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First Indochina War
The conflict pitted a range of forces, including the French Union's French Far East Expeditionary Corps, led by France and supported by Bảo Đại's Vietnamese National Army against the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh and the People's Army of Vietnam led by Vo Nguyen Giap. Most of the fighting took place in Tonkin in northern Vietnam, although the conflict engulfed the entire country and also extended into the neighboring French Indochina protectorates of Laos and Cambodia. -
The New Look
The New Look was the name given to the national security policy of the United States during the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It reflected Eisenhower's concern for balancing the Cold War military commitments of the United States with the nation's financial resources. The policy emphasized reliance on strategic nuclear weapons to deter potential threats, both conventional and nuclear, from the Eastern Bloc of nations headed by the Soviet Union. -
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Geneva Conference
The Geneva Conference was a conference among several nations that took place in Geneva, Switzerland from April 26 – July 20, 1954. It was intended to settle outstanding issues resulting from the Korean War and the First Indochina War. -
The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization
The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was an international organization for collective defense in Southeast Asia created by the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, or Manila Pact, signed in September 1954 in Manila, Philippines.
Primarily created to block further communist gains in Southeast Asia, SEATO is generally considered a failure because internal conflict and dispute hindered general use of the SEATO military. -
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
The Gulf of Tonkin resolution allowed Johnson to conduct operations in South Vietnam, but Johnson was still saying that he wouldn’t send troops into Vietnam. It didn’t take much to convince congress as the vote count was 88 to 2, in favor of passing the resolution. -
Johnson announces more troops to Vietnam
The consequences of sending more troops would obviously mean more people’s deaths, there was over 30,000 deaths and 300,000 injured. More troops meant more equipment which meant more money spent, which was over 150 billion spent. -
Stay the Course
Stay the course meant that Johnson was going to keep going in the war no matter what obstacles or
what any of the people would say.
Johnson decided to keep troops in Vietnam because North Vietnam retaliated against American naval
Carriers which was known as the Gulf of Tonkin Crisis. -
Tet Offensive
With all that money spent, it meant that food increased in price and it also contributed to the oil price hike in 1973, brought morale down for troops, and people back in the US made movements against military drafts. -
My Lai Massacre
The revelations of the My Lai massacre caused morale to plummet even further, as GIs wondered what other atrocities their superiors were concealing. On the home front in the United States, the brutality of the My Lai massacre and the efforts made by higher-ranking officers to conceal it exacerbated anti-war sentiment and increased the bitterness regarding the continuing U.S. military presence in Vietnam. -
Johnson announces he will not seek Re-election
Johnson realized that because of all his actions in the Vietnam war he couldn’t win the Democratic Nomination. After the Tet Offensive American voters became disillusioned with the conduct of war in Vietnam and how it could’ve been ended -
Nixon Doctrine
The Nixon Doctrine stated that the United States would support allies facing military threats with economic and military aid rather than with ground troops.
Vietnamization of the war was a policy of the Richard Nixon administration to end U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War through a program to "expand, equip, and train South Vietnamese forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily reducing the number of U.S. combat troops." -
Silent Majority Speech
Silent majority is referring to the great body of Americans that supported his policies.
He addressed that group because he wanted their support. He pledged in his campaign for Presidency to end the war in a way that we could win the peace. -
Compulsory Draft
The primary purpose of the compulsory draft is to provide the military with additional manpower in the event that volunteer forces are not sufficient to handle a war or other national emergency.
While many soldiers did support the war, at least initially, to others the draft seemed like a death sentence: being sent to a war and fight for a cause that they did not believe in. Some sought refuge in college or parental deferments; others intentionally failed aptitude tests, etc. -
26th Amendment
The long debate over lowering the voting age in America from 21 to 18 began during World War II and intensified during the Vietnam War, when young men denied the right to vote were being conscripted to fight for their country. -
Christmas Bombings
On December 13, peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam collapsed. The North Vietnamese and American negotiators traded charges and countercharges as to who was to blame. Infuriated, President Nixon ordered plans drawn up for retaliatory bombings of North Vietnam.
Some historians have argued that the bombings forced the North Vietnamese back to the negotiating table. Others have suggested that the attacks had little impact, beyond the additional death and destruction. -
Withdrawal of Troops
In the spring of 1969, as protests against the war escalated in the United States, U.S. troop strength in the war-torn country reached its peak at nearly 550,000 men. Finally, in January 1973, representatives of the United States, North and South Vietnam, and the Vietcong signed a peace agreement in Paris, ending the direct U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War. Its key provisions included a cease-fire throughout Vietnam, the withdrawal of U.S. forces, etc.
