Talk:Vietnam War

This badly needs copyediting. --Larry Sanger 10:02, 15 September 2007 (CDT)

Article

Vietnam War, also known as the II Indochina War or United State War (in Vietnam), was a conflict which lasted from 1956 to 1975. It saw South Vietnam and a multinational task force led by the United States of America with support coming from Republic of Korea, Australia, Philiphinas, New Zeland, Thailand, Taiwan and Spain and fighting and defeated by National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, also known as Viet Cong, and North Vietnam.

Origins

North Vietnam and South Vietnam were parts of French Indochina. In 1957 they won their independence from the French Union after the Indochina War which culminated in the french defeat in the Battle of Diem Bien Phu.

In the late 50's, many new Asian countries won their independence from european colonial powers. At the same time the Cold War began and the United States didn't want to lose influence in the World.

In the 1954 Geneva Conference, both Vietnams summoned a referendum in July of 1956 to determine if the people of Vietnam wanted to reform into one country. Vgo Dinh Diem, president of South Vietnam, knew that to win that referendum would be very difficult because, and this is a key to understand this war for writers like Jonathan Schell, vietnam people wanted to be a one country.

As a result of War World II, when Nazi Germany wasn't contained early in its expansionistic political regime, a political class of citizens in the United States developed that was concerned that history could repeat itself, this time with the Soviet Union and the communism expansion. It was the described as the Domino theory.

Military history

This war had four phases.

From 1956 to 1965 when fighting vitnamits against vietnaminits, but in 1959 died two firsth assesors from United States in Bien Hoa Base.

From 1965 to 1968 when South Vietnam Army (ARNV) and United States won in land and they recover area.

From 1968 to 1973 when the War was very unpopular in United States and in the rest of the World (speciali afther the Battle of Khe Sanh and the Tet Offensive).

From 1973 to 1975 when South Vietnam fought alone against NFL and principally North Vietnam Army (NVA).

Work in Progress

Further comment

Why the article was moved

The article above was moved by request of Richard Jensen, history editor, because it needs considerable work and probably cannot be improved, at least not in its present form. --Larry Sanger 13:10, 2 October 2007 (CDT)

Bibliography: Additions

Herr, Michael. Dispatches (London: Picador, 1977). Isn't this a relevant book? It's one of the great books, anyway. It's also a U.K. edition, because I live there.Jeffrey Scott Bernstein 04:00, 8 October 2007 (CDT)

yes, it's very well done. Richard Jensen 04:20, 8 October 2007 (CDT)

Opening paragraph

Needs and opening paragraph or two, in accordance with CZ:Article Mechanics, that gives the dates, casualty figures, outcome, etc.--basic facts about the war. --Larry Sanger 11:31, 8 October 2007 (CDT)

How about this for a start?

The Vietnam War, a military conflict in which the United States joined forces with the South Vietnamese Army against the Communist North Vietnamese, lasted from 1959 to 1975. The war cost the lives of over 58,000 Americans, with a further 304,000 wounded, and ended with the United States abandoning its goal to keep a divided Vietnam from reunifying under Communist control, which took place in 1975-1976.Jeffrey Scott Bernstein 11:53, 8 October 2007 (CDT)

OK but too US-centric? I'll work on it some more. Richard Jensen 17:08, 8 October 2007 (CDT)

I have several concerns here, which, I suspect, may be coming out of Cold War thinking, where nationalism was rarely considered if there was any Communist involvement. When speaking of the division, should there not be at least some mention of Diem preventing the referendum on reunification, agreed upon in 1954 at the Geneva Conference, and scheduled for 1956? Somewhere in this area, if it doesn't exist, is when the North Vietnamese party decided on a military solution, with the formation of the 559 Transportation Group (i.e., May 1959), which set up the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

"Vietnam War" isn't the greatest of names, but "Second Indochina War" isn't greatly better. Again, come back to Cold War policy, where the U.S. supported the restoral of French colonial authority after the Japanese mission, ironically when Ho was asking the OSS mission under MAJ Archimedes Patti for a copy of the U.S. Declaration of Independence to use as a model for declaring Vietnamese independence. See Archimedes L.A. Patti, Why Viet Nam?: Prelude to America's albatross, http://www.amazon.com/Why-Viet-Nam-Americas-albatross/dp/0520041569

"the United States abandoning its goals" -- this needs to be very carefully sourced, and can be challenged. For example, the most telling statement of goals inside the Johnson Administration was the memo from Assistant Secretary of Defense (International Security Affairs) McNaughton to SecDef McNamara, http://vietnam.vassar.edu/ladrang03.html Also see COL H.R. McMaster's book, Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam http://www.amazon.com/Dereliction-Duty-Johnson-McNamara-Vietnam/dp/0060929081/ref=sr_1_1/105-4759583-4530845?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1185120160&sr=1-1

...said Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) (Please sign your talk page posts by simply adding four tildes, ~~~~.)

the 1956 elections were pretty much a red herring, and not very relevant to the military history. Neither North nor South wanted them--neither could tolerate a free election in their own territory. Richard Jensen 17:23, 12 May 2008 (CDT)

Diem certainly did not, although I've seen various analyses of Ho's position. I'm not suggesting the elections would have been terribly honest had they been held, but, if they were held, I suspect Ho would have won. He would have won from a combination of ruthlessness, ideology, but also being perceived as a Vietnamese nationalist, where Diem was perceived as a Catholic mandarin.

You make a point, though, that I think is relevant. The fact that neither side wanted a free election does not speak well to them as states that would not have had an insurgency. The North indeed was a police state, but it was more homogeneous a state than the South. I'm not suggesting a strict Confucian ethos, but there was a clear authority in the North. In the South, even after the VNQDD and KMT were insignificant, there still was Buddhist vs. Catholic, Hoa Hao, Cao Dai, mountain people vs. lowlanders, and, in general, no sense of national identity.

I compliment you, Sir, in the elegance of bringing the Red Herring Scare into a discussion in which Communism was a factor. Perhaps in another universe, Joe McCarthy was a fishmonger. It was with some metaphorical shock when I confronted the array of colors of herring at a Scandinavian buffet, there presumably being some political allegory therein. :-)

...said Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) (Please sign your talk page posts by simply adding four tildes, ~~~~.)

well to nibble a bit more: the 1956 election topic was raised by antiwar Americans years later to argue that NVN was really democratic because it would have won an election that was never held. The French agreed to this election, then left. SVN and the US rejected the Geneva accords, of course. Richard Jensen 03:11, 13 May 2008 (CDT)

I'd never dream of saying either Diem or Ho were democrats, which has never been a prerequisite for winning elections. I'm from New Jersey, where the motto was "vote early and often." NVN would have won, as Ho, at the least, tried to project an image of being of the people. Diem had a chance of winning only if Catholic loyalists voted. Howard C. Berkowitz 20:42, 30 June 2008 (CDT)

the point is that Communism would collapse if it allowed free elections, so they were not allowed. Richard Jensen 20:52, 30 June 2008 (CDT)

I have no doubt that Ho would have never permitted a second election had he won the first, but Communism in 1956 would no more have collapsed than did that of the Soviet Union. Ho would have made use of elections; Diem didn't want them, because he would certainly have lost the first and only election. Neither had clean hands. Howard C. Berkowitz 20:59, 30 June 2008 (CDT)

to allow democracy means to give up total rule by the party. No FIRST election is possible. Single elections did indeed overthrow Communism in Poland, USSR and Nicaragua (years later of course). Ho would like elections in the South, but not the North. Vice versa for Diem. The French, who inserted those terms, were long gone. Richard Jensen 21:20, 30 June 2008 (CDT)

Holding elections is not equivalent to allowing democracy

Your words above, I believe, were:

the 1956 election topic was raised by antiwar Americans years later to argue that NVN was really democratic because it would have won an election that was never held.

I don't see that saying, anywhere, that Ho would permit democracy, nor did I say that. What I did say, as did many other students of the period, is that Ho had the popularity to win an election over Diem.

Ho was capable of working in coalitions, and did so in the late 40s with the VNQDD, Vietnamese KMT, Cao Dai, etc. I do not disagree that his eventual goal, at which he'd probably succeeed, was to put his Lao Dong Party in control. He was, in no way, a democrat.

For tactical reasons, however, he had every reason to participate in elections were they held in 1956. Diem's 1955 or so election were hardly an exercise in Jeffersonian democracy with the integrity of the ballot held sacred.

The U.S. wanted an anticommunist client in the fifties; whether it was democratic was irrelevant to John Foster Dulles. Why should Southeast Asia be different than South America?

My personal opinion, which I know I cannot prove, is that had Ho been elected, he would have built a nationalistic Communist state, somewhat analogous to Yugoslavia under Tito. On Ho's death, however, while Vietnam certainly had its ethnic conflicts, they were not remotely on the scale of those in the Balkans, and I suspect Vietnam, much like other former Soviet clients, would move to a form of culturally appropriate democracy. Can't know, of course, and no, I don't think of kindly Uncle Ho, or even Nguyen Ai Quoc. Howard C. Berkowitz 21:56, 30 June 2008 (CDT)

Howard C. Berkowitz 21:56, 30 June 2008 (CDT)

Weaknesses of South Vietnam?

Excuse me, where is the source for this section. It sounds as if, the person that wrote this part, is trying to avoid the fact that the US were responsible for betraying the South Vietnamese government after the Paris Peace Accord, and not supplying them with ammunition and military aid . I know ARVN officers personally, and they literally ran out of bullets on the frontline. Why would the ARVN sell (corruption) ammunition, when their lives depended on it. In fact, how many South Vietnamese soldiers died in the war? Over 1 million. Vietnamese people lacked Patriotism?! That is obsurd. The national anthem's lyrics alone would contest that. Third-world? South Vietnam was NOT third-world. during that time. I've got photos to prove this fact. I'm deleting this section. Ann Hoang 22:14, 9 March 2008 (CDT)

We don't delete sections. If you have some documented evidence otherwise let's please ADD it. Richard Jensen 22:36, 9 March 2008 (CDT)

You may want to read this: http://www.vietamericanvets.com/Page-Records-HeroicAllies.htm. I will soon change the article to reflect this point of view, let me know if there are any objections. Ann Hoang 06:55, 1 May 2008 (CDT)

yes there are objections indeed. The article blames the US --wjen in fact the US had left Vietnam. The link at http://www.vietamericanvets.com/Page-Records-HeroicAllies.htm assumes the Saigon government was totally incompetent--Saigon refused to buy batterioes, Saigon refused to allow planes be cannibalized for spare parts. Saigon waited for American B-52 bombers instead of sending up its own planes. The article falsely assumes that the North was getting vast subsidies. It never tells what Saigon did with the billions of dollars of US aid it received. It says that only one or two brave units performed well. It does not even mention the vast air force the south had. Anyone serious about the South Vietnamese military has to do better and there are many books and articles listed at Vietnam War Bibliography. Richard Jensen 17:25, 1 May 2008 (CDT)

Your Bibliography is missing Robert K. Brigham's book http://www.amazon.com/ARVN-Death-Vietnamese-Modern-Studies/dp/0700614338. Ann Hoang 07:34, 6 May 2008 (CDT)

thanks for catching that--I saw it at the Society for Military History meeting last year and meant to include it.Richard Jensen 08:36, 6 May 2008 (CDT)

Bibliography

people looking for online sources might want to start with Vietnam War Bibliography by Richard Jensen Richard Jensen 22:45, 9 March 2008 (CDT)

Baffling, in Washington and elsewhere

I will reiterate that the Johnson Administration leadership was baffled. Remember that serious U.S. involvement in the region began in 1959-1961 in Laos, and I suspect Simons and Heintges had a thought or two. They were in regular communications with people like Bernard Fall.

While I can't speak from personal knowledge until 1966 or so, the Pentagon Papers do give indications that there were people, outside top circles, that certainly understood some of the dynamics in the country. Lansdale was shunted aside, but Roger Hilsman, with WWII guerilla experience, did have some insights. Unfortunately, he was too low in the food chain.

By 1966, I was working with first the Center for Research in Social Systems at American University, and then the Human Resources Research Organization at George Washington University. CRESS (formerly the Special Operations Research Office) was doing some quite insightful studies of attitudes in the countryside; I watched analyses going back and forth to the Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg. Unfortunately, things that might be clear to a United States Army Special Forces major seemed to disappear somewhere before reaching McNamara's offices in Pentagon room 3E880. CIA was also producing serious analysis.

At HumRRO, while some of the research tools were awkward, our staff was sending Vietnamese-speaking analysts into villages. The MACV weekly Lessons Learned series spread useful knowledge within the command, but not above it, or apparently even in its senior headquarters.

Oh -- between the two jobs, I worked on tactical sensors and remote sensors for the McNamara line. The "people sniffer" actually worked, although it did result in quite a few water buffalo being bombed. The best sensor that came out of the Night Vision Laboratory, however, was rejected. It had a species of bedbug, exquisitely sensitive to human scent, glued to a microphone that would be dropped over the Ho Chi Minh trail. When porters passed, the excited bedbug would set off a transmitter, and call down bombs on its own position...brave bedbug. A general rejected the idea of using them, because he told the NWL that he refused to put any veteran in the position of answering "what did you do in the war, daddy" with "I was a bedbug wrangler."

McNamara and Johnson each brought their unique talents at bafflement to the situation. McNamara was convinced that the Lao Dong Party thought just as did his Harvard colleagues, and would realize, from a cost-effectiveness standpoint, they were beaten. He also developed a "signaling" system, "sending the message" that when the North Vietnamese set up S-75 Dvina/SA-2 GUIDELINE surface-to-air missile batteries, that the U.S. refrained from bombing the batteries "clearly" sent a message to the Politburo that it should reciprocate the retraint by not firing the missiles. Postwar interviews indicated that this had not even occurred to the North Vietnamese.

Johnson, meanwhile, chose to micromanage the bombing campaigns at his Tuesday lunches, which had no Air Force or Navy air warfare people in attendance, and only occasionally Max Taylor, a conventional land commander. No one there had any unconventional warfare experience, but they still seemed to feel qualified to tell whether a 500 or 750 pound bomb should be dropped on a given target. Given this hubris, given Johnson's ego, and given his Senate-bred belief everything was negotiable, why should it have been expected the Administration would make rational decisions.

Data were there; some passed across my desk. Unfortunately, it either never got to Robert Strange McNamara, or was rejected out of hand. How dare mere soldiers and area specialists tell statisticians, lawyers, and economists how things worked?

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";

But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,

The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,

O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Howard C. Berkowitz 20:38, 30 June 2008 (CDT)

yes but the army, navy, air force, CIA and Congress were also baffled, as was RAND and Harvard, so suggesting that it was only McNamara and LBJ is not true. The Kennedy's were baffled too, I might add, along with Ike. But they all agreed on containing Communist expansion--the alternatives were unthinkable at the time. Once containment was dropped by Nixon, entirely new approaches opened up (ie US-China and US-USSR deals squeezing out the North)Richard Jensen 21:25, 30 June 2008 (CDT)

Sorry, but I was seeing, at the time, Army Special Forces and other groups, military and intelligence. Aside from USAJFKSWC, there was good stuff coming out of 5SFG and Marine CAP. I didn't see MACV-SOG at the time, but that and other SACSA material that's come out shows some reasonability. As far as the Air Force, Edwin Lansdale immediately comes to mind, but I can also dig up some references online.

Where the Kennedys may themselves have been confused, McNamara could confuse at intercontinental ranges. LBJ preferred to deliver up-close-and-personal confusion, as when commanding staff audiences from the Presidential Porcelain Throne. Howard C. Berkowitz 21:45, 30 June 2008 (CDT)

"being there" doesn't quite do the job when we are talking about the highest levels. The point is that the chiefs of staff were all pretty baffled, as the Pentagon Papers show. CZ must avoid blaming everything on McNamara. The line of argument in the article is that the US was trapped because of multiple conflicting goals. Richard Jensen

Being there is relevant to knowing what was in the system. I agree completely that there were multiple goals. H.R. McMaster's interviews with Army Chief of Staff Harold Johnson are especially insightful -- Harold Johnson thought, at the time, he could do more from the inside, but, afterwards, regretted not resigning in protest. There was, indeed, a lot of JCS politics. Navy and Air Force weren't heavily involved, but the Marines, again, pushed from the inside.

There's probably better documentation, in the Pentagon Papers, of information about realities being rejected by the Office of the Secretary of Defense than any other key power center. CIA played political games but also made some good information available -- Adams' War of Numbers is a good source on this. MACV, unfortunately, was rather brilliant at self-delusion under Westmoreland; a fascinating what-if is if Abrams had gotten command earlier.

I would never blame everything on McNamara; I merely find him the greatest hypocrite and epitome of hubris. Johnson bears huge guilt, although he's more a figure out of classic tragedy when one looks at his domestic agenda. Rusk and McGeorge Bundy didn't exactly distinguish themselves. Taylor wanted every war to fit his model in The Uncertain Trumpet. Indeed, the only person that occasionally attended the Tuesday lunches and brought in any reality was George Ball. Howard C. Berkowitz 22:06, 30 June 2008 (CDT)

RJ draft next sections, for comment before insertion

Ground war 1965-68

Westmoreland's tactics worked. With the US increasing the pace of search and destroy (and the ARVN avoiding combat), the NLF was systematically pushed back. "Search and Destroy" gave way after 1968 to new tactics. As the Viet Cong dispersed into smaller and smaller units, so too did the US forces, until they were running platoon and even squad operations that blanketed far more of the countryside, chasing the fragmented enemy back into remote, uninhabited areas or out of SVN all together. Not only low-level NLF sympathizers but even Viet Cong officers and NLF political cadres started to surrender, accepting the generous resettlement terms offered by the GVN. At the end of 1964, only 42% of the South Vietnamese people lived in cities or villages that were securely under GVN control. (20% were in villages controlled by the NLF, and 37% were in contested zones.) At the end of 1967, 67% of the population was "secure," and only a few remote villages with less than 2% of the population were still ruled by the NLF. Hanoi seemed to believe that the rugged Central Highlands region, which contained a third of the area but only 7% of SVN's people, would make a good base for guerrilla warfare. The US Army "Special Forces" ("Green Berets") contested this strategy by systematically arming the Montagnard tribesmen against the Communists.

In 1967, the Saigon political scene stabilized, as the Buddhist and student protesters ran out of steam and General Nguyen Van Thieu, a competent, fiercely anti-Communist Catholic, became President. The NLF failed to disrupt the national legislative election of 1966, or the presidential elections of 1967, which consolidated Thieu-ARVN control over GVN. Thieu failed to eliminate the systematic politicization, corruption, time-serving and favoritism in the ARVN. Nervous about spies in ARVN, the MACV kept it at arms length and never exercised direct control. ARVN and MACV operated two different wars. MACV advisors did work closely with 900,000 local GVN officials in a well-organized pacification program called CORDS (Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development.) It stressed technical aid, local self government, and land distribution to peasant farmers. A majority of tenant farmers received title to their own land in one of the most successful transfer projects in any nation. On the other hand, hundreds of thousands of peasants entered squalid refugee camps when CORDS moved them out of villages that could not be protected. In the Phoenix Program (part of CORDS with a strong CIA component) GVN police identified and arrested (and sometimes killed) the NLF secret police agents engaged in assassination.

The more the American soldiers worked in the hamlets, the more they came to despise the corruption, inefficiency and even cowardice of GVN and ARVN. The basic problem was that despite the decline of the NLF, the GVN still failed to pick up popular support. Most peasants, refugees and townfolk remained alienated and skeptical. The superior motivation of the enemy troubled the Americans (especially in contrast with South Koreans, who fought fiercely for their independence.) "Why can't our Vietnamese do as well as Ho's?" Soldiers resented the peasants ("gooks") who seemed sullen, unappreciative, unpatriotic and untrustworthy. The Viet Cong resorted more and more to booby-traps that (during the whole war) killed about 4,000 Americans and injured perhaps 30,000 (and killed or injured many thousands of peasants.) It became more and more likely that after an ambush or boobytrap angry GIs would take out their frustrations against the nearest "gooks." MACV did not appreciate the danger that atrocities might be committed by Americans. In March 1968, just after the Tet offensive, one Army company massacred several hundred women and children at the hamlet of My Lai. The company captain was acquitted but platoon commander Lt. William Calley (a junior college dropout who was rushed through OCS) was sentenced to life imprisonment by a 1971 court martial. He was released in 1975. The case became a focus of national guilt and self-doubt, with antiwar leaders alleging there were many atrocities that had been successfully covered up.

Tet 1968

The climactic moment of the war came in February 1968 during the truce usually observed during the "Tet" holiday season. Hanoi made an all-out bid for victory, and was decisively defeated. It was in desperate shape, defeated on the battlefields and pushed out of most of the villages it once controlled. Rolling Thunder had destroyed dreams of socialist industrialization in the North and ruined practically the entire economy above the level of the rice paddies. The "tail" of the PAVN had grown as its teeth receded, for the bombing had made resupply extraordinarily difficult. The solution was one last all-out effort, aimed especially at a new target, the GVN bureaus and ARVN complexes in the cities. The Politburo theorized that the GVN was a hollow shell held together only by American firepower. They truly believed the proletariat in the cities would rise up and throw off the puppets once the tocsin was sounded; indeed, the very legitimacy of their enterprise hinged on the premise that the people of South Vietnam hated their government and really wanted Communist control. As a preliminary diversion, PAVN sent two of its divisions to surround an isolated Marine outpost at Khe Sanh, near the border. Johnson personally took control of the defense. When the media back home warned darkly of another disaster like Dien Bien Phu, LBJ made his generals swear they would never surrender Khe Sanh. They committed 5% of their ground strength to the outpost (about 6,000 men) and held another 15-20% in reserve just in case. The enemy was blasted with 22,000 airstrikes and massive artillery bombardments. When the siege was lifted, the Marines had lost 205 killed, the PAVN probably 10,000.

Hoping that Khe Sanh had tied down Westmoreland, the PAVN and Viet Cong struck on January 31, throwing 100,000 regular and militia troops against 36 of 44 provincial capitals and 5 of 6 major cities. They avoided American strongholds and targeted GVN government offices and ARVN installations. The ARVN recoiled in shock, then fought bravely and fiercely. American television viewers watched in utter disbelief as MPs fought to recapture the courtyard of the embassy in Saigon, which had been seized by 15 Viet Cong sappers. The harshest fighting came in the old imperial capital of Hue. The city fell to the PAVN, which immediately set out to identify and execute thousands of government supporters among the civilian population. The allies fought back fiercely, with all the firepower at their command (including the big guns of naval ships in the harbor). House to house fighting recaptured Hue on February 24. Five thousand enemy bodies were recovered (the US lost 216 dead, and ARVN 384). Nationwide, the enemy lost tens of thousands killed, and many more who were wounded or totally demoralized. US lost 1,100 dead, ARVN 2,300. The people of South Vietnam did not rise up; the NLF tocsin fell on deaf ears. However, the pacification program temporarily collapsed in half the country, and a half million more people became refugees. Despite the enormous damage done to the GVN at all levels, the NLF was in even worse shape, and it never recovered. Tet was designed to demonstrate its popularity and legitimacy, and it had failed totally. More than half the Communist soldiers in the South were killed in 1968; many others deserted to the GVN. B-52 carpet bombing in the "Iron Triangle" near Saigon destroyed the vast underground tunnel complex and terrorized the surviving Viet Cong. By sending its main force into the cities during Tet, the NLF left a vacuum in the countryside that GVN and US pacification agents could fill. By the end of 1968 GVN had pulled itself together and restored its authority in every province. Indeed, for the first time GVN found itself in control of more than 90% of the population. "The Tet objectives were beyond our strength," concluded Tran Van Tra, the commander of Vietcong forces in the South. "They were based on the subjective desires of the people who made the plan. Hence our losses were large, in material and manpower, and we were not able to retain the gains we had already made." [draft by Richard Jensen 22:11, 30 June 2008 (CDT)]