Containment in Vietnam

Vietnam Post WW2

Roosevelt pressured France to relinquish Vietnam, but American
opinion changed towards Ho Chi Minh under Truman
March 1950, military aid was sent to the French and continued under
Eisenhower
Vietnam Post WW2
Roosevelt pressured France to relinquish Vietnam, but American
opinion changed towards Ho Chi Minh under Truman
March 1950, military aid was sent to the French and continued under
Eisenhower
You have the possibility that many human beings pass
under a dictatorship that is inimical to the free world.
You have the broader considerations that might follow
what you would call the ‘falling domino’ principle…
You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock the first
one, and what will happen to the last one is the
certainty that it will go over very quickly.
Vietnam Post WW2
Roosevelt pressured France to relinquish Vietnam, but American
opinion changed towards Ho Chi Minh under Truman
March 1950, military aid was sent to the French and continued under
Eisenhower
By 1954, 80% of the war was funded by the United States
Note the difference in French and American reasons for fighting against Ho
Chi Minh
Dien Bien Phu
French lacked commitment to win
the war let alone this battle
1950 law prohibited conscripts
Underestimated Viet Minh
European arrogance
Misinterpreted successes
Gen. Henri Navarre’s position was
compromised by the fact France
was fighting for bargaining position
Viet Minh now supplied by the
Soviets and China
Navarre’s goal: draw General Vo
Nguyen Giap into a set piece battle
and inflict heavy casualties by
disrupting trade and
communications
French into china war(faults on the French
side)
The French are not willing to use conscript on vietnam
Underestimate the Vietnamese
Dien Bien Phu
Operation Castor begins
November 20, 1953
The siege begins March 14,
1954 when the Viet Minh cut
off all access to Dien Bien Phu
French expect to resupply by air
drop, but the drop zone was
only 1.5 miles wide
Human waves(banzai attacks)
Dien Bien Phu
20% of all the drops fall in Viet
Minh areas
Navarre is outclassed in
logistics, artillery and air
support
Giap employs human wave
attacks to overwhelm strong
points
The French garrison surrenders
May 7, 1954
Geneva Accords
May 8, 1954 (takes 2 months)
French would withdraw
Vietnam would be divided at the 17th parallel with a DMZ along the
line
Free elections would be conducted in 1956
No foreign bases
Laos and Cambodia would be independent states
Geneva Accords
Vietnam
France/US
French humiliation Ho Chi Minh felt cheated at
Algeria Geneva; felt he should have
Dulles refuses to shake hands with gotten all of Vietnam
the Chinese or Viet Minh delegates
US does not sign; subsequent
Pressured by China to sign
actions show they have no Consoled by the fact he would
intention of abiding by Geneva easily win in 1956 elections
SEATO is established; includes Laos
and Cambodia as protected areas
Operation Passage to Freedom
1954-1955
US assistance to civilians who want to relocate from the
north to the south
Humanitarian mission
Propaganda
Elections of 1956

Didn’t happen Ngo Dinh Diem, US-backed

leader of South Vietnam refuses to hold
elections
Along with his brother, chief of police Ngo
Dinh Nhu, brutally crush opposition
By 1958 virtually all Viet Minh in South
Vietnam disappeared
With no political recourse, South Vietnamese
start forming cells of the Viet Cong, infiltrating
former Viet Minh fighters south
“Flexible Response”
Kennedy’s policy toward’s containment
Increase ‘advisors’ to 17,000 (from 650 at the beginning of his
presidency)
Counter-insurgency measures
Search and destroy missions
Agent Orange
Strategic Hamlets Program
Green Berets are formed
Encourage Diem to introduce reform
New Look
Massive retaliation: Nuking,evolved into mutual destruction
As Policy, new look
Old look is expensive therefore
 Ineffective
Battle of Ap Bac command hampered
January 1963, intelligence the attack and ARVN
located a 300-man VC lost control
contingent Force augmentation
Advisor Lt. Col. John P. resulted in the loss
Vann led 1,500 ARVN of five helicopters
troops
The stubborn VC
The plan was to surround resistance eventually
and annihilate the VC
emplacements fled into the night
However, Diem ordered resulting in a draw
them not to take heavy
losses, concerned with
appearances
“Let them burn and we shall clap hands”
Diem’s Fall
Buddhist monks self-immolate to protest the war and Diem’s
persecution of Buddhists
Lady Nhu’s statement prompts Kennedy to cut off aid to Diem
Diem and his brother are assassinated with full knowledge of the CIA
in November 1963
General William C. Westmoreland

Diem’s assassination morally

locked us into Vietnam.
 August 2, 1964, North
Vietnamese patrol boats
attacked the US destroyer
Maddox in the Tonkin Gulf,
causing slight damage
US forces were on a covert
mission so Johnson did not
retaliate; he added another
destroyer, the C. Turner Joy, to
the task force
A stormy August 4, the task
force thought they engaged
North Vietnamese ships again,
prompting Operation Pierce
Arrow

Gulf of Tonkin Incident

Johnson used this event in Tonkin to justify further policy
Especially evident with the nuclear crisis as
MISSILE GAP: race between 2 countries to get more nuclear weapons
than the other
Johnson claims Vietnam was a war he inherited
 August 5, Johnson and Defense
Secretary Robert McNamara
introduce the Gulf of Tonkin
Resolution to Congress
It allowed the President, “to
take all necessary steps,
including the use of armed
force,” to defend South Vietnam
Johnson promised Congress it
would not be abused
Ho and Giap interpreted it as a
declaration of war and began
targeting American forces

Gulf of Tonkin Incident

tilized a bombing campaign against Vietnam
Escalation occurs due to
vietcong/NLF: south Vietnamese communists (American enemy)
Bombing was used to coerce Vietnam to the bargaining table
3 things a war is fought for are unlimited, limited, and regime change
production of Vietnam to
Leads to fizzed s
Operation Rolling Thunder, 1965-1968
February 7, 1965—VC terror attacks
throughout South Vietnam culminated in
the attack on the US airfield in Pleiku
Operation Rolling Thunder begins on March
2
A bombing campaign of graduated escalation in
three stages directed at North Vietnamese
targets
Punishment for supporting the Viet Cong
Demonstration of US will to defend its interests
in the region
Intended to force the North to the bargaining
table
Operation Rolling Thunder, 1965-1968
By keeping a lid on all the designated targets, I knew I
could keep the control of the war in my own hands. If
China reacted to our slow escalation by threatening
to retaliate, we’d have plenty of time to ease off the
bombing. But this control—so essential for
preventing World War III—would be lost the moment
we unleashed a total assault on the North—for that
would be rape rather than seduction—and then there
would be no turning back.

Another objective of the war was to obviate the need for US

ground troops.
Operation Rolling Thunder, 1965-1968
F-105
Thunderchief

B-52
Stratofortre
ss
F-4 Phantom

F-8 Crusader

A-4 Skyhawk
Operation Rolling Thunder, 1965-1968

MiG-21 Fishbed

MiG-17 Fresco
Operation Rolling Thunder, 1965-1968
The Americans lost 922 aircraft in which 864,000 tons of bombs
dropped on North Vietnam—the most massive strategic bombing
campaign in history
North Vietnam was primarily pre-industrial and its production was
decentralized
US bombers and fighter-bombers could not hit North Vietnam’s main
supply lines
A change to interdiction along the Ho Chi Minh Trail did not slow
supplies to the VC effectively
It cost $9.60 for every $1.00 in damage
Ia Drang
By 1965, Westmoreland and Giap sought to engage each
other.
Westmoreland believed Pleiku
would be targeted
In nearby An Khe 1st Air Cav
was staged
Lavish artillery support and
helicopter gunships (UH-1
“Hueys”) for mobility
Giap decided to attack at Plei
Me
US Special Forces camp
Would put Pleiku within reach
Probe US forces
Begins the attack on October
19
Ia Drang
The 1st Air Cav is sent to hunt
and destroy NVA, driving them
out of Plei Me
NVA retreat to the Chu Pong
Massif, where both forces
meet in pitched battle on
November 14
Ist Batallion, 7th Cavalry landed
at LZ X-Ray, scouted previously
by Huey pilots
Ia Drang
The area turned out to be an
NVA staging area; the
battalion was immediately
beset before the rest of the 1st
could be brought in
Code phrase “Broken Arrow”
was radioed to headquarters
Hand-to-hand, small arms,
artillery and air support saved
the landing zone
Ia Drang
First major engagement
between US and NVA forces
First use of air mobile tactics
First use of B-52s in a tactical
support role
Set the precedent for how
Westmoreland would fight the
war
Air mobile
Search and destroy; body count
as measure of progress
Maintain 11:1 kill ratio
Vietnam was influenced by TH war I Korea
Ia Drang
Giap pleased with the battle
His troops acquitted
themselves well in the face of
American firepower
Reverted to guerilla tactics
Use Cambodia when losses
became prohibitive
The tactical initiative would
lay with the North Vietnamese
“Hanging on to American
belts”
 1967 inflicted heavy NVA
and VC losses
Giap and Minh agreed a
decisive battle could
defeat US forces
General Pham Hung lured
US forces with attacks on
Dak To and built up forces
around Khe San Westmoreland promised North
Vietnam could not sustain
another major offensive
Johnson calls for a media blitz
based on Westmoreland’s
Tet Offensive prediction
Bad timing or a lie?
Tet Offensive
January 1968—VC buildup complete;
attack commences on the 30th
A simultaneous assault on all major
cities during the Tet Lunar New Year
Giap thought seizure of even a few
cities would spur a general uprising
The attack focused on paralyzing
government control
VC C-10 Sapper Battalion attacked the
US Embassy
Tet Offensive
United States

North Vietnam
No cities held
No general uprising occurred
Viet Cong decimated; no
longer the primary force in the
North’s efforts
The media splash the attack on
the US embassy all over TV
The summary execution by an
ARVN officer of a VC fighter
appalls America
Westmoreland surprises the
administration with a request
for more troops
Johnson withdraws from the
impending election
Tet
Johnson asks Clark Clifford for advice;
Clifford studies US policy systematically
“I could not find out when the war was going to end: I could not find
out the manner in which it was going to end. I could not find out
whether the new requests for men and equipment were going to be
enough, or whether it would take more and, if more, how much…All I
had was the statement, given with too little self-assurance to be
comforting, that if we persisted for an indeterminate length of time, the
enemy would choose not to go on.”
 Blended traditional military tactics
and pacification of the countryside
One War policy Scaled back search-and-destroy to
platoon/squad level
CORDS
The way to get off the Civilian Operations and Revolutionary
treadmill is to get after Development Support
his infrastructure and Train and supply self-defense to rural
guerillas
villages
Economically develop the countryside
Phoenix Program
Deprive NLF of tax base
Destroy VC infrastructure
General Creighton CIA-aided
Abrams, replaced
Westmoreland, July Expl sino soviet split
3, 1968
The vietnamese people were the victims of the war as the use tried
to indoctorne them whereas the
 Nixon and Kissinger’s plan to phase
out US forces

Part of Nixon’s diplomatic offensive:

rapprochement with China
Vietnamizatio
n Begins June 1969—troop ceiling
reduced by 25,000

Hill 937 (“Hamburger Hill”) becomes

last attritional battle of the war
 1970--Pro-American, Lon Nol, overthrows Noradoom
Sihanouk prompting the NVA to ally with the Khmer
Rouge(communist army in Cambodia []), preserving
their safe havens
Nixon authorizes a limited invasion of Cambodia to
prop up Nol

Vietnamizatio
n US generals support the incursion; would buy
valuable time for Vietnamization

11,000 communists killed, but meaningful victory

impossible
 They move back into Cambodian
border areas after ARVN leave
Exploit the branches of the Ho Chi
Minh Trail through Laos
Vietnamizatio
n Kent State— “4 dead in Ohio”

Operation Lam Son 719 would

repeat Cambodia in Laos
The Ho Chi Minh Campaign
By 1971 the war calms to small unit skirmishes
The Communist Party Plenum decide to launch a massive
conventional offensive to end the war
ARVN vulnerable
few US forces
Poorly led
Preempt Détente
The Ho Chi Minh Campaign
Easter Offensive begins March 30, 1971
B-52s break the back of the offensive; 100,000 NVA killed
Nixon approves Operation Linebacker
Unleashes half the US Strategic bomber fleet on North Vietnam
Hanoi and Haiphong targeted
Most of North Vietnam’s war industry destroyed
Opens Noth Korea
Both sides want to end the war; negotiations in Paris, October 8,
1972
The Ho Chi Minh Campaign
Peace talks stall
In fairly good state due to reduced bombing campaigns
Thieu refuses to sign; any agreement would be a death sentence
Linebacker II forces North Vietnam back to the table
Economically, destroys South Korea
Paris Peace Accords signed January 8, 1973
ARVN still in relatively good condition vis-à-vis the NVA
The Ho Chi Minh Campaign
Congress cuts aid to South Vietnam in half in 1974
Inflation, poverty and unrest implode the economy
Thieu does little to curb corruption
South Vietnamese have little reason to defend their nation
Thieu attempted to take the initiative, but the ARVN built by the US
could not sustain its equipment or tactics
The Ho Chi Minh Campaign
The Ho Chi Minh Campaign
Hanoi jubilant
American forces would not return “even if we offered them candy!”
The invasion begins March 1, 1974; Thieu orders the ARVN back to
Tuy Hoa on the coast; a fighting withdrawal
All NVA forces converge on Saigon; ARVN forces hold them off for a
week
The US launch Operation Frequent Wind, remembering Hue, 1968
April 30—Saigon falls