To what extent was President Lyndon B. Johnson responsible for the escalation of the war in Vietnam? (1963-1969)
Historical Investigation To what extent was President Lyndon B. Johnson responsible for the escalation of the war in Vietnam? (1963-1969) A. Plan of investigation The particular question this investigation will be addressing is: "To what extent was Johnson solely responsible for escalating the was in Vietnam?" The focus of the sources used in answering this question looks at the policies and documents passed regarding American involvement in the war as well as evidence regarding military strategies and who was responsible for their creation and application. To analyze the true scale of the escalation of the war I will be looking at statistics and reports. Finally, I will address the assumption that the escalation of the war in Vietnam to the extent that it happened was intentional - therefore I will analyze at personal diary entries and memoirs of President Johnson, as well as letters and recorded conversations between him and his advisors, also taking into consideration social and political pressures that may have affected the situation. B. Summary of Evidence - Kennedy's decision to commit in Southeast Asia was rooted in the American pledge to battle and contain communism: and "Vietnam", Kennedy concluded, "is the place to make [America's] power credible"1. - "If freedom is to be saved, we need a whole new kind of strategy, a wholly different kind of force, and a
Escalation of American involvement in Vietnam
Discuss the escalation of American involvement in Vietnam from 1960 to 1968. Why did the USA ultimately fail to defeat the North Vietnamese and Vietcong. In 1960, Kennedy was elected as the new president of the United States. As the Cold War raged, Kennedy had ascended to power with the attitude that Americans would "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty." Kennedy was not one to back down from a fight or to allow the name of his country to be soiled. After a failed attempt at invasion in the Bay of Pigs, the movement of Laos from capitalism to communism, and the creation of the Berlin wall, Kennedy decided to use Vietnam to prove the strength of the United States. Kennedy and his young advisers believed that not to resist communism in Vietnam would be another example of weakness. The American involvement had 4 main stages: Indirect involvement, financial support, political involvement and military involvement. In 1961 military advisers were sent to South Vietnam to train the South Vietnamese army. American involvement developed through a series of escalations, as the South Vietnamese regime proved increasingly unable to defeat the Viet Cong by themselves. At first (1956) there were 700 American advisers. In 1959 President John F. Kennedy increased the number to 16,000.
'Johnson alone bears the responsibility for the escalation of war in Vietnam in the years 1965-68.' Do you agree or disagree with this statement?
Amrit Singh Thabal 16MB History Johnson alone bears the responsibility for the escalation of war in Vietnam in the years 1965-68. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Only a few years of becoming president, Lyndon B Johnson had to do something about Vietnam, to get a victory; and fairly quickly. This escalation was set in the cold war, where the USSR and the USA were up against each other, and mutual destruction was only one bad move away. This escalation is where LBJ upped the ante in Vietnam and increase troop numbers vastly. From the start of 1965 23,000 US advisors were in Vietnam and by the end of the year 184,000 US soldiers were in Vietnam. This still increases over the years and by 1968, there are nearly 525,000 US troops in Vietnam. Not only troops, but spending and logistical support increased, therefore escalating the war. For this escalation, stalemate theorists blame a weak president (LBJ) for not backing out of Vietnam and for not being strong enough to stand up against the people and the military. But post-revisionists say that it’s a lot more complicated than one person and his weaknesses, it goes back 30 years. The war could have been escalated solely by Johnson. This may have been down to his personality; that he was the wrong man, in the wrong point of time in Vietnam. LBJ was very patriot and thought that the USA was the best
Do the sources agree that L.B.Johnson's escalation of the Vietnam War was a "noble cause"?
Do the sources agree that L.B.Johnson's escalation of the Vietnam War was a "noble cause"? The sources give a variety of different responses to the question of nobility of the escalation of the Vietnam War. Source A is two campaign speeches made by JFK in 1956 and 1960 respectively. In the speeches, JFK talks about communism and America's situation in the Vietnam War. The word "struggle" is used many times in the speeches; this emphasises the deteriorating situation in Vietnam for the Americans. America's apprehension of 'The Domino Theory' is also very apparent. As the Americans were extremely anti-Communist they believed that impeding 'The Domino Theory' was a very noble and just thing to do. Even so, you must take into account the fact that these speeches were part of JFK's campaigns to be elected so he most probably said these things to please the American public, to gain votes. Source B is a quotation from LBJ's tapes while he was in office. Basically, he feels that people will only focus on his faults and none of the commendable actions that he is taking. It shows that LBJ is surcoming to the huge public pressure that is placed upon at the current time. This strain is obvious as LBJ uses such crude phrases as "Right up my ass". LBJ problem is that he has allowed Vietnam to become too personal to him. He feels that his reputation will be in shatters if America lose the
To what extent was the media responsible for the American withdrawal from Vietnam?
Tony Hush To what extent was the media responsible for the American withdrawal from Vietnam? The history of Vietnam is characterised by struggles for independence since French rule in 1859 after the French took Saigon, and a great ability in warfare and continual determined resistance to foreign domination. Major military involvement by American armed forces came after events such as Russian communist revolution in 1917 and the Korean War in the 1950's; these events put the America people in a period of moral panic with McCarthyism, and domino theory. After the French defeat and the following Geneva conference in 1954, where only a verbal military truce was agreed. Signs of further fighting and full America involvement were a clear possibility. Vietnam was one of the first conflicts to be televised around the world. Also it was impossible to keep all the forms of media under censorship, this made film footage and news reports under the scrutiny of the viewing public to judge for themselves. News films from the battlefield were by 1968 being transmitted from Tokyo via satellite (John Omicinski, Gannett News Service). Often these unedited films went straight into the airwaves for the evening news in jumbled, in unexplained minutes that gave the war an even more chaotic look. Within days of the Tet attacks, American campuses were in an uproar. Within weeks, many average
Vietnam War
Johnson, not Kennedy, bears the responsibility for the escalation of the war in Vietnam. 'How far do you agree with this statement?' President Johnson must take major responsibility for the escalation of the war in Vietnam, however he cannot take full responsibility as Kennedy also played a part in increasing commitment there. Johnson takes the larger amount of responsibility as he took the first major escalatory step by approving of large scale bombing in Vietnam; Operation Rolling Thunder, as a response to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. LBJ was also the first President to send ground troops into Vietnam. LBJ may have also got further involved in Vietnam because he didn't want to 'lose Vietnam' like Truman 'lost China' because 'losing China' affected Truman's reputation greatly and therefore LBJ did not want the same to happen to him over Vietnam. On the other hand, JFK must take some responsibility because during his time in office, military advisers in Vietnam were increased from 500 to 16,000. Also the American government had some involvement in getting rid of Diem, therefore increasing commitment to Vietnam and LBJ had the same foreign policy advisers as Kennedy, so they possibly brought Kennedy's ideas back into the White House. The Gulf of Tonkin incident is when a US Navy ship was allegedly attacked by North Vietnamese patrol boats. Reports of this attack angered LBJ
Potentialproblems president Johnson could face by sending troops to Vietnam.
Potential problems president Johnson could face by sending troops to Vietnam. The Vietnam War began in 1955 and ended in 1975. American involvement in Vietnam was limited, and training the South Vietnamese army was important. Kennedy increased the number of "military advisors" from about 800 to 16,000; however, this was done primarily as a show of strength to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Tensions eased between the two superpowers in the spring, summer, and autumn of 1963, Kennedy announced plans to withdraw forces from South Vietnam, starting with around a thousand men by the end of 1963. Within a few weeks of Kennedy's death, newly appointed President Johnson almost ignored the withdrawal plan and began sending more troops to Vietnam. On August 2, 1964, North Vietnamese patrol boats fired on the U.S. destroyer Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin, and, after President Johnson alleged that there had been a second attack on August 4 (a claim later shown to be false) the U.S. Congress endorsed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, permitting LBJ to take "all necessary measures to repel attacks and prevent further aggression." The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in effect gave the president carte blanche to wage war in Southeast Asia without Congressional approval. This marked the beginning of full-scale American involvement in the Vietnam War. When Johnson left office in January 1969,
How important was public opinion in the years 1965 to 1968 to putting President Johnson under pressure to withdraw US forces from Vietnam?
Use Sources A, B and C and your own knowledge. How important was public opinion in the years 1965 to 1968 to putting President Johnson under pressure to withdraw US forces from Vietnam? (24 marks) In the years 1965 to 1968, public opinion was in fact relatively important with regard to putting President Johnson under pressure to withdraw US forces from Vietnam - this is evident in his refusal to stand for re-election in 1968, the growing numbers in the anti-war demonstrations and the competition that he was up against from other politicians in Congress. However, there were also other important factors that may have had an impact on pressure being put on Johnson to withdraw American forces from Vietnam. It could be said that public opinion had a huge influence on Johnson as a whole, not just putting him under pressure to withdraw US forces from Vietnam. Johnson was aware of the fact that the anti-war movement was escalating in numbers, from a small (mostly peaceful) protest march of 1000 in New York in 1964 to violent protests in 1968 consisting of thousands of people. The escalation and growing numbers of the anti-war protests is further backed up in Source C which states 'in April 1965, twenty-five thousand demonstrators, roughly equivalent to the number of US troops then in South Vietnam, gathered in Washington DC for the first national protest. By 1969, at least two
The Vietnam conflict - "Our objective is to create conditions for a favorable settlement by demonstrating to the Viet Cong that the odds are against their winning."
"Our objective is to create conditions for a favorable settlement by demonstrating to the Viet Cong that the odds are against their winning." This quote, taken from a report by LBJ's top advisor, Robert McNamara, sums up the intentions of the executive branch during the debates over whether or not to escalate the Vietnam conflict. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson was faced with the monumental decision of either pulling out of Vietnam, or escalating the conflict with air strikes against North Vietnam. From the various research I have conducted I will explore and try to understand why he made his decision. To do this I will present the background information of this conflict and the events leading up to his decision. The conflict in Vietnam began long before the first American advisors ever touched Vietnam soil. After the Japanese occupation that occurred during World War II ended, Vietnam was in a state of limbo. The rest of the world was quickly becoming aligned with one of the two super powers that were forming the Bi-polar system and Vietnam was not to be left out. After an attempted democratic government was ineffective, the French tried to regain control of their former colony and this resulted in the Indo-China war. Quoting from the Vietnamese declaration of Independence, which was written in 1945, some of the reasons for Vietnamese independence became
The Vietnam War
The Vietnam War "No 'healing', no apologies, no memorials, nothing can possibly compensate for the damage done and the pain inflicted....The only thing we can possibly do, twenty years too late, is to try and tell the truth." Eric Bergerud, Historian UC Berkely The problem is though, that there is no one truth about the Vietnam War, even more than two decades after America's intervention. Critics of the intervention claim that the war was unnecessary and immoral and also policymakers in Washington dragged the country into and unwanted war. A group of scholars and military leaders have contrasting ideas, providing a strong defense for the American intervention. Although there is a multitude of facts and sources, without a framework to place them into context understanding the war would be impossible. Even after a careful examination of all the information we have today, it would reveal neither view as entirely accurate. The Vietnam War was arguably the most traumatic experience for the United States considering a whole range of events including two world wars, assassinations of two presidents, the Great Depression, the Cold War, racial issues, etc... Examining the events of the war including the Tonkin Resolution, Ho Chi Minh trail and Tet Offense while analyzing US involvement in the war can help us understand more about the truth of the war and why it was considered one of
