The generation of Americans who had grown up at the time of the war in Vietnam would be the most difficult to persuade to agree with a war due to the influences which shaped them, as they were more concerned with channelling their energies to moral causes than worrying about their material futures. This made it even harder for the US government as they couldn’t satisfy these people, who felt that the Americans had no right to impose their views on a poor nation like Vietnam, by continuing the war and would have to make peace if they were going to get the eventual support of this new generation, who had grown up amongst rebellious icons, Rock&Roll, and disestablishmentarianism. This was the era in which the untapped teenage market was discovered and young people were given a chance to be their own individuals. Due to the regulations which they had been brought up with, these ‘free youths’ developed defiant attitudes and soon turned against the consumer society. After increases in wages and the number of people going into higher education, these people were wealthier and more knowledgeable and felt that the older generation were too obsessed with money rather than job satisfaction and happiness. Being financially secure, this generation could concentrate more on developing their own styles and principals, which turned out to be opposite and rebellious to everything traditional that the previous generations had become accustomed to. This generation was also a generation of protesters, influenced by icons such as ‘rebel without a cause’, James Dean and therefore radical protest politics came of age and ‘civil rights’ movements featured strongly. A key point in the expansion of the peace movement was Robert Kennedy coming out against the war, and later, when local armed forces opened fire on 800 protesting students at Kent State University in May 1970, and 4 students were killed, even more opposition to the war grew. The 450 other, less notorious riots at universities which were taking place across the country, added to this to send a powerful message to the government that the people were not supporting this war. The veteran’s protest in Washington in 1967 also swayed minds as the people were seeing men, who were not radical peace demonstrators, but respected men and heroes who resented the horrors of this war so much they were throwing away their medals.
Due to people becoming more concerned with civil rights, the race issue in war was brought up as it could be seen that many of the recruits for the US army were poor, as those with rich parents or in higher education could avoid being drafted into Vietnam, and these were often blacks. There was clearly an unfair proportion of black GIs 7% of the American population at the time were black, while 14% of the American army were black, which showed that the black sector of US society were contributing much more heavily than the rest of the nation. The civil rights act, which allowed black people to register as voters enlightened Americans about discrimination, and with leading civil rights campaigners including icons such as Martin Luther King, Senator Eugene McCarthy and Cassius Clay, the hippies, who believed that they could change the world with anti-materialist policies such as free love, drug use and no violence, began to show their protesting roots and rallied for demonstrations against the war. Many soldiers too were turning to drugs to heal the dismay of being part of such a dreadful war and, when these pictures were relayed back to America, people took this as a sign that the soldiers themselves wanted peace, and that the war was making little progress, with men becoming completely intoxicated just to get them through the traumatic time. Overall, I feel that these protests, both those against racial discrimination in the armed forces and for peace in general, did a lot to cause the eventual withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. The government could not allow itself to be seen as racist, as this would not be upholding the nation’s principles and America could not justify a war against communism when their own system portrayed discriminative aspects. Protests in New York, Tokyo, London, Paris, Berlin and Rome, a march on the Pentagon, and also a serious accusation of committing war crimes made against America by Sweden greatly influenced the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam, as America could not fight a war without any support from the rest of the world as well as from its own people.
An objective of the American forces in Vietnam was to win the hearts and the minds of the Vietnamese people, which would win them support but also help from the locals and keep NVA sympathisers in the South to a minimum. By killing many South Vietnamese people and destroying their habitat, the Americans were not achieving this objective. They did not intentionally kill South Vietnamese, however, but often resorted to burning villages due to the frustration of not being able to recognise VC among the ordinary civilians. The people of South Vietnam needed to be shown how corrupt the communist regime was, if the Americans were to keep a capitalist regime alive in Vietnam, but all they saw was a capitalist regime invading their country, interfering with their internal affairs and killing their people, while the VC blended into the towns, spoke the language and helped with the general upkeep of the farms, therefore making it relatively easy for the South Vietnamese people to decide who to side with. To the South Vietnamese peasants, Americans were seen as rich and ruthless men, who bought their women and destroyed their land, and were therefore deeply resented. The Americans were further despised once the plan for ‘Strategic Hamlets’ was put into operation as, although they contained modern facilities and were fortified against VC infiltration, peasants resented being uprooted from their ancestral homelands. To make matters worse for the US forces, the SVA regime was very unpopular and Diem, who favoured Catholics over the native Buddhists, was hated so much that he was eventually assassinated. The Americans were therefore seen to be supporting the SV politicians who were biased and very much disliked by the common people, which was a view reflected by these ordinary farmers’ opinions of the US troops. Not only this, but also the fact that, in a predominantly peasant society, ‘Marxist’ ideas of the redistribution of wealth had great appeal, which led many to turn their support to the more friendly and familiar, communist VC.
The US had many other problems to contend with too as their strategies, equipment, attitudes and limitations were not suited to this kind of warfare. The Westmoreland strategy of guarding the border between North and South Vietnam on the 17th Parallel to prevent supplies from reaching the VC in the South failed as the 15,000km long Ho Chi Minh Trail, which went through neighbouring countries Laos and Cambodia, brought 66% of all supplies to the men in the South, including over 8,000 AA guns and a constant supply of GTAM. The newly invented electronic sensors which the Americans used to try and pick up enemy movements were often unreliable and precision bombing could not be enforced due to the terrain. In my opinion, a big difference between the Americans and the Vietnamese became evident in the morale of the men. The Vietnamese were highly motivated in their struggle for communism, but were also spurred on by a strong sense of nationalism, which had come from fighting for their country’s liberty from a long line of imperialists (Japan, France and the USA). The Vietnamese were very resilient and kept going on meagre rations, surrounded by inhospitable conditions. They weren’t afraid of dying for their cause, which becomes clear from the statistic that 1 million NVA men were killed in the war, out of a population of only 18 million. 2 million out of the 2.8 million Americans who served in Vietnam were draftees who were mostly very young and unclear about why they were fighting. They were only concerned with completing their one year tour of duty and getting home in one piece, with many resorting to drug abuse and mutiny, with fraggings occurring quite regularly-there are 778 known cases of this where an officer was killed by his own troops.
Also, because of its policy of democracy, the US always had “one hand behind its back” ie. limited choices and therefore needed to tread carefully. This was because, being a democratic nation, America did not censor things such as the media, and therefore anything could be broadcasted back to the public, whereas communist North Vietnam did not allow journalists and camera crews into areas that they occupied and only sometimes invited American news crews into these areas if there was something which, when broadcasted, would reflect badly on the Americans. As most American presidents aim to be re-elected for a second year, the president constantly needed to consider whether or not any of the event that were taking place would damage his reputation, if they were seen by the world. Therefore, the US could not kill civilians or destroy villages to attain their objectives and, unlike the NVA, couldn’t mistreat prisoners of war in any way, as these would all seriously jeopardise the president’s chances of re-election. Images of the American forces disrupting the lives of the Vietnamese people was a very effective form of Propaganda on the NVA’s part as only the negative aspects were shown and America never seemed to be doing what it set out to do, as times when US forces were successfully fighting off NVA troops and therefore working towards the prevention of the spread of communism, were never relayed back to the Americans at home. For example, while the impression of young American men being slaughtered in the jungles was shown on the televisions at home, reliable statistics show that only 2% of the people killed in the Tet Offensive were Americans. The US also needed to avoid North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia so that they weren’t seen as the aggressors but were simply protecting South Vietnam from an invading communist force. They did this because they couldn’t afford to become involved in a large scale war with the countries that were backing the NVA, China and Russia and were therefore greatly hindered-if they’d fought in the North, the situation would have been much less sensitive as everyone would have been an enemy and they wouldn’t have had to worry about shooting friendly civilians.
The fact that America was a democracy meant that those in positions of power needed to have the public firmly behind them if they were to remain involved in the war in Vietnam as, ultimately, the people always influence what happens. In the Second World War, for example, the US were able to remain fully committed once they had joined because the American people believed that they were freeing the world from tyranny. Politicians responsible for any decisions are accountable at elections - Nixon himself was elected essentially on the basis of his ‘peace with honour’ pledge. The power of the media contributed heavily to people’s opinions and therefore this, indirectly, would determine what happened in Vietnam. Because freedom of speech was so greatly cherished in America, there was an open government where nothing could be censored. Many people in the USA, being part of a wealthy nation, owned televisions and could see everything that was occurring in Vietnam, while the totalitarian state of North Vietnam controlled what people saw. The information shown by the NVA might have, in reality, lacked credibility, but even though people were told not to trust anything shown by them, images such as those of the Buddhist monks setting themselves alight in protest of the war, small children hit by Napalm, the death and destruction of the Tet Offensive and scenes from the horrific My Lai massacre all deeply shocked and disturbed the American people, who, no longer disillusioned by the war, rapidly grew extremely negative views. The promises of eradicating poverty and generally improving living conditions which had been made to the American people before the war, in 1964, had not been possible since the war effort was costing so much ($20 billion p.a. by 1967) in an attempt to minimise the death toll by using high tech equipment, which greatly angered a lot of the public, and created even more pessimistic views on the conflict in Vietnam.
The VC attacking at Khe Sanh and the Tet Offensive in 1968 proved to be a very significant point in the war and it was at this time that there became a majority of people opposing the war. During this festival time, the US relaxed its security, confident that the Vietnamese would not be attacking during this period, and the VC launched a large scale, coordinated surge on all of the towns and cities held by US forces. On the 31st of January 70,000 VC troops attacked Saigon as they wanted to try and start a national revolution but also demonstrate their strength and give clear message that nowhere was safe. Seeing pictures of these events on their screens at home, the American public demonstrated their negative view on the war by holding protests in big cities such as Washington and Chicago. These two events shattered optimism, with images of a VC suicide squad holding the US embassy in Saigon for 6 hours proving to be crucial in people’s consciences as a sign that the war was going terribly wrong. It was at this point that the decision was made to start withdrawing American troops from Vietnam. Here, Nixon produced a doctrine which consisted of a new policy which he was going to enforce called ‘Vietnamisation’ which would involve the gradual withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam and South Vietnam taking over its own defence with the aid of weapons, arms and equipment which would be supplied by the USA. This seemed to work at first with the VC seeming dormant between 1969 and 1971, in which time the USA reduced the numbers of troops in Vietnam from 500,000 to 140,000, but when the NVA made a large scale attack the ARVN crumbled under the pressure and the remaining troops felt there was little point in risking their lives. The cost of keeping the demoralised ARVN armed was now as high as ever, though little progress was being made.
Another crucial factor of American diplomacy and current politics was the issue of a ‘Détente’ with China, in order to establish better relations. To this effect, the US agreed to allow China to join the UN and tried to exploit the bad relations between China and the USSR. Withdrawing troops from Vietnam would greatly aid the situation as America would be shown to tolerate communism and would therefore be closer to avoiding war with the great communist powers-Russia had already introduced bombing limitations and the US didn’t want to be seen to ignore them and upset the USSR. There was progress being made with the USSR to slow down the Arms Race which was seen as a step towards better relations, although the war kept weapon stocks high.
Eventually, in 1973, the Paris Peace Agreement was reached, and it was decided that, if American troops were withdrawn from the country, the South would be allowed free elections and freedom from communism. I feel that one of the overriding factors which led to this was the amount of media coverage of the war, which not only enlightened the people about what was going on, but also portrayed America in a very bad light, and to be trying to completely eradicate communism by massacring people in a way equivalent to Hitler and the Nazis’ actions in WW2. The age in which this all occurred was also a factor which contributed to the war being ended, as people were generally rebellious and against authoritative bodies anyway, with many holding deep respect for those who had overthrown establishments such as Che Gevara, but hippie culture demoted the ideals of war, which was always going to make it a near impossible task to satisfy the American public, a crucial objective for a democratic leader. The many protests which were participated in played its role in the withdrawal of troops due to the amount of pressure which the government were being put under. They needed to keep the population content and scandals such as Operation Phoenix and the Pentagon Papers severely discredited the president, Nixon, and only worsened matters for the government. I do however feel that these are all linked to media coverage of the war, as without the awareness of what horrific things were happening in Vietnam, the people wouldn’t have had as much strength behind their cases against the war. Even though media was one of the main reasons for the actual war in Vietnam ending due to the fact that, as a democracy, the US needed the support of its people and was therefore limited, I feel that America would never have won the war anyway as the men fighting lacked the motivation of the VC. However, without the media involvement in the war, the people back home may have shown more support for the effort in Vietnam and the government wouldn’t have been forced to worry about public opinion as much as it would be hard for people to form factually-based views on what was going on. On the other hand, due to the changing international scene, there may have still been a great opposition to the war even if images weren’t shown to the public back home as people felt strongly against violence and would still have rebelled against the government. The media definitely increased support for a peace agreement, by educating the public about the terrors of war and, without it, the removal of troops would have most likely have taken place later than 1973, making it the main cause of the final withdrawal of troops, in 1973.
