Vietnam and Watergate

The longest and most costly war in American history;

Vietnam stemmed out of the Cold War and Containment Philosophy.

Many American leaders were WWII and Cold War

veteransthey were determined to avoid another Munich.

Unfortunately foreign policy initiatives for Southeast Asia

was often incoherent and ambiguousended in tragedy.

 American involvement begins back in 1945; the U.S. sent

advisors to aid the Vietminh to oust the Japanese.

Ho Chi Minh wanted the U.S. to assist the Vietminh to

unify all of VietnamIt had been partitioned many years earlier during the first French occupation of Indochina.
Unfortunately the U.S., though anti-colonialism, allowed

the French to re-establish its French colonial empire to ensure their participation in NATO.

 58,000 American lives and over 300,000 wounded left a

legacy of bitterness and much misunderstanding;

Many had psychological issues, but manyin fact there

was 2x the drug and alcohol addiction problems than combat injuries by the end of the war;
Vietnam left a shattered generation and an inherent

distrust of government.

 Many in America changed opinions on Americas role in

international affairsmany unrealistically wanted to be isolationists;

Changed from the last bastion to communism to Live

and Let Live. American exceptionalism was tarnished until President Reagan restored patriotic fervor.
So, how did we get there? What were the lasting affects?

And does Vietnam still haunt American policy and idealism?

Vietnam Time Line

1941The Atlantic CharterAmerica denounces

colonialism and promotes self-determinism; 1945Vietnam declares independence (100yrs Chinese, Japanese, and French occupation); Ho Chi Minh recites the declaration of Independence Sep 2 1945; 1949China falls the communist forces of Mao Tse TungAmerica fears China communism is spreading into Indochina; 1950Sec of State, Dean Acheson declares that America will secure and protect the Pacific Rim against communist expansion; The Korean War suggests that Asia is becoming unstable;

 1953Korean Conflict stalls into a perpetual

truce dividing North and South Korea; this instability enhances Americas resolve that Asia also must be part of the containment policy.
1954French are now engaged in a colonial-

nationalist war with the Vietminh. Ho Chi Minh vows to fight for as long as it takes. The U.S. funds 75% of the French-Indochina War; France is humiliated by the Vietminh and Vo Nyguyen Giap at Dien Bien Phu;
1954Geneva Peace Accords partition Vietnam

on the model of Korea

 1956--Eisenhower and

CIA intervene to prevent free electionsfearing the communist will win a free election.
The Domino Theory is

embraced; if Vietnam falls soon all the Pacific rim will collapse;
1960JFK pursues

Vietnam initiatives to bolster a weak South Vietnam government

 Why did JFK pursue

Vietnam? 1) Reassert American might after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the Berlin Crisis, and the Cuban Crisis; 2) He was raised an ardent Cold War Warriorsaw Ho Chi Minh as a Soviet Pawn; 3) Supported Limited Brush Fire Wars and containment;

 Early on, I believe that

America should have been in Vietnampast experience was all we had to use as a litmus testso Vietnam seemed logical;
Idealistic Americans early

also believed that Vietnam was worth savingDr. Tom Dooley. He saw the tortured Vietnamese and doctored many back to health;
After the partition many

North Vietnamese fled to the South seeking democracy.

 JFK under CIA urging stepped up the

commitment to train, supply and financially bolster Ngo Dinh Diems regime.
Diem, however, was very unpopular; an introvert,

staunch Catholic, not a very good leaderHis brother, head of the Secret Police, and his brothers wife Madam Nhu, were anti Buddhists and anti-peasantsmade things worse for Diem.
The catholic minority ruled ruthlessly over the

ancient religious groupsespecially Buddhists.

 The Priests protested

against the government;

LBJ as VP made a fact

finding trip to Vietnam, Diem is the George Washington of Asia he is a great leader
The Peasants and

Buddhists thought otherwiseimmolated themselves in protest.

 Diem and Nhu were so

unpopular, that the Vietnamese Military under the prodding of CIA assassinated Diem and his brother;
This created a change of

events of corrupt and inept leaders in Vietnam; By 1964 it was obvious that this was going to be an American Warif the line in the sand was to be fixed in AsiaJFK bumped up the 750 advisors to 16000

 The Tonkin Gulf

resolution and Incident of 1964. Ostensibly, America was running covert and clandestine interdictions into North Vietnam;
In response, the North

Vietnamese sent out small gun boats to contest the the destroyers and interdiction--

 President Johnson under very murky information called

these so-called unprovoked attacks as devious as Pearl Harbor. One can see the picture and emotions this reference conjures up.
To Johnson this was justification for direct military

intervention;
The congressional resolution allowed LBJ to take all

necessary measures to prevent further aggression [by the North Vietnamese]

 Johnson initiates

Operation Rolling Thunder saturation bombing of the North;

Feb 3, 1965 the VC attack

and kill 8 American advisors at Pleiku Airbase;

To protect American lives

against physical aggression Johnson sends Combat Troops to Vietnam to secure and maintain security at the Air BasesThe Marines land at Da Nang Feb 1965

 Marines and other Army

Units immediately complain about the heat and being relegated to sitting ducks at these bases;
Finally Johnson gives the

OK to Search out and Destroy the enemy missions;

To take the countryside

away from the enemy and pursue the VC aggressively.

 We marched into the

Rice Paddies on that damp March afternoon, we carried, along with our Rifles and packs, the implicit convictions that the Viet Cong would be quickly beaten and we were doing something altogether noble and good. We kept our packs and rifles; our convictions we lost.

 There has been much exaggeration about the

atrocities by U.S. soldiers on civilians; 1) Racist theorywe considered them nonhuman so it was easy to inflict barbaric acts against them; 2) frontier Heritagewe are by nature violent and inherently murderouswe just needed a war to act out on these impulses;
Hogwashis there an element of truthmaybe

but overall what was it about Vietnam that made otherwise normal moralistic Iowans, Georgians, New Yorkers, or Californians sadistic and crass to the idea of humanity and compassion?

 These observations and muses are by Sociologists and

Psychologists who never experienced first hand war and its savagery; nor do they take into account how monstrous the VC, NVA and even ARVN could be to their own people.
The Korean Division took delight in cutting off ears etc

These academic ignore the years of barbarous warfare inflicted upon one another during the Chinese occupation and the First Indochina War with the French.

 The evil was inherent in the circumstances of a bloody,

hate filled civil war and social revolutioneach trying to purge each other from the landscape; add the ferocity of Jungle warfare eliminating humanity;
Atrocities were almost a badge of honor long before the

Americans arrived;
Twenty years of fratricide and ruthlessness obliterated

any reference point of humanity; The average age of the U.S. soldier was 19In WWII, the avg age was 26.

 I am not excusing My

Lai or other atrocities, but I understand how ethical and moral lines become blurred;
Regardless of your

moral compassthe compass spins losing direction when perpetually exposed to crueltyand in a place where no mercy is givenNo mercy is expected.

 By 1968, 560,000 troops were in Vietnam. The Tet Offensive changed the perception of the

war; we thought we had control of the urban areas, but Tet proved otherwise;
Irony, VC were never able to amass another

attack as they did at Tet; their infrastructure and ability to make war was destroyed; however, public opinion in America changed.
Now Mom and Pop America began to oppose the

war; LBJ refused to run for officePeace candidates popped up everywherethe most credible was Eugene McCarthy and Bobby KennedyNixons plan was phased withdrawal Peace with Honor.

 Regardless of initiatives or what the Government

said, the enemy controlled the countryside and at nightwell the world belonged to Charlie.
This was the first truly mechanized war; also

first televised war; Body counts were on TV each night while people ate their dinner;
Lack of frontline awareness and identity of the

Good Guys or the Bad Guyslines blurred egregiously, by 1970 the morale was badover 700 fraggings took placeand many refused to expose themselves in Combatthere were many more drug addiction cases or overdoses than there were combat injuries buy 1971.

 There was much domestic

opposition to the war; student deferments kept much of the Middle Class and Upper classes out of Vietnammuch resentment by Blacks and Poor Whites; especially by 1970until 1970 more whites fought in Vietnam than the Press will admit after 1971, there were few left but Poor Whites and African Americans and Latinos

 Domestically, The Anti-War movement was gaining

ground; Tet proved the death knell to American support some still supported the Troops, but many did not support the War;
It was not until Mom and Pop America began carrying

signs around the White House that legitimate negotiations beganNot the Counter Culture or SDS or any other Peacenik movementgood for TV, but reality, it made very little headway until after Kent StateThen, again, it was Mom and Pop America marchingwhy are we killing one another?

 Staunton Lynd, Jane

Fonda and Susan Sontag actually went to North Vietnam and posed for pictures to support the Anti-War Movement;
Sontag, the North

Vietnamese genuinely care about the welfare of captured American Pilots they get more food than the actual Vietnamese people, they are larger, used to more and expect more, so we give them more NVA believe in the goodness of man and are morally concerned

 Because of the

political and social dissension in America, the 1968 Presidential election became a free for all in the streets in Chicago;
Democrats were split

and this left room for Richard M. Nixon and his Peace with Honor and Law and Order platform to win the election

 Nixon actually widened the war, invaded Cambodia and

Laos, beefed up Bombing of North Vietnamunlike Johnson, Nixon okayed the bombing of civilian targets and Haiphong harborin essence almost brought the war to an endHanoi was on its knees and teetering, but because they controlled their media we did not learn this fact until the 1980s
Tet and Nyguyen Hue offensives of 1968 and 1972 was all

the VC and NVA had leftbut Nixon was trying to get Hanoi back to the bargaining tablenot concerned with winning the warat this time

 Nixon did by 1970 begin ratcheting down Troop

numbers, until in 1973 America completely disengaged from VietnamYes some advisors and CIA personnel left, but in effect America was out of the warPOWs came homesome ague there are still those therewho really knows?
The aftermath of Vietnam, however, forces

America to rethink its involvement: The brutal repression, torture and murders of South Vietnamese people by the victorious Northern Communists, the Boat People fleeing oppression, prison and death, Genocide in Cambodia and Laos and the Mekong delta regionHanoi was absolutely ruthless enforcing their will and power over the southern peoples

 Strategically and

tactically the U.S. failed; it was the wrong war and the wrong place at the wrong time, when we were losing we said we were winning But as wrong as the war fought in Vietnam was in many respects, it was not wrong in the purposes and philosophy, for which it was fought. Being anti-communist was and remains the right attitude

 Nixon played on the

attitudes of most of Middle America; Tired of the war; racial strife, lawlessness and political chaos Spoke of the Silent Majority: 1) rising crime rates 2) social violence 3) drug abuse 4) promiscuity 5)no patriotism

 Nixon appealed: 1) Urban ethnic voters (Catholics, Italians, Irish and Polish

descent) 2) Blue Collar Workers 3) Southern and Suburban Whites Developed three strategies: 1) appeal to the fears of the Blue Collar workers; 2) exploit social issues that mattered to the Catholics 3) exploit the conservativeness of the South

 Though Nixon would be slow ending the warand he did

order secret invasion and bombing of Cambodia and Laoshe also initiated saturation bombing of the North and mined Haiphong harborhe did end the war;
1) He did withdraw troops from Vietnam 2) he advocated and got the Russians to reciprocate in

Dtente. (a partial thawing to the Cold War)initiated the Five Policemen concept to maintain global peaceful co-existenceand police other nations.

PolicemenU.S.; China; Russia; Japan; and Western Europe. China invited America to a Ping Pong Tournament Ping Pong diplomacy opened the door for Nixon to visit Chin and begin new open relations; Realismvery populace country; markets etc World Opinionmany agreed China should be recognized; Bargaining ChipRussia and China traditional enemiestwo adversaries as allies frightened Russia;

1) 2) 3)

4) Nixon could get away with itstrong reputation against communismthis is just politics; 5) Press Coveragepositive coverage for an election yearover look Vietnam and Watergate; He also visited Russia: 1) SALT I missile limitation; 2) Cooperation with space exploration; 3) Better trade agreements between USSR and US 4) The Berlin Agreement of 1972.

 Watergate was truly unnecessary; however, Nixon wanted

a mandate a landslidea show of love from the people;

Operatives called Plumbers bugged the Democratic

offices at the Watergate Complex located in Foggy Bottom on the banks of the Potomac. They were caught.
Woodward and Bernstein

Washington Post pursued the

story relentlesslywhy were these common burglars carrying White House connections and credentials?

 Nixon got his

mandate, but he also had to appear to prosecute the Watergate Break-in; These were his guys, but he promised to pursue the burglars.
Mushroomed into a

national Trial on TV Sam Ervin led a host of Senators pursuing the truth or expose a suspected cover-up

 By chance, Butterworth made an off-hand comment about

what he had heard in these meetingswell it should be on the Oval Office Taping system.
Stuff hits the fanall Oval Office conversations had been

taped (not that unusualthese were secret tapings);

President refused to hand over the tape Executive

Privilege. [national security]

 Huge battle between Executive, Legislative, and

JudicialCourt said turn them over;

18 mins were accidentally erased; The House began

impeachment proceedings for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Nixon became very paranoidSaturday Night

Massacrefired the special counsel and all the assistants; finally he had to resign The OFFICE was BIGGER than the MAN!!!