Search results
Jul 29, 2020 · The conventional view remains that the United States lost the Vietnam War because our opponent, North Vietnam, conquered the side we backed, South Vietnam, which surrendered in April 1975. Although the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong sustained enormous casualties — upward of a million killed by wounds, disease and malnutrition — the ...
- Roots of The Vietnam War
- When Did The Vietnam War Start?
- The Viet Cong
- Domino Theory
- Gulf of Tonkin
- William Westmoreland
- Vietnam War Protests
- Tet Offensive
- Vietnamization
- My Lai Massacre
Vietnam, a nation in Southeast Asia on the eastern edge of the Indochinese peninsula, had been under French colonial rule since the 19th century. During World War II, Japanese forces invaded Vietnam. To fight off both Japanese occupiers and the French colonial administration, political leader Ho Chi Minh—inspired by Chinese and Soviet communism—for...
The Vietnam War and active U.S. involvement in the war began in 1954, though ongoing conflict in the region had stretched back several decades. After Ho’s communist forces took power in the north, armed conflict between northern and southern armies continued until the northern Viet Minh’s decisive victory in the Battle of Dien Bien Phuin May 1954. ...
With the Cold War intensifying worldwide, the United States hardened its policies against any allies of the Soviet Union, and by 1955 President Dwight D. Eisenhowerhad pledged his firm support to Diem and South Vietnam. With training and equipment from American military and the CIA, Diem’s security forces cracked down on Viet Minh sympathizers in t...
A team sent by President John F. Kennedyin 1961 to report on conditions in South Vietnam advised a build-up of American military, economic and technical aid in order to help Diem confront the Viet Cong threat. Working under the “domino theory,” which held that if one Southeast Asian country fell to communism, many other countries would follow, Kenn...
A coup by some of his own generals succeeded in toppling and killing Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, in November 1963, three weeks before Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The ensuing political instability in South Vietnam persuaded Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamarato further increase U.S....
In contrast to the air attacks on North Vietnam, the U.S.-South Vietnamese war effort in the south was fought primarily on the ground, largely under the command of General William Westmoreland, in coordination with the government of General Nguyen Van Thieu in Saigon. Westmoreland pursued a policy of attrition, aiming to kill as many enemy troops a...
By November 1967, the number of American troops in Vietnam was approaching 500,000, and U.S. casualties had reached 15,058 killed and 109,527 wounded. As the war stretched on, some soldiers came to mistrust the government’s reasons for keeping them there, as well as Washington’s repeated claims that the war was being won. The later years of the war...
By the end of 1967, Hanoi’s communist leadership was growing impatient as well, and sought to strike a decisive blow aimed at forcing the better-supplied United States to give up hopes of success. On January 31, 1968, some 70,000 DRV forces under General Vo Nguyen Giap launched the Tet Offensive(named for the lunar new year), a coordinated series o...
Nixon sought to deflate the anti-war movement by appealing to a “silent majority” of Americans who he believed supported the war effort. In an attempt to limit the volume of American casualties, he announced a program called Vietnamization: withdrawing U.S. troops, increasing aerial and artillery bombardment and giving the South Vietnamese the trai...
The next few years would bring even more carnage, including the horrifying revelation that U.S. soldiers had mercilessly slaughtered more than 400 unarmed civilians in the village of My Lai in March 1968. After the My Lai Massacre, anti-war protests continued to build as the conflict wore on. In 1968 and 1969, there were hundreds of protest marches...
The loss of life of American soldiers, the determination and ferocity of the Vietcong assault, and coverage of the brutal response (including the capture on camera of a suspected Vietcong officer...
America “lost” South Vietnam because it was an artificial construct created in the wake of the French loss of Indochina. Because there never was an “organic” nation of...
4 days ago · Those who argue that the United States won the war point to the fact that the U.S. defeated communist forces during most of Vietnam’s major battles. They also assert that the U.S. overall suffered fewer casualties than its opponents.
- Ronald H. Spector
Feb 19, 2018 · For almost thirty years, by means financial, military, and diplomatic, the United States tried to prevent Vietnam from becoming a Communist state. Millions died in that struggle.
The U.S. involvement in Vietnam began due to a combination of factors: the U.S. war with Japan in the Pacific, domestic pressure to act against communism after the communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong 's pledge in 1950 to support the Viet Minh guerrilla forces in the First Indochina War against France 's colon...
