Vietnam War: Difference between revisions

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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]]}}
Since there is a current state and government of [[Vietnam]], with full diplomatic representation including participation in international organizations, the final authorities on the definition of '''Vietnam War''' would appear to be the Vietnamese. They tend to refer to the Wars (plural) of Vietnam, often referring to a period starting sometime after 1959 and extending to 1975 as the "American War". Considering actions in [[Laos]] and [[Cambodia]] also confuse the terminology; not all the fighting there bore directly on Vietnam or [[French Indochina]].
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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]].  


While some see a period in which fighting in Southeast Asia merely was a proxy for what many Westerners believe was an existential battle between Western and [[Communist]] ideology, this is a view external to that of Vietnam. The wars between 1946 and 1975, however, were clearly existential ''for the Vietnamese''. Currently, the government of Vietnam is Communist, but it is a Vietnamese communism, with a vibrant economy.
==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 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.<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> 


Vietnamese drives for independence begin, at least, in the 1st century C.E., with the [[Trung Sisters]]' revolt against the Chinese; the citation here mentions the 1968th anniversary of their actions.<ref name=VNN2008-03-14>{{citation
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 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 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.
  | 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>


A useful perspective comes from retired U.S. [[lieutenant general]] Harold G. Moore ([[U.S. Army]], retired) and journalist Joseph L. Galloway. Their book, ''We Were Soldiers once, and Young'', as well as the movie made about the subject, part of the [[Battle of the Ia Drang]], has been iconic, to many, of the American involvement. <ref name=Moore1999>{{Citation
==Strategic Summary==
| first1 = Harold G. (Hal) | last1 = Moore | first2 = Joseph L.  | last2 = Galloway
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).  
| title = We were Soldiers Once...and Young: Ia Drang - the Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam 
| publisher = Random House
| year = 1999}}</ref> Recently, they returned to their old battlefields and met with their old enemies, both sides seeking some closure. Some of their perspective may help.
==Perspective and Naming==
In 1990, one of their visits included the Vietnam Historic Museum in Hanoi. <blockquote>The high point for us was not the exhibits but finding a huge mural that was both a timeline and a map of Vietnam's unhappy history dating back well over a thousand years...the Chinese section of the timeline stretched out for fifty feet or so. The section devoted to the French and their 150 years of colonial occupation was depicted in about twelve inches. The minuscule part that marked the U.S. war was only a couple of inches.<ref name=Moore2008>{{Citation
| first1 = Harold G. (Hal) | last1 = Moore | first2 = Joseph L. | last2 = Galloway
| title = We are soldiers still: a journey back to the battlefields of Vietnam 
| publisher = Harper Collins
| year = 2008}}</ref></blockquote>


So, while '''War in Vietnam''' goes back to  to the rebellion, against China, of the Trung Sisters in the first century C.E., practical limits need to be set on the scope of this article. Many other articles can deal with other aspects, of the long history of Vietnam, than the period roughly from 1941 to 1975, all or part of which seems to form the Western concept of the '''Vietnam War'''.  
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>
 
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.


From a Western concept that all post-WWII matters centered around Communism, it 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). [[Vo Nguyen Giap]] refers to the '''Resistance War''' starting on December 19, 1946, and ending with the French exist.<ref name=PWPA>{{citation
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 Vietnam.  At 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.  
| title = People's war, People's Army
| author = Vo Nguyen Giap
| publisher = Praeger
| year = 1962}}, p. 88</ref> Communists also use the term '''American War''', although the dates are less clearly defined.


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.
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.


==Background==
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]].
There are important background details variously dealing with the start of French colonization in [[Indochina]], including the present countries of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.  Vichy French cooperation in ruling Indochina and a Japanese presence 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 ]].
[[Image:Vietnam relief 2001.jpg|left|thumb|Vietnam]]
In the West, the term is usually considered to have begun somewhere in the mid-20th century. There were at least two periods of hot war, first the Vietnamese war of independence from the French, including guerilla resistance starting during the [[Second World War]] and ending in a 1954 Geneva treaty that partitioned the country into the Communist North (NVN) ([[Democratic Republic of Vietnam]], DRV) and non-Communist South (SVN) ([[Republic of Vietnam]], RVN). A referendum on reunification had been scheduled for 1956, but never took place. Nevertheless, a complex and powerful [[United States Mission to the Republic of Vietnam]] was always present after the French had left and the [[Republic of Vietnam]] established.


While Communists had long had aims to control Vietnam, the specific decision to conquer the South was made, by the Northern leadership, in May 1959. The Communist side had clearly defined political objectives, and a [[grand strategy]], involving military, diplomatic, covert action and psychological operations to achieve those objectives. Whether or not one agreed with those objectives, there was a clear relationship between long-term goals and short-term actions, within the theory of [[North Vietnamese cadre|''dau trinh'']].  
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.


Quite separate from its internal problems, South Vietnam faced an unusual 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 fifties, 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
==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.
 
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.<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.
 
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
  | title =The Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, Volume 2
  | contribution = Chapter 6, "The Advisory Build-Up, 1961-1967," Section 1, pp. 408-457
  | 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>
  | 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.
 
===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.


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. Province and District Chiefs in the rural areas were usually military officers, but reported to political leadership in Saigon rather than the military operational chain of command.  The 1960 "Counterinsurgency Plan for Vietnam (CIP)" from the U.S. MAAG was a proposal to change what appeared to be a dysfunctional structure.  <ref name=PntV1Ch05Sec0314-346 />
===Effect on military efficiency===


Arguably, some of the later southern insurgency was more anti-Diem rather than pro-communist. After the [[overthrow of Diem]], [[Cao Dai]] and other factions broke away from the [[National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam]]; at least briefly, they regarded the absence of Diem as liberation. The hard-line Comunists, of course, disagreed.
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.  


Further analysis showed the situation was not only jockeying for power, but also reflected that the province chief indeed had security authority that could conflict with that of tactical military operations in progress, but also had responsibility for the civil administration of the province. That civil administration function became more and more intertwined, starting in 1964 and with acceleration in 1966, of the "other war" of rural development.<ref name=Eckhardt>{{citation
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.  
| title = Vietnam Studies: Command and Control 1950-1969
| first = George S. | last = Eckhardt
| publisher = Center for Military History, U.S. Department of the Army | year = 1991
| url = http://www.history.army.mil/books/Vietnam/Comm-Control/index.htm#contents}}, pp. 68-71</ref>


In contrast, the Southern governments from 1954 did not either have popular support or tight control over the populace. There was much jockeying for power as well as corruption.  An assumption here is that while the U.S. and other countries had major roles, the thrust of the article is how it affected Vietnam and the Vietnamese. Issues of U.S. politics and opinion that affected it are in [[Vietnam, war, and the United States]].
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.


After the [[Gulf of Tonkin incident]], in which U.S. President [[Lyndon Baines Johnson]] claimed North Vietnamese naval vessels had attacked U.S. warships, open U.S. involvement began in 1964, and continued until 1972. After the U.S. withdrawal based on a treaty in Paris, the two halves were to be forcibly united, by DRV conventional invasion, in 1975. [[T-54]] [[tank (military)|tank]]s that broke down the gates of the Presidential Palace in the southern capital, [[Saigon]], were not driven by ragged guerrillas.  
===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]].


Without trying to name the wars, the key timeline events in modern history are:
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.
*1858-1862: French invasion and establishment of colonial government
*1941: Japanese invasion of French Indochina
*1945: End of [[World War II]] and return of Indochina to French authority; formal resistance starts circa 1946.
*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; U.S. advisory support begins to extend to tactical movement and fire support in roughly 1961
*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
*1969: Vietnamization policy starts
*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.


==French Indochina Background==
===Instability===
{{main|French Indochina}}
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. 
{{seealso|Vietnam, pre-colonial history}}


At the time of the French invasion, during the [[Second French Revolution]] with Louis [[Napoleon III]] as President, there were four parts of what is now Vietnam:
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.  
*[[Cochin China]] in the south, including the Mekong Delta and what was variously named Gia Dinh, [[Saigon]], and Ho Chi Minh City
*[[Annam]] in the center, with the cultural capital of [[Hue]]; the mountainous [[Central Highlands]], the home of the [[Montagnard]] peoples, considered itself autonomous
*[[Tonkin]] in the North, including the Red River Delta, [[Hanoi]], and [[Haiphong]].


In 1858, France invaded Vietnam, and the ruling Nguyen dynasty accepted protectorate status. Cambodia and Laos also came under French control.  In June 1867, he seized the last provinces of Cochin China. The Siamese government, in July, agreed to the Cambodian protectorate in return for receiving the two Cambodian provinces of  Angkor and Battambang, to Siam. Siam was never under French control.  
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.


Indochina operated as a colony from this time up until 1945, with growing nationalist attempts at [[Indochinese revolution]], accelerating after 1946. There were a variety of nationalist movements, non-Communist (e.g., [[Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang]]) and Communist (e.g., [[Ho Chi Minh|Indochinese Communist Party]]; the [[Viet Minh]] became the dominant revolutionary force.
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.  


==Indochina and the Second World War==
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).
{{main|Indochina and the Second World War}}
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
| title = Why Viet Nam? Prelude to America's Albatross
| author = Patti, Archimedes L. A
| publisher = University of California Press
| year = 1980
| ISBN-10 = 0520041569
}}, p. 477</ref>


Indochina, a French colony in the spheres of influence of Japan and China, was destined to be drawn into the [[Second World War]] both through European and Asian events.  From 1946 to 1948, the French reestablished control, but, in 1948, began to explore a provisional government. While there is no clear start to what ended in 1954, the more serious nationalist movement was clearly underway by 1948.
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.


==Indochinese revolution==
==Covert operations==
{{main|Indochinese revolution}}
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.
While there is no universally agreed name for this period in the history of Vietnam, it is the period between the formation of a quasi-autonomous government within the French Union, and the the eventual armed defeat of the French colonial forces by the [[Viet Minh]]. That defeat led to the 1954 Geneva accords that split Vietnam into North and South.
===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 French first created a provisional government under Bao Dai, then recognized Vietnam as a state within the French Union. In such a status, France would still control the foreign and military policy of Vietnam, which was unacceptable to both Communist and non-Communist nationalists.
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 Two Vietnams after Geneva==
===Laos===
{{main|The Two Vietnams after Geneva‎}}
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.
{{main|Vietnam, war, and the United States}}
{{seealso|Government of the Republic of Vietnam}}


This period was begun by the military defeat of the French in 1954, with a Geneva meeting that partitioned Vietnam into North and South. Two provisions of the agreement never took place: a referendum on unification in 1956, and also banned foreign military support and intervention. [[G. Frederick Reinhardt]] was the first U.S. Ambassador accredited to the new [[Republic of Vietnam]].
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
| title = Apollo’s Warriors: US Air Force Special Operations during the Cold War
| 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>


In the south, the Diem government was not popular, but there was no obvious alternative that would rise above factionalism, and also gain external support. Anti-Diem movements were not always Communist, although some certainly were.
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>


The north was exploring its policy choices, both in terms of the south, and its relations with China and the Soviet Union. The priorities of the latter, just as U.S. and French priorities were not necessarily those of Diem, were not necessarily those of Ho. In 1959, North Vietnam made the explicit decision to overthrow the South by military means.
===CIA, MACV-SOG and OPPLAN34A===
==Pacification==
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.  
{{main|Pacification in South Vietnam}}
After partition, there was a continuing struggle for security of the rural population, and for gaining support from that populace for the government. A variety of terms were used to discuss the many programs involved, but a convenient general term is [[pacification in South Vietnam]]. It has also been called the "Other War" or "Second War" to differentiate it from direct combat with Communist military forces in the South, although some refer to a "Third War" against Communists outside the South.


There is little doubt that there was some kind of Viet Minh-derived "stay behind" organization betweeen 1954 and 1960, but it is unclear that they were directed to take over action until 1957 or later. Before that, they were unquestionably recruiting and building infrastructure, a basic first step in a Maoist protracted war mode.
CIA naval operations, under Tucker Gougelmann, in 1961,<ref name=Shultz>{{citation|
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.  


While the visible guerilla incidents increased gradually, the key policy decisions by the North were made in 1959. Early in this period, there was a greater degree of conflict in Laos than in South Vietnam. U.S. combat involvement was, at first, greater in Laos, but the activity of advisors, and increasingly U.S. direct support to South Vietnamese soldiers, increased, under U.S. military authority, in late 1959 and early 1960. Communications intercepts in 1959, for example, confirmed the start of the Ho Chi Minh trail and other preparation for large-scale fighting.
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]].


Specific programs included the [[Strategic Hamlet Program]], [[Revolutionary Development]], the U.S. Marine [[Combined Action Platoon]] program, and others.
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.


==U.S. support to South Vietnam before Gulf of Tonkin==
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.
{{main|U.S. support to South Vietnam before Gulf of Tonkin}}
{{main|Vietnam, war, and the United States}}
{{seealso|United States Mission to the Republic of Vietnam}}


To put the situation in a strategic perspective, remember that North and South Vietnam were artificial constructs of the 1954 Geneva agreements. While there had been several regions of Vietnam, when roughly a million northerners, of different religion and ethnicity than in the south, migrated into a population of five to ten million, there were identity conflicts. Communism has been called a secular religion, and the North Vietnamese government officials responsible for [[information operations#psychological warfare|psychological warfare]], as well as military operations, were part of a system of [[North Vietnamese cadre|cadre]]. Communism, for its converts, was an organizing belief system that had no equivalent in the South. At best, the southern leadership intended to have a prosperous nation, although leaders were all too often focused on personal prosperity. Their Communist counterparts, however, had a mission of conversion by the sword &mdash; or the [[AK-47]] assault rifle.
On July 31, 1964, there was a DESOTO patrol.<ref name=McMaster>{{citation
| 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.


[[Image:South vietnam ethnic 1972.jpg|thumb|left|Traditional ethnic geography of Vietnam]]
==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>


Between the 1954 Geneva accords and 1956, the two countries were still forming; the influence of major powers, especially France and the United States, and to a lesser extent China and the Soviet Union, were as much an influence as any internal matters. There is little question that in 1957-1958, there was a definite early guerilla movement against the Diem government, involving individual assassinations, expropriations, recruiting, shadow government, and other things characteristic of Mao's Phase I. The actual insurgents, however, were primarily native to the south or had been there for some time. While there was clearly communications and perhaps arms supply from the north, there is little evidence of any Northern units in the South, although organizers may well have infiltrated.  
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.


It is clear there was insurgency in the South from after the French defeat to the North Vietnamese decision to invade, but it is far more difficult to judge when and if the insurgency was clearly directed by the North. Given the two national sides both operated on the principle that their citizens were for them or against them, it is difficult to know how much neutralist opinion might actually have existed.  
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]].  


Guerilla 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 clearly facing disorganized attacks and internal political dissent. There were unquestioned 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
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)


==Gulf of Tonkin incident==
===Combat support advisory phase===
{{main|Gulf of Tonkin incident}}
[[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
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. After much declassification and study, much of the incident remains shrouded in what Clausewitz called the "fog of war", but serious questions have been raised of whether the North Vietnamese believed they were under attack, who fired the first shots, and, indeed, if there was a true attack. Congress did not declare war, which is defined as its responsibility in the Constitution of the United States; nevertheless, it launched what effectively was the longest war in U.S. history -- and even longer if the covert actions before the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin situation is considered.
first = David | last = Halberstam
  | 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>


The [[Gulf of Tonkin resolution]], although later revoked, was considered, by Lyndon Johnson, his basic authority to conduct military operations in Southeast Asia. It was another example of how declarations of [[war]] have become extremely rare following the [[Second World War]].
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.


==South Vietnamese government==
===Intensification===
{{main|Government of the Republic of Vietnam}}
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.
There was a gradual transition from overt military government 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. [[Ngo Dinh Diem]] ruled from 1954 to 1963, with some coup attempts put down, but reasonably constant


Power constantly shifted in 1964 to 1967. This was not, as some have suggested, purely a series of struggles among military juntas. There were multiple Buddhist and other factions competing from outside the government. [[William Colby]], then chief of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] Far Eastern Division, observed that civilian politicians "divided and sub-divided into a tangle of contesting ambititions 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 contests were simple drives for political power or wealth, while other reflected feeling of seeking to avoid preference for some groups, Catholic vs. Buddhist in the Diem Coup. Not all the competing groups, such as the Buddhists, were monolithic, and had their own internal struggles.  
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.


Vietnamese and U.S. goals were also not always in complete agreement. Certainly up to 1969, the U.S. was generally anything opposed to any policy, nationalist or not, which might lead to the South Vietnamese becoming neutralist rather than anticommunist. The Cold War [[containment]] policy was in force through the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson Administrations, while the Nixon administration was supportive of a more multipolar model of [[detente]].
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.


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 decisionmaker goals.
===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. <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> 


==U.S. policy changes after 1964 election==
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.
{{main|Joint warfare in South Vietnam 1964-1968}}
{{seealso|Vietnam, war, and the United States}}, especially decisions to escalate in the air and on the ground
{{seealso|Air operations against North Vietnam}}, with emphasis on the signaling strategy of [[Operation ROLLING THUNDER]]


Although the combination of the [[Gulf of Tonkin Resolution]] and the political authority granted to Lyndon Johnson by being elected to the presidency rather than succeeding to it gave him more influence, and there was certainly an immense infusion of U.S. and allied forces into the theater of operations, never forget the chief participants in the war were Vietnamese.
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.  


Johnson's motives were different from Kennedy's, just as Nixon's motivations would be different from Johnson's. Of the three, Johnson was most concerned with U.S. domestic policy. He probably did want to see improvements in the life of the Vietnamese, but the opinions of his electorate were most important. His chief goal was implementing the set of domestic programs that he called the "Great Society". He judged actions in Vietnam not only on their own merits, but how they would be perceived in the U.S. political system. <ref name=McMaster>{{citation
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 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===
[[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.]]
 
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.<ref name=McMaster>{{citation
  | title = Dereliction of Duty : Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam
  | title = Dereliction of Duty : Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam
  | first = H.R. | last = McMaster
  | first = H.R. | last = McMaster
  | publisher = HarperCollins
  | publisher = HarperCollins
  | year = 1997 | isbn=0060187956
  | year = 1997 | isbn=0060187956
}}</ref> To Johnson, Vietnam was a "political war" only in the sense of U.S. domestic politics, not a political settlement for the Vietnamese. He also saw it political in the sense of both his personal, and the U.S., position vis-a-vis the reso of the world.
}}</ref>  


Johnson and McNamara directed a three-part strategy, the first two developed by the civilian policymakers in Washington, and the third selected by them from different concepts by American leaders in Vietnam. Note that the initiative was coming from Johnson; the admittedly unstable South Vietnamese government was not part of defining their national destiny.
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]].


Of several alternatives for stabilizing the South, Johnson chose the plan advocated by GEN [[Joint warfare in South Vietnam 1964-1968‎|William Westmoreland]] as most likely to succeed in the relatively near term. By 1968, and perhaps in 1967, Johnson's chief adviser on the war, Secretary of Defense [[Robert 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>
===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.


Also fundamental to Johnson was protecting his domestic legacy. Karnow quotes his comment to his biographer, Doris Kearns, as <blockquote>I knew from the start that I was bound to be crucified either way I moved. If I left the woman I really loved &mdash; the Great Society &mdash; in order to get invoved with that bitch of a war on the other side of the world, then i would lose everything at home. All my programs. All my hopes to feed the hungry and shelter the homeess. All my dreams to provide education and medical care to the browns and the blacks and the lame and the poor. But if I left that war and let the Communists take over South Vietnam, I would be seen as a coward and my nation seen as an apeaser, and we would both find it impossible to accomplish anything for anybody anywhere on the entire globe.<ref>Doris Kearns and Merle Miller, quoted in Karnow, p. 320</ref> </blockquote>
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
|title = Department of Defense Joint Publication 5-0: Joint Operation Planning
|author = [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]]
| date = 13 February 2008
|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?


See also [[Vietnam, war, and the United States]] for Johnson's belief of how a loss of South Vietnam would trigger domestic political attacks from right-wing ideologues that considered him the greatest of the dominoes.
===Major ground combat phase===
 
{{seealso|Vietnam War military technology}}
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
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
  | 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  
Line 187: Line 228:
  | url =http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/22572/sample/9780521822572ws.pdf}}</ref>
  | url =http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/22572/sample/9780521822572ws.pdf}}</ref>


==Vietnamization after Nixon's election==
They directed a [[Joint warfare in South Vietnam 1964-1968|plan for South Vietnam]] that they believed would end the war quickly.  Note 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.
{{main|Vietnamization}}
 
{{seealso|Vietnam, war, and the United States}} with special emphasis on the change of basic U.S. policy from containment to detente, and domestic opinion about the war
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]].
{{seealso|Air operations against North Vietnam}}
 
{{seealso|Air campaigns against Cambodia and Laos}}
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. 


After the election of [[Richard M. Nixon]], U.S. policy changed to one of turning ground combat over to South Vietnam, a process called [[Vietnamization]]. 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
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]].
 
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]].
 
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.
 
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 [[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]]
 
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.
 
===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>
 
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>
 
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]]
  | author = [[Henry Kissinger]]
  | title = Ending the Vietnam War: A history of America's Involvment 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>
  | 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>
 
===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".<ref>Karnow, p. 582</ref>  


==Allied  ground troops depart==
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
{{main |South Vietnam's ground war, 1972-1975}}
| 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>
{{main|Paris Peace Talks}}
====Nixon decisionmaking structure====
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.  
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>


There were two unprecedented bombing campaigns. To stop the logistical support of the Eastertide invasion, Nixon launched [[Operation LINEBACKER I]], which had the [[operational art|operational goal]] of disabling the infrastructure of infiltration.
"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
| title = Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976
| volume = Volume VIII, Vietnam
| date = January–October 1972
| url = http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v08/media/pdf/frus1969-76v08.pdf
| 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.


When the North refused to return to negotiations in late in 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, not so much attacking the infiltration infrastructure, but North Vietnam's physical ability to import supplies, its internal transportation and logistics, command and control, and [[integrated air defense system]]. Within one month of the start of the operation, a peace agreement was signed.
====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. <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.


==Peace accords and invasion, 1973-75==
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>


{{r|Paris Peace Talks}}
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.
{{r|Fall of South Vietnam}}
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 it troops in the south.
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> 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>
===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.


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 commmand 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  
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]].
 
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.
 
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.
 
==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.<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>
 
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
  | contribution = The Marine War: III MAF in Vietnam, 1965-1971
  | first = Jack | last = Shulimson
  | first = Jack | last = Shulimson
  | title = 1996 Vietnam Symposium: "After the Cold War: Reassessing Vietnam" 18-20 April 1996
  | title = 1996 Vietnam Symposium: "After the Cold War: Reassessing Vietnam" 18-20 April 1996
  | publisher = Vietnam Center and Archive at Texas Tech University
  | 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.   
  | 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.   
 
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."
 
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>


Vietnam was unified under Communist rule, as nearly a million refugees escaped by boat. Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.
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==
==References==
{{reflist|2}}
{{reflist|2}}
[[Category:Flagged for Review]]

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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
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  27. Holman, Victor (1995). Seminole Negro Indians, Macabebes, and Civilian Irregulars: Models for the Future Employment of Indigenous Forces.
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  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
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  41. Gen. William E Dupuy, August 1, 1988 interview, quoted by McNamara, pages 212 and 371.
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  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
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  49. Karnow, p. 591-592
  50. Kissinger, pp. 75-78
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  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.
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  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.