The War in Vietnam

Divided Historical Memory

Introduction
■ Vietnam War was one of the most divisive issues of the 1960s and 70s
– US society marked by thousands of protests (many led by young people)
– After war, Americans struggled with how to make sense of this event and
asked:
■ How could the war be remembered?
■ How could the US best honor the veterans who served in the war?
■ Outline:
– A brief history of the Vietnam War
– Why was this war so divisive?
■ The “living room war”
■ Protests
– The war in historical and popular memory
■ Divided history and conflicting “lessons”
■ Veterans in popular culture
■ The controversy over the Vietnam War Memorial
The War in Vietnam
■ Vietnam War part of Cold
War containment policy
■ Indochina, a French colony
since the late 19th century
■ WWII: occupied by Japan
■ Post-WWII: return of
French control
■ Challenges from
communist-nationalist
movement led by Ho Chi
Minh
The War in Vietnam
■ Part of Cold War containment policy
■ Korean War: Truman increased economic aid for France’s war against Ho Chi
Minh
– Eisenhower continued Truman’s policy, but support within France for the war
and colony was weakening
■ Dien Bien Phu: spring 1954
– French forces in valley of Dien Bien Phu surrounded by Ho’s troops
– Eisenhower rejected military intervention
– May 1954: French troops surrendered and France abandoned its colony
■ Geneva Peace Accords of 1954
– Divided French Indochina into three new nations (Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam)
– Temporarily split Vietnam at 17th parallel into two jurisdictions (North and South)
and scheduled an election in 1956 to unify the nation
– Ho (and his communist allies in China and Soviet Union) were confident he
would win the election
The War in Vietnam
■ Domino theory: Eisenhower and later US presidents worried a
communist victory in Vietnam would set off chain reaction
endangering democratic nations throughout Asia
– About 800,000 noncommunist Vietnamese moved to South Vietnam
■ US-supported an anticommunist government in S. Vietnam under
leadership of Ngo Dinh Diem
■ Diem: Catholic, anticommunist, denounced Geneva Accords
– Cracked down on opponents
– Increasingly unpopular in S. Vietnam, especially among Buddhists
– Enjoyed billions of dollars in US aid and military advisors; relied
heavily on support from US
The War in Vietnam
■ 1960: anti-Diem factions formed National Liberation Front
(NLF) – made up of communists, non-communists, and political
leaders critical of Diem and groups related to Ho’s communist
government
■ Buddhist opposition to Diem
– May 1963 – fired on Buddhist protestors, leading to a series of
self-immolations by Buddhist monks (to protest Diem’s
government)
– Diem dismissive of monks’ actions; Diem’s sister-in-law
announced she welcomed another “monk barbecue show”
– Public relations disaster for Kennedy within the US;
photographs of self-immolations horrified Americans
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
■ Johnson’s administration: resisted additional support of S.
Vietnam, but did not want to appear soft on communism
– Asked Congress to approve escalation of US military activity in
Vietnam
■ August 1, 1964 – US destroyer Maddox reported what seemed to
be signs of a failed torpedo attack (an investigation later proved an
attack had not taken place)
– Johnson – seized on this opportunity to gain Congressional
support for increased military action in Vietnam
– Gulf of Tonkin Resolution: authorized Johnson to take “all
necessary measures to repel armed attack”
■ Escalation
– 1965: 50,000 troops to Vietnam; saturation bombing of Vietnam
– 1968: 535,000 troops in Vietnam (40,000 dead, 250,000 wounded)
1968
■ Tet Offensive (January 30) – N. Vietnamese attack on S. Vietnam
during truce in observance of Tet (Vietnamese New Year)
– Undercut optimistic story the Johnson administration was telling
about the war
– Johnson reportedly said if he had lost “the most trusted man in
America” (Walter Cronkite), then he had lost the rest of the country
– Walter Cronkite's Report from Vietnam
■ How does Cronkite’s statement reveal dwindling support for the war?
■ My Lai Massacre (March 16, 1968)
– Not revealed until 1969
– US troops entered small S. Vietnamese village and murdered
between 347 and 504 civilians, mostly women and children
Other Controversies
■ Use of chemical weapons against Vietnamese civilians
■ Napalm
– Attaches to skin and causes severe burns when on fire
– Used both as a weapon and form of psychological warfare
■ Agent Orange
– Herbicide and defoliant – used to strip trees and bushes of
leaves, making it impossible for guerillas to hide
– Devastating effect on humans and effects still felt today
■ Birth defects, mental impairment, death, higher rates of miscarriages
and stillbirths
■ Agent Orange victims today
Napalm Attacks
Nixon and the War
■ Growing violence in US over the war
■ “Vietnamization” – policy to aid in withdrawal of US forces (began informally
under Johnson)
– Transfer burden of ground combat operations to S. Vietnamese forces
■ July 1969: Nixon Doctrine
– Broader version of Vietnamization; US would extend military assistance
(bombings) to anticommunist governments in Asia, but require them to supply
own combat forces
– Imagined eventual removal of US ground troops without having to accept
compromise or defeat
■ Widening of war with incursions into Cambodia (bombings; secret ground
incursion in spring 1970)
■ Growing decline in morale of American troops
■ January 1973: peace accords that allowed for withdrawal of US troops
– Spring 1975: S. Vietnamese government collapsed with invasion of N. Vietnamese
forces into Saigon
The Numbers

■ 1960-1973: about 3.5 million

American men and women
served in Vietnam
– 58,000 dead; 150,000
wounded; 2,000 classified as
missing
■ 1.1 million Vietnamese
military deaths
■ 195,000-430,000 N.
Vietnamese civilians killed;
50,000-65,000 S. Vietnamese
civilians killed
The “Living Room War”
■ Unlike WWII and the Iraq War, in which images were tightly
controlled, the Vietnam War filled American magazines and TV screens
with graphic images of violence every day, year after year
– Protests against the war were also displayed in the media
■ Supporters of Vietnam War
– War lost on the home front
■ Blamed an irresponsible media and disloyal antiwar movement
■ Antiwar Movement
– War was an overextension of US power and blamed misguided belief in
US strength
– Exposure on media was important for educating Americans about the
reality of the war
– The war also seen as a civil rights issue; young, uneducated African-
American men overly represented in American forces
■ Martin Luther King's opposition to the war
Larry Burrows, 1965 February 11, 1966
“A Medic – Calm and Dedicated”
October 28, 1966
Larry Burrows
Larry Burrows
Larry Burrows
Protests
Civil Rights
The War in Historical and Popular
Memory
■ Debates over how war should be remembered
– What were the lessons of the war?
– How should the US remember the war and memorialize it?
– How should the US treat the vets who fought this very unpopular
war?
Lessons
Anti-War Lessons
■ Need for a free, critical media
■ US should retain the domestic
freedoms it is claiming to
fight for
■ Clear strategic goals; practical
way of attaining those goals;
clear exit strategy
■ Wars should be supported at
home and by our allies
(internationalist approach is
best)
■ Vietnam War was not
winnable, the strategic interest
not compelling, and it was a
10-year long mistake
Pro-War Lessons
■ Controlled media
■ Nation’s best interest to put
down dissent quickly
■ Clear strategic goals; US
should give the military all the
power it needs
■ Opposition at home or abroad
should not be tolerated or
allowed to weaken the “will”
of the US (unilateral approach
is sometimes necessary)
■ War could and should have
been won, but was lost by
anti-war politicians, dissenters
at home, and the media
Vietnam Vets in Popular
Culture
■ Popular culture, especially movies and TV shows, of the 1970s
(way for Americans to come to terms with events of the war)
– Vets often portrayed as bitter, broken, feminized, damaged, and
unable to reenter society
– Underscored what many saw as the violence and immorality of
the war
– War damaged not just the Vietnamese but also soldiers
– Broken physically and emotionally
Hearts and Minds
■ 1974 documentary
■ Events of the war through
perspective of veterans
■ Contrasts official statements
with images of what actually
happened/veterans’ memories
■ Underscores failure and
corruption of the war and
devastating impact of war on
veterans
■ Hearts and Minds (full film ava
ilable on youtube)
(start at 1 hour, 42 minutes and
watch until 1 hour, 48 minutes)
Taxi Driver

■ 1976
■ Veteran who becomes
increasingly unbalanced
and violent
■ Turns to vigilantism
■ Vet who is so damaged he
is a threat to society
Foreign Policy in the Reagan
Era
■ 1980s: changes in how Vietnam
War and US foreign policy were
perceived
■ Reagan – wanted to “make
America great again”
– Presented himself as strong,
masculine leader
■ Reasserted the moral rightness of
US intervention overseas
■ Big military buildup and increased
military spending
■ Soviet Union = “evil empire”
■ Tied failures of Vietnam to big
government
Vietnam in Popular Culture,
1980s
■ Portrayal of Vietnam War and of veterans shifted during 1980s
(partly in response to Reagan’s views/leadership)
■ US loss in Vietnam not due to poor performance by vets, but
meddling of bureaucrats and politicians
– Bureaucrats = feminized; soldiers/vets = ultra-masculine
■ Many Vietnam-centered stories actually took place in Vietnam
and were a chance for military to go back and essentially refight
the war
Rambo: First Blood Part II

■ John Rambo, Vietnam vet

■ Disregards US orders to
engage in battle and single-
handedly rescue American
POWs
■ Message: military needs to
ignore official orders in
order to do ethical thing and
“win” the war
■ Trailer
■ Arrow Scene
■ Rambo vs Murdock
Vietnam on TV

■ The A-Team
– Service in Vietnam offered
skills
– Combat villainous
government officials
■ MacGyver
– Skills learned in Vietnam
■ Miami Vice
– Veterans portrayed as
strong, smart, moral, and
resourceful
The Vietnam Veterans
Memorial
■ How should the war and its veterans be officially
remembered/memorialized?
■ 1980: committee to being planning for a memorial
■ Memorial should:
– Allow for reflection
– Fit in the location chosen
– Contain names of those who died
– Not make a political statement
■ Aid in national healing
The Vietnam Veterans
Memorial
■ Call for proposals; winner a design by young architect/designer
named Maya Lin, undergraduate student at Yale University (beat
out 1,441 other submissions)
– Design called for two walls of black stone, sunk into the ground
and meeting together at an apex
■ Open a wound in the earth to symbolize gravity of loss of the dead
– Names of the dead listed chronologically on the stone
– Material chosen for its reflective quality; when a visitor looks at
the wall, his/her reflection can be seen along with the names of
the dead; meant to symbolically bring past and present together
Maya Lin’s Design
Lin’s Plans
Controversy
■ Degrading to vets and dishonored the war
– Tomb-like, black
■ Elitist (too abstract), not representational
■ Black (associated with death, shame, sorrow), not white
■ Subterranean (hidden and shameful)
■ Too feminine (many wanted a more phallic memorial)
■ Political (felt it represented feelings of anti-war movement)
■ Attacks on Lin
– Only 21 years old and Chinese American
– Accused of not being “American” enough to design an
American war memorial (despite being born in Ohio)
Compromise

■ Lin’s memorial would be built (and controversy died down after

its construction), but committee agreed to build a
representational statue of soldiers near the memorial
■ Representatives of women veterans also requested that a statue
be built honoring their service
– Women’s veterans’ group raised money to build the statue
The Three Soldiers
Vietnam Women’s Memorial
To Conclude
– Background of the Vietnam War and divisions within the US
– The Democratic Party turned against the war and wanted “no more
Vietnams” in the future.
– Republicans led by Reagan vowed to “kick the Vietnam syndrome” by
asserting US military strength.
– These foreign policy divisions added to the polarization that had developed
over the Great Society and Civil Rights programs we discussed last
Wednesday.
– The deceit by two presidents, shown during the war and Watergate, shook
public’s confidence in government
■ Americans also struggled with how to remember the war and properly
honor its veterans
– This debate played out in popular culture, but also through
fights over how to memorialize the war