Explain Why There Were Such Different Reactions In The USA To The Country's Involvement In The Conflict In Vietnam In The 1960s.

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Vietnam Coursework

Question 3

Explain Why There Were Such Different Reactions In The USA To The Country’s Involvement In The Conflict In Vietnam In The 1960s.

 

        In the beginning of the 1960’s America’s involvement with the Vietnam had been well supported by the American people. As the war began to drag on throughout the 1960’s, the war became very costly money and life wise. The American public began to turn against the war.

        Most people were in favour of the war in the early 1960s because of many reasons. One of them reasons was the fear of communism and the Domino theory. The Domino theory was thought up by President Eisenhower. The domino theory was the idea that if countries like East Asia decided to become a communist country then other countries around them would also become communists. Communism would spread and collapse likes a row of dominos. This theory was believed by a lot of people at the time.

        The American Public had different views on what and how long the war would go on for. They had the idea that the war would have been short and very easy; however, they were very wrong. Although more men were lost on the opposite side, still many Americans died. But the public were still unhappy with this amount.

Although most people were in favour for this war Pacifists and Communists were against the war. Because of their beliefs in equality and peace, war was something that they did not want to get involved with. Pacifists were actually strict religious people and their religion had taught them that war was wrong.

By the late 1960s the public opinion had started to change. Social Attitude had started to change as well. People began to become hippies believing in peace rather than war and independence. Love was the main issue for people now. Nobody wanted any sort of war anymore.        Pop music became the fashion as well as things like flower power that made things seem wrong.

        People began to find out other things that made them turn against the idea of war as well though. One of these things was that the public had been lied to by everyone including their own government. The public became unsure about who they could trust and who they couldn’t. The pentagon papers had a large roll in this. Pentagon on its own is the headquarters of the USA’s Armed Forces. A employee, Daniel Ellsberg, in 1967 found all the government papers on Vietnam after the 1940’s. After he had completed this task of collecting over 4000 papers, Ellsberg, along with others added a further 3000 papers of analysis to the documents. Put together all these documents became known as the Pentagon Papers.         

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        These secret documents showed how the US government and its officials had sometimes lied or covered up instances that had happened during the long war. Members of the Congress had became angry as well because it had know been proven that important desions had been made about the war without the Congress being even told let alone involved and up to date on what was happening. The documents also showed something important and this was that the American government hadn’t really known what they had got the country involved in during this war.        

        By 1969 even Ellsberg himself had begun ...

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