The Vietnam War - why the USA became involved and how the media covered the war.

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Ben Storrie 11N

Vietnam Coursework

Question 1

The Vietnam War lasted from August 1964 to April 1975. In 1964 the American President, Lyndon Baines Johnson used the Gulf of Tonkin incident to get Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. This allowed him to wage all out war against North Vietnam without ever getting an official declaration of war. This signalled the beginning of American involvement in the war until 1973, when they ended the draft and began to pull out their troops. But why did they get involved in the first place?

In 1947, President Harry Truman made a speech to Congress outlining his plans for the Cold War. He said “I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.”  He was outlining the American foreign policy of containment. In Source A, President Johnson references the Truman Doctrine when he says “Since 1954 every American President has offered support to the people of South Vietnam” When he made the decision to expand American influence with Operation Rolling Thunder, his justification was the policy of containment. The attempt to halt the flow of communism that was spreading across the globe. This was America’s Cold War aim and Vietnam was simply an extension of that aim. This is useful because it shows the public continuation of an existing policy. Containment was used as justification for going to war. Vietnam could have been any other country and America may have taken exactly the same steps to stop them becoming communist. This was all to maintain the US image.

During the course of the Cold War and Vietnam, America strived to maintain its status as a superpower and part of this was maintaining its image. America wanted to be seen as an entirely anti-communist country because, as President Johnson said in Source B, “If you start running from the Communists, they may chase you into your own kitchen” This was said in a private conversation with Johnson and so was completely off the record. He was talking about the Domino Theory and this suggests that he was only in Vietnam because of the pressures on America to maintain its image and not lose face. This source is especially useful because it was off the record. This means that it is likely a representation of President Johnson’s true feeling towards the war. Not only  this but it also conflicts heavily with Source A which shows that Johnson’s heart may not have truly been in the war and he was only going to war to maintain an image. However, maintaining an image wasn’t the only pressure Johnson faced to go to war.

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Part of America’s foreign policy along with containment was to maintain their sphere of influence, especially any strongholds they had in Eastern Europe where communism was especially strong. It was “defending South Vietnam from North Vietnamese aggression,” as is said in Source C. Source C is very critical of the war and is partially right when it says “the United States did attack South Vietnam,” but the Source is also very biased as it comes from Noam Chomsky, a well known critic of the war. Despite this the source is very useful because it is not just a criticism ...

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