(Diem was to start under the control of America. The USA supplied him with money supplies and equipment in return that Diem stopped communism and ruled the south how the USA wanted.)
- The Vietminh was to withdraw its troops from the south and the French would withdraw its troops from the north.
- A date for elections in Vietnam was also made for July 1956, 2 years later on
After the Geneva Convention Diem took over ruling South Vietnam. America hoped that he would be a popular ruler + gain support of the people so that when the elections came round in 56 diem would win and America wouldn’t have to worry about the spread of communism. Diem was, and did, the opposite. The tactics and things Diem did were unfair and decreased his popularity immensely. For example Diem was catholic and created laws against the Buddhist religion, which in Vietnam was the biggest religion around. The Buddhists weren’t allowed to follow their religion, they weren’t allowed to fly their flags or express their views, only Catholics could. Eventually Diem did exactly as he wished. A US official labelled him as “a puppet pulling his own strings”. Unfortunately for America no matter what Diem did they couldn’t get rid of him as he hated communism and was the only thing stopping it spreading.
During the reign of Diem the NFL formed. The NFL was an organisation against Diem in South Vietnam, their aims where to try stop Diem and reunite the south and north of Vietnam. Diem tried lots of ways to get rid of the NFL including the strategic hamlet. The strategic hamlet was a plan by diem to move entire villages away from suspected place of the NFL, what Diem didn’t realise was that the NFL where inside the villages so infect he wasn’t moving anyone away from them at all as they just moved with the villages.
By this time Diem had become extremely unpopular. He didn’t have any support in the south and the NFL was growing. The strategic hamlet was another example of diem loosing popularity as not only did he move all the people away from their homes where they had lived for many centuries but he made them pay for the move.
Eventually the USA did have Diem overthrown. The new government tried to be fairer. They agreed to let the NFL exist in South Vietnam and even suggested they would try to get rid of foreign troops in Vietnam. But by this time another group called the Vietcong had formed. The Vietcong was a communist group from the north made to fight the arvn troops in the south and try reuniting the south and north. The arvn were the south Vietnam police supplied and funded by America to keep the Vietcong out of the south.
President Jonsson also didn’t agree with the new government and on the 31st January 1964 the golf of Tonkin incident took place. This gave Jonsson an excuse to increase American involvement in Vietnam and a week later on the 13th of February president Jonsson gave his approval for operation rolling thunder, the 1st of many military attacks on north Vietnam. Operation thunder was the bombing of North Vietnam on a regular basis. In March this was also followed up by another American military action when 3500 USA troops arrived in Vietnam. These would soon be followed by another 20 000. The USA war began.
What president jonsson though didn’t realise was that from the start of the wasn’t a military war, the USA would not win by military force and action, it was just wasted money and time.
Diem and Jonsson played a big part in why troops in Vietnam from the USA had to withdraw in 1973, if diem had become popular for a start the troops may never have needed be there.
Once the war started there were several reasons as to why in 1973 America had to withdraw it’s troops from Vietnam. One of the main reasons was its military failure. The USA’s army was the best equipped had the most supplies and most money. However they didn’t have what they really needed which was the support experience and determination of their troops. The aim of most America troops was to stay alive and get home. The Vietcong were fighting for their freedom their homes their families their land and their lives, plus they had the experience of fighting from fighting the French in the year before. The Vietcong had reason to fight and believed in that reason, the American’s didn’t.
Around 2.8 million American soldiers served in Vietnam 2 million of these were drafter or conscripted. The average age of an us soldier was 19 and most of the army was made up of blacks, Hispanics and poor whites. From the start the army wasn’t the best it could be.
As well as the bad make up of the army, each soldier was on his tour of duty. The tour of duty system was where conscripted or drafted us soldiers were under obligation to serve one year in Vietnam. This was a big part of the military failure as each soldier was just simply aiming to reach the end of their tour of duty, they weren’t interested in fighting, only in making it through the 12 months and getting home. Only 6% of deaths took place among soldiers in their last 3 months of service. This was bad for the army, as platoons never had the actual full support of the platoon.
As well as the lack of support, the replacement soldiers that came after the soldiers finishing their tour of duty were inexperienced. Just as soldiers got used to Vietnam and had gained some experience their tour was up and they left. The US army was never fully trained. Drug abuse was a major problem within the troops too, lessening their abilities even more. In 1951 5000 men were treated for combat wounds and 20 000 for drug abuse.
The tactics of the 2 sides also led to the US military failure.
The Vietcong’s tactics were mostly guerrilla tactics, as they didn’t have the supplies money and mass amount of soldiers the USA did. Guerrilla tactics included sending Vietcong troops into the jungles in Vietnam and ambushing single platoons of USA soldiers then quickly retreating. The Vietcong would also leave traps all over the jungles for the us troops including trip wires covered holes and hidden bombs in objects. As well as having these tactics the Vietcong had tunnels trails and hideouts to back them up, when they retreated it was impossible for the USA army to find them. These tactics were effective as they destroyed USA resources and soldiers and didn’t enable to USA troops to actually fight back. This was good for the Vietcong as in an all out war they would surely loose due to Americas better supplies equipment and more soldiers. These tactics were bad for America as they meant that they couldn’t really fight the North Vietnam troops back and had to go with other less useful tactics.
The USA implied tactics such as blanket bombing zippo raids and search and destroy missions. Blanket bombings were the dropping of napalm, Agent Orange + cluster bombs over Vietnam. A well-known example of a zippo raid was in My Lai in 1969. On March 1st 1969 just after dawn 9 us helicopters landed close to My Lai. 3 platoons dissembled from the helicopters and set out on search and destroy missions through My Lai. The search and destroy mission included what it says. The US army literally searched then destroyed everything in site.
These tactics were in some way effective but they also sparked off another main problem for the USA that led to the withdrawal of the American troops from Vietnam in 1973. This was media interest. The Vietnam War was the first ever-televised war. The media were now publishing the events that were taken place, and the world was seeing the tactics that were being used, what was really going on.
As time went on because of the media the credibility gap widened. The credibility gap was the gap between what the government said and what the people actually believed. At the start of the war and in many wars before the USA people believed in their government, believed that what the government was saying was the truth. Towards the end of the Vietnam this faith in the government wasn’t as strong, people were no believing what they saw on their television sets and what the media told them.
Harrison Salisbury in 1966 reported on the destruction to civilian areas and that many civilian casualties had been caused by the Americans blanket bombing. The American government denied this saying their bombs never hit civilian areas, but people saw on their televisions that this obviously wasn’t true, that the bombs did. This is an example of where the credibility gap widened.
Another example of impact the media had was at the Tet offensive. In 1968 a film was shown of a 15 man Vietcong suicide squad inside the US embassy. Within 6 hours they were all dead but it wasn’t the military result that counted. The American people were shocked and wondering if they were really safe, if the Vietcong could get into the embassy then couldn’t they get anywhere? Also the day after this another film was shown. It’s said to maybe be the most dramatic film of the entire war. It showed a tied up suspected Vietcong member being led away by the arvn. As he was being led away the chief of the Saigon police walked upto the suspect, pulled out his gun and shot the suspect in the head. This footage influenced many Americans on the way they were thinking about the war. Public support because of the media dramatically decreased for the America in the war.
In august 1967 for the 1st time an opinion poll showed that more Americans thought the war was a “mistake” than those that thought it was right. (46% to 44%). Just after the poll, president Jonsson raised taxes. The war was not costing America $20 billion a year.
In the Vietnam war public support and opinion was very important and eventually because America had so little it led to the withdrawal of the troops from Vietnam in 1973. Without the public support a war cannot carry on.
As the war dragged on more and more, and the media carried on filming the amount of American protesters increased. Protests took place all over America. The protesters were mainly made up of students, with time and lots of thoughts, draft dodgers, who didn’t want to be conscripted and blacks who were being treated unfairly in America but were then expected to go fight in Vietnam for them.
Some incidents surrounding the protests and protesters increased public support for them and lessened it for the government even more. At Kent State University 1970 there was a protest in which 4 students were shot dead by the National Guard. The protest was a peaceful one and the incident had a huge impact in the media shocking America and causing over 400 more protests across the country.
Because of the now almost non existing public support for America with the war, In 1968 when the USA presidential elections were held, President Nixon was elected. This was the actual event that did lead to the withdrawal of the troops from Vietnam in 1973. Nixon didn’t want to loose the war but he did want to end it. He also wanted to end it with “pride for America”. This got Nixon support. Having got the support and having won the election Nixon now invented and carried out his policy of vietnamisation. This was where USA troops would slowly withdraw from Vietnam but at the same time the arvn would be trained up to fight the Vietcong. Nixon knew this wouldn’t end the war but it would start to cut American losses of life money and supplies.
Next, peace talks were held in 1969 where Nixon tried to get the North Vietnamese to withdraw its troops from South Vietnam. Obviously the north didn’t want to agree to this as they were winning the war and had no reason to. Eventually though Nixon forced the North Vietnamese to accept a peace agreement and withdraw their troops with a different tactic. This tactic included improving American relations with Russia and china while at the same time continuously bombing the North Vietnam. The bombing did eventually pay off and secret peace talks started to be held.
By December 1972 though Nixon was becoming impatient and ordered the mass bombing of 2 places in North Vietnam, Hanoi and Haipong. In 1 days 200 000 bombs were dropped. This showed the North Vietnamese that America weren’t about to give in or back down. More negotiations then took place and on the 23rd of January 1973 an agreement was reached. The America troops would withdraw from North Vietnam, but the 2 sides, north and south would stay separate.
Nixon becoming president was the start of the end of the war in Vietnam, and why the troops actually did withdraw in 1973.
If it wasn’t for the media the protesters and Diem, Nixon wouldn’t have been elected. Nixon wasn’t really the reason for the withdrawal of the troops, all these things before led to him having to withdraw them to end the war. In my opinion Diem was the main cause as to why the troops in 1973 from America had to withdraw from Vietnam. If when Diem was elected he had done a better job and got the South Vietnamese support then there may not have been a war to start with.
