A coup by some of his own generals succeeded in toppling and killing Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, in November , three weeks before Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
Congress soon passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution , which gave Johnson broad war-making powers, and U. The bombing campaign was meant to disrupt the flow of supplies across the Ho Chi Minh trail into Vietnam and to prevent the rise of the Pathet Lao, or Lao communist forces.
The U. In March , Johnson made the decision—with solid support from the American public—to send U. By June, 82, combat troops were stationed in Vietnam, and military leaders were calling for , more by the end of to shore up the struggling South Vietnamese army.
Despite the concerns of some of his advisers about this escalation, and about the entire war effort amid a growing anti-war movement , Johnson authorized the immediate dispatch of , troops at the end of July and another , in In contrast to the air attacks on North Vietnam, the U. Westmoreland pursued a policy of attrition, aiming to kill as many enemy troops as possible rather than trying to secure territory.
Heavy bombing by B aircraft or shelling made these zones uninhabitable, as refugees poured into camps in designated safe areas near Saigon and other cities.
Even as the enemy body count at times exaggerated by U. Additionally, supported by aid from China and the Soviet Union, North Vietnam strengthened its air defenses. By November , the number of American troops in Vietnam was approaching ,, and U.
The later years of the war saw increased physical and psychological deterioration among American soldiers—both volunteers and draftees—including drug use , post-traumatic stress disorder PTSD , mutinies and attacks by soldiers against officers and noncommissioned officers.
Between July and December , more than , U. Bombarded by horrific images of the war on their televisions, Americans on the home front turned against the war as well: In October , some 35, demonstrators staged a massive Vietnam War protest outside the Pentagon. Opponents of the war argued that civilians, not enemy combatants, were the primary victims and that the United States was supporting a corrupt dictatorship in Saigon.
On January 31, , some 70, DRV forces under General Vo Nguyen Giap launched the Tet Offensive named for the lunar new year , a coordinated series of fierce attacks on more than cities and towns in South Vietnam.
Taken by surprise, U. Reports of the Tet Offensive stunned the U. With his approval ratings dropping in an election year, Johnson called a halt to bombing in much of North Vietnam though bombings continued in the south and promised to dedicate the rest of his term to seeking peace rather than reelection. Despite the later inclusion of the South Vietnamese and the NLF, the dialogue soon reached an impasse, and after a bitter election season marred by violence, Republican Richard M.
Nixon won the presidency. In an attempt to limit the volume of American casualties, he announced a program called Vietnamization : withdrawing U. In addition to this Vietnamization policy, Nixon continued public peace talks in Paris, adding higher-level secret talks conducted by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger beginning in the spring of The North Vietnamese continued to insist on complete and unconditional U.
The next few years would bring even more carnage, including the horrifying revelation that U. After the My Lai Massacre , anti-war protests continued to build as the conflict wore on. In and , there were hundreds of protest marches and gatherings throughout the country. On November 15, , the largest anti-war demonstration in American history took place in Washington, D. The anti-war movement, which was particularly strong on college campuses, divided Americans bitterly.
For some young people, the war symbolized a form of unchecked authority they had come to resent. For other Americans, opposing the government was considered unpatriotic and treasonous. As the first U. April 15 and Oct. Army and Marines face relentless onslaughts from North Vietnamese. February In the ancient imperial capital of Hue, communist forces execute at least 2, people, mostly South Vietnamese civilians. March 16, Over the course of four hours, American soldiers kill more than unarmed civilians in and around the hamlet of My Lai.
May 4, Four days after Nixon announced the expansion of the war into Cambodia, four students at Kent State are shot by National Guardsmen during a protest. March 30 — Oct. North Vietnamese officers, after the war, said the only thing they feared was an American-led invasion of the north, but the U. By the end of , there were , American troops in Vietnam, and the military draft was set to call up , young men in the coming year, an increase of 72, over But the war news was hopeful. The South Vietnamese Army was showing improvement, winning 37 of their last 45 major engagements.
American troops had won every major battle they fought, and General Nguyen Van Thieu had come to power in South Vietnam in September; he would remain in office until , bringing a new measure of stability to the government, though he could not end its endemic corruption. Antiwar protests continued across America and in many other countries, but on April 28, , Gen.
Westmoreland became the first battlefield commander ever to address a joint session of Congress in wartime, and Time magazine named him Man of the Year. In an interview he was asked if there was light at the end of the tunnel, and he responded that the U. They struck at least 30 provincial capitals and the major cities of Saigon and Hue.
American intelligence knew an attack was coming, though the Army had downplayed a New York Times report of large communist troop movements heading south. The VC was effectively finished; it would not field more than 25,—40, troops at any time for the remainder of the war. The NVA had to take over.
It was one of the most resounding defeats in all of military history—until it became a victory. News footage showed the fighting in Saigon and Hue. The Tet Offensive shocked Americans at home, who thought the war was nearing victory. Initially, however, homefront support for the war effort grew, but by March Americans, perceiving no change in strategy that would bring the war to a conclusion, became increasingly disillusioned.
In a February 27, , broadcast he summed up what he had found during his return trip to the war zone. He closed by saying:.
To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion.
But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could. Tensions between blacks and whites had been intensifying for years as African Americans sought to change centuries-old racial policies.
That disparity would decline before the war ended, but the racial tensions at home began to insert themselves into the military in Vietnam, damaging unit morale. Even white troops were beginning to protest. One day in October , fifteen members of the Americal Division wore black armbands while they were on patrol, the symbol antiwar protestors wore in the states. Earlier, in March , the Americal Division had been involved in what became known as the My Lai Massacre , in which over men, women and children were killed.
Similar, even larger, atrocities were conducted by VC and NVA units—such as an NVA attack on a Buddhist orphanage at An Hoa in September or the execution of 5, people at Hue during the Tet Offensive—but the concept of American soldiers killing civilians in cold blood was more than many Americans could bear.
Support for the war eroded further. Some antiwar protestors blamed the men and women who served in Vietnam, taunting them and spitting on them when they came home. Military personnel, including nurses, were warned not to wear their uniforms in the States. However, polls consistently showed the majority of Americans supported the war.
Republican Richard Nixon won the presidency in the fall elections. Creighton Abrams. Security was improving even as American forces were in the process of withdrawing. Then, on March 30, , the North Vietnamese attacked across the 17th parallel with 14 divisions and additional individual regiments. Better armed than ever before, thanks to increased aid from the Soviet Union, they employed tanks for the first time.
The ARVN bent but did not break. By June they had stalled the invasion, with the help of American airpower. The NVA suffered some , casualties.
American drawdown continued, with only 43, personnel left in-country by mid-August. In retaliation for the invasion, and in hopes of forcing Hanoi to negotiate in good faith, Nixon ordered Haiphong harbor in North Vietnam to be mined and he intensified bombing of North Vietnam.
Hanoi offered to restart peace talks, yet remained intransigent in its demands. On January 27, , peace accords were signed between North Vietnam and the U. North Vietnam spent two years rebuilding its military; South Vietnam was hamstrung in its responses by a fear the U. Congress would cut off all aid if it took military action against communist buildup. Its army lacked reserves, while the NVA was growing.
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