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From Occupation to War - A Chronology of Events:
In 1887 the colonial power France conquered Indochina and ruled it as a colony to oppose the British predominance in Asia. During the Second World War, when Germany occupied France, Japan annexed Indochina in 1940. After 30 years in exile Ho Chi Minh returned to Vietnam in 1941, where he formed up the Viet Minh, the Vietnamese League for National Independence. As a consequence of Minh\'s establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in Hanoi and the proclamation of an independent government in 1945, French troops returned to Vietnam and began a war. In 1950 the USA began providing military and economic aid to the French, but, however, the French were defeated in 1954 and a demilitarized zone was established deviding the country into two parts. The Viet Minh under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh took formal control over North Vietnam until nationwide elections should be held, but in 1955 South Vietnam refused to participate, which consequently caused strained relations.
In the following years two US military advisors were killed during a Communist attack in South Vietnam, where the NLF (the Communist National Liberation Front) was formed. Fearing a Communist predorminance in Vietnam, J.F.Kennedy sent special forces and milltary advisors to South Vietnam increasing the number of GIs monthly. In 1963 the president and dictator of South Vietnam Ngo Dinh Diem was overthrown in a military coup and J.F.K. was assassinated in Dallas. His successor Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in. In 1964 the incident in the Tonkin Gulf happened, when North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked two US destrovers. This led to the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which enabled Johnson to order retailatory attacks in Vietnam.
On the 5th March in 1965 3,200 US Marines attacked Da Nang coming form the seaside. Till the end of this year Johnson increased US combat forces to an extent of 185,000, which reached its top in 1968 with 550,000 US soldiers.
The war escalated also in other ways:
Sustained US bombing of North Vietnam began in early 1965 and the costs of the war increased to $28,8 billion dollars. In 1968 Johnson´s successor, the Republican Nixon, announced the withdrawal by steps called "Vietnamization", but also the reinforcement of the ARVN, the South Vietnamese army, with US weapons. At this point of time 58% of Americans believed, that the war was a mistake. After serving as the main legal basis for major US escalation of the undeclared war, the Tonkin Gulf Resolution was repealed in 1970. In August 1972 the last US ground troops left South Vietnam, but still the US army flew heavy bombing raids with B-52 planes and mined North Vietnamese harbours. In 1973 after a cease-fire-agreement the American involvernent in Vietnam officiallv ended - the war itself lasted until 1975, when the Vietnamese resistance suddenly collapsed.
Democracy and Communist Aggression:
In 1957 the Communist-led rebels started terrorist attacks against the government of South Vietnam. These forces were called \"Vietcong\" and aided by troops of North Vietnam by 1964. The causes of this conflict can be traced back to the Indochina War (1946-1964):
France, which granted nominal sovereignty to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos as associated states of the French Union in 1949, was supplied by the USA with economic and military aid. In the spring of 1954, when the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, the administration of President Eisenhower gave serious consideration to providing them with air and even ground support.
After the Geneva Agreement in 1954 Vietnam was divided into northern and southern parts - Diem became the head of the South Vietnamese government, while Ho Chi Minh presided over the Communist government in North Vietnam till elections in 1956, which should reunify Vietnam. However, the determined anti-Communist Diem blocked the elections with the backing of the US goverment, which was without any legal foundation. Otherwise Minh would have been an easy victor (80% of the Population would have voted for him). To support this anti-Communist action President Eisenhower had pledged in 1954 to assist the Diem government.
Vietnam itself was not the primary consideration in Washington\'s Southeast- Asian policy - it was the desire to reinforce the credibility of the USA as an ally.
The Genesis of the War:
The US involvement in Vietnam was the attampt to uphold the rule of French colonial power. In the early 1920\'s a nationlist movement to secure independence was initiated by Ho Chi Minh, given the name \"Viet Hinh\". By the early 1950\'s, the French were finding it difficult to maintain their hold upon the country and finally lost. Until by 1954 the entire cost of the French war against Vietnamese independence was financed by American Money.
The Agreement in Geneva:
A two-year-period was given to the French to leave the country. The Viet Minh had to withdraw to the northern parts of the devided country, so that the French could leave in peace. In the South France had the responsibility to see, that the Geneva accords were initiated, and in particular that elections were to be held in 1956. To support this accords an increasing American presence was introduced to the South.
But Diem abolished the democratically elected village councils in the South and replaced them with officials, who were not natives there and often corrupt. The dictator jailed both communists and non-communists who opposed to him. In 1960 the opposition united and created the NLF (termed \"Vietcong\" by Diem), of which the majority were not even communists. As the NLF grew, the political and military situation of Diem steadily deteriorated.
North Vietnarnese involvement in the conflict was only secondary at this point of time. Provoking North Vietnam by the US bombin!g, the flow of men and supplies from the north increased substantially, which was called \"Infiltration \".
Indochina after 1973:
On the 23th of Jan. 1973 North and South Vietnam, the USA and the NLF resulted in an agreement including cease-fire and the withdrawal of US soldiers. On the 4th of Jan.1976 Vietnam was officially unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. During the following years more than 400,000 South Vietnamese dissidents or suspected ones were imprisoned - in this so-called \"Reeducation Camps\" 250,000 of them died. An amount of more than a million \"Boat People\" tried to escape by little boats. Thousands of them drowned or killed by pirates. In 1978 Vietnamese invaded in Pol Pot\'s Cambodia, a state under the threat of the Red Khmer, establishing a pro-Vietnamese government, which remained until 1989.
In Vietnam itself, an economy shattered by the continuous war efforts of the last decades has not been rebuilt yet. High unemployment, deep poverty, prostitution and rampant corruption are serious problems.
Anti- War- Movement:
From 1965 onwards the anti-war-movement increased rapidly. Marches, demonstrations and teach-ins, a form of political-educational protest, were held up. In April 1965 a coalition of civil rights and anti-war groups brought 20,000 people to Washington to protest against the war. By early 1968 more and more American men tried to avoid being drafted to fight in Vietnam. This anti-draft-movement became an important branch of the whole movement. Even a growing body of Democrats became Johnson\'s sharpest critics.
The TET-Offensive in the February 1968, a devastating defeat for the communist forces, nevertheless convinced even more Americans, that their government strategy was not working. By mid 1968 over 35,000 GIs had died in combat. A growing number of American officials and large segments of the population began to look upon the war as a \"mistake\" - polls revealed that far more than 50% opposed the Vietnam War. Another prominent group of the 1960\'s was the student organisation SDS (Students for Democratic Society), which was primarily against American foreign policy and against the discrimination of minorities in the USA.
The majority accepted the draft as their fate. Others married voung, entitling them to deferment or hastily enrolled in college and graduate programs. Others chose exile mainly in Canada, Mexiko and Sweden. Only some chose jail like David Harris, a student Vice-President at Stanford University, who said: \"If anybody ought to leave that Johnson ought to be the one leaving, not me.\" For his refusal, Harris served twenty months of a three-year sentence. Another form of protest was initiated by David Miller, age 22, by burning his draft card, a criminal act according to a newly passed federal law. To protest against the war veterans tried to return their medals and campaign ribbons, scientists begged for a stop of US chemical and biological warfare in Vietnam (the chemical defoliation with "Agent Orange" Napalm-bombs) and advertisements were run for an end of the war. Many
demonstrations across the land ended in riots and viclence. Blacks were even more likely than whites to oppose the war because of the high level of black casualties and a disproportionate number of black draftees. Full enactment of the movement began in late 1971 when US troops had started withdrawing from Vietnam. Johnson\'s opponent for elections, McCarthy, charged that the deferment system was a deliberate policy to reduce opposition to the war.
On the 5th of Dec.1969 the massacre in My Lai happened, where GIs killed hundreds of people of every age who didn\'t have to be killed and daily operations took place, which led to burning and bombing large numbers of women and children. There was no line of battle or discernible climax - the war was relocating populations and took some of the bravest young men of a nation and sent them into combat; a war, which offered no prospect of improving. - These facts increased the protest to an enormous extent.
Other causes of growing opposition to the war were:
-) the so far unknown cover-age by US TV-stations, when suddenly the horrible pictures of war were broadcast into every American house
-) an incident at the Kent State University, where 4 students were shot dead by the National Guard in 1970
-) the publication of secret \"Pentagon Papers\" revealing the history of US involvement
All these causes led to the result, that far more than 60% opposed the war and that the movement increased and became the single most potent factor ending the war.
lf the USA was simply acting the part of an imperialist aggressor in Vietnam, as many believed, it was imperialism of the most peculiar kind, because there were no raw materials to exploit (oil off the coast was discovered years after 1965) and no overriding strategic interest.
There is also a \"psychological versiort\", namely America\'s wish to impose its national obsessions on the rest of the world - but if so, the psychic profits were illusory.
A third reagon could have been, that the rise of Communism would signal the end of capitalism as the dominant world order, which would have consequently led to the fact, that America would no longer constitute the model of future. But the truth was, that the USA went to Vietnam for the sake of an ideal, a product of the intention to make the world safe for democracy - trying to save the Southern half of that country from the \"evils\" of Communism.
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