In what ways did the United States government manipulate the Gulf of Tonkin Incident to gain public support for intervention in Vietnam?
Jorge Hernandez
002320-061
John A. Ferguson High School
May 2009
Word Count: 1,714
Table of Contents
A. Plan of Investigation………………………………………………………………….2
B. Summary of Evidence………………………………………………………………...2
C. Evaluation of Sources………………………………………………………………...4
D. Analysis………………………………………………………………………………..5
E. Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….….7
F. List of Sources………………………………………………………………………....8
A. Plan of Investigation
In what ways did the United States government manipulate the Gulf of Tonkin Incident to gain public support for intervention in Vietnam? All of the information used on this paper will come from two books: The Vietnam War: A History in Documents and Our Vietnam: The War 1954-1975. The Vietnam War: A History in Documents is my only primary source since it contains a plethora amount of documents and articles written during and some time after the war. Our Vietnam: The War 1954-1975 is a secondary source; it has many bias views of what occurred during the war and will be handled as such. By examining these two sources, a conclusion on whether the US government manipulated the details of the Tonkin Incident to gain public support for intervene in the Vietnam War shall be created.
B. Summary of Evidence
The Vietnam War was a major conflict between North Vietnam and South Vietnam for struggle of power. The actual war was centered around Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia and lasted from 1959-1975. North Vietnam had become a communist territory, in which wanted to invade and conquer South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The North Vietnamese had the support of Viet Cong (a light-armed South Vietnamese insurgency), Khmer Rogue (the communist ruling party of Cambodia), Pathet Lao (a communist and nationalist movement in Laos), People’s Republic of China, the Soviet Union, and North Korea. The South Vietnamese had the support of the United States, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, New Zealand, Khmer Republic (the Republican party of Cambodia), Thailand, and the Kingdom of Laos. Well, it all started back in 1950 when the communists nations led by China recognized Vietnam was a communist state since their government circled around the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The following month, non-communist nations recognized the State of Vietnam led by Bao Dai. The United States viewed the outbreak of the Korean War as an example of communist expansion directed by Kremlin. Because of the communist take over of China in 1949, the Vietminh, a large group of people who wanted to separate Vietnam from France, was revived. With the help of China, the Vietminh had grown from a guerilla force into an actual army, which started to fight off the French. In September, the United States created the Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) to help with French aids and requests and to train Vietnamese soldiers. Seeing that the US was helping the French, China and the Soviet Union began to support the Vietminh, supplying money, food, and military equipment, just as the US was doing. Overall, the US had spent $1 billion and was covering 80% of the war cost. The Battle of Dien Bien Phu marked the moment in which the French were defeated and the Vietminh invaded Vietnam, thus granting independence for Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Under the terms of the Geneva Convention, civilians of the temporarily partitioned state of Vietnam had the freedom to move along North and South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese president blocked all elections that would have been held because of the fear of a communist takeover. Over one million North Vietnamese civilians had fled to the south, in fear of communist executions, and an additional two million more would have fled if they had not been stopped by the Vietminh. At this time, the Vietminh had created a socialist state, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Around this occurrence, John F. Kennedy won the US election of 1960. While ignoring all warnings made by Eisenhower about Laos and Vietnam, Kennedy pledged “I will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardships, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty”. The Kennedy administration was committed to the Cold War foreign policy kept by the Eisenhower and Truman administrations. While US troops were being deployed over to Korea, Kennedy had three major crisis in his hands: the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, the construction of the Berlin Wall, and the negotiated settlement between Laos and Pathet Lao. If he were to fail in gaining control and stopping the communist movement, the credibility of the US would decrease immensely. Kennedy did not want to deploy any soldiers to Vietnam without a valid reason and stated that “Now we have a problem making our power credible and Vietnam looks like this place”. When Lyndon B. Johnson took presidency, the Tonkin Incident occurred, in which the destroyer USS Maddox, was attacked in two different engagements, thus granting Johnson to intervene in the Vietnam War.
