unaware. They were, however, quite familiar with attritional strategies.<ref name=Giap>{{citation
  | url = http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v08/media/pdf/frus1969-76v08.pdf
  | title = People's War People's Army: The Viet Cong Insurrection Manual for Underdeveloped Countries
  | publisher = Office of the Historian, [[U.S. Department of State]]}}</ref> Admiral [[Thomas Moorer]], [[Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff]]; [[Director of Central Intelligence]] [[Richard Helms]], and Ambassador [[Ellsworth Bunker]] also were involved, but [[Secretary of Defense]] [[Melvin Laird]] and [[Secretary of State]] [[William Rogers]] were rarely part of the inner discussions.
  | author = Vo Nguyen Giap
  | publisher = University Press of the Pacific | year =2001}}</ref> While they were not politically Maoist, they were also well versed in Mao's concepts of protracted war (see [[insurgency]]).<ref name=MaoProtracted>{{citation
  | url = http://www.marx2mao.com/Mao/PW38.html
| author = Mao Tse-tung
| title = On Protracted War
| work = Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung
  | publisher = Foreign Languages Press
| year = 1967
}}</ref>
==U.S. technology, equipment and techniques==
{{main|Vietnam War Ground Technology}}


==Ground war 1966-68==
====Policy toward SVN====
With more aggressive pursuit, including airmobile operations, Westmoreland's tactics worked in terms of defeating the threat of larger enemy units (i.e., [[battalion]] or larger) to South Vietnam. With the US increasing the pace of search and destroy (and the ARVN avoiding combat), the NLF was systematically pushed back. "Search and Destroy" gave way after 1968 to "clear and hold", when [[Creighton Abrams]] replaced Westmoreland.
U.S. policy changed to one of turning ground combat over to South Vietnam, a process called [[Vietnamization]], a term coined in January 1969. Nixon, in contrast, saw resolution not just in Indochina, in a wider scope. He sought Soviet support, saying that if the Soviet Union helped bring the war to an honorable conclusion, the U.S. would "do something dramatic" to improve U.S.-Soviet relations. <ref name=Kissinger>{{citation
| author = [[Henry Kissinger]]
  | title = Ending the Vietnam War: A history of America's Involvement in and Extrication from the Vietnam War|publisher=Simon & Schuster|year =1973}}, p. 103</ref> In worldwide terms, Vietnamization replaced the earlier [[containment policy]]<ref>Kissinger, pp. 27-28</ref> with [[detente]].<ref>Kissinger, pp. 249-250</ref>  Also in 1969, both overt and covert [[Paris Peace Talks]] began.


The Viet Cong was forced to disperse into smaller and smaller units, and so too did the US forces, until they were running platoon and even squad operations that blanketed far more of the countryside, chasing the fragmented enemy back into remote, uninhabited areas or out of the South altogether. Not only low-level NLF sympathizers but even Viet Cong officers and NLF political cadres started to surrender, accepting the resettlement terms offered by the GVN. At the end of 1964, the Pentagon estimated that only 42% of the South Vietnamese people lived in cities or villages that were securely under GVN control. (20% were in villages controlled by the NLF, and 37% were in contested zones.) At the end of 1967, 67% of the population was "secure," and only a few remote villages with less than 2% of the population were still ruled by the NLF.  
While Nixon hesitated to authorize a military request to bomb Cambodian sanctuaries, which civilian analysts considered less important than Laos, he authorized, in March, bombing of Cambodia as a signal to the North Vietnamese. While direct attack against North Vietnam, as was later done in [[Operation Linebacker I]], might be more effective, he authorized the [[Operation MENU]] bombing of Cambodia, starting on March 17.  These bombings were kept secret from the U.S. leadership and electorate; the North Vietnamese clearly knew they were being bombed. It first leaked to the press in May, and Nixon ordered warrantless surveillance of key staff. <ref>Karnow, p. 591-592</ref>


Hanoi seemed to believe that the rugged Central Highlands region (South Vietnamese Military Region II, also known as RVN II Corps), which contained a third of the area but only 7% of SVN's people, would make a good base for guerrilla warfare. [[United States Army Special Forces]] ("Green Berets") armed and led the Montagnard tribesmen against the Communists.  
Nixon also directed [[Cyrus Vance]] to go to Moscow in March, to encourage the Soviets to put pressure on the North Vietnamese to open negotiations with the U.S. <ref>Kissinger, pp. 75-78</ref> The Soviets, however, either did not want to get in the middle, or had insufficient leverage on the North Vietnamese.


In 1967, the Saigon political scene stabilized, as the Buddhist and student protesters ran out of steam and General [[Nguyen Van Thieu]] (1923-2001), a competent, fiercely anti-Communist Catholic, became president (in office 1967-75). The NLF failed to disrupt the national legislative election of 1966, or the presidential elections of 1967, which consolidated Thieu-ARVN control over GVN. Thieu failed to eliminate the systematic politicization, corruption, time-serving and favoritism in the ARVN.  
===Final air support phase===
===Pacification/Revolutionary Development===
In the transition to full "[[Vietnamization]]," U.S. and third country ground troops turned ground combat responsibility to the [[Army of the Republic of Vietnam]]. Air and naval combat, [[combat support]], and [[combat service support]] from the U.S. continued. While the ARVN improved in local security and small operations, [[Operation Lam Son 719]], in February 1971, the first large operation with only ARVN ground forces, they took casualties that the South Vietnamese leadership considered unacceptable, and withdrewThis operation still had U.S. helicopters lifting the crews, and U.S. intelligence and artillery support.  
RVN and MACV operated two different wars, although Westmoreland was principally interested only in overt military operations, while Abrams looked at a broader picture. MACV advisors did work closely with 900,000 local GVN officials in a well-organized pacification program called CORDS (Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development.) It stressed technical aid, local self government, and land distribution to peasant farmers. A majority of tenant farmers received title to their own land in one of the most successful transfer projects in any nation. On the other hand, hundreds of thousands of peasants entered squalid refugee camps when CORDS moved them out of villages that could not be protected.<ref> Thomas W. Scoville, ''Reorganizing for pacification support'' (1982) [http://www.history.army.mil/books/pacification_spt/index.htm online edition]</ref> In the [[Phoenix Program]] (part of CORDS with a strong CIA component) GVN police identified and arrested (and sometimes killed) the NLF secret police agents engaged in assassination. 
===Psychological tension and breakdown of discipline===
The more the American soldiers worked in the hamlets, the more they came to despise the corruption, inefficiency and even cowardice of GVN and ARVNThe basic problem was that despite the decline of the NLF, the GVN still failed to pick up popular support. Most peasants, refugees and city people remained alienated and skeptical. The superior motivation of the enemy troubled the Americans (especially in contrast with South Koreans, who fought fiercely for their independence.) "Why can't our Vietnamese do as well as Ho's?" Soldiers resented the peasants (ridiculing them as "gooks") who seemed sullen, unappreciative, unpatriotic and untrustworthy. The Viet Cong resorted more and more to booby-traps that (during the whole war) killed about 4,000 Americans and injured perhaps 30,000 (and killed or injured many thousands of peasants.)


It became more and more likely that after an ambush or boobytrap angry GIs would take out their frustrations against the nearest Vietnamese they perceived as potential enemies. MACV did not appreciate the danger that atrocities might be committed by Americans. In March 1968, just after the Tet offensive, one Army company massacred several hundred women and children at the hamlet of My Lai. High ranking American officers wre not charged, but the company captain was tried and acquitted. Platoon commander Lt. William Calley (a junior college dropout who was rushed through OCS) was sentenced to life imprisonment by a 1971 court martial. His sentence was reduced and he was released in 1975. The case became a focus of national guilt and self-doubt, with antiwar leaders alleging there were many atrocities that had been successfully covered up.<ref> Michal R. Belknap, ''The Vietnam War on Trial: The My Lai Massacre and the Court-Martial of Lieutenant Calley'' (2002). [http://www.amazon.com/Vietnam-War-Trial-Court-Martial-Lieutenant/dp/0700612122/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215301180&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]; [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/mylai.htm "Famous American Trials: The My Lai Courts-Martial 1970" online] </ref>
They did much better against the 1972 Eastertide invasion, but this still involved extensive U.S. air support. To stop the logistical support of the Eastertide invasion, Nixon launched [[Operation Linebacker I]], with the [[operational art|operational goal]] of disabling the infrastructure of infiltration. One of the problems of the Republic of Vietnam's Air Force is that it never operated under central control, even for a specific maximum-effort air offensive. South Vietnamese aircraft always were controlled by regional corps commanders, so never developed skills in deep [[battlefield air interdiction]].  


Other factors contributed to reduced U.S. discipline and efficiency. Recreational drugs were readily available; this may not have been critical in rear areas, but a combat patrol cannot afford any reduction of its situational awareness. General social changes, including racial tension, also challenged authority. The practice of "fragging" involved U.S. soldiers killing their own leaders with a fragmentation grenade or other weapon. Fragging sometimes was a response to a crackdown on rebellion, but, in some cases, it was a way to remove a thoroughly incompetent leader that could get his men killed.
When the North refused to return to negotiations in late 1972, Nixon, in mid-December, ordered bombing at an unprecedented level of intensity,  [[Operation Linebacker II]]. This was at the [[military strategy|strategic]] and [[grand strategy|grand strategic]] levels, attacking not so much the infiltration infrastructure, but North Vietnam's ability to import supplies, its internal transportation and logistics, command and control, and [[integrated air defense system]]. Within a month of the start of the operation, a peace agreement was signed.


=== Tet Offensive, 1968===
Peace accords were finally signed on 27 January 1973, in Paris. U.S combat troops immediately began withdrawal, and [[prisoner of war|prisoners of war]] were repatriated. U.S. supplies and limited advise could continue. In theory, North Vietnam would not reinforce its troops in the south. In practice, the North did not remove its large forces from the south, and eventually committed additional large forces in a conventional invasion.
The climactic moment of the war came in February 1968 during the truce usually observed during the "Tet" holiday season. Hanoi used its NLF and Viet Cong forces to destroy the government of South Vietnam an incite a popular uprising. It was decisively defeated. After Tet the insurgency was in desperate shape, defeated on the battlefields and pushed out of most of the villages it once controlled. Meanwhile in the north the Rolling Thunder bombing campaign had destroyed much of the infrastructure and ruined practically the entire economy above the level of the rice paddies. However, the Tet Offensive had a devastating impact on Johnson's political position in the U.S., and in that sense was a strategic victory for the Communists.<ref> Don Oberdorfer, ''Tet!: The Turning Point in the Vietnam War'' (2001) [http://www.amazon.com/Tet-Turning-Point-Vietnam-War/dp/0801867037/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215302133&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search];  James H. Willbanks, ''The Tet Offensive: A Concise History'' (2006) [http://www.amazon.com/Tet-Offensive-Concise-History/dp/0231128401/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215302299&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search] </ref> 
[[Image:Viet-Tet-map.jpg|thumb|400px]]


The "tail" of the PAVN had grown as its teeth receded, for the bombing had made resupply extraordinarily difficult. The solution was the "Tet offensive," an all-out effort, aimed especially at a new target, the GVN bureaus and ARVN complexes in the cities. The Politburo theorized that the GVN was a hollow shell held together only by American firepower. They truly believed the proletariat would, given the opportunity, fight Marxist class warfare and throw off their exploiters. Yhe very legitimacy of their enterprise hinged on the premise that the people of South Vietnam hated their government and really wanted Communist control.  
==Fall of South Vietnam==
While Ford, Nixon's final vice-president, succeeded Nixon, most major policies had been set by the time he took office. He was under a firm Congressional and public mandate to withdraw.


As a diversion, PAVN sent a corps-strength unit to start the [[Battle of Khe Sanh]], at what had been an isolated U.S. Marine location. Johnson personally took control of the defense. When the media back home warned darkly of another disaster like [[Dien Bien Phu]], LBJ made his generals swear they would never surrender Khe Sanh. They committed 5% of their ground strength to the outpost (about 6,000 men) and held another 15-20% in reserve just in case. The enemy was blasted with 22,000 airstrikes and massive artillery bombardments. When the siege was lifted, the Marines had lost 205 killed, the PAVN probably 10,000.<ref> John Prados and Ray W. Stubbe, ''Valley of Decision: The Siege of Khe Sanh'' (2004) </ref>  
The North, badly damaged by the bombings of 1972, recovered quickly and remained committed to the destruction of its rival. There was little U.S. popular support for new combat involvement, and no Congressional authorizations to expend funds to do so. North Vietnam  launched a new conventional invasion in 1975 and seized Saigon on April 30.<ref>Military History Institute of Vietnam, ''Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People's Army of Vietnam, 1954-1975'' (2002), Hanoi's official history[http://www.amazon.com/Victory-Vietnam-Official-History-Peoples/dp/0700611754/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215223166&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]</ref>  


Hoping that Khe Sanh had tied down Westmoreland, the PAVN and Viet Cong struck on January 31, throwing 100,000 regular and militia troops against 36 of 44 provincial capitals and 5 of 6 major cities. They avoided American strongholds and targeted GVN government offices and ARVN installations, other than "media opportunities" such as attempting to a fight, by a small but determined squad, of the U.S. Embassy.   
No American combat units were present until the final days, when [[Operation FREQUENT WIND]] was launched to evacuate Americans and 5600 senior Vietnamese government and military officials, and employees of the U.S. The 9th Marine Amphibious Brigade, under the tactical command of [[Alfred M. Gray, Jr.]], would enter Saigon to evacuate the last Americans from the American Embassy to ships of the Seventh Fleet. Ambassador [[Graham Martin]] was among the last civilians to leave. <ref name=III-MAF>{{citation
| contribution = The Marine War: III MAF in Vietnam, 1965-1971
| first = Jack | last = Shulimson
| title = 1996 Vietnam Symposium: "After the Cold War: Reassessing Vietnam" 18-20 April 1996
| publisher = Vietnam Center and Archive at Texas Tech University
| url = http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/vietnamcenter/events/1996_Symposium/96papers/marwar.htm}}</ref> In parallel, [[Operation Eagle Pull]] evacuated U.S. and friendly personnel from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on April 12, 1975, under the protection of the 31st Marine Amphibious Unit, part of III MAF.   


The harshest fighting came in the old imperial capital of Hue. The city fell to the PAVN, which immediately set out to identify and execute thousands of government supporters among the civilian population. The allies fought back with all the firepower at their command. House to house fighting recaptured Hue on February 24. In Hue, Five thousand enemy bodies were recovered, with 216 U.S. dead, and 384 ARVN fatalities. A number of civilians had been executed while the PAVN held the city.  
Vietnam was unified under Communist rule.  Lê Duẩn's government purged South Vietnamese who had fought against the North, imprisoning over one million people and setting off a mass exodus and humanitarian disaster.<ref>Desbarats, Jacqueline. "Repression in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam: Executions and Population Relocation", from ''The Vietnam Debate'' (1990) by John Morton Moore. "We know now from a 1985 statement by Nguyen Co Tach that two and a half million, rather than one million, people went through reeducation....in fact, possibly more than 100,000 Vietnamese people were victims of extrajudicial executions in the last ten years....it is likely that, overall, at least one million Vietnamese were the victims of forced population transfers."</ref><ref>Anh Do and Hieu Tran Phan, [http://dartcenter.org/content/camp-z30-d-survivors Camp Z30-D: The Survivors], ''Orange County Register'', 29 April 2001.</ref><ref>''Associated Press'', June 23, 1979, ''San Diego Union'', July 20, 1986 reported that 200,000 to 400,000 "boat people" died at sea.</ref><ref name="Rummel">Rummel, Rudolph, [http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP6.HTM Statistics of Vietnamese Democide], in his ''Statistics of Democide'', 1997.</ref><ref>Nghia M. Vo, ''The Bamboo Gulag: Political Imprisonment in Communist Vietnam'' (McFarland, 2004).</ref> Large numbers of South Vietnamese became refugees, many as desperate "boat people."


Nationwide, the enemy lost tens of thousands killed, and many more who were wounded or totally demoralized. US lost 1,100 dead, ARVN 2,300. The people of South Vietnam did not rise up. However, the pacification program temporarily collapsed in half the country, and a half million more people became refugees. Despite the enormous damage done to the GVN at all levels, the NLF was in even worse shape, and it never recovered.  
Under the leadership of [[Pol Pot]], the Khmer Rouge murdered over 2 million Cambodians in [[the killing fields]], out of a population of around 8 million.<ref name="Heuveline, Patrick 2001">Heuveline, Patrick (2001). "The Demographic Analysis of Mortality in Cambodia." In Forced Migration and Mortality, eds. Holly E. Reed and Charles B. Keely. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.</ref><ref name="Bruce Sharp">{{cite web
| last = Sharp
| first = Bruce
| title = Counting Hell: The Death Toll of the Khmer Rouge Regime in Cambodia
|date= 1 April 2005
| url = http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/deaths.htm
| accessdate =6 March 2013 }}</ref>  The Pathet Lao slaughtered tens of thousands of Hmong tribesmen.<ref>Jane Hamilton-Merritt, ''Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos'', 1942–1992 (Indiana University Press, 1999), pp337-460.</ref><ref>''Forced Back and Forgotten'' (Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights, 1989), p8.</ref>


ABout 40,000 Communist soldiers in the South--probably about half--were killed in 1968; many others deserted to the GVN. By sending its main force into the cities during Tet, the NLF left a vacuum in the countryside that GVN and US pacification agents could fill.  
Southeast Asia did not become a monolithic Communist bloc. It took over a decade for the U.S. military to recover from some of its internal turmoil and breakdown in discipline.


By the end of 1968 the Saigon had pulled itself together and restored GVN authority in every province.  By 1969 Saigon forces were able to sustain the pressure on the NLF and Viet Cong and dramatically expand their control over both population and territory.<ref> [http://books.google.com/books?id=KclCL2yZVRAC&pg=RA1-PA1128&dq=1969+year+after+tet&lr=&sig=ACfU3U2g9FZHWI96arMwJo0ivGraQadbxQ  Elliott, ''The Vietnamese War:'' (2002) p. 1128]</ref>  Indeed, for the first time GVN found itself in control of more than 90% of the population. The Tet objectives were beyond our strength, concluded General Tran Van Tra, the commander of Vietcong forces in the South:
<blockquote>We suffered large sacrifices and losses with regard to manpower and materiel, especially cadres at the various echelons, which clearly weakened us. Afterwards, we were not only unable to retain the gains we had made but had to overcome a myriad of difficulties in 1969 and 1970.<ref>Quoted in  Robert D. Schulzinger, ''Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941-1975'' (1997) [http://books.google.com/books?id=8vNseCJ3D0sC&pg=PA261&lpg=PA261&dq=our+losses+were+large,+in+material+and+manpower&source=web&ots=JpCT1WiKV4&sig=FUz4duVkVKaG9pM--AIrvvfslzQ&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result p. 261 online]<ref> <ref>[http://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~ebolt/history398/TranVanTrasCommentsOnTet68.html Tran Van Tra, ''Vietnam: History of the Bulwark B2 Theatre, Vol. 5: Concluding the 30-Years War'' (1982), pp. 35-36.] </ref></blockquote>
==Nixon and Vietnamization==
The "falling domino" threat was greatest in Laos, where a low-intensity civil war gave the Communist Pathet Lao control of much of that remote land. Hanoi made systematic use of Laotian and Cambodian jungle trails as supply routes to the Viet Cong--the "[[Ho Chi Minh Trail]]." Cambodia's leader Prince [[Norodom Sihanouk]] repeatedly denied the existence of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and denounced pursuit of Viet Cong across his border. In fact, the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese created an elaborate infrastructure in his supposedly neutral country.
===1968: Vietnamization===
Worldwide opposition to the war built up inexorably after 1968. The media emphasized the lack of progress; hawks were frustrated by Nixon's abandonment of victory as a goal. Democrats who kept their peace while Johnson, a fellow Democrat, was in the White House now tried to weaken a Republican president. Nixon and his chief adviser [[Henry Kissinger]] were basically "realists" in world affairs, interested in the broader constellation of forces, and the biggest powers. H [[Melvin Laird]], Nixon's Secretary of Defense, was a career politician keenly aware that Americans had soured on the war. His solution was to make troop withdrawal announcements a measure of the administration's progress. Laird worried that further involvement would postpone modernization of the military and hasten the deterioration of morale. Nixon's challenge was to maintain the national honor, keep SVN alive, and withdraw American troops. His plan to end the war was to make it irrelevant by moving the basic American strategy from containment to detente.
Instead of perpetual cold war, Nixon and Kissinger believed the time had come to narrow  foreign policy to a realistic and limited view of the nation's own interests. It was necessary to maintain a strategic nuclear deterrent, and, since Western Europe was considered critical to U.S. interests, NATO would continue as a safeguard against Warsaw Pact attack. However, the US would seek detente, even friendship, with both the Soviet Union and China, would try to stop the arms race, and would tell countries threatened by subversion to defend themselves. Nixon rejected "a purely military victory on the battlefield," and also an immediate pullout that would cost the nation its honor. Like Johnson he rejected the "rollback" strategy favored by most hawks (and favored by his most important GOP rival, California governor [[Ronald Reagan]]).
===1969-1971, Attacks on sanctuaries in Cambodia===
In 1969, Nixon ordered B-52 strikes against PAVN supply routes in Cambodia. The orders for U.S. bombing of Cambodia were classified, and thus kept from the U.S. media and Congress. In a given strike, each B-52 normally dropped 42,000 pounds of bombs, and the strike consistedflying in groups of 3 or 6.  Surviving personnel in the target area were apt to know they had been bombed, and, since the U.S. had the only aircraft capable of that volume, would know the U.S. had done it.
The "secrecy" may have been meant to be face-saving for Sihanouk, but there is substantial reason to believe that the secrecy, in U.S. military channels, was to keep knowledge of the bombing from the U.S. Congress and public. Actually, a reasonable case could be made that the bombing fell under the "hot pursuit" doctrine of international law, where if a neutral (Sihanouk) could not stop one country from attacking another from the neutral sanctuary, the attacked country(ies) had every right to counterattack.
When he ordered a joint US-Vietnamese ground invasion of Cambodia in 1970, many of these events first became known in the U.S., and there were intense protests, including deaths in a confrontation between rock-throwing protesters and poorly-trained National Guardsmen at Kent State University.
Nixon's larger strategy was to convince Moscow and Bejing they could curry American favor by reducing or ending their military support of Hanoi. He assumed that would drastically reduce Hanoi's threat. Second, "Vietnamization" would replace attrition. Let the Vietnamese fight and die for their own freedom. Vietnamization meant heavily arming the ARVN and turning all military operations over to it; all American troops would go home. By giving SVN with the capability of holding its own, Nixon believed, America could depart with honor. To the amazement of the world Nixon's plan seemed to work. The "era of confrontation" had passed, he announced, replaced by an "era of negotiation." Soon the Soviet Union and China were competing for American favor; Brezhnev and Nixon became buddies. In history's most astonishing about-face since Hitler and Stalin came to an agreement in 1939, Nixon went to Beijing and was toasted by Mao Zedong, as China remained fearful of Soviet attack, and saw the need for American help to modernize its faltering economy.
The Vietnamization policy achieved limited rollback of Communist gains inside South Vietnam only, and was primarily aimed at providing the arms, training and funding for the South to fight and win its own war, if it had the courage and commitment to do so.  By 1971 the Communists lost control of most, but not all, of the areas they had controlled in the South in 1967. The Communists still controlled many remote jungle and mountain districts, especially areas that protected the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Saigon's effort to strike against one of these strongholds, [[Operation Lam Son 719]], was a humiliating failure in 1971. The SVN forces, with some U.S. air support, were unable to defeat PAVN regulars.
The two dissenters to Nixon's plan were Saigon and Hanoi. President Thieu was, reasonably, concerned his fragile nation would not survive American withdrawal. Hanoi intended to conquer the South, with or without its Soviet and Chinese allies. It did start negotiations believing the sooner the Americans left the better.
With the Viet Cong forces depleted, Hanoi sent in its own PAVN troops, and had to supply them over the Ho Chi Minh Trail despite systematic bombing raids by the B-52s. American pressure forced Hanoi to reduce its level of activity in the South. In 1970 there were only 2 battles of any size.  Nixon started withdrawing American troops in 1969, and by 1970 the remaining soldiers did very little fighting.  In 1970 Cambodia erupted into a battle ground, with the Communists making a direct bid to seize that nation. Nixon in April 1970 authorized a large scale (but temporary) US-ARVN incursion into Cambodia to directly hit the PAVN headquarters and supply dumps. The forewarned PAVN had evacuated most of their soldiers, but they lost a third of its arms stockpile, as well as a critical supply line from the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville. The incursion prevented the takeover by Pol Pot and his "Khymer Rouge" (Cambodian Communists). Pot broke with his original North Vietnamese sponsors, and aligned with China. 
The incursion into Cambodia in 1970 made the southern parts of SVN somewhat safer, but antiwar groups felt it proved Nixon's Vietnamization policy was all a deceit. At Kent State University a confrontation with the National Guard left seven protesters dead, and touched off a firestorm that shut down numerous academic institutions. Nixon ignored the protests and continued to Vietnamize the war. In 1971 all remaining American combat ground troops left, though air attacks continued.
===1971-72, buildups and back-and-forth combat===
During the quiet year 1971, Hanoi was building up forces for conventional invasion,  while  Nixon sent massive quantities of hardware to the ARVN, and gave Thieu a personal pledge to send air power if Hanoi invaded. The NLF and Viet Cong had largely disappeared. They controlled a few remote villages, and contested a few more, but the Pentagon estimated that 93% of the South's population now lived under secure GVN control. The year 1971 was quiet, with no large campaigns, apart for the ARVN defeat in Laos, [[Operation Lam Son 719]].
In March, 1972 Hanoi invaded at three points from north and west with 120,000 PAVN regulars spearheaded by tanks. This was conventional warfare, reminiscent of North Korea's invasion in 1950. hey expected the peasants to rise up and overthrow the government; they did not. They expected the South's army to collapse; instead the ARVN fought very well indeed. Saigon had started to exert itself; new draft laws produced over one million well-armed regular soldiers, and another four million in part-time, lightly armed self-defense militia.
Nixon ordered [[Operation LINEBACKER I]], with 42,000 bombing sorties over North Vietnam. Hanoi was evacuated. Nixon also ordered the mining of North Vietnam's harbors, a stroke LBJ had always vetoed for fear of Soviet or Chinese involvement, But thanks to detente the Societs and Chinese held quiet. The ARVN, its morale stiffened by  massive tactical air support from the US, held the line. As in Tet, the peasants refused to rise up against the GVN. "By God, the South Vietnamese can hack it!" exclaimed a pleasantly surprised General Abrams.
Since the PAVN's conventional forces required continuous resupply, the air campaign broke the momentum of the invasion and the PAVN forces retreated north. However they did did retain control of a slice of territory south of the DMZ. There the NLF, renamed the "Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam" (PRG) was established; it welcomed diplomats from the Communist world, including [[Fidel Castro]], and served as one of the launch points of the 1975 invasion.<ref>Lewis Sorley, "Courage and Blood: South Vietnam's Repulse of the 1972 Easter Invasion," [http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/99summer/sorley.htm  ''Parameters'', Summer 1999, pp. 38-56]; . Dale Andradé, ''Trial by Fire: The 1972 Easter Offensive, America's Last Vietnam Battle'' (1995) 600pp. For firsthand accounts by a ARVN general see Lam Quang Thi, ''The Twenty-Five Year Century: A South Vietnamese General Remembers the Indochina War to the Fall of Saigon'' (2002), [http://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Five-Year-Century-Vietnamese-Remembers/dp/1574411438/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product online edition].</ref>
===1972, South loses initiative===
After the failed Easter Offensive the Thieu government made a fatal strategic mistake. Overconfident of its military prowess, it adopted a policy of static defense that made its units vulnerable; worse, it failed to use the breathing space to correct its faulty command structure. The departure of American forces and American money lowered morale in both military and civilian South Vietnam. Desertions rose as military performance indicators sank, and no longer was the US looking over the shoulder demanding improvement. Politics, not military need, still ruled the South Vietnamese Army.
On other side, the PAVN had been badly mauled--the difference was that it knew it and it was determined to rebuild. Discarding guerrilla tactics, Giap three years to rebuild his forces into a strong conventional army. Without constant American bombing it was possible to solve the logistics problem by modernizing the Ho Chi Minh trail with 12,000 more miles or raods. Brazenly, he even constructed a pipeline along the Trail to bring in gasoline for the next invasion.<ref>Bruce Palmer, ''25 Year War'' 122;  Clodfelter 173; Davidson ch 24 and p. 738-59.</ref>
===Major 1972 airstrikes to force negotiations===
Late in 1972 election peace negotiations bogged down; Thieu demanded concrete evidence of Nixon's promises to Saignon. Nixon thereupon unleashed the full fury of air power to force Hanoi to come to terms. Operation [[Operation LINEBACKER II]], in 12 days smashed many targets in North Vietnam cities that had always been sacrosanct. 59 key targets were attacked, often using new weapons. In particular, [[precision guided munition]]s destroyed bridges previously resistant to attack. US policy was to try to avoid residential areas; the Politburo had already evacuated civilians not engaged in essential war work.
The Soviets had sold Hanoi 1,200 [[S-75 Dvina]]/NATO: [[SA-2 GUIDELINE]] [[surface-to-air missile]]s (SAM) that proved effective against the B-52s for the first three days. In a remarkable display of flexibility, the Air Force changed its bomber tactics overnight--and Hanoi ran out of SAMs. An American negotiator in Paris observed that, "Prior to LINEBACKER II, the North Vietnamese were intransigent... After LINEBACKER II, they were shaken, demoralized, and anxious to talk about anything." Beijing and Moscow advised Hanoi to agree to the peace accords;they did so on January, 23, 1973.
The Air Force interpreted the quick settlement as proof that unrestricted bombing of the sort they had wanted to do for eight years had finally broken Hanoi's will to fight; other analysts said Hanoi had not changed at all.<ref> Karl J. Eschmann, ''Linebacker: The Untold Story of the Air Raids over North Vietnam'' (1989)</ref><ref> Henry Kissinger, ''White House Years'' 1:1454</ref><ref>Clodfelter, ''Limits of Air Power" ch 6 </ref>
==Peace accords and invasion, 1973-75==
Peace accords were finally signed on 27 January 1973, in Paris. There would be an immediate in-place permanent cease-fire. The U.S. agreed to withdraw all its troops in 60 days (but could continue to send military supplies); North Vietnam was allowed to keep its 200,000 troops in the South but was not allowed to send new ones. Prisoners were exchanged.  South Vietnam and the PRG was to start negotiations on free elections. Although  a low-intensity war continued, the world rejoiced.  In February 591 surviving POWs (mostly pilots) came home to a joyous welcome.<ref>For many years there were dark rumors and suspicions that some American POWs were left behind. Nixon accepted Hanoi's assurances there were no more POWs; no missing POW has ever been located or identified by name.</ref> All American military now departed Vietnam, including advisors to ARVN. The war seemed to be over--with vague guarantees by Hanoi not to attack the South, and Nixon's personal assurance that if peace held the US would eventually give Hanoi billions of dollars for rebuilding. Hanoi kept large forces in the unpopulated SVN's Central Highlands. The NLF and Viet Cong were ciphers by this time, and nearly all the population in the South was under GVN control. With Nixon wounded by Watergate, Congress forbad American military activity anywhere in Indochina. 
After Nixon resigned in 1974, the US was legally unable and psychologically unwilling to fight in Indochina. The 1973 Peace Agreement, instead of ending a war made continuation inevitable, for it allowed North Vietnam to keep troops in the South. The North, badly damaged by the bombings of 1972, recovered quickly and remained committed to the destruction of its rival. The main reason for the fall of South Vietnam in 1973 was the continued failure of the Saigon government to run an effective administration. Its weaknesses were compounded by exaggerated confidence that the U.S. would return if and when needed.<ref>William P. Bundy, ''A Tangled Web: Making of Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency'' (1998) pp 497-500 </ref>Although it had plenty of weapons available--its 2100 modern aircraft comprised the fourth largest air force in the world--the ARVN had never mastered high tech and lost confidence in its capabilities when US advisers departed. Saigon felt betrayed.
===Invasion and the fall of the south, 1975===
[[Image:Viet-1975map.jpg|thumb|375px|left|North invades South, 1975, using bases in Cambodia and Laos, and across DMZ]]
After probing action showed surprising weakness in ARVN forces, Hanoi decided to make a major attack they expected would succeed in a year or so.  It took four weeks. Starting in March, 1975, Hanoi sent 18 divisions, with 300,000 of its 700,000, soldiers to invade the South again, in conventional fashion with marching armies spearheaded by 600 Russian-built tanks and 400 pieces of artillery. Instead of crawling along jungle trails they used 12,000 miles of roads they had built (and even a pipeline) since the truce. The U.S had provided South Vietnam with $4.9 billion in military supplies since the truce, giving it a powerful army and the world's fourth strongest air force.
The air force, however, performed poorly, and often abandoned its bases. For the time, the PAVN had competent mobile [[anti-aircraft artillery]]. <ref>Ray L. Bowers, "Air Power in Southeast Asia" in Alfred F. Hurley and Ehrhart, eds. ''Air Power & Warfare: The Proceedings of the 8th Military History Symposium: United States Air Force Academy: 18-20 October 1978'' (1978) pp 309-29 esp p. 323-4 [http://books.google.com/books?id=4ymGjOGdeQUC&dq=air+force+vietnam+%22air+university%22&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0 full text online]</ref><ref name=ADA439993-Monograph4>{{citation
| first = William W. | last = Momyer
| title=The Vietnamese Air Force, 1951 - 1975: An Analysis of Its Role in Combat
| year =  1985
| url = http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA439993 }} </ref> 
The ARVN, with 1.1 million soldiers,  still had a 2-1 advantage in combat soldiers and 3-1 in artillery, but it misused its resources badly. The South's doctrine was called "light at the top, heavy at the bottom", meaning that it would resist lightly in the northern party of the country (I Corps), but stiffen resistance as the North extended. That was an attritional strategy, and the DRV had not broken under the much heavier attrition imposed by U.S. troops.
Some ARVN units fought well; most collapsed under the 16-division onslaught. The North Vietnamese regular army, the PAVN, began a full-scale offensive by seizing Phuoc Long Province in January, 1975. In March, 1975, they continued their offensive campaigns by conducting diversionary attacks in the north threatening Pleiku and then attacking the lightly defended South Vietnamese rear area.
The PAVN captured the Central Highlands and moved  to the sea to divide the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN).  The PAVN  blocked the South Vietnamese attempt to retreat from the Central Highlands and destroyed the ARVN II corps.  Of the 314 M-41 and M-48 ARVN tanks assigned to the Highlands, only three made it through to the coast.<ref> William J. Duiker, ''The Communist Road to Power,'' (2nd ed. 1996) 335, 338-42</ref>
ARVN resistance was sometimes heroic, but it kept losing battles and territories. In three weeks lost half its main force units, and more than half its aircraft.  Hundreds of thousands of refugees clogged the roads making retreat nearly impossible. Many ARVN units disintegrated as soldiers deserted to care for their families.
President Thieu released  written assurances dated April 1973 from President Nixon that the U.S. would "react vigorously" if North Vietnam violated the truce agreement. But Nixon had resigned in August 1974 and his personal assurances were meaningless; After Nixon made the promises, Congress had prohibited the use of American forces in any combat role in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam without prior congressional approval. This was well known to the Saigon government. <ref>{{citation
| title = Seeking the Last Exit from Viet Nam
| url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,917315-4,00.html
| journal = Time Magazine
| date = April 21, 1975}}</ref> President [[Gerald R. Ford]] tried to get new money for the South, but refused to consider any military action whatever.
About 140,000 refugees managed to flee the country, chiefly by boat. The PAVN then concentrated its combat power to attack the six ARVN divisions isolated in the north. After destroying these divisions, the PAVN launched its "Ho Chi Minh Campaign" that with little fighting seized Saigon on April 30, ending the war.<ref> Duiker, ''The Communist Road to Power,'' 341-49; David Butler, ''Fall of Saigon,'' (1986); Military History Institute of Vietnam, ''Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People's Army of Vietnam, 1954-1975'' (2002), Hanoi's official history[http://www.amazon.com/Victory-Vietnam-Official-History-Peoples/dp/0700611754/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215223166&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]</ref>
No American military units had been involved until the final days, when [[Operation FREQUENT WIND]] was launched to evacuate Americans and 5600 senior Vietnamese government and military officials, and employees of the U.S.  Vietnam was unified under Communist rule, as nearly a million refugees escaped by boat. Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.  The new rulers sent thousands of political opponents to detention camps,.
==Regional effects after 1975==
After Congress cut off aid to Cambodia, the Khymer Rouge came to power in 1975. What followed was one of the most horrific massacres of the century, as Pol Pot systematically executed hundreds of thousands of Cambodians, including anyone with a trace of western contacts. The two Communist neighbors went to war in 1978-79, when Vietnam invaded and conquered Cambodia and forced the Khymer Rouge back into the jungles.
==Aftermath and memory==
===Casualties===
===International effects===
====Cambodia and Laos====
====Vietnam and China====
===War in film and literature===
==References==
==References==
{{reflist|2}}
{{reflist|2}}
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The revered Washington, D.C. Vietnam Veterans Memorial designed by Maya Lin

The Vietnam War (1955-1975) was an international Cold War conflict that killed 3.8 million people, in which North Vietnam and its allies fought U.S. forces and eventually took over South Vietnam, forming a single Communist country, Vietnam.

Impact on American culture

A significant portion of Baby Boomers, the U.S. generation who were young during the protracted Vietnam War, grew up seeing continual bloody footage of active combat on television every night. As the war progressed, an avalanche of young people in the U.S. protested against the war, resulting in considerable domestic turmoil. The protests were in part because of the military draft that sent unwilling young men to their likely death or maiming, but also in part because young people did not see the aims of the war as worth the cost. This pitted the young across the nation against the World War II generation, who viewed encroachments by Communists during the Cold War as an important continuation of the wars fought by the U.S. since 1940. To prevent protests during the Iraq War, the U.S. military stopped allowing TV journalists to film actual combat.[1]

Because the U.S. lost the Vietnam War, by the 1980's it became unpopular even to refer to it, and the press began avoiding the topic, while surviving veterans went without adequate benefits for post-traumatic treatment and, unable to cope with life, became homeless by the thousands. This phenomenon was the main subject of Sylvester Stallone's 1982 action film First Blood, which was panned by critics as too violent even though only a single person died (due to his own stupidity). Several subsequent Stallone films about First Blood's main character, Rambo, were indeed mindlessly violent, unlike the original film, which was conceived and written by Stallone (who played Rambo) in protest for public abandonment of Vietnam veterans. This film also depicted the aftermath of U.S. military having sprayed the jungles of Vietnam with Agent Orange, a herbicide containing dioxin which resulted in many exposed soldiers and civilians later getting cancer, the horror of which had barely begun to be recognized by the public in 1982. The only prior major film about the Vietnam War was Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 Apocalypse Now, an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's story “Heart of Darkness” to Vietnam. Coppola's film was indeed violent, a direct and nightmarish depiction of the devastation of war, but critics praised it, and it won multiple awards, in contrast to Stallone's First Blood which had touched a nerve with its social criticism of American culture.

Strategic Summary

The war had four distinct periods characterized by the nature of the conflict and the nationality of the combatants: a period of civil war (1957-1964), the Americanization (1964-1969), the Vietnamization (1969-1973), and the end (1974-1975).

The Vietnam War originated from the unresolved antagonisms implicit in the Geneva Accords (1954) and French and U.S. Cold War ambitions, namely to "contain" the spread of communism. The Geneva Accords promised elections in 1956 to determine a national government for a united Vietnam. Neither the United States government nor Ngo Dinh Diem's State of Vietnam signed anything at the 1954 Geneva Conference. With respect to the question of reunification, the non-communist Vietnamese delegation objected strenuously to any division of Vietnam, but lost out when the French accepted the proposal of Viet Minh delegate Pham Van Dong,[2] who proposed that Vietnam eventually be united by elections under the supervision of "local commissions".[3] The United States countered with what became known as the "American Plan," with the support of South Vietnam and the United Kingdom.[4] It provided for unification elections under the supervision of the United Nations, but was rejected by the Soviet delegation and North Vietnamese.[5]

Due to the stalemate, North Vietnam created two organizations. The National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF) was a political organization to establish civil government for the South Vietnamese regions controlled by its military arm, the Viet Cong (VC). The political/military actions of the NLF and VC against the Diem regime in South Vietnam, and Diem's escalation against the NLF/VC, essentially started a civil war. The climatic event of the civil war period was the Buddhist crisis in 1963 ending in the assassination of Ngo by a CIA-backed operation authorized by President Kennedy.

Americanization of the war began by the Johnson Administration in 1964 following the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The U.S. began sending ground combat troops in 1965, and troop strength continued to escalate through 1968. The climatic event during the Americanization period was the Tet Offensive. Following a change in presidential administrations in the 1968 election, President Nixon followed a strategy of de-escalation and "Vietnamization" of the conflict, while also escalating the conflict through incursions into Cambodia and Laos, and bombings of North Vietnam. At various times, the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces were joined by South Korean, Filipino, New Zealand, Thai and Australian troops.

As Vietnamization went into effect, and the Paris Peace Talks completed in 1972, the U.S. role changed again South Vietnam fought its own ground war, with U.S. ground combat troops withdrawing between 1968 and 1972, with the last air attacks in 1972. After that, the U.S. provided limited replacements of supplies, and maintained a large, diplomatic Defense Attache Office that monitored the RVN until the fall of South Vietnam in 1975.

After the U.S. withdrawal, South Vietnam collapsed after being invaded by the DRV in 1975. Memorable pictures of desperate people clinging to helicopters reflect the evacuation of diplomatic, military, and intelligence personnel, and some Vietnamese allies. Other than for the immediate security of the evacuation, no U.S. combat troops or aircraft had been in South Vietnam since 60 days after the signing of the peace treaty in Paris.

The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities. The most detailed demographic study calculated 791,000 to 1,141,000 war-related deaths for all of Vietnam,[6] while the Vietnamese government claimed that over 3 million Vietnamese died during the conflict.[7][8] 195,000-430,000 South Vietnamese civilians died in the war.[9][10] 50,000-65,000 North Vietnamese civilians died in the war.[11][9] The Army of the Republic of Vietnam lost between 171,331 and 220,357 men during the war.[12][9] The official US Department of Defense figure was 950,765 communist forces killed in Vietnam from 1965 to 1974. Defense Department officials believed that these body count figures need to be deflated by 30 percent. In addition, Guenter Lewy assumes that one-third of the reported "enemy" killed may have been civilians, concluding that the actual number of deaths of communist military forces was probably closer to 444,000.[9] Some 200,000–300,000 Cambodians,[13][14][15] 20,000–200,000 Laotians,[16][17][18][19][20][21] and 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict.

U.S. replaces France

Vietnam as the lightly shaded area.

After the Geneva accords of 1954 split the former French Indochina into the Republic of Vietnam (South) and Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North), France no longer had colonial authority. After certain procedural matters were resolved in early 1955, the United States took up a major role in training and funding what was now the Army of the Republic of Vietnam in the South. U.S. intelligence collection personnel had been in the area since the latter part of the Second World War. In 1954, Edward Lansdale, a United States Air Force officer seconded to the Central Intelligence Agency, came to Saigon under the cover of Assistant Air Attache leading the Saigon Military Mission, which was a CIA operation whose immediate activities included sending Vietnamese personnel north, to set up stay-behind intelligence collection and covert action teams for future use.

It has been argued, certainly with some justification, that the U.S. unwisely supported the French before 1954, and still had a pro-French view after 1954. Part of this was due to U.S. diplomatic strategy that saw French cooperation in Europe as essential to NATO and to Western stability, and taking a pro-French position in the former Indochina obtained cooperation from France. The Vietnamese were not seen as important, in Cold War terms, in the 1940s and 1950s, even though, perhaps ironically, it was Japanese expansion into French Indochina that triggered U.S. economic warfare against Japan, and eventually the Japanese decision for war in 1941.

Later, the U.S. would support anticommunist Vietnamese, never neutralists.

The strategic balance

While Vietnamese Communists had long had aims to control the whole of Vietnam, the specific decision to conquer the South was made, by the Northern leadership, in May 1959.[22] The Communist side had clearly defined political objectives, and a grand strategy to achieve them; there was a clear relationship between long-term goals and short-term actions, within their strategic theory of dau tranh. Some of their actions may seem to be from Maoist and other models, but they have some unique concepts that are not always obvious.

Apart from its internal problems, South Vietnam faced difficult military challenges. On the one hand, there was a threat of a conventional, cross-border strike from the North, reminiscent of the Korean War. In the 1950s, the U.S. advisors focused on building a "mirror image" of the U.S. Army, designed to meet and defeat a conventional invasion. [23] Ironically, while the lack of counterguerrilla forces threatened the South for many years, the last two blows were Korea-style invasions. With U.S. air support, the South were able to largely repel a conventional invasion by North Vietnam. The 1975 invasion which defeated the South was not opposed by U.S. forces.

Early U.S. noncombat advisory and support roles

Harry S. Truman, as soon as the Second World War ended, was under great pressure to return the country to normal civilian conditions, and he demobilised rapidly to release funds for domestic spending. There were no such pressures to demobilize, however, on Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong. Truman has been blamed for "losing" Eastern Europe and China, but it is less clear what could have been done to stop it. The decision to cut military commitment came home to roost in the Korean War, when Truman had few forces to dispatch.

From 1955, the U.S. took over the role of training and significantly funding the Southern Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN). In 1959, the first U.S. advisers to go into combat in the area were in Laos, not Vietnam. With a negotiated settlement to the Laotian civil war in 1962, U.S. attention shifted to South Vietnam. Communications intercepts in 1959, for example, confirmed the start of the Ho Chi Minh trail and other preparation for large-scale fighting. This information may not have been fully shared with the South Vietnamese, due to security concerns over the intelligence methods used to get the information.

Interactions of South Vietnamese & U.S. politics

After the French colonial authority ended, Vietnam was ruled by a nominally civilian government, led by first Bao Dai and then, from 1954, by Ngo Dinh Diem; neither were elected. Communist statements frequently spoke of it as a U.S. "puppet" government, although the Northern government had not been elected and had little more claim to democratic legitimacy. Both governments were clients of the different major sides in the Cold War.

Diem was strongly anti-communist, but authoritarian, and there were increasing protests against his rule. He was a Catholic in a Buddhist-majority country, but gave preference to Catholics. While personally ascetic, he tolerated a serious level of corruption in the government.

Effect on military efficiency

Not only under Diem, appointing officers to the command of military units, and also to posts in the separate hierarchy of district and province chiefs, often were made as political loyalty as the first criterion, possibly bribes or favors at the next, and military proficiency sometimes as a last consideration. Officers were shifted from post to post, in the interest of breaking up potential coup plots.

In practice, the most powerful military positions were the commanders of the four Corps tactical zones (CTZ), also known as military regions. Even though a CTZ was geographic, and province and district chiefs were usually military officers, the province/district reporting went through the Ministry of the Interior rather than the military Joint General Staff.

Especially powerful units might, in the interest of interfering with coups, be shifted from one chain of command for another. At the Battle of Ap Bac, for example, the potent armored personnel carriers (APC) had been shifted from the operational control of the military commander to that of the province chief. Before the unit commander would commit his resources to battle, at the urging of a U.S. adviser to the division commander, the commanding officer of the APC company had to obtain province chief as well as military approval, significantly increasing the time before this unit could intervene in battle.

Conflicting goals

Vietnamese and U.S. goals were also not always in complete agreement. Until 1969, the U.S.A. was generally anything opposed to any policy, nationalist or not, which might lead to the South Vietnamese becoming neutralist rather than anticommunist. There is evidence that the U.S. supported attempts to replace governments that were considering forming a neutralist coalition that might include the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, a communist-dominated opposition. The Cold War containment policy was in force through the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson Administrations, while the Nixon administration supported a more multipolar model of detente.

While there were still power struggles and internal corruption, there was much more stability between 1967 and 1975. Still, the South Vietnamese government did not enjoy either widespread popular support, or even an enforced social model of a Communist state. It is much easier to disrupt a state without common popular or decision maker goals.

Instability

The association of the U.S. with the RVN government, however, was sufficiently strong that instability there both reflected adversely on the U.S. role, and seen as interfering with the fight against Communism. While Diem ruled between 1954 and 1963; there followed a period of frequent changes of government, some lasting only weeks, between 1964 and 1967, until moderate stability came in 1967.

Protests generally called the Buddhist crisis of 1963, which also involved other Vietnamese sects, such as the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao, were a major disruption by June. These protests were seen by the U.S. as strengthening the Communist insurgency, and, after rejecting earlier initiatives for a military coup, agreed that Diem had to go.

In November 1963, Diem was overthrown and killed in a military coup. The United States was aware of the coup preparations and, through CIA officer Lucien Conein, had given limited financial support to the generals involved. There is no evidence that the U.S. expected Diem, and his brother and closest political adviser, Ngo Dinh Nhu to be killed; U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. had offered him physical protection.

The leaders of the November coup were replaced by a nominal civilian government really under military control, which was overthrown by yet another military coup (involving some of the same generals) in January 1964.

Between 1964 and 1967 there was a constant struggle for power in South Vietnam, and not just from within the military. Several Buddhist and other factions often derived from religious sects, which became involved in the jockeying for political power, such as the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao. Even the Vietnamese Buddhists were not monolithic, and had their own internal struggles. At varying times, sects, organized crime syndicates such as the Binh Xuyen, and individual provincial leaders had paramilitary groups that affected the political process; while the Montagnard ethnic groups wanted autonomy for their region. William Colby (then chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's , Far Eastern Division in the operational directorate) observed that civilian politicians "divided and sub-divided into a tangle of contesting ambitions and claims and claims to power and participation in the government." [24] Some of these factions sought political power or wealth, while others sought to avoid domination by other groups (Catholic vs Buddhist in the Diem Coup).

After a period of overt military government, there was a gradual transition to at least the appearance of democratic government, but South Vietnam neither developed a true popular government, nor rooted out the corruption that caused a lack of support.

Covert operations

Well before the Gulf of Tonkin and overt operations, there were a number of covert operations, some ostensibly with U.S. advisers to South Vietnamese crews, and some, especially in Laos, of which no public announcement was made. Certain of these operations became public in postwar historical analyses, official announcements at the time, or press reporting that eventually was confirmed.

US activity before independence

Still, there was U.S. activity in Southeast Asia, which grew out of covert operations directed more at China. In August 1950, the CIA bought the assets of Civil Air Transport (CAT), an airline founded after the Second World War by Gen. Claire L. Chennault and Whiting Willauer. While CAT continued commercial operations, it acted as a CIA "proprietary", or covert support organization under commercial cover. CAT aircraft, for example, dropped personnel and supplies over mainland China during the Korean War.[25] CAT later became part of Air America.

When Dwight D. Eisenhower succeeded Truman as President in 1952, after a campaign that had attacked Truman's "weaknesses" against communism and in Korea, he formulated a strong policy of containing Communism. There was much sensitivity over "softness" exemplified by the excesses of Senator Joe McCarthy. While the Eisenhower Administration avoided becoming too enmeshed in the French problem of the Indochinese revolution, airlift was provided by CAT pilots. United States Air Force C-119 Flying Boxcar transports, repainted with French insignia. CAT trained the crews at Clark Air Force base in the Philippines, and then flew the aircraft to Gia Lam Airport in Hanoi. They made airdrops to French forces in Laos between May and July. Eventually, CAT flew logistics missions to Dien Bien Phu, in March to May 1954; one aircraft was shot down and others damaged.

Laos

After France left the region, the Royal Lao Government (RLG) quietly asked the United States to replace the former French funding of the Lao military, and to add military technical aid from the increasingly active Communist insurgency, the Pathet Lao. This assistance started in January 1955, directed by a new part of the Embassy, with the nondescript name Program Evaluation Office (PEO). At first, the PEO simply dispensed funds, but took on a much larger role in 1959.

When the first direct military assistance began in July 1959, the PEO was operated by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency using military personnel acting as civilians. [26] CIA sent a unit from United States Army Special Forces, who arrived on the CIA proprietary airline Air America, wearing civilian clothes and having no obvious US connection. These soldiers led Meo and Hmong tribesmen against Communist forces. The covert program was called Operation Hotfoot. At the US Embassy, BG John Heintges was designated the head of the PEO. [27]

In April 1961, Chief of Staff of the Air Force Curtis LeMay’s began to approve certain covert operations, such as JUNGLE JIM. He denied them to the press. They were, however, a response to President Kennedy's challenge for the military to develop a force capable of fighting the “Communist revolutionary warfare”, regarded as proxy wars for the U.S. and Soviet Union. One of the first to respond to the call for combat control volunteers[28]

CIA, MACV-SOG and OPPLAN34A

John F. Kennedy approved, on May 11, 1961, a Central Intelligence Agency plan for covert operations against North Vietnam. These included ground, air, and naval operations. Eventually, the operations were transferred to officially military control, in a unit, MACV-SOG, principally reporting to MACV but with an approval chain that often ran to the White House.

CIA naval operations, under Tucker Gougelmann, in 1961,[29] starting with motorized junks. The first motor torpedo boats were transferred to CIA in October 1962. At the end of 1962, raids began.

They received their improved Norwegian Nasty-class boats in 1963.[30] These more sophisticated craft were crewed by Norwegian and German mercenaries as well as South Vietnamese; U.S. Navy SEALs conducted the training in Danang.

MACV-SOG was formed in January 1964, and took over the "modest" CIA maritime operation, based in Danang, now given the cover name Naval Advisory Detachment, actually branch OP37 of MACV-SOG. The attacks, under the command of MACV-SOG, were actually carried out by the Coastal Security Service of the RVN Strategic Technical Directorate.

So, at least a year before the Gulf of Tonkin, there had been some raids against North Vietnam. Independent of MACV-SOG, the U.S. Navy began to conduct signals intelligence patrols for the National Security Agency, close to North Vietnam but in international waters. These were called the DESOTO patrols, and used overt U.S. Navy destroyers, with a van packed with electronics and technicians mounted on their decks.

On the night of July 30, 1964, four MACV-SOG boats shelled North Vietnamese shore installations, after a series of earlier maritime operations. The North Vietnamese went on high naval alert.

On July 31, 1964, there was a DESOTO patrol.[31] The timing after the MACV-SOG operation may have been coincidental, although there have been suggestions that the increased North Vietnamese activity was a rich environment for SIGINT collection. There is no strong indication that the DESOTO patrols were trying to provoke North Vietnamese response; they carefully stayed in international waters and were fully identifiable as U.S. ships.

U.S. buildup and overt combat involvement

This section focuses on the period when U.S. forces became involved in large-scale, direct combat. Wherever possible, the national-level decisions that went into a change of military action will be presented, but, in a number of situations, an action may have been the result of a perceived need to "do something" rather than having a direct effect on the enemy. Such decision-making style is not unique to this period. George Kennan, considered a consummate diplomat and diplomatic theorist, observed that American leaders, starting with the 1899-1900 "Open Door" policy to China, have a

neurotic self-consciousness and introversion, the tendency to make statements and take actions with regard not to their effect on the international scene but rather to their effect on those echelons of American opinion, congressional opinion first and foremost, to which the respect statesmen are anxious to appeal. The question became not: How effective is what I am doing in terms of the impact it makes on our world environment? but rather: how do I look, in the mirror of American domestic opinion, as I do it?[32]

Even when leaders' goals are sincere, the need to be seen as doing the popular thing can become counterproductive. There were many times, in the seemingly inexorable advance of decades of American involvement in Southeast Asia, where reflection might have led to caution. Instead, the need to be seen as active, as well as the clashes of strong egos, separate the needs of policy from the dictates of politics. The personalities of different Presidents and key advisers all had an effect. Many, but by no means all, of the key political decisions were under Johnson, but Presidents from Truman through Ford all had roles.

Although Americans died in supporting South Vietnamese involvement beginning in 1962, the greatest U.S. involvement was from mid-1964 through 1972. U.S ground troops began reducing in 1968 and much more sharply in 1969. So, much of the detailed U.S. political action with other countries will be in Joint warfare in South Vietnam 1964-1968, Vietnamization, and air operations against North Vietnam.

Vietnam's climate has a major effect on warfare, especially involving vehicles and aircraft. Major operations usually took place in the dry season. While the most southern parts tend to have a generally tropical climate, there are two major climactic periods:

  • Monsoon season of heat, rain, and mud, with limited mobility (May to September)
  • Warm and dry conditions (October to March)

Combat support advisory phase

John F. Kennedy and his key staff, came from a different elite than that which had spawned the Cold Warriors of the Eisenhower Administration. While the form was different, a militant anti-Communism was underneath many of the Kennedy Administration policies. [33] Its rougher operatives had a different style than Joe McCarthy, but it is sometimes forgotten that Robert Kennedy (RFK) had been on McCarthy's staff. [34]

Where Republicans during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations blamed Democrats who had "lost China", the Kennedy Administration was not out to lose anything. The first covert operations in the region began in the Eisenhower Administration, but Kennedy increased both operations in Laos and Vietnam.

Intensification

Guerrilla attacks increased in the early 1960s, at the same time as the new John F. Kennedy administration made Presidential decisions to increase its influence. Diem, as other powers were deciding their policies, was facing disorganized attacks and internal political dissent. There were conflicts between the government, dominated by minority Northern Catholics, and both the majority Buddhists and minorities such as the Montagnards, Cao Dai, and Hoa Hao. These conflicts were exploited, initially at the level of propaganda and recruiting, by stay-behind Viet Minh receiving orders from the North.

U.S. personnel went into the field with ARVN personnel starting in 1962. The term "adviser" was popular but not always accurate. While many U.S. personnel indeed did advise their counterparts, and U.S. forces did not take a direct combat role, a substantial part of field activity was devoted to tactical airlift of ARVN troops, and a wide range of technical support. The first American soldier to die in combat was not with ARVN infantry, but part of a signals intelligence team, doing direction finding on Viet Cong radio transmitters in the field, whose team was ambushed.

Th Battle of Ap Bac, fought on January 2, 1963, did involve both U.S. advisers to ARVN commanders, as well as U.S. aviation support. John Paul Vann was the senior tactical adviser, and his outrage about ARVN performance both stimulated aggressive investigative journalism, as well as infuriating the U.S. command.

Deterioration and reassessment

By November 1963, after Diem was killed, there was mixed feelings among the JCS if covert operations alone could have a significant effect. [35] Chief of Staff of the Air Force GEN Curtis LeMay pushed his JCS colleagues for "more resolute, overt military actions." He was joined by Commandant of the Marine Corps GEN David Shoup, and gained stronger support from the Army and Navy chiefs, GEN Earle Wheeler and ADM David McDonald. ADM Harry Felt, commander of United States Pacific Command, also believed covert actions alone would not be decisive. LeMay said "we in the military felt we were not in the decision-making process at all [Chairman of the JCS Maxwell] Taylor might have been but we didn't agree with Taylor in most cases."[36]

To senior civilian officials, with the Joint Chiefs receiving it via Secretary of Defense McNamara, Johnson stated his policy decision in classified National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 273, of November 26, 1963. The key point was the U.S. goal was to strengthen South Vietnam to win its own contest; the U.S. expected to begin to withdraw troops. "It remains the central object of the United States in South Vietnam to assist the people and Government of that country to win their contest against the externally directed and supported Communist conspiracy. The test of all U.S. decisions and actions in this area should be the effectiveness of their contribution to this purpose.

He made pacification of the Mekong Delta the highest priority, but also ordered planning for increased yet deniable activity against North Vietnam. "With respect to Laos, a plan should be developed and submitted for approval by higher authority for military operations up to a line up to 50 kilometers inside Laos, together with political plans for minimizing the international hazards of such an enterprise." These operations would change from CIA to MACV control. A "favorable influence", but no operations in, Cambodia was desired.

A high priority was producing "as strong and persuasive a case as possible to demonstrate to the world the degree to which the Viet Cong is controlled, sustained and supplied from Hanoi, through Laos and other channels."[37]

The JCS responded to NSAM 273 with a January 22, 1964 memorandum to McNamara. Significant differences with the Presidential decision, which emphasized assisting South Vietnam, was a JCS goal of "victory" as the goal of U.S. military operations.

Gulf of Tonkin Incident

(PD) Diagram: U.S. Naval History & Heritage Command
Track chart of USS Maddox (DD-731) and three North Vietnamese motor torpedo boats, during their action on 2 August 1964. Attacks by aircraft from USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14) are also shown.

On August 2, 1964, a DESOTO Patrol destroyer (USS Maddox, DD-731) was believed to have been approached, and possibly fired upon, by the North Vietnamese. After much declassification and study, the incident largely remains shrouded in what German military theorist Carl von Clausewitz has called the "fog of war," but questions have been raised about whether the North Vietnamese believed they were under attack, about who fired the first shots, and, indeed, if there was a true attack. There has not been a clear indication from the North Vietnamese if they thought the DESOTO and 34A operations were part of the same programs, and, if so, if destroyer-sized vessels represented an escalation. Later on the 2nd, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Maxwell Taylor, ordered that DESOTO patrols should not be made at the same time as 34A operations.

There is some question as to whether the second patrol (increased to two ships with air cover) was actually attacked, or if there were merely North Vietnamese warships in their area. Declassified NSA intercepts of North Vietnamese communications, on the 4th, show considerable confusion on the DRV side. Operating under Presidential authority, Johnson launched Operation PIERCE ARROW (air strikes against North Vietnamese naval facilities and the oil refinery at Vinh) on the evening of the 4th (Washington time), and gave a speech regarding the same approximately 90 minutes before the Navy aircraft reached their targets.[31]

President Johnson asked for, and received, Congressional authority to use military force in Vietnam after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, which was described as a North Vietnamese attack on U.S. warships. Congress did not "declare war," which is its responsibility under the Constitution; nevertheless, it launched what effectively was at the time the longest war in U.S. history, and even longer if the covert actions before the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin situation are included. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, although later revoked, was considered by Lyndon Johnson as his basic authority to conduct military operations in Southeast Asia. It serves as an example of how outright declarations of war have become extremely rare since the Second World War.

Beginning of air operations

(PD) Photo: United States Air Force
A U.S. Air Force Boeing B-52F-70-BW Stratofortress drops Mk 117 750 lb (340 kg) bombs over Vietnam, circa 1965-1966.

Immediately after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, there was a period of retaliation for specific attacks, Operation FLAMING DART, and then a steady but incremental pressure under Operation Rolling Thunder operations against North Vietnam. There was also extensive air support overtly inside South Vietnam, and, at different times, in Laos and Cambodia; some of these are discussed above in the section on covert activity.

From a current doctrinal standpoint, these campaigns should be evaluated according to an examination of air operations relying on a planning model at the level of operational art. This model distinguishes effectiveness, or the results of the campaign, from the tactical aspects of weapons effects. Several factors need to be considered to determine effectiveness. The campaigns in Laos and Cambodia were far more effective than Operation Rolling Thunder, as they were not executed as a subtle means of "signaling", but had clear objectives measurable in military terms. The objectives here, as well as in Operation Linebacker I, were military. Operation Linebacker II also was effective, but it had well-defined objectives at the level of grand strategy: compellence to return to negotiations. [38]

  1. What conditions are required to achieve the objectives?
  2. What sequence of actions is most likely to create those conditions?
  3. What resources are required to accomplish that sequence of actions?
  4. What is the likely cost or risk in performing that sequence of actions?

Major ground combat phase

See also: Vietnam War military technology

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who had been appointed by Kennedy, became Johnson's principal adviser, and continued to push an economic and signaling grand strategy. Johnson and McNamara, although it would be hard to find two men of more different personality, formed a quick bond. McNamara appeared more impressed by economics and Schelling's compellence theory [39] than by Johnson's liberalism or Senate-style deal-making, but they agreed in broad policy. [40]

They directed a plan for South Vietnam that they believed would end the war quickly. Note that the initiative was coming from Washington; the unstable South Vietnamese government was not part of defining their national destiny. The plan selected was from GEN William Westmoreland, the field commander in Vietnam.

This model regarded the enemy forces in the field as the opposing center of gravity, as opposed to the local security and development of pacification. The enemy, however, had a different idea of centers of gravity; see Vietnamese Communist grand strategy.

Over time, the U.S. developed tactics increasingly appropriate to the environment and foe, given the Westmoreland's assumption that the center of gravity was the enemy main force. Some of the early operations included:

There were many such operations, variously by U.S. only, U.S. and ARVN, and ARVN forces. The term "search and destroy" was often used to describe ground operations against Viet Cong and People's Army of Viet Nam troops.

The UH-1 "Huey", as well as other types of helicopters, are iconic of the Vietnam War. The full capabilities of units with integrated helicopter support were shown by the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) at the Battle of the Ia Drang and the Battle of Bong Son.

These operations continued, some joint with ARVN troops and some by U.S. and third country forces alone. Australian units, integrated into large U.S. forces, were highly regarded. Less mobile but potent divisions came from South Korea and Thailand.

Immense fire support, from ground and air platforms, supported these operations. Close air support both from fighter-bombers and early armed helicopters was common, but new techniques came into wide use. ARC LIGHT was the general code name for operations using B-52 heavy bombers against targets in South Vietnam. The term grew to encompass B-52 operations against targets in Cambodia and Laos, principally against the Ho Chi Minh trail. B-52 use in the major Operation Linebacker I and Operation Linebacker II operations against North Vietnam are generally not considered ARC LIGHT missions; see the respective operations.

There were also technical measures to clear jungle, both mechanical and chemical. See Vietnam War military technology.

Unquestionably, Westmoreland's approach inflicted immense casualties on the enemy forces. Even so, the North Vietnamese seemed willing to accept them. During the second half of 1967, the North Vietnamese intensified operations in the border regions of South Vietnam, in at least regimental strength. Unlike the usual hit-and-run tactics used by communist forces, these were sustained and bloody affairs. Beginning at Con Thien and Song Be in October 1967, then at Dak To

There had long been fighting in the Khe Sanh area, but the North Vietnamese greatly intensified their attacks in early January 1968, before the Tet Offensive. They continued operations there until April.

Tet Offensive

By 1968, and perhaps in 1967, Johnson's chief adviser on the war, McNamara, had increasingly less faith in the Johnson-Westmoreland model. McNamara quotes GEN William DuPuy, Westmoreland's chief planner, as recognizing that as long as the enemy could fight from the sanctuaries of Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam, it was impossible to bring adequate destruction on the enemy, and the model was inherently flawed.[41]

Opposition against him peaked in 1968; see Tet Offensive. On March 31, 1968, Johnson said on national television,

"I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president"

In March, Johnson had also announced a bombing halt, in the interests of starting talks. The first discussions were limited to starting broader talks, as a quid-pro-quo for a bombing halt.:[42]

Vietnamization phase

During the Presidential campaign, a random wire service story headlined that Nixon had a "secret plan for ending the war, but, in reality, Nixon was only considering alternatives at this point. He remembered how Eisenhower had deliberately leaked, to the Communist side in the Korean War, that he might be considering using nuclear weapons to break the deadlock. Nixon adapted this into what he termed the "Madman Strategy".[43]

He told H. R. Haldeman, one of his closest aides,

"I call it the madman theory, Bob.I want the North Vietnamese to believe that I've reached the point that I might do anything to stop the war. We'll just slip the word to them that for God's sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about communism. We can't restrain him when he's angry, and he has his hand on the nuclear button, and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace."[44]

Nixon decisionmaking structure

After the election of Richard M. Nixon, a review of U.S. policy in Vietnam was the first item on the national security agenda. Henry Kissinger, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, asked all relevant agencies to respond with their assessment, which they did on March 14, 1969.[45]

"Controlling the policy were a small group of men, President Richard M. Nixon, and which included the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs, Henry A. Kissinger; the President’s Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs, Major General Alexander M. Haig; and a few National Security Council officials trusted by Kissinger."[46] Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms, and Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker also were involved, but Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird and Secretary of State William Rogers were rarely part of the inner discussions.

Policy toward SVN

U.S. policy changed to one of turning ground combat over to South Vietnam, a process called Vietnamization, a term coined in January 1969. Nixon, in contrast, saw resolution not just in Indochina, in a wider scope. He sought Soviet support, saying that if the Soviet Union helped bring the war to an honorable conclusion, the U.S. would "do something dramatic" to improve U.S.-Soviet relations. [42] In worldwide terms, Vietnamization replaced the earlier containment policy[47] with detente.[48] Also in 1969, both overt and covert Paris Peace Talks began.

While Nixon hesitated to authorize a military request to bomb Cambodian sanctuaries, which civilian analysts considered less important than Laos, he authorized, in March, bombing of Cambodia as a signal to the North Vietnamese. While direct attack against North Vietnam, as was later done in Operation Linebacker I, might be more effective, he authorized the Operation MENU bombing of Cambodia, starting on March 17. These bombings were kept secret from the U.S. leadership and electorate; the North Vietnamese clearly knew they were being bombed. It first leaked to the press in May, and Nixon ordered warrantless surveillance of key staff. [49]

Nixon also directed Cyrus Vance to go to Moscow in March, to encourage the Soviets to put pressure on the North Vietnamese to open negotiations with the U.S. [50] The Soviets, however, either did not want to get in the middle, or had insufficient leverage on the North Vietnamese.

Final air support phase

In the transition to full "Vietnamization," U.S. and third country ground troops turned ground combat responsibility to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. Air and naval combat, combat support, and combat service support from the U.S. continued. While the ARVN improved in local security and small operations, Operation Lam Son 719, in February 1971, the first large operation with only ARVN ground forces, they took casualties that the South Vietnamese leadership considered unacceptable, and withdrew. This operation still had U.S. helicopters lifting the crews, and U.S. intelligence and artillery support.

They did much better against the 1972 Eastertide invasion, but this still involved extensive U.S. air support. To stop the logistical support of the Eastertide invasion, Nixon launched Operation Linebacker I, with the operational goal of disabling the infrastructure of infiltration. One of the problems of the Republic of Vietnam's Air Force is that it never operated under central control, even for a specific maximum-effort air offensive. South Vietnamese aircraft always were controlled by regional corps commanders, so never developed skills in deep battlefield air interdiction.

When the North refused to return to negotiations in late 1972, Nixon, in mid-December, ordered bombing at an unprecedented level of intensity, Operation Linebacker II. This was at the strategic and grand strategic levels, attacking not so much the infiltration infrastructure, but North Vietnam's ability to import supplies, its internal transportation and logistics, command and control, and integrated air defense system. Within a month of the start of the operation, a peace agreement was signed.

Peace accords were finally signed on 27 January 1973, in Paris. U.S combat troops immediately began withdrawal, and prisoners of war were repatriated. U.S. supplies and limited advise could continue. In theory, North Vietnam would not reinforce its troops in the south. In practice, the North did not remove its large forces from the south, and eventually committed additional large forces in a conventional invasion.

Fall of South Vietnam

While Ford, Nixon's final vice-president, succeeded Nixon, most major policies had been set by the time he took office. He was under a firm Congressional and public mandate to withdraw.

The North, badly damaged by the bombings of 1972, recovered quickly and remained committed to the destruction of its rival. There was little U.S. popular support for new combat involvement, and no Congressional authorizations to expend funds to do so. North Vietnam launched a new conventional invasion in 1975 and seized Saigon on April 30.[51]

No American combat units were present until the final days, when Operation FREQUENT WIND was launched to evacuate Americans and 5600 senior Vietnamese government and military officials, and employees of the U.S. The 9th Marine Amphibious Brigade, under the tactical command of Alfred M. Gray, Jr., would enter Saigon to evacuate the last Americans from the American Embassy to ships of the Seventh Fleet. Ambassador Graham Martin was among the last civilians to leave. [52] In parallel, Operation Eagle Pull evacuated U.S. and friendly personnel from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on April 12, 1975, under the protection of the 31st Marine Amphibious Unit, part of III MAF.

Vietnam was unified under Communist rule. Lê Duẩn's government purged South Vietnamese who had fought against the North, imprisoning over one million people and setting off a mass exodus and humanitarian disaster.[53][54][55][56][57] Large numbers of South Vietnamese became refugees, many as desperate "boat people."

Under the leadership of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge murdered over 2 million Cambodians in the killing fields, out of a population of around 8 million.[13][58] The Pathet Lao slaughtered tens of thousands of Hmong tribesmen.[59][60]

Southeast Asia did not become a monolithic Communist bloc. It took over a decade for the U.S. military to recover from some of its internal turmoil and breakdown in discipline.

References

  1. It's worth mentioning that, in addition to banning TV from showing film of combat, the U.S. military also tried to reduce the number of deaths during the Iraq War with improved medical triage. The result was that, though more soldiers survived, many of them returned home with severe disablement, including especially lots of brain injuries which meant they would likely be dependent for life on care by their families.
  2. The Pentagon Papers (1971), Beacon Press, vol. 3, p. 134.
  3. The Pentagon Papers (1971), Beacon Press, vol. 3, p. 119.
  4. The Pentagon Papers (1971), Beacon Press, vol. 3, p. 140.
  5. The Pentagon Papers (1971), Beacon Press, vol. 3, p. 140.
  6. Charles Hirschman et al., "Vietnamese Casualties During the American War: A New Estimate," Population and Development Review, December 1995.
  7. Shenon, Philip. 20 Years After Victory, Vietnamese Communists Ponder How to Celebrate, 23 April 1995. Retrieved on 24 February 2011.
  8. Associated Press, 3 April 1995, "Vietnam Says 1.1 Million Died Fighting For North."
  9. 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Lewy, Guenter (1978). America in Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press. Appendix 1, pp.450-453
  10. Thayer, Thomas C (1985). War Without Fronts: The American Experience in Vietnam. Boulder: Westview Press. Ch. 12.
  11. Wiesner, Louis A. (1988). Victims and Survivors Displaced Persons and Other War Victims in Viet-Nam. New York: Greenwood Press. p.310
  12. Thayer, Thomas C (1985). War Without Fronts: The American Experience in Vietnam. Boulder: Westview Press. p.106.
  13. 13.0 13.1 Heuveline, Patrick (2001). "The Demographic Analysis of Mortality in Cambodia." In Forced Migration and Mortality, eds. Holly E. Reed and Charles B. Keely. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
  14. Marek Sliwinski, Le Génocide Khmer Rouge: Une Analyse Démographique (L'Harmattan, 1995).
  15. Banister, Judith, and Paige Johnson (1993). "After the Nightmare: The Population of Cambodia." In Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge, the United Nations and the International Community, ed. Ben Kiernan. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies.
  16. Warner, Roger, Shooting at the Moon, (1996), pp366, estimates 30,000 Hmong.
  17. Obermeyer, "Fifty Years of Violent War Deaths from Vietnam to Bosnia", British Medical Journal, 2008, estimates 60,000 total.
  18. T. Lomperis, From People's War to People's Rule, (1996), estimates 35,000 total.
  19. Small, Melvin & Joel David Singer, Resort to Arms: International and Civil Wars 1816–1980, (1982), estimates 20,000 total.
  20. Taylor, Charles Lewis, The World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators, estimates 20,000 total.
  21. Stuart-Fox, Martin, A History of Laos, estimates 200,000 by 1973.
  22. An enabling Party resolution was passed in January, but this was the date of starting to build infrastructure; combat use of that infrastructure was still two or more years away. See Vietnamese Communist grand strategy
  23. , Chapter 6, "The Advisory Build-Up, 1961-1967," Section 1, pp. 408-457, The Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, Volume 2
  24. William Colby, Lost Victory, 1989, p. 173, quoted in McMaster, p. 165
  25. William M. Leary (Winter 1999-2000), "CIA Air Operations in Laos, 1955-1974, Supporting the "Secret War"", Studies in Intelligence
  26. Haas, Michael E. (1997). Apollo’s Warriors: US Air Force Special Operations during the Cold War. Air University Press., p. 165
  27. Holman, Victor (1995). Seminole Negro Indians, Macabebes, and Civilian Irregulars: Models for the Future Employment of Indigenous Forces.
  28. Haas, pp. 212-214, 221-224
  29. Shultz, Richard H., Jr. (2000), the Secret War against Hanoi: the untold story of spies, saboteurs, and covert warriors in North Vietnam, Harper Collins Perennial, p. 18
  30. Shultz, p. 176
  31. 31.0 31.1 H. R. McMaster (1997), Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam, Harpercollins, pp. 120-134 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "McMaster" defined multiple times with different content
  32. Kennan, George F. (1967), Memoirs 1925-1950, Little, Brown, pp. 53-54
  33. Halberstam, David (1972), The Best and the Brightest, Random House, pp. 121-122
  34. Thomas, Evan (October 2000), "Bobby: Good, Bad, And In Between - Robert F. Kennedy", Washington Monthly
  35. , Chapter 1, "U.S. Programs in South Vietnam, Nov. 1963-Apr. 1965," Section 1, pp. 1-56, The Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, Volume 3
  36. McMaster, pp. 59-60
  37. Lyndon B. Johnson (November 26, 1963), National Security Action Memorandum 273: South Vietnam
  38. Joint Chiefs of Staff (13 February 2008), Department of Defense Joint Publication 5-0: Joint Operation Planning
  39. Carlson, Justin, "The Failure of Coercive Diplomacy: Strategy Assessment for the 21st Century", Hemispheres: Tufts Journal of International Affairs
  40. Morgan, Patrick M. (2003), Deterrence Now, Cambridge University Press
  41. Gen. William E Dupuy, August 1, 1988 interview, quoted by McNamara, pages 212 and 371.
  42. 42.0 42.1 Henry Kissinger (1973), Ending the Vietnam War: A history of America's Involvement in and Extrication from the Vietnam War, Simon & Schuster, p. 50 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "Kissinger" defined multiple times with different content
  43. Karnow, p. 582
  44. Carroll, James (June 14, 2005), "Nixon's madman strategy", Boston Globe
  45. Kissinger, p. 50
  46. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, vol. Volume VIII, Vietnam, Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State, January–October 1972
  47. Kissinger, pp. 27-28
  48. Kissinger, pp. 249-250
  49. Karnow, p. 591-592
  50. Kissinger, pp. 75-78
  51. Military History Institute of Vietnam, Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People's Army of Vietnam, 1954-1975 (2002), Hanoi's official historyexcerpt and text search
  52. Shulimson, Jack, The Marine War: III MAF in Vietnam, 1965-1971, 1996 Vietnam Symposium: "After the Cold War: Reassessing Vietnam" 18-20 April 1996, Vietnam Center and Archive at Texas Tech University
  53. Desbarats, Jacqueline. "Repression in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam: Executions and Population Relocation", from The Vietnam Debate (1990) by John Morton Moore. "We know now from a 1985 statement by Nguyen Co Tach that two and a half million, rather than one million, people went through reeducation....in fact, possibly more than 100,000 Vietnamese people were victims of extrajudicial executions in the last ten years....it is likely that, overall, at least one million Vietnamese were the victims of forced population transfers."
  54. Anh Do and Hieu Tran Phan, Camp Z30-D: The Survivors, Orange County Register, 29 April 2001.
  55. Associated Press, June 23, 1979, San Diego Union, July 20, 1986 reported that 200,000 to 400,000 "boat people" died at sea.
  56. Rummel, Rudolph, Statistics of Vietnamese Democide, in his Statistics of Democide, 1997.
  57. Nghia M. Vo, The Bamboo Gulag: Political Imprisonment in Communist Vietnam (McFarland, 2004).
  58. Sharp, Bruce (1 April 2005). Counting Hell: The Death Toll of the Khmer Rouge Regime in Cambodia. Retrieved on 6 March 2013.
  59. Jane Hamilton-Merritt, Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942–1992 (Indiana University Press, 1999), pp337-460.
  60. Forced Back and Forgotten (Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights, 1989), p8.