The End of the Vietnam War.

The last 11 years of American involvement in the Vietnam War caused global change. After the Gulf of Tonkin incident, President Johnson decided to retaliate. LBJ allowed the first overt American bombing of North Vietnam. He gave a midnight TV appearance saying that the attack will not be part of a wider war. Soon, two Navy jets were shot down. There was the first American prisoner of war named Lt. Everett Alvarez of San Jose, California. He was taken to a prison in Hanoi called the Hanoi Hilton. Almost six hundred American airmen would be POWs. Back then, 85 percent of Americans supported President Johnson’s bombing decision. Many newspapers editorials supported the President. The Defense Secretary McNamara lobbied Congress to pass the resolution to promote the Vietnam War. He was confronted by Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon. He had been tipped off by someone in the Pentagon that the Maddox had in fact been involved in the South Vietnamese commando raids against North Vietnam and thus was not the victim of an "unprovoked" attack. McNamara responds that the U.S. Navy "...played absolutely no part in, was not associated with, was not aware of, any South Vietnamese actions, if there were any..." Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on August 7, 1964. This gave large power to President Johnson involving war policy. The Resolution passed unanimously in the House and 98-2 in the Senate. The only Senators voting against the Resolution are Wayne Morse, and Ernest Gruening of Alaska who said: "all Vietnam is not worth the life of a single American boy." Many Buddhists protested against General Khanh’s military regime. Khanh later resigned as the sole leader and promoted a triumvirate with himself, General Minh, and General Khiem by August 21, 1964. Saigon had chaos, and mob violence grows. President Johnson continues to say that he doesn’t want extensive American involvement in the Vietnam War during his 1964 Presidential campaign. He said, “We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves."

By September 1964, LBJ and his aides in the White House discussed the future course of action. China had troops on the Vietnamese border in response to American military action in Vietnam. By November 1, 1964, North Vietnam forces attacked Americans at Bien Hoa airbase. Five Americans were killed, two South Vietnamese people were killed, and nearly 100 people were injured. Johnson dismissed all recommendations for a retaliatory air strike against North Vietnam. LBJ was re-elected by November 3, 1964. The Democrats had large majorities in the House and in the Senate. 10,000 NVA soldiers use the Ho Chi Minh trail to send supplies to North Vietnamese troops. December 1, 1964, was when President Johnson's top aides, including Secretary of State Dean Rusk, National Security Advisor George Bundy, and Defense Secretary McNamara, recommend a policy of gradual escalation of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. Another coup happened on December 29, 1964. This was when General Khanh worked with other leaders like Nguyen Cao Ky and Nguyen Van Thieu to oust older generals like General Minh from power. Ambassador Taylor was angry over these coups and criticized young officers at the U.S. embassy. General Khanh then criticized Taylor and the U.S. by saying that the U.S. wants to follow colonialism in its treatment of South Vietnam. By the end of 1964, a car bomb hit the Brinks Hotel where American officers lived at. 2 Americans were killed 58 were wounded. LBJ dismissed recommendations for a retaliatory air strike against North Vietnam. American military advisers were about 23,000 by the end of 1964. About 170,000 Viet Cong/NVA forces fought in South Vietnam.

1965 was the start of the military war growing into a higher level in Vietnam. General Khanh controlled all of the South Vietnamese government. Johnson aides, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, sent a memo to the President stating that America's limited military involvement in Vietnam is not succeeding, and that the U.S. has reached a 'fork in the road' in Vietnam and must either soon escalate or withdraw (on January 27, 1965). This was the turning point. After this, LBJ ordered attacks on North Vietnamese targets by February of 1965. He also promoted Marines to protect the military air base at Da Nang by February 22, 1965. Her advanced Operation Rolling Thunder on March 2, 1965, where American fighters in about 100 attacked targets in North Vietnamese. This continued until 1968. More Marines came about. Operation Market Time was when the South Vietnamese Navy and the U.S. Navy fought North Vietnamese targets. The U.S. embassy in Saigon was bombed. More Marines are sent. By April 17, 1965, 15,000 students protested against the U.S. bombing campaign. LBJ wanted Hanoi to negotiate, but that fails. Nguyen Cao Ky ran South Vietnam by June 18, 1965.

Both sides attacked each other. A U.S. Marine rifle company destroyed suspected Viet Cong villages near Da Nang. It caused controversy. By August of 1965, President Johnson banned draft card burning. Anti-war rallies grew in 40 cities and in London plus other international cities by October 16, 1965. As the war continued, American forces continue to fight using the Army, Marines, Air Force, and the Navy. Ky faced new problems of more resistance to his regime. 1967 was when the anti-Vietnam war movement reached into new heights of power. On January 23, 1967, Senator J. William Fulbright published The Arrogance of Power a book critical of American war policy in Vietnam advocating direct peace talks between the South Vietnamese government and the Viet Cong. By this time, Fulbright and President Johnson are no longer on speaking terms. Instead, the President uses the news media to deride Fulbright, Robert Kennedy, and a growing number of critics in Congress as "nervous Nellies" and "sunshine patriots."

About 4.5 billion dollars from Congress fund the war by March 8, 1967. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. opposed the war in New York City’s Riverside Baptist Church with a great speech on April 4, 1967. On April 15, 1967, Anti-war demonstrations occur in New York and San Francisco involving nearly 200,000. Rev. Martin Luther King declared that the war was undermining President Johnson's Great Society social reform programs, "...the pursuit of this widened war has narrowed the promised dimensions of the domestic welfare programs, making the poor white and Negro bear the heaviest burdens both at the front and at home." Peace initiatives come about and fail. Protests in the Pentagon existed. At the end of 1967, Eugene McCarthy ran for President on an anti-war platform. 463,000 troops came into Vietnam by the end of 1963 with 16,000 combat deaths. The Tet Offensive in early 1968 harmed American morale. Americans had a victory, but it showed the world that the Vietnam War was a long circumstance. In 1968, more pressure came unto Johnson to promote a peaceful, negotiated settlement. The My Lai massacre happened in 1968. The Wise Men in March of 1968 wanted the President to withdraw troops from Vietnam. April 4, 1968, was when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. It was a tragic time. RFK was assassinated at June 1968. The Democratic Party was split, and Nixon promoted the view of peace with honor. His problem was that he secretly stopped negotiations between South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and America for his plan to be promoted. LBJ accused Nixon of doing treason by preventing a negotiated settlement to the war from happening in 1968. The end of the Vietnam War was bitter. Nixon contradicted himself by having the draft ended and gradually eliminated troops, but he illegally sent troops into Cambodia, and he expanded bombings in many cases. Nixon followed the view of Vietnamization or gradually sending American troops home while building up the South Vietnamese armies to defend South Vietnam. It didn't work. Scandals ended his Presidency. Henry Kissinger organized settlements, and he won the Nobel Peace Prize. Without a large number of American troops in Vietnam by the early 1970's, North Vietnamese forces came massively into South Vietnam to win the war by April 30, 1975.


By Timothy