[97]:655, American women served on active duty performing a variety of jobs. By 1967, the war had generated large-scale internal refugees, numbering nearly 2.1million in South Vietnam, with 125,000 people evacuated and rendered homeless during Operation Masher alone,[159] which was the largest search and destroy operation in the war up to that point. More than 20% of South Vietnam's forests and 3.2% of its cultivated land was sprayed at least once. [40]:718720, On 30 April 1975, PAVN troops entered the city of Saigon and quickly overcame all resistance, capturing key buildings and installations. [89], On 7 May 1954, the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu surrendered. [156], The American buildup transformed the South Vietnamese economy and had a profound effect on society. The Viet Cong was now tasked with destroying the ARVN and capturing and holding areas; however, the Viet Cong was not yet strong enough to assault major towns and cities. In the lead-up to the ceasefire on 28 January, both sides attempted to maximize the land and population under their control in a campaign known as the War of the flags. [343], The U.S. Veterans Administration has listed prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, multiple myeloma, Diabetes mellitus type 2, B-cell lymphomas, soft-tissue sarcoma, chloracne, porphyria cutanea tarda, peripheral neuropathy and spina bifida in children of veterans exposed to Agent Orange. John F. Kennedy Thiu had halted the general advance, leaving armoured divisions able to surround them. Ami Pedahzur has written that "the overall volume and lethality of Viet Cong terrorism rivals or exceeds all but a handful of terrorist campaigns waged over the last third of the twentieth century", based on the definition of terrorists as a non-state actor, and examining targeted killings and civilian deaths which are estimated at over 18,000 from 1966 to 1969. ", "Taking on a Superpower: A Salute to the Women of Vietnam", "Opinion | The Women Who Fought for Hanoi", "Opinion | As the Earth Shook, They Stood Firm", "Mme. As the PAVN/VC recovered from their 1968 losses . John F. Kennedy, while senator, opposed involvement in Vietnam. [85]:363365 U.S. and South Vietnamese forces were initially shocked by the scale, intensity and deliberative planning of the urban offensive, as infiltration of personnel and weapons into the cities was accomplished covertly;[164] the offensive constituted an intelligence failure on the scale of Pearl Harbor. [301], The U.S. used its security council veto to block Vietnam's recognition by the United Nations three times, an obstacle to the country receiving international aid. [105], From April to June 1955, Dim eliminated any political opposition in the south by launching military operations against two religious groups: the Cao i and Ha Ho of Ba Ct. Much like the general historiography of the war, discussion of myth has focused on U.S. experiences, but changing myths of war have also played a role in Vietnamese and Australian historiography. People who had been farming land for years had to return it to landlords and pay years of back rent. Sweden sent humanitarian support to North Vietnam, offered political and diplomatic opposition to the U.S., and harbored American deserters. A group of American doctors inspecting the prison in the same year found many inmates suffering symptoms resulting from forced immobility and torture. China accepted 250,000 people. In addition to the Catholics flowing south, over 130,000 "Revolutionary Regroupees" went to the north for "regroupment", expecting to return to the south within two years. The bombing halt achieved no breakthrough but rather brought on a period of prolonged bickering between the United States and its South Vietnamese ally about the terms and procedures to govern the talks. Defense Department officials believed that these body count figures need to be deflated by 30 percent. Vietnam War, (1954-75), a protracted conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam and its allies in South Vietnam, known as the Viet Cong, against the government of South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. On 22 March, the PAVN opened the siege of Hu. Only five high-ranking congressional officials were informed of Operation Menu. [83], The primary military organizations involved in the war were the United States Armed Forces and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, pitted against the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) (commonly called the North Vietnamese Army, or NVA, in English-language sources) and the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF, more commonly known as the Viet Cong (VC) in English language sources), a South Vietnamese communist guerrilla force. [75]:89, In October 1956, Dim launched a land reform program limiting the size of rice farms per owner. [314] Others point to a failure of U.S. military doctrine. [323] James E. Westheider wrote that "At the height of American involvement in 1968, for example, 543,000 American military personnel were stationed in Vietnam, but only 80,000 were considered combat troops. Encounter Books, December 2022. During that year's presidential campaign, Americans were deeply divided by the deteriorating military and political situation in Vietnam. This decision, made after "inadequate testing", proved that "the safety of soldiers was a secondary consideration. Thousands of refugees streamed southward, ahead of the main communist onslaught. Ford desperately asked Congress for funds to assist and re-supply the South before it was overrun. Myths play a central role in the historiography of the Vietnam War, and have become a part of the culture of the United States. Furthermore, throughout the war there was found to be considerable flaws and dishonesty by officers and commanders due to promotions being tied to the body count system touted by Westmoreland and McNamara. [160]:508513 North Vietnam was allowed to continue supplying troops in the South but only to the extent of replacing expended material. [176], At one point in 1968, Westmoreland considered the use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam in a contingency plan codenamed Fracture Jaw, which was abandoned when it became known to the White House. The war exacted an enormous human cost: estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed range from 966,000[33] to 3million. L c Th and Henry Kissinger, along with the PRG Foreign Minister Nguyn Th Bnh and a reluctant President Thiu, signed the Paris Peace Accords on 27 January 1973. [40]:716, Chaos, unrest, and panic broke out as hysterical South Vietnamese officials and civilians scrambled to leave Saigon. Although they were nominally a civilian government, Ky was supposed to maintain real power through a behind-the-scenes military body. However, Thieu outmanoeuvred and sidelined Ky by filling the ranks with generals from his faction. U.S. officials began discussing the possibility of a regime change during the middle of 1963. [245] Statistics for 19681972 suggest that "about 80 percent of the terrorist victims were ordinary civilians and only about 20 percent were government officials, policemen, members of the self-defence forces or pacification cadres. Between 1961 and 1964 the Army's strength rose from about 850,000 to nearly a million men. [40]:488489 Two months later a third offensive was launched, the Phase III Offensive. Many young people protested because they were the ones being drafted, while others were against the war because the anti-war movement grew increasingly popular among the counterculture. Dim refused to make concessions to the Buddhist majority or take responsibility for the deaths. $160billion adjusted for inflation in 2022) during the Vietnam War;[23] included in that aid were donations of 5million tons of food to North Vietnam (equivalent to North Vietnamese food production in a single year), accounting for 1015% of the North Vietnamese food supply by the 1970s. U.S. president Richard Nixon began troop withdrawals in 1969. Neither the United States government nor Ng nh Dim's State of Vietnam signed anything at the 1954 Geneva Conference. While the bulk of ARVN forces attempted to flee, isolated units fought desperately. [40]:7576 Throughout the conflict, U.S. intelligence estimates remained skeptical of France's chance of success. [40]:649663 Nixon pressured Thieu to accept the terms of the agreement or else face retaliatory military action from the U.S.[212], On 15 January 1973, all U.S. combat activities were suspended. On V-J Day, 2 September, the declaration of independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) was proclaimed in Hanoi. Soviet crews fired Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles at U.S. aircraft in 1965. In 1964, South Vietnam began conducting a series of attacks and missions along the North Vietnamese coasts, backed by the United States. He was determined to "draw a line in the sand" and prevent a communist victory in Vietnam. In 1945, France began a military campaign to suppress the rebellion, inaugurating thirty years of bitter conflict in Vietnam. The war also influenced a generation of musicians and songwriters in Vietnam, the United States, and throughout the world, both pro/anti-war and pro/anti-communist, with the Vietnam War Song Project having identified 5,000+ songs about or referencing the conflict. [34]:450453, According to figures released by the Vietnamese government there were 849,018 confirmed military deaths on the PAVN/VC side during the war. The United States also reduced support troops, and in March 1971 the 5th Special Forces Group, the first American unit deployed to South Vietnam, withdrew to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Election and the Vietnam War Lyndon B. Johnson campaign button Lyndon B. Johnson campaign button American presidential election, 1964 In the presidential election of 1964, Johnson was opposed by conservative Republican Barry Goldwater. On 28 July, North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao forces invaded Laos, fighting the Royal Lao Army all along the border. [200]:331[160]:407 In 1969, field-performance of the U.S. [88] Nixon, a so-called "hawk" on Vietnam, suggested that the United States might have to "put American boys in". The U.S. incursion into Cambodia sparked nationwide U.S. protests as Nixon had promised to deescalate the American involvement. Phase 1. "China's 1979 War With Vietnam: A Reassessment", This page was last edited on 1 May 2023, at 05:16. [319] This resulted in a large federal budget deficit. 89. [97]:670672. Further information on the final North Vietnamese offensive: Ousting and assassination of Ng nh Dim, Gulf of Tonkin and Johnson's escalation, 19631969, ARVN taking the lead and U.S. ground-force withdrawal, Easter Offensive and Paris Peace Accords, 1972, United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races (FULRO). The U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge, invited the coup leaders to the embassy and congratulated them. [262] American women serving in Vietnam were subject to societal stereotypes. [88][40]:75 According to then-Vice President Richard Nixon, the Joint Chiefs of Staff drew up plans to use small tactical nuclear weapons to support the French. [271] Many mixed-blood Amerasian children were left behind when their American fathers returned to the United States after their tour of duty in South Vietnam; 26,000 of them were permitted to immigrate to the United States in the 1980s and 1990s. Major allies, however, notably NATO nations Canada and the United Kingdom, declined Washington's troop requests.[157]. Early opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam drew its inspiration from the Geneva Conference of 1954. Some have argued that the policy of North Vietnam was not to topple other non-communist governments in South East Asia. [240] Rummel estimated that American forces committed around 5,500 democidal killings between 1960 and 1972, from a range of between 4,000 and 10,000 killed. [155] The change in U.S. policy depended on matching the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong in a contest of attrition and morale. On 23 July 1962, fourteen nations, including China, South Vietnam, the Soviet Union, North Vietnam and the United States, signed an agreement promising to respect the neutrality of Laos. By 1960, the land reform process had stalled because many of Diem's biggest supporters were large land owners. South Vietnam entered a period of extreme political instability, as one military government toppled another in quick succession. His American advisors had recommended a more "modest" winning margin of "60 to 70 percent." troops. [288]:4,10, The U.S. dropped over 7million tons of bombs on Indochina during the war, more than triple the 2.1million tons of bombs the U.S. dropped on Europe and Asia during all of World War II and more than ten times the amount dropped by the U.S. during the Korean War. [168][167]:495 In the following Battle of Hu American forces employed massive firepower that left 80 percent of the city in ruins. The Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force Curtis LeMay, however, had long advocated saturation bombing in Vietnam and wrote of the communists that "we're going to bomb them back into the Stone Age". Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge on 17 April 1975, while the 1975 spring offensive saw the Fall of Saigon to the PAVN on 30 April, marking the end of the war; North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year. The election was won by Republican party candidate Richard Nixon who claimed to have a secret plan to end the war. [243]:12, The military forces of South Vietnam suffered an estimated 254,256 killed between 1960 and 1974 and additional deaths from 1954 to 1959 and in 1975. [289], Former U.S. Air Force official Earl Tilford has recounted "repeated bombing runs of a lake in central Cambodia. [71]:14, Between 1953 and 1956, the North Vietnamese government instituted various agrarian reforms, including "rent reduction" and "land reform", which resulted in significant political oppression. Vietnam Democide: Estimates, Sources, and Calculations", "2021 NAME ADDITIONS AND STATUS CHANGES ON THE VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL", "Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics: HOSTILE OR NON-HOSTILE DEATH INDICATOR. In 1967, all Viet Cong battalions were reequipped with arms of Soviet design such as the AK-47 assault rifle, carbines and the RPG-2 anti-tank weapon. Some have suggested that the failure of the war was due to political failures of U.S. Following unsuccessful negotiations, the Viet Minh initiated an insurgency against French rule. This ended a series of coups that had happened more than once a year. [295][296] According to Amnesty International Report 1979, this figure varied considerably depend on different observers: "included such figures as "50,000 to 80,000" (Le Monde, 19 April 1978), "150,000" (Reuters from Bien Hoa, 2 November 1977), "150,000 to 200,000" (The Washington Post, 20 December 1978), and "300,000" (Agence France Presse from Hanoi, 12 February 1978). "This article", noted Peter Church, "proved to be the only one of the Paris Agreements which was fully carried out. [254] Benjamin Valentino attributes 45,00080,000 "terrorist mass killings" to the Viet Cong during the war. [253] The US Department of Defense estimates the VC/PAVN had conducted 36,000 murders and almost 58,000 kidnappings from 1967 to 1972, c. [291] Despite speculation that the victorious North Vietnamese would, in President Nixon's words, "massacre the civilians there [South Vietnam] by the millions," there is a widespread consensus that no mass executions took place. 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 Phm Vn ng,[103]:134 who proposed that Vietnam eventually be united by elections under the supervision of "local commissions". [249]:78 Torture was conducted by the South Vietnamese government in collusion with the CIA.[250][251]. There were over 25,000 South Vietnamese casualties during the ceasefire period. For example, the website "African-American Involvement in the Vietnam War" compiles examples of such coverage,[277] as does the print and broadcast work of journalist Wallace Terry whose book Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans (1984), includes observations about the impact of the war on the black community in general and on black servicemen specifically. (The CACF is the basis for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, i.e. The Military Draft During the Vietnam War Exhibit Resistance and The conflict between Hmong rebels and the Pathet Lao continued in isolated pockets. [337] Meta-analyses of the most current studies on the association between Agent Orange and birth defects have found a statistically significant correlation such that having a parent who was exposed to Agent Orange at any point in their life will increase one's likelihood of either possessing or acting as a genetic carrier of birth defects. Phase 2. [75]:124 A second attack was reported two days later on USSTurner Joy and Maddox in the same area. [72][40]:131. Vietnam War - The Nixon administration and the Vietnam War Under the leadership of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge would eventually kill 13 million Cambodians out of a population of around 8million, in one of the bloodiest genocides in history.[64][303][304][305]. [97]:672674 With U.S. bombings suspended, work on the Ho Chi Minh trail and other logistical structures could proceed unimpeded. US ground forces also had access to B-52 and F-4 Phantom II and other aircraft to launch napalm, white phosphorus, tear gas, chemical weapons, precision-guided munition and cluster bombs. "[146] Due to the particularly heavy impact of cluster bombs during this war, Laos was a strong advocate of the Convention on Cluster Munitions to ban the weapons, and was host to the First Meeting of States Parties to the convention in November 2010. [24], President Thiu, a former general, was fearful that his forces would be cut off in the north by the attacking communists; Thieu ordered a retreat, which soon turned into a bloody rout. 2144, Combat Area Casualty File, November 1993. An entire American army was sacrificed on the battlefield of Vietnam. As broad-based opposition to his harsh tactics mounted, Dim increasingly sought to blame the communists. Commitment of U.S. (and other allies) forces necessary to halt the losing trend by the end of 1965. ng Thy Trm became renowned after her diary was published following her death. Within South Vietnam, the departure of the US military and the global recession that followed the 1973 oil crisis hurt an economy that was partly dependent on U.S. financial support and troop presence. [173] By the end of the first offensive, after two months, nearly 5,000 ARVN and over 4,000 U.S. forces had been killed and 45,820 wounded. [165]:4852, In the post-war era, Americans struggled to absorb the lessons of the military intervention. [258]:71. Westmoreland predicted victory by the end of 1967. [40]:693694, On 20 March, Thieu reversed himself and ordered Hu, Vietnam's third-largest city, be held at all costs, and then changed his policy several times. [219] President Dng Vn Minh, who had succeeded Huong two days earlier, surrendered to Lieutenant colonel Bi Vn Tng, the political commissar of the 203rd Tank Brigade. Communist forces were under a single command structure set up in 1958. Richard Nixon [94][95][40]:9697 The exodus was coordinated by a U.S.-funded $93million relocation program, which included the use of the Seventh Fleet to ferry refugees. [268][269] American bases were ringed by bars and brothels. [290], On 2 July 1976, North and South Vietnam were merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Forces was characterised by lowered morale, lack of motivation, and poor leadership. Massive aerial bombardment against the Pathet Lao and PAVN forces were carried out by the US to prevent the collapse of the Royal central government, and to deny the use of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Cambodians under both the pro-China King Sihanouk and the pro-American Lon Nol supported their fellow co-ethnic Khmer Krom in South Vietnam, following an anti-ethnic Vietnamese policy. The first deployment of 3,500 in March 1965 was increased to nearly 200,000 by December. Learn why a country that had been barely known to most Americans came to define an era. Phuoc Binh, the provincial capital, fell on 6 January 1975. The war had begun to shift into the final, conventional warfare phase of Hanoi's three-stage protracted warfare model. North Vietnam invaded Laos in 1958, establishing the Ho Chi Minh Trail to supply and reinforce the VC. See: Due to the early presence of U.S. troops in Vietnam, the start date of the Vietnam War is a matter of debate. Negotiations stagnated for five months, until Johnson gave orders to halt the bombing of North Vietnam. This phase would end when the enemy had been worn down, thrown on the defensive, and driven back from major populated areas. It has also been called the "Second Indochina War"[78] and the "Vietnam conflict". It was formed in Memot, Cambodia, and directed through COSVN. The PAVN quickly overran the northern provinces and in coordination with other forces attacked from Cambodia, threatening to cut the country in half. [360][361] On 10 November 2017, President Donald Trump issued an additional proclamation commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War.[362][363]. "[297] Such variations may be because "Some estimates may include not only detainees but also people sent from the cities to the countryside." [40]:221 In the same month, Johnson pledged that he was not "committing American boys to fighting a war that I think ought to be fought by the boys of Asia to help protect their own land". [24] Many songwriters and musicians supported the anti-war movement, including Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Peggy Seeger, Ewan MacColl, Barbara Dane, The Critics Group, Phil Ochs, John Lennon, John Fogerty, Nina Simone, Neil Young, Tom Paxton, Jimmy Cliff and Arlo Guthrie. [357] The band Country Joe and the Fish recorded The "Fish" Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag in 1965, and it became one of the most influential anti-Vietnam protest anthems. [103]:119 The United States countered with what became known as the "American Plan", with the support of South Vietnam and the United Kingdom.