Harry Truman is an important figure in relation to Vietnam as it was him who made the decision to oppose communism throughout the world. In relation to US support for France, the Truman administration concluded that the French were invaluable allies against Communism in both Indochina and Europe, and therefore deserving of American assistance. However, many articulate Vietnamese were unhappy with French rule, which resulted in a small Vietnamese nationalist group in espouse of Communism grown up in exile under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh. Consequently, Truman offered $10 million to support the French military effort, and established a US Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) in Saigon. This assistance then increased, as by the end of the year, the US had given France $100 million, along with aircraft, patrol boats, napalm bombs and ground combat machinery.
It was only a few days until the NLF troops had been beaten back and the American troops once again occupied Saigon and their own embassy. The Americans were not Militarily defeated, in actual fact defeating and killing 58,000 north Vietnamese troops (Wiest, 2008) however this attack is ranked high above others as the start of the downward spiral that ended the war. Despite the offensive by the North Vietnamese forces the standoff had not changed anything, Lawrence in, the Vietnam War a concise international history, claims it “merely changed the nature of the stalemate” and that the Tet offensive was “confirming opposition to the war among American public.” (Lawrence, 2008 P116). The North Vietnamese forces being able to take and hold the supposed hub of American power in Saigon, to then have the image of the Vietcong on the roof waving the flag of the opposing army is crushing blow to the American public. This Kind of image and media brought about the anti war movement that believed the war was a ‘quagmire’ and needed to be
• The US got out of the war by the Paris Peace Accords, a set of agreements signed by Britain, France, The Soviet Union, The US, North Vietnam, South Vietnam and national liberation front. • The Vietnamese peace fell apart when north Vietnam refused to sign the agreement • Talks broke off, but renewed Americans booming in North Vietnam finally brings the North Vietnams to resume negotiations. • For the U.S the war ended but for the Vietnamese it continued both north and South Vietnam worked toward their diplomatic settlement of their differences. • In 1975 the North Vietnam launched an offensive against the south. • By the end of April the communists had taken Saigon, after fighting and millions of deaths vietnam was unified under one flag!!!
But the French were opposed by a Vietnamese army called the Viet Minh. The Viet Minh had been founded in 1941 by the communist party and was led by Hồ Chí Minh. In July 1954, France and the Viet Minh signed the Geneva Peace Accord. The Viet Minh became the gov ernment of North Vietnam while anti-communist Vietnamese, especially Catholics, "regrouped" in the South under the leadership of Bao Dai, a former emperor of Vietnam who had abdicated in 1945. What impact this period of time had on the environment: Vietnam was temporarily partitioned at the 17th parallel, and under the terms of the Geneva Accords, civilians were to be given the opportunity to move freely between the two provisional states for a 300-day period.
On October 31, 1968, President Johnson announced a complete halt to the bombing of North Vietnam. On November 5, Nixon is elected President with Gerald Ford as his vice-president. (Leone 138) On March 15, 1969, Nixon found out that the Vietcong were hiding in Cambodia, so he ordered the immediate bombing of these sanctuaries, but because he was bombing sanctuaries, it was never released to the American public. (Prados 193) In May of 1969, American soldier commitment was at its peak at 543,000, also during May, President Nixon announced his first major troop withdrawal and pledged to replace the Selective Service Act with a lottery. In June Nixon announced that twenty-five thousand U.S. troops would be withdrawn and replaced by South Vietnamese soldiers.
He announced his plan of “Vietnamization” which was a strategy which replaced American troops with Vietnamese troops. Vietnamization was supposed created so that the responsibility of the war would fall into the hand of South Vietnam. It allowed American troops to return home slowly. In the same year, President Nixon had planned to secretly bomb Cambodia with an effort to eliminate the Communist camps that were present over there. In 1970, troops started to invade Cambodia which infuriated people because Nixon had promised peace.
My served in the Vietnam War for two years, 1969-1970; when he was eighteen years old. The Vietnam War convinced the French that they could no longer maintain their Indochinese colonies and Paris quickly sued for peace. As the two sides came together in Geneva, Switzerland, international events were already shaping the future of Vietnam's modern revolution. There were many lives lost in the war. Three thousand French troops were killed, and eight thousand wounded.
North Vietnam was victorious over South Vietnam and allied forces. The Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975 marked the end of a bloody war. The Communists took full control in the whole Vietnam when Saigon fell. 2. The Vietnam War had dramatic effects on the people living in Vietnam, South Vietnam in particular.
Fortunately, American forces were able to repel the NVA attack and inflict heavy losses on the viet-cong, but while also taking loses themselves. This tet offensive showed America that it was perhaps in a war that it was not bound to win. Due to the heavy losses of the NVA and viet-cong, President Nixon from 1969 to 1974 was able to begin troop withdrawal and the process of vietnamization. This process of vietnamization meant that there were huge American withdrawals from the north as well as a massive effort to train the south Vietnamese army so they could defend themselves. This whole process finally was at its end on April 29th 1975, with the famous televised withdrawal of the embassy marines form Saigon and the famous footage of helicopter being pushed over the side of a U.S. carrier to make room for
Many stated after that they, one day would like to go back to Vietnam and help rebuild the country that the helped destroy. Even though America was and still is seen as one of the world’s most prevailing superpowers, the withdrawal from Vietnam was inevitable. There was no clear way for the military to secure their victory in the War without having to lose thousands of soldiers. The War ended with the exact opposite of what all soldiers had spent the majority of their life fighting for. Vietnam succumbed to the communist rule and the rest of the world watched in