Truman Administration
Following World War II, the Communists began a struggle against the French, who ruled Indochina. In 1946 they declared a Democratic Republic with its capital at the old Colonial Capital of Hanoi, and Ho Chi Minh as President. Unable to come to terms, fighting broke out. In 1949 the French set up former Vietnamese Emperor Bao Dai as ruler of Vietnam, with a capital at the southern City of Saigon. The U.S. recognized the Saigon government, and sent military advisers to train the South Vietnamese in the use of U.S. Weapons.
Eisenhower Administration
The Vietminh decisively defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Later that year, all the parties involved agreed to a truce. The country would be temporarily partitioned along the 17th Parallel, and elections for a new government would be held in 1956. The French withdrew, but the U.S. continued to be heavily involved, even after the new President of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, declared in 1955 that his government would not support the reunification elections.
The Vietcong – South Vietnamese Communist Guerillas backed by Communist North Vietnam – began attacks on U.S. Military installations in 1957, and attacks on the Diem government in 1959. There were allegations that regular North Vietnamese Army troops were taking part in the attacks.
Kennedy Administration
In 1961, the U.S. deployed 420 advisers in Vietnam. By 1963, there were 11,500 U.S. troops there as well. The Diem government could not cope with unrest among Buddhists and other religious groups, and after a coup, Diem was executed. Other coups followed, with a military council finally being formed.
Johnson Administration
In 1964, North Vietnamese torpedo boats directly attacked U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, a famous incident that led to a Senate resolution allowing an increase to American participation in the hostilities. In early 1965, the U.S. began strategic bombing of North Vietnam, primarily using B-52 aircraft. By late 1965, American combat strength in Vietnam was at 200,000.
During 1967-68, the North Vietnamese launched a devastating offensive on the Tet Holiday; although it ultimately failed, this attack proved demoralizing to the U.S. and South Vietnamese troops. In Vietnam, the Military Council held questionable elections, and Thieu was elected President in 1967.
In October 1967, a huge demonstration at the Pentagon organized by the National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE) drew 100,000.
By early spring of 1968, many Americans had conceded that the war was unwinnable. The U.S. met with South and North Vietnam at the Paris Peace Talks, and eventually included the Vietcong, but the North Vietnamese insisted on complete U.S. withdrawal as a condition of peace.
1968 was a calamitous year for the United States. Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated, sparking race riots. Robert Kennedy was assassinated, eliminating him from the Democratic Presidential Primary. Lyndon Johnson announced he was withdrawing from the Presidential race, and would not seek re-election.
The party machinery of the Democratic Convention in Chicago was resistant to the antiwar message, and was disrupted by antiwar protests, which were savagely repressed by Mayor Daley. Antiwar candidate Eugene McCarthy went down in defeat to the more conservative Hubert Humphrey, who lost to Richard Nixon.
By late 1968, a MOBE-organized march drew 500,000 people to Washington, D.C., while 150,000 attended a march in San Francisco.
Within the U.S., the organized student radical movement, centered around “Students for a Democratic Society” or SDS, was collapsing. The “Weathermen” faction of SDS remained as a militant organization, similar to the increasingly militant Black Panthers. In March of 1970, three Weathermen were killed when a bomb they were building exploded.
During this period, the FBI put immense amounts of money and effort, through its COINTEL program, into causing internal conflicts within SDS and other radical organizations, and discrediting Dr. Martin Luther King. COINTELPRO conducted illegal operations against socialists, feminists, and civil rights workers, and cooperated with organizations such as the KKK. In 1971 antiwar activists broke into FBI offices in Media, Pennsylvania and released documents to the press revealing the existence of COINTELPRO, but in 1970, much of the antiwar movement seemed mysteriously at conflict with itself, and bereft of solid leadership.
Nixon Administration
At home, a peace movement against the war was accelerating, highlighted by incidents such as the Mai-Lai massacre. This incident was carried out by troops under Lt. William Calley in 1968, and made public in November 1969. Calley was charged in March 1970, and would be court-martialed in 1971. Polls showed that an overwhelming number of Americans thought that Calley was being made a scapegoat for widespread abuses by ranking military personnel.
In 1969, President Nixon began the phased withdrawal of American troops, in a process of “Vietnamization” which was to leave the South Vietnamese reliant on their own army for defense.
Since 1967, the government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk in Cambodia had been battling Khmer Rouge (literally “Red Cambodia”) forces under Pol Pot.
In 1970, Right-wing General Lol Non seized control of Cambodia in a military coup, while the more isolationist Prince Sihanouk was out of the Country. Lol Non favored a more activist policy against Communist aggression.
This set the stage for Nixon’s decision, after consultation with his
National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, to invade Cambodia.
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