iGCSE History - The Vietnam War: US Defeat & Withdrawal

         (Source: www.learnnc.org)

         The My Lai Massacre, which took place on the morning of March 16, 1968, was a watershed in the history of modern American combat, and a turning point in the public perception of the Vietnam War. In the course of three hours more than 500 unarmed Vietnamese civilians were killed in cold blood at the hands of US troops. Most of the victims were women, children, infants and elderly people. Some of the bodies were later found to be mutilated. The soldiers of Charlie Company, a unit of the Americal Division's 11th Infantry Brigade had been on a "search and destroy" mission to root out communist fighters in the area.  There had been no firefight with the enemy - not a single shot was fired at the soldiers. 

         When the story of My Lai was exposed more than a year later in 1969, it tarnished the name of the US army. This incident prompted global outrage and increased domestic opposition to the US involvement in the Vietnam War.

  
(Source of picture: flickr.com)

         The US troops fought a jungle war against the Vietcong. They fought in mud, tropical rains and blazing heat. They also had to battle snakes, leaches, mosquitoes, etc. There was dysentery, fevers, snake bites, "jungle rot" on various parts of the body, especially the feet. The Vietcong would attack in ambushes, set up booby traps, and escape through a complex network of underground tunnels.  They traveled light and quiet and snipers were hard to spot and difficult to destroy by the Americans. In every village, US troops had difficulty determining which, if any, villagers were the enemy since even women and children could build booby traps or help house and feed the Vietcong. US soldiers commonly became frustrated with the fighting conditions in Vietnam. Many suffered from low morale, became angry, and some used drugs.

        When the Vietnam War started only a small percentage of the American population opposed the war. As the war continued, more and more Americans turned against it. People were particularly upset by the use of chemical weapons such as napalm and agent orange. Tearing up or burning the draft card became a common occurrence and was seen to be the first of the protests against the Vietnam War. The most famous person to do this was the world heavyweight-boxing champion Muhammad Ali. 

        The protests against the war started to pick up when body bags started to return to America in increasing numbers. Coupled with these casualty figures were stories such as the infamouse My Lai Massacre that eventually came out about atrocities committed by US troops against the people they were meant to be defending and supporting. Tet Offensive seemed to be the turning point to change the public's view towards the war when more and more people questioning whether the war would be won at all. By early February 1968, a Gallup poll showed only 35 percent of the population approved of Johnson's handling of the war and a full 50 percent disapproved.

         The most dramatic opposition to the war came from the soldiers themselves. Many soldiers began to question the morality of the war once they began fighting in Vietnam. People watched on television as Vietnam heroes threw away the medals they had won fighting in the war. Some protests became violent - at Kent State in Ohio on May 4th 1970, four protestors were shot dead with live ammunition by US troops. This event triggered stronger protests in support of the students and in response, Nixon announced the effective end to US involvement in Vietnam in January 1973.

         Vietnam was the first heavy media orientated war with television and photographers sending back to the rest of the world grusome pictures of war, hence it started the age of mass media. The US administration, unlike-most governments at war, made no official attempt to censure the reporting in the Vietnam War. The American public could watch villages being destroyed, Vietnamese children burning to death, and American body bags being sent home on colour television. Newspaper reporters and television commentators were free to question the wisdom of fighting the war and started to make US citizens against the war.

         At the beginning the media coverage generally supported US involvement in the war, but television news dramatically changed its frame of the war after the Tet Offensive. Images of napalm victims and the US led My Lai massacre dominated the television. Thus, the anti-war movement at home gained increasing media attention. Military leaders accused the media critics of being "unpatriotic" and guilty of "helping the enemy."  They were especially angered by the way the media covered the Tet Offensive and believed that the biased reporting of the Tet offensive convinced the American public that the war was being lost and the only option was to withdraw from Vietnam. However, defenders of the mass media claimed that reporters were only reflecting the changing opinions of the American people towards the war.

(Source of picture: monthlyreview.org)

          Vietnamisation was the term used by Richard Nixon to describe US policy towards South Vietnam in the later stages of the Vietnam War. Vietnamisation was Nixon’s desired policy to enable South Vietnam to take a greater responsibility for the war while America started a planned withdrawal, while at the same time supporting the government in Saigon in its fight against the NLF.

         US troop withdrawal started on July 1^st 1969. The ceasefire between North and South Vietnam on January 23rd 1973 marked the end of Vietnamisation. The ceasefire stipulated that all US military forces of whatever description had to leave South Vietnam and that America had to stop giving military aid to the South. In return the North would uphold the ceasefire, return US POW's and end its infiltration into the South. On March 29th 1973, the US military headquarters in South Vietnam was shutdown.

  
(Source of picture: flickr.com)

         After the US had withdrawn all its troops, the fighting continued in Vietnam. The weak South Vietnam could not withstand the attacks from the communist North. In early 1975, North Vietnam made another big push south which toppled the South Vietnamese government. Saigon, the capital city of South Vietnam, fell to North Vietnamese forces on April 30^th 1975.  The fall of Saigon  effectively marked the end of the Vietnam War. By the end of April 30th, South Vietnam was wholly under the control of North Vietnam who swiftly announced the creation of a united Vietnam. Saigon was re-named Ho Chi Minh City.