Vietnam War Class Documents

US History

Grants Pass High School | Social Studies Department

Vietnamese Declaration of Independence, 1945

"All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free.

The Declaration of the French Revolution made in 1791 on the Rights of Man and the Citizen also states: "All men are born free and with equal rights, and must always remain free and have equal rights."

Those are undeniable truths.

Nevertheless, for more than eighty years, the French imperialists, abusing the standard of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, have violated our Fatherland and oppressed our fellowcitizens. They have acted contrary to the ideals of humanity and justice.

In the field of politics, they have deprived our people of every democratic liberty.

They have enforced inhuman laws; they have set up three distinct political regimes in the North, the Center, and the South of Vietnam in order to wreck our national unity and prevent our people from being united.

They have built more prisons than schools. They have mercilessly slain our patriots; they have drowned our uprisings in rivers of blood.

They have fettered public opinion; they have practised obscurantism against our people.

To weaken our race they have forced us to use opium and alcohol.

In the field of economics, they have fleeced us to the backbone, impoverished our people, and devastated our land.

They have robbed us of our rice fields, our mines, our forests, and our raw materials. They have monopolized the issuing of banknotes and the export trade.

They have invented numerous unjustifiable taxes and reduced our people, especially our peasantry, to a state of extreme poverty.

They have hampered the prospering of our national bourgeoisie; they have mercilessly exploited our workers.

In the autumn of 1940, when the Japanese Fascists violated Indochina's territory to establish new bases in their fight against the Allies, the French imperialists went down on their bended knees and handed over our country to them.

Thus, from that date, our people were subjected to the double yoke of the French and the Japanese. Their sufferings and miseries increased. The result was that from the end of last year to the beginning of this year, from Quang Tri province to the North of Vietnam, more than two million of our fellow citizens died from

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starvation. On March 9, the French troops were disarmed by the Japanese. The French colonialists either fled or surrendered showing that not only were they incapable of "protecting" us, but that, in the span of five years, they had twice sold our country to the Japanese.

On several occasions before March 9, the Vietminh League urged the French to ally themselves with it against the Japanese. Instead of agreeing to this proposal, the French colonialists so intensified their terrorist activities against the Vietminh members that before fleeing they massacred a great number of our political prisoners detained at Yen Bay and Caobang.

Notwithstanding all this, our fellowcitizens have always manifested toward the French a tolerant and humane attitude. Even after the Japanese putsch of March 1945, the Vietminh League helped many Frenchmen to cross the frontier, rescued some of them from Japanese jails, and protected French lives and property.

From the autumn of 1940, our country had in fact ceased to be a French colony and had become a Japanese possession.

After the Japanese had surrendered to the Allies, our whole people rose to regain our national sovereignty and to found the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

The truth is that we have wrested our independence from the Japanese and not from the French.

The French have fled, the Japanese have capitulated, Emperor Bao Dai has abdicated. Our people have broken the chains which for nearly a century have fettered them and have won independence for the Fatherland. Our people at the same time have overthrown the monarchic regime that has reigned supreme for dozens of centuries. In its place has been established the present Democratic Republic.

For these reasons, we, members of the Provisional Government, representing the whole Vietnamese people, declare that from now on we break off all relations of a colonial character with France; we repeal all the international obligation that France has so far subscribed to on behalf of Vietnam and we abolish all the special rights the French have unlawfully acquired in our Fatherland.

The whole Vietnamese people, animated by a common purpose, are determined to fight to the bitter end against any attempt by the French colonialists to reconquer their country.

We are convinced that the Allied nations, which at Tehran and San Francisco have acknowledged the principles of self-determination and equality of nations, will not refuse to acknowledge the independence of Vietnam.

A people who have courageously opposed French domination for more than eight years, a people who have fought side by side with the Allies against the Fascists during these last years, such a people must be free and independent.

For these reasons, we, members of the Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, solemnly declare to the world that Vietnam has the right to be a free and independent country-and in fact is so already. The entire Vietnamese people are determined to mobilize all their physical and mental strength, to sacrifice their lives and property in order to safeguard their independence and liberty.

Ho Chi Minh, "Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Viemam, " Selected Writings (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1977), pp. 5356. 

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Gulf of Tonkin

IntroductionThe Vietnam War was fought between North Vietnam (supported by the Soviet Union, China and other communist allies) and the government of South Vietnam (supported by the United States and other anti-communist allies). 

The Viet Cong (also known as the National Liberation Front, or NLF), a lightly armed South Vietnamese communist front directed by the North, fought a guerrilla war against anti-communist forces in the region.

The People's Army of Vietnam (a.k.a. the North Vietnamese Army) engaged in a more conventional war, at times committing large units into battle. As the war wore on, the part of the Viet Cong in the fighting decreased as the role of the NVA grew.

U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery, and airstrikes. In the course of the war, the U.S. conducted a large-scale strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam, and over time the North Vietnamese airspace became the most heavily defended airspace of any in the world.

The U.S. government viewed American involvement in the war as a way to prevent a Communist takeover of South Vietnam. This was part of a wider containment strategy, with the stated aim of stopping the spread of communism.

According to the U.S. domino theory, if one state went Communist, other states in the region would follow and U.S. policy thus held that accepting the spread of Communist rule across all of Vietnam was unacceptable. The North Vietnamese government and the Viet Cong were fighting to reunify Vietnam under communist rule. They viewed the conflict as a colonial war, fought initially against forces from France and then America, as France was backed by the U.S., and later against South Vietnam, which it regarded as a U.S. puppet state. 

Gulf of Tonkin IncidentThe Gulf of Tonkin Incident is the name given to two separate confrontations involving North Vietnam and the United States in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. On August 2, 1964, the destroyer USS Maddox engaged three North Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats. A sea battle resulted. One US aircraft was damaged, three North Vietnamese torpedo boats were damaged, and four North Vietnamese sailors were killed and six were wounded; there were no U.S. casualties.

It was originally claimed by the National Security Agency that the second Tonkin Gulf incident occurred on August 4, 1964, as another sea battle, but instead may have involved "Tonkin Ghosts" (false radar images) and not actual NVN torpedo boat attacks.

The outcome of these two incidents was the passage by Congress of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which granted President Lyndon B. Johnson the authority to assist any Southeast Asian country whose government was considered to be jeopardized by "communist aggression." The resolution served as Johnson's legal justification for deploying U.S. conventional forces and the commencement of open warfare against North Vietnam.

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Whereas the United States is assisting the peoples of southeast Asia to protest their freedom and has no territorial, military or political ambitions in that area, but desires only that these people should be left in peace to work out their destinies in their own way: Now, therefore be it

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Congress approves and supports the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.

Section 2. The United States regards as vital to its national interest and to world peace the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia. Consonant with the Constitution of the United States and the Charter of the United Nations and in accordance with its obligations under the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, the United States is, therefore, prepared, as the President determines, to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defense of its freedom.

Section 3. This resolution shall expire when the President shall determine that the peace and security of the area is reasonably assured by international conditions created by action of the United Nations or otherwise, except that it may be terminated earlier by concurrent resolution of the Congress.

Transcript of Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964)

Eighty-eighth Congress of the United States of AmericaAT THE SECOND SESSION

Begun and held at the City of Washington on Tuesday, the seventh day of January, one thousand nine hundred and sixty-four

Joint ResolutionTo promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia.

Whereas naval units of the Communist regime in Vietnam, in violation of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and of international law, have deliberately and repeatedly attacked United Stated naval vessels lawfully present in international waters, and have thereby created a serious threat to international peace; and

Whereas these attackers are part of deliberate and systematic campaign of aggression that the Communist regime in North Vietnam has been waging against its neighbors and the nations joined with them in the collective defense of their freedom; and

Escalation in VietnamOperation Rolling Thunder The United States conducted these bombing raids on North Vietnam. They happened on a near continuous basis for three years. In 1965 there were 25,000 bombing raids, escalating to 108,000 bombing raids in 1967. By 1967 the United States had dropped more bombs on Vietnam than the Allies had dropped during all of WWII.

War in the JungleThe United States used the Search and Destroy method to find opposition forces. The Vietcong (VC) used hit-and-run and ambush style tactics which utilized their knowledge of the jungle terrain. The VC were also able to blend into the general population and attack in cities and the countryside. In addition, the VC used booby traps and landmines.

Vietcong TunnelsThe Vietcong had created an elaborate system of tunnels that allowed them to launch surprise attacks on American soldiers and then disappear quickly. They began building these tunnels during French occupation and increased their tunnel systems once the US began Operation Rolling Thunder. There were more than 30,000 miles of tunnels throughout Vietnam and they were often connected to villages which became home to guerilla fighters. Inside the tunnels they would sleep, store weapons, build landmines and tend to their wounded.

TacticsIn an attempt to find VC tunnels and uncover the Ho Chi Minh trail, the US dropped napalm to set fire to the jungle. In addition, napalm was used in flamethrowers for US and South Vietnamese ground forces. It was quickly learned that using these flamethrowers could consume all of the oxygen in a bunker which resulted in the death of those hiding in the bunker.

Agent Orange was a powerful herbicide and defoliant that was sprayed in the jungles of Vietnam. The purpose of Agent Orange was to kills the leaves and foliage, allowing the US to better identify where the tunnels and bunkers were located. Nearly 13 million gallons of Agent Orange was used during the war and it lefts many villages in ruins. (The top photo shows the Mangrove forest before 1965, the bottom photo shows the same forest after the spraying of Agent Orange.) In addition to napalm and Agent Orange, the US military conducted Search and Destroy missions that rooted out suspected VC soldiers, in the process many villagers were uprooted and villages were burned and livestock was killed.

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Ho Chi Minh TrailThe Ho Chi Minh Trail was not just one trail but a series of trails, named after North Vietnamese leader, Ho Chi Minh. The Trail was used by the North Vietnamese as a route for its troops to get into the South. They also used the trail as a supply route – for weapons, food and equipment. The Ho Chi Minh Trail ran along the Laos/Cambodia and Vietnam borders and was dominated by jungles. In total the ‘trail’ was about 600 miles in length and consisted of many parts. The ‘trail’ consisted of dummy routes that served the only purpose of confusing the Americans but was, in places, 50 miles wide. It is thought that up to 40,000 people were used to keep the route open. The natural environment gave the trail excellent cover as the jungle could provide as much as three canopies of tree cover, which disguised what was going on at ground level. The American response to this was to use defoliants – the most famous being Agent Orange – to kill off the greenery that gave cover to those using the trail. However, while large areas of jungle were effectively killed off, the task was too great and the Ho Chi Minh Trail was used for the duration of the war against the Americans in South Vietnam. One way for the Americans to counter the Ho Chi Minh Trail was to build large bases near to it – Khe Sanh was one of these. From these large bases patrols were sent out in an effort to intercept anyone using the route. Regardless of this, it does seem that the task was simply too great for the Americans. Whereas the trail was based on deception and fluidity, the military bases built by the US were static. Therefore, once patrols left these bases they were by themselves. While they could be supported by air, there would always be a time delay between combat on the ground and the arrival of air support. By the very nature of guerrilla warfare, this gave the North Vietnamese the advantage as they had the ability to disappear into the jungle.

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Protests and Music of Vietnam

Vietnam War Protests• As the number of “boots on the ground” increased in Vietnam, so did the casualties and the number

of protests against the war in the United States. These protests took place across the nation at government building sites, and especially on college and university campuses.

Invasion of Cambodia• On April 30, 1972, President Richard Nixon announced that the United States was conducting

military operations in Cambodia. The war that was supposed to be de-escalating was now increasing in scope. Students throughout the U.S. took to their campuses to protest the action.

Protests in Kent, Ohio• On May 1 protests broke out on the campus of Kent State University. Around midnight the protests

and violence spread to downtown Kent. On May 2 the protests continued, and the ROTC building on campus was burned down. More protests were planned for Monday May 4th.

May 4, 1970• What happened in Kent, Ohio on May 4 will be remembered in this country forever. Student

protestors clashed with Ohio National Guard troops, and as a result 4 students were killed.

The Numbers from the Riots at Kent State• May 4, 1970• 4 students were killed• 13 students were wounded, 1 was permanently paralyzed• 67 shots were fired in 13 seconds

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) American student organization that flourished in the mid-to-late 1960s and was known for its

activism against the Vietnam War. SDS, founded in 1959, grew slowly until the escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam (1965). SDS organized a national march on Washington, D.C., in April 1965, and, from about that period,

SDS grew increasingly militant, especially about issues relating to the war, such as the drafting of students.

Tactics included the occupation of university and college administration buildings on campuses across the country.

Increasing divisions within the ranks of SDS and the winding down of the Vietnam War were but two of the reasons for the dissolution of SDS. By the mid-1970s the organization was defunct.

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