The Two Vietnams
· Vietnam, a former French colony, was divided into two sections in 1954.
· North Vietnam, led by Ho Chi Minh, was communist and backed by the Soviet Union.
· South Vietnam, led by Ngo Dinh Diem, was democratic and backed by the U.S.
· Many South Vietnamese distrusted Diem and joined the Vietcong, a communist guerilla group supported by North Vietnam.
Growing American Involvement
· The U.S. believed that if South Vietnam fell to the communists, the rest of the nations in Southeast Asia would as well in a theory called the domino theory.
· In August 1964, the North Vietnamese torpedoed an American ship in the Gulf of Tonkin.
· In response, the U.S. passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which allowed the U.S. to begin bombing enemy targets within North and South Vietnam.
· By 1968, over half a million Americans were fighting in the Vietnam War.
· As the fighting escalated, the U.S. relied on the draft for raising troops.
· Jungle warfare was difficult, and it was hard to locate the enemy.
· In addition, it was very difficult to identify which South Vietnamese were our allies and which were supporting the Vietcong.
· Thousands of Americans protested against the war, especially on college campuses.
· On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard killed 4 anti-war protesters at Kent State University.
The Tet Offensive: A Turning Point
· In January of 1968, the Vietcong launched surprise attacks on cities throughout South Vietnam.
· The American embassy was attacked as well in the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon.
· The attacks were known as the Tet Offensive because they occurred during Tet, the Vietnamese News Year’s holiday.
· The Tet Offensive proved to the world that no part of South Vietnam was safe, even with the presence of half a million American troops.
· In January 1973, the U.S. reached a cease-fire agreement with North Vietnam and brought their troops home.
· However, the U.S. continued to send billions of dollars in support of the South Vietnamese.
· In April of 1975, the communists captured the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon, renamed it Ho Chi Minh City, and reunited Vietnam under one communist flag.
· The U.S. and South Vietnamese began to secretly bomb communist bases in Cambodia used by the North Vietnamese.
· Cambodia soon fought a civil war, which was won by the communist Khmer Rouge in 1975, whereupon they changed the name of the country to Kampuchea.
· The Khmer Rouge were brutal leaders, killing over one million people in just a few short years.
· Between 1961 and 1973 over 58,000 Americans died in the Vietnam War.
· During the same time period, over 1,500,000 Vietnamese died as well.
