The Vietnam War and Disillusionment 1964-1980s

Seymour Chwast, 1967The Museum of Modern Art Collection

Accessed via ARTStor

Why does the Vietnam War matter?

• Social protest - younger generation rebels against older

• Helps us to understand the flaws in America’s Cold War vision:

• Willingness to sacrifice democratic principles to fight communism

• Secrecy of the government and military

• Overconfidence in military might - with a lack of awareness of local reality

Ho Chi Minh

INDOCHINA. First Indo-Chinese War (1946-1954). After World War II France reinstalled its colonial government in Indochina (after the Japanese invasion during the war). In 1946 a Vietnamese independence movement, led by communist Ho Chi Minh, started to fight against French troops to gain control of

northern Vietnam. On May 7th, 1954, the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu. The armistice, signed in Geneva, divided Vietnam into a Democratic Republic in the North, under communst rule, and the State of Vietnam in the South, under French rule. INDOCHINA. First Indo-Chinese War. Don Qui

Thon. Vietminh prisoners replace bridges destroyed by a Vietminh attack. May, 1954.©ROBERT CAPA © 2001 By Cornell Capa / Magnum Photos

Indochina (Vietnam)1945-1954

• After WWII, Japanese expelled

• American support for French colonies - 80% of war funding

• 1954 French lose: Eisenhower does not want to commit troops, Vietnam independent

US Commitments in Vietnam

• US $ to create/prop-up South Vietnamese government

• fear of “losing” Vietnam

• “counterinsurgency” strategy

• Ngo Dinh Diem (r. 1955- 1963) Image: Malcolm Browne/AP

Accessed online via Time magazine

Cold War fears and frustrations showed up in elections. Check out this famous

1964 presidential campaign ad:

Lyndon Johnson’s War

• August 1964: Gulf of Tonkin Incident

• National Security Council recommends air strikes and ground troops

• By 1968, 500,000 US troops - brutal war

Source: http://cla.calpoly.edu/~lcall/outline.weeknine.html

Napalm

“Hanoi Hilton”:Hoa Lo Prison in Hanoi

The Antiwar Movement• Cold War consensus

unravels

• Martin Luther King Jr. speaks out in 1967

• Students for a Democratic Society (SDS): 25,000 at Washington, DC protest

• October 1967: 100,000 protesters at Lincoln Memorial

Photo: http://library.sjsu.edu/online-exhibits/vietnam-protest

©Marc Riboud/Magnum Photos

Accessed via ARTStor

1968

• January: Tet Offensive

• April 4: MLK assassinated

• June: Robert F. Kennedy assassinated

• August: Chicago Democratic National Convention, protests and repression - see video clip from the news, next slide

Philip Jones Griffiths/Magnum PhotosHue, South Vietnam, 1968

Nixon and Vietnam

• Vietnamization

• Invasion of Cambodia - 1970

• Protests and violence on campus - 1970 Kent State University killings

• Declining morale among troops

Khe Sanh, Vietnam WarRobert Ellison, George Eastman House Collection

Kent State Shooting, 1970

Nixon and Vietnam

• Waning public support for war

• Press plays role:

• NY Times publishes details of My Lai massacre (1968) in 1969

• NY Times publishes Pentagon Papers 1971

• 1973: War Powers Act

Daniel Ellsberg, outside a federal courthouse in 1971, faced 12 felony counts as a result of his leak of the Pentagon Papers; the charges were dismissed in 1973. Source: nytimes.com

End of the Vietnam War

• 1973: Paris Peace Agreement

• 1975: Vietnam reunified under communist rule

• 58,000 Americans killed; 3-4 million Vietnamese

Watergate and Aftermath

• June 1972: break-in at Democratic Party headquarters in Watergate apt complex

• Washington Post investigation of cover-up: Woodward and Bernstein

• By 1974, Nixon’s involvement in cover-up clear

• Church Committee - revelations re: FBI and CIA

US President Richard NIXON©Rene Burri/Magnum Photos

1974

Throughout all the investigations, Nixon maintains, “I am not a crook.”

Check out this clip from November 1973:

Conclusions

• Vietnam War is total failure: only war U.S. lost

• Leads to crisis of confidence in American government - massive protest

• Liberal upheaval and protest of the 1960s leads to conservative backlash

Nixon and the Cold War

• Warmer relations with USSR/China: detente

• Vietnam’s end: eroding confidence in government, Cold War fight

Source: Ford Library/Museum

1976: Carter vs. Ford

http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1976

• Carter runs as a political outsider

• Ford suffers from ties to Nixon

Carter and Human Rights Politics• US commitment to

protecting human rights

• 1978 cuts off aid to Argentina’s military dictatorship

• lack of emphasis on Cold War thinking

• Camp David Accords (1979)

• BUT unable to fully enact vision

Diplomatic Miracle: Jimmy Carter links Egypt's Sadat and Israel's BeginARTStor Slide Gallery Collection

Carter’s most major defeat was the Iran Hostage Crisis.

Check out this film clip from the movie Argo (2012) for some background context

about Iran’s recent history:

Iran Hostage Crisis

• Partly produced by U.S. Cold War policy

• 52 hostages held for 444 days

• Released on Reagan’s inauguration day

1980 Elections: Reagan

• Carter approval rating: 21%

• Reagan: 1970s conservatism + “white backlash”

Reagan and the Cold War

• USSR as “evil empire”

• Strategic Defense Initiative (1983) - “star wars” technology

• overturn “Vietnam Syndrome”: more aggressive interventions

• US support for “authoritarian” regimes, e.g. El Salvador and Guatemala

The Iran-Contra Affair

• 1984: Congress bans military aid to Contras

• 1985: Reagan secretly authorizes Iran arms sales in exchange for hostages

• CIA director William Casey and Lt. Col. Oliver North, NSC diverted funds for Contras weapons

Reagan and Gorbachev

• glasnost = political openness

• perestroika = economic reform

• reduction in military budget, arms control negotiations

Switzerland. Gorbachev and Reagan Summit. Michael GORBACHEV, Ronald REAGAN, Roxanne RIDGEWAY at the Geneva Summit. Switzerland. Geneva. The summit between Ronald REAGAN, the American President and Mikhail GORBACHEV, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR.The two leaders listening to their interpreters during a press conference. 1985. ©Peter Marlow/Magnum Photos. Accessed via ARTStor.

Conclusions to the Cold War, 1969-End

• Nixon: Presides over end of Vietnam War; plays USSR and China off each other in détente

• Ford: 2.5 years in office, limited accomplishments

• Carter: Human rights ideas; more hard-line after Iran Hostage Crisis

• Reagan: Tough talk, but softens in second term

• Cold War ends 1989-1991