Total military dead: 333,620 (1960–1974) – 392,364 (total) Total military wounded: ≈1,340,000+[8] (excludingFARK and FANK) Total military captured: est. 1,000,000+
TheVietnam War (1 November 1955[A 1] – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict inVietnam,Laos, andCambodia fought betweenNorth Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) andSouth Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by theSoviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and otheranti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of theIndochina wars and aproxy war of theCold War between the Soviet Union and US. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonialwars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and acivil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset.[52] DirectUS military involvement escalated from 1965 until its withdrawal in 1973. The fighting spilled into theLaotian andCambodian Civil Wars, which ended with all three countries becomingcommunist in 1975.
Following theGulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, the US Congress passeda resolution that gave PresidentLyndon B. Johnson authority to increase military presence without declaring war. Johnson launcheda bombing campaign of the north and sent combat troops, dramatically increasing deployment to 184,000 by 1966, and 536,000 by 1969. US forces relied onair supremacy and overwhelming firepower to conductsearch and destroy operations in rural areas. In 1968, North Vietnam launched theTet Offensive, which was a tactical defeat but convinced many Americans the war could not be won. Johnson's successor,Richard Nixon, began "Vietnamization" from 1969, which saw the conflict fought by an expanded ARVN while US forces withdrew. The1970 Cambodian coup d'état resulted in a PAVN invasion and US–ARVNcounter-invasion, escalating its civil war. US troops had mostly withdrawn from Vietnam by 1972, and the 1973Paris Peace Accords saw the rest leave. The accords were broken and fighting continued until the1975 spring offensive andfall of Saigon to the PAVN, marking the war's end. North and South Vietnam were reunified in 1976.
Various names have been applied and shifted over time, thoughVietnam War is the most commonly used in English. It has been called theSecond Indochina War since it spread toLaos andCambodia,[62] theVietnam Conflict,[63][64] and colloquially 'Nam. In Vietnam it is known asKháng chiến chống Mỹ (lit.'Resistance War against America').[65][66] TheGovernment of Vietnam officially refers to it as theResistance War against America to Save the Nation.[67]
Fractures between nationalists and communists emerged in the late 1920s,[71] as the two groups differed in their visions for postcolonial Vietnam:republicanism for the revolutionary nationalists,[72] andproletarian internationalism for the communists.[73] The communists’ radical push for centralized control led to a prolonged civil conflict marked by the suppression of rival nationalists,[74] with the ICP largely responsible for initiating systemic Vietnamese-on-Vietnamese violence.[75]: 515
In 1940,Japan invaded French Indochina, following France'scapitulation to Germany. By 1941, Japan had gained full military access across Indochina and established a dual colonial rule that preservedVichy French administration while facilitating Japanese military operations.[76] Cung, now known asHo Chi Minh, returned to establish the anti-JapaneseViet Minh movement.[70] From 1944, the USOffice of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) provided the Viet Minh with weapons and training to fight the occupying Japanese.[77][78] US PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt supported Vietnamese resistance, and proposed Vietnam's independence be granted under an international trusteeship after the war.[79] The Viet Minh secured their advantage by relocating their operations from southern China into Vietnam and leveragingAllied support.[80]
Beginning in August 1945, the Viet Minh sought to consolidate power by terrorizing and purging rival Vietnamesenationalist groups andTrotskyist activists.[85][86][87][88]: 383–441 In 1946, the Franco-Chinese andHo–Sainteny Agreements facilitated a coexistence between the DRV and French that strengthened the Viet Minh while undermining the nationalists.[89][90] That summer, the Viet Minh colluded with French forces to eliminate nationalists, targeted for their ardent anti-colonialism.[91][85]: 205–207 [92]: 175–177 [93]: 699–700
With most of the nationalist partisans defeated,[94][95] and negotiations broken down, tensions between the Viet Minh and French authorities erupted intofull-scale war in December 1946,[96] a conflict that would later become entangled with theCold War. Surviving nationalist partisans and politico-religious groups rallied behind the exiledBảo Đại to reopen negotiations withFrance in opposition to communist domination.[97][92]: 187–188 While theState of Vietnam, under Bảo Đại as Chief of State, aligned with the anticommunistWestern Bloc, the French exploited it to extend their colonial presence and to bolster their standing withinNATO.[98] By adhering to Marxist–Leninist principles, Vietnamese communists monopolized power through a series of radical campaigns.[99][100][101]
The anticommunistTruman Doctrine, first announced by president Harry S. Truman in March 1947, pledgedUnited States support to nations resisting "attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures".[102] After communistChina and theSoviet Union recognized theDemocratic Republic of Vietnam, the US recognized the French-backedState of Vietnam, based in Saigon, as the legitimate government in February 1950.[103]: 377–379 [25]: 88 The outbreak of theKorean War in June convinced Washington policymakers that the war in Indochina was another example of communist expansionism, directed by the Soviet Union.[25]: 33–35
Military advisors from China began assisting the Viet Minh in July 1950.[104]: 14 Chinese weapons, expertise, and laborers transformed the Viet Minh from a guerrilla force into an army.[25]: 26 [105] In September 1950, the US created theMilitary Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) to screen French aid requests, advise on strategy, and train Vietnamese soldiers.[106]: 18 By 1954, the US had spent $1 billion in support of the French effort, shouldering 80% of the war costs.[25]: 35
During the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, UScarriers sailed to theGulf of Tonkin and the US conducted reconnaissance flights. France and the US discussed the use oftactical nuclear weapons, though how seriously this was considered, and by whom, is unclear.[107][25]: 75 According to then-Vice PresidentRichard Nixon, the Joint Chiefs of Staff drew up plans to use nuclear weapons to support the French.[107] Nixon, a so-called "hawk", suggested the US might have to "put American boys in".[8]: 76 PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower made American participation contingent on British support, but they were opposed.[8]: 76 Eisenhower, wary of involving the US in an Asian land war, decided against intervention.[25]: 75–76 US intelligence estimates remained skeptical of France's chance of success.[108]
In May 1954, the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu surrendered. This marked the end of French military involvement in Indochina. At theGeneva Conference, they negotiated a ceasefire with the Viet Minh, and independence was granted to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, with Vietnam placed under a temporary North–South division.[109][110]
At the 1954 Geneva Conference, Vietnam was temporarily partitioned at the17th parallel. Ho Chi Minh wished to continue war in the south, but was restrained by Chinese allies, who convinced him he could win control by electoral means.[111][25]: 87–88 Civilians were allowed to move freely between the two states for 300 days. Elections were to be held in 1956 to establish a unified government.[25]: 88–90 However, the US, represented at the conference by Secretary of StateJohn Foster Dulles, objected to the resolution; Dulles' objection was supported only by the representative of Bảo Đại.[78] John Foster's brother,Allen Dulles, who was director of theCentral Intelligence Agency, then initiated apsychological warfare campaign which exaggerated anti-Catholic sentiment among the Viet Minh and distributed propaganda attributed to Viet Minh threatening an American attack on Hanoi with atomic bombs.[78][112][25]: 96–97 The CIA's efforts played a minimal role, as Catholic migrants were driven primarily by their own convictions and circumstances rather than external psychological operations.[113]
During 300 days, up to one million northerners, fearing persecution by the communists, moved south,[25]: 96 [114] including at least 500,000 Catholics, approximately 200,000 Buddhists, and tens of thousands from ethnic minority communities.[115] The exodus was coordinated by a U.S.-funded $93 million relocation program, which involved theFrench Navy andUS Seventh Fleet to ferry refugees.[116] The refugees gave the laterNgô Đình Diệm regime a strong anti-communist constituency.[117] Over 100,000 Viet Minh fighters went north for "regroupment", expecting to return south within two years.[58]: 98 The Viet Minh left roughly 5,000 to 10,000cadres in the south as a base for insurgency.[25]: 104 The last French soldiers left South Vietnam in 1956,[25]: 116 and China withdrew from North Vietnam.[104]: 14
Anti-Bảo Đại revolutionists of theState of Vietnam at city hall, Saigon, May 1955.
Between 1953 and 1956, the Northern government instituted agrarian reforms, including rent reduction and land reform, which resulted in political oppression. During land reform, North Vietnamese witnesses suggested a ratio of one execution for every 160 village residents, about 100,000 executions. As the campaign was mainly in the Red River Delta, 50,000 executions became accepted by scholars.[118]: 143 [119][120]: 569 [121] However, documents from Vietnamese and Hungarian archives indicate executions were much lower, though likely greater than 14,000.[122] In 1956, leaders in Hanoi admitted to "excesses" and restored much of the land to the original owners.[25]: 99–100
The South, meanwhile, constituted the State of Vietnam, with Bảo Đại as Emperor, and Ngô Đình Diệm as prime minister. Neither the US, nor Diệm's State of Vietnam, signed anything at the Geneva Conference. The non-communist Vietnamese delegation objected to any division of Vietnam, but lost when the French accepted the proposal of Viet Minh delegatePhạm Văn Đồng,[123]: 134 who proposed Vietnam be united by elections under the supervision of "local commissions".[123]: 119 The US countered with the "American Plan", with the support of South Vietnam and the UK.[123]: 140 It provided for unification elections under UN supervision, but was rejected by the Soviets.[123]: 140 The US said: "With respect to the statement made by the representative of the State of Vietnam, the United States reiterates its traditional position that peoples are entitled to determine their own future and that it will not join in any arrangement which would hinder this".[123]: 570–571 Eisenhower wrote in 1954:
I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly 80% of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bảo Đại. Indeed, the lack of leadership and drive on the part of Bảo Đại was a factor in the feeling prevalent among Vietnamese that they had nothing to fight for.[124]
Ba Cut, commander of theHòa Hảo religious movement, in Can Tho Military Court 1956
According to thePentagon Papers, Diệm would have been a more popular candidate than Bảo Đại against Hồ, stating: "It is almost certain that by 1956 the proportion which might have voted for Ho – in a free election against Diem – would have been much smaller than 80%."[125] In 1957, independent observers from India, Poland, and Canada representing theInternational Control Commission (ICC) stated that fair elections were impossible, reporting that neither South nor North had honored the armistice agreement.[126]
From April to June 1955, Diệm eliminated political opposition in the south by launching operations against religious groups: theCao Đài andHòa Hảo ofBa Cụt. The campaign attacked theBình Xuyênorganized crime group, which was allied with members of the communist party secret police and had military elements. The group was defeated in April following abattle in Saigon. As broad opposition to his harsh tactics mounted, Diệm sought to blame the communists.[8]
In areferendum on the future of the State of Vietnam in October 1955, Diệmrigged the poll supervised by his brotherNgô Đình Nhu and was credited with 98%, including 133% in Saigon. His American advisors had recommended a more modest winning margin of 60–70%. Diệm, however, viewed the election as a test of authority.[127] He declared South Vietnam to be an independent state under the name Republic of Vietnam (ROV), with him as president.[25] Likewise, Ho Chi Minh and other communists won 99% of the vote in North Vietnamese elections.[118]: 193–194, 202–203, 215–217
Thedomino theory, which argued that if a country fell to communism, surrounding countries would follow, was first proposed by theEisenhower administration.[103]: 19 John F. Kennedy, then asenator, said: "Burma, Thailand, India, Japan, the Philippines and obviously Laos and Cambodia are among those whose security would be threatened if the Red Tide of Communism overflowed into Vietnam."[128]
A devout Catholic, Diệm was fervently anti-communist, nationalist, and socially conservative. "Diệm represented narrow and extremist nationalism coupled with autocracy andnepotism."[103]: 200–201 Most Vietnamese wereBuddhist, and alarmed by Diệm's actions, like his dedication of the country to theVirgin Mary.
In 1955,[129] Diệm launched the "Denounce the Communists" campaign, during which suspected communists and other anti-government elements were imprisoned, tortured, or executed. He instituted the death penalty in 1956 against activity deemed communist.[51] The North Vietnamese government claimed that, by November 1957, over 65,000 were imprisoned and 2,148 killed.[130] 40,000political prisoners were jailed by 1959.[58]: 89 In October 1956, Diệm launched aland reform program limiting the size of rice farms per owner. 1.8m acres of farm land became available for purchase by landless people. By 1960, the process had stalled because many of Diem's biggest supporters were large landowners.[131]: 14–16
In May 1957, Diệm undertook a10-day state visit to the US. Eisenhower pledged his continued support, and a parade was held in Diệm's honor. But Secretary of State Dulles privately conceded Diệm had to be backed because they could find no better alternative.[132]
Between 1954 and 1957, the Diệm government succeeded in preventing large-scale unrest in the countryside. In April 1957, insurgents launched an assassination campaign, referred to as "extermination of traitors".[133] 17 people were killed in theChâu Đốc massacre at a bar in July.[51] By early 1959, Diệm had come to regard the violence as an organized campaign and implemented Law 10/59, which made political violence punishable by death.[134] There had been division among former Viet Minh, whose main goal was to hold elections promised in the Geneva Accords, leading to activities separate from the other communists and anti-GVN (Government of the Republic of Vietnam) activists.Douglas Pike estimated that insurgents carried out 2,000 abductions, and 1,700 assassinations of officials, village chiefs, hospital workers and teachers from 1957 to 1960.[25]: 106 [51] Violence between insurgents and government forces increased from 180 clashes in January 1960, to 545 in September.[135]
In September 1960,COSVN, North Vietnam's southern headquarters, ordered a coordinated uprising in South Vietnam and a third of the population was soon living in areas of communist control.[25]: 106–107 In December, North Vietnam formally created theViet Cong (VC) with the intent of uniting all anti-GVN insurgents, including non-communists. It was formed inMemot, Cambodia, and directed through COSVN.[104]: 55–58 The VC placed "emphasis on the withdrawal of American advisors and influence, on land reform and liberalization of the GVN, oncoalition government and the neutralization of Vietnam." Identities of the leaders were often kept secret.[51]
Support for the VC was driven by resentment of Diem's reversal of Viet Minh land reforms. The Viet Minh had confiscated large private landholdings, reduced rents and debts, and leased communal lands to poorer peasants. Diem brought the landlords back, and people who had been farming land for years had to return it and pay years of back rent. "The divisions within villages reproduced those that had existed against the French: 75% support for the NLF[clarification needed], 20% trying to remain neutral and 5% firmly pro-government".[136]: 73
In March 1956, southern communist leaderLê Duẩn presented a plan to revive the insurgency entitled "The Road to the South", to the Politburo in Hanoi. However, as China and the Soviets opposed confrontation, his plan was rejected.[104]: 58 Despite this, the North Vietnamese leadership approved tentative measures to revive southern insurgency in December.[50] Communist forces were under a single command structure set up in 1958.[137] In May 1958, North Vietnamese forces seized the transportation hub atTchepone in Southern Laos near the demilitarized zone, between North and South Vietnam.[138]: 24
The North Vietnamese Communist Party approved a "people's war" on the South in January 1959,[25]: 119–120 and, in May,Group 559 was established to upgrade theHo Chi Minh trail, then a six-month mountain trek through Laos. On 28 July, North Vietnamese andPathet Lao forces invaded Laos, fighting theRoyal Lao Army along the border.[139]: 26 About 500 of the "regroupees" of 1954 were sent south on the trail during its first year of operation.[140] The first arms delivery was completed in August 1959.[141] In April 1960, North Vietnam imposed military conscription for men. About 40,000 communist soldiers infiltrated the south between 1961 and 1963.[104]: 76
President Kennedy's news conference of 23 March 1961
In the1960 U.S. presidential election, John F. Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon. Although Eisenhower warned Kennedy about Laos and Vietnam, Europe and Latin America "loomed larger than Asia on his sights."[142]
Kennedy remained committed to the Cold War foreign policy inherited from the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. In 1961, the US had 50,000 troops based in South Korea, and Kennedy faced four crisis situations: the failure of theBay of Pigs Invasion he had approved in April,[143] settlement negotiations between the pro-Western government of Laos and the Pathet Lao communist movement in May,[144] construction of theBerlin Wall in August, and the Cuban Missile Crisis in October. Kennedy believed another failure to stop communist expansion would irreparably damage US credibility. He was determined to "draw a line in the sand" and prevent a communist victory in Vietnam. He toldThe New York Times after the Vienna summit with Khrushchev, "Now we have a problem making our power credible and Vietnam looks like the place."[145][146]
Kennedy's policy toward South Vietnam assumed Diệm and his forces had to defeat the guerrillas on their own. He was against the deployment of American combat troops and observed "to introduce U.S. forces in large numbers there today, while it might have an initially favorable military impact, would almost certainly lead to adverse political and, in the long run, adverse military consequences."[147] The quality of the South Vietnamese military, however, remained poor. Poor leadership, corruption, and political promotions weakened the ARVN. The frequency of guerrilla attacks rose as the insurgency gathered steam. While Hanoi's support for the VC played a role, South Vietnamese governmental incompetence was at the core of the crisis.[103]: 369
President Kennedy meeting with Secretary of DefenseMcNamara, in June 1962
A major issue Kennedy raised was whether the Soviet space and missile programs had surpassed those of the US. Although Kennedy stressed long-range missile parity with the Soviets, he was interested in usingspecial forces forcounterinsurgency warfare inThird World countries threatened by communist insurgencies. Although they were intended for use behind front lines after a conventional Soviet invasion of Europe, Kennedy believed guerrilla tactics employed by special forces, would be effective in a "brush fire" war in Vietnam.
Kennedy advisorsMaxwell Taylor andWalt Rostowrecommended US troops be sent to South Vietnam disguised as flood relief workers.[148] Kennedy rejected the idea but increased military assistance. In April 1962,John Kenneth Galbraith warned Kennedy of the "danger we shall replace the French as a colonial force...and bleed as the French did."[149] Eisenhower put 900 advisors in Vietnam, and by November 1963, Kennedy had put 16,000.[25]: 131
TheStrategic Hamlet Program was initiated in late 1961. This joint U.S.–South Vietnamese program attempted to resettle the rural population into fortified villages. It was implemented in early 1962 and involved forced relocation and segregation of rural South Vietnamese, into new communities where the peasantry would be isolated from the VC. It was hoped these new communities would provide security for the peasants and strengthen the tie between them and central government. However, by November 1963 the program had waned, and it ended in 1964.[8]: 1070 In July 1962, 14 nations, including China, South Vietnam, the Soviet Union, North Vietnam, and the US, signed theInternational Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos.
The inept performance of the ARVN was exemplified by failed actions such as theBattle of Ap Bac in January 1963, in which the VC won a battle against a much larger and better-equipped South Vietnamese force, many of whose officers seemed reluctant to engage.[150]: 201–206 The ARVN lost 83 soldiers and 5 US helicopters, serving to ferry troops shot down by VC forces, while the VC lost only 18 soldiers. The ARVN forces were led by Diệm's most trusted general,Huỳnh Văn Cao. Cao was a Catholic, promoted due to religion and fidelity rather than skill, and his main role was to preserve his forces to stave off coups. Washington policymaker concluded Diệm was incapable of defeating the communists and might even make a deal with Ho Chi Minh. He seemed concerned only with fending off coups and had become paranoid after attempts in1960 and1962, which he partly attributed to US encouragement.Robert F. Kennedy noted, "Diệm wouldn't make even the slightest concessions. He was difficult to reason with..."[151] Historian James Gibson summed up the situation:
Strategic hamlets had failed... The South Vietnamese regime was incapable of winning the peasantry because of its class base among landlords. Indeed, there was no longer a 'regime' in the sense of a relatively stable political alliance and functioning bureaucracy. Instead, civil government and military operations had virtually ceased. The National Liberation Front had made great progress and was close to declaring provisional revolutionary governments in large areas.[152]
Discontent with Diệm's policies exploded in May 1963, following theHuế Phật Đản shootings of 9 Buddhists protesting the ban on displaying theBuddhist flag onVesak. This resulted in mass protests—theBuddhist crisis—against discriminatory policies that gave privileges to Catholics over the Buddhist majority.Ngô Đình Thục, Diệm's elder brother and the Archbishop of Huế, held his anniversary celebrations shortly before Vesak; they were bankrolled by the government, and Catholic flags were prominently displayed. Diệm refused to make concessions to the Buddhists or take responsibility for the deaths. In August 1963, theARVN Special Forces of ColonelLê Quang Tung, loyal to Diệm's brother Ngô Đình Nhu,raided pagodas, causing destruction and hundreds of deaths. The Republic of Vietnam sought to harness religious nationalism by promoting spiritual values in opposition to communism's atheism; this approach amplified religious consciousness that challenged the state's authority.[153]
ARVN forces capture a Viet Cong
US officials began discussingregime change during 1963. TheUnited States Department of State wanted to encourage a coup, while the Pentagon favored Diệm. Chief among the proposed changes was removal of Diệm's brother Nhu, who controlled the secret police and special forces, and was seen as being behind Buddhist repression and the Ngô family's rule. This proposal was conveyed to the US embassy in Saigon inCable 243. The CIA contacted generals planning to remove Diệm, and told them the US would not oppose this, nor punish them by cutting off aid. Diệm was overthrown and executed, along with his brother, on 2 November 1963. When Kennedy was informed, Maxwell Taylor remembered he "rushed from the room with a look of shock and dismay on his face."[154] Kennedy had not anticipated Diệm's murder. The U.S. ambassadorHenry Cabot Lodge, invited coup leaders to the embassy and congratulated them. Lodge informed Kennedy that "the prospects now are for a shorter war".[155] Kennedy wrote to Lodge congratulating him for "a fine job".[156]
Following the coup, chaos ensued. Hanoi took advantage and increased its support for the VC. South Vietnam entered political instability, as one military government toppled another. Each new regime was viewed by the communists as a puppet of the Americans; whatever the failings of Diệm, his credentials as a nationalist had been impeccable.[103]: 328 US advisors were embedded in the South Vietnamese armed forces. They were criticized for ignoring the political nature of the insurgency.[157] The Kennedy administration sought to refocus US efforts on pacification – which in this case was defined as countering the insurgency[158][159] – and"winning the hearts and minds" of the population. Military leadership in Washington, however, was hostile to any role for U.S. advisors other than troop training.[160] GeneralPaul Harkins, thecommander of U.S. forces in South Vietnam, confidently predicted victory by Christmas 1963.[106]: 103 The CIA was less optimistic, warning that "the Viet Cong by and large retain de facto control of much of the countryside and have steadily increased the overall intensity of the effort".[161]
Kennedywas assassinated on 22 November 1963. Vice PresidentLyndon B. Johnson had not been heavily involved with policy toward Vietnam;[164][A 9] however he immediately focused on it. On 24 November, he said, "the battle against communism... must be joined... with strength and determination."[166] Johnson knew he had inherited a deteriorating situation,[167] but adhered to the widely accepted domino argument for defending the South: Should they retreat or appease, either action would imperil other nations.[168] Findings from RAND'sViet Cong Motivation and Morale Project bolstered his confidence that an air war would weaken the insurgency. Some argue the policy of North Vietnam was not to topple other non-communist governments in South East Asia.[103]: 48
The military revolutionary council, meeting in lieu of a strong South Vietnamese leader, had 12 members. It was headed by GeneralDương Văn Minh, whom journalistStanley Karnow, recalled as "a model of lethargy".[169] Lodge cabled home about Minh: "Will he be strong enough to get on top of things?" Minh's regime was overthrown in January 1964 by GeneralNguyễn Khánh.[170] There was persistent instability in the military: several coups—not all successful—occurred in a short period of time.
On 2 August 1964,USS Maddox, on an intelligence mission along North Vietnam's coast, fired upon and damaged torpedo boats approaching it in the Gulf of Tonkin.[58]: 124 A second attack was reported two days later onUSS Turner Joy andMaddox. The circumstances were murky.[25]: 218–219 Johnson commented to Undersecretary of State George Ball that "those sailors out there may have been shooting at flying fish."[171] AnNSA publication declassified in 2005 revealed there was no attack on 4 August.[172]The second "attack" led toretaliatory airstrikes, and prompted Congress to approve theGulf of Tonkin Resolution on 7 August.[173]: 222–244 This granted the president power "to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression" and Johnson relied on this as giving him authority to expand the war.[25]: 221 Johnson pledged he was not "committing American boys to fighting a war that I think ought to be fought by the boys of Asia to help protect their own land".[25]: 227
TheNational Security Council recommended an escalation of the bombing of North Vietnam. Following anattack on a U.S. Army base in February 1965,[174] airstrikes were initiated, while Soviet PremierAlexei Kosygin was on astate visit to North Vietnam.Operation Rolling Thunder andOperation Arc Light expanded aerial bombardment and ground support operations.[175] The bombing campaign, which lasted three years, was intended to force North Vietnam to cease support for the VC by threatening to destroy North Vietnamese air defenses and infrastructure. It was additionally aimed at bolstering South Vietnamese morale.[176] Between 1965 and 1968,Rolling Thunder deluged the north with a million tons of missiles, rockets and bombs.[177]
Bombing was not restricted to North Vietnam. Aerial campaigns targeted different parts of the VC and PAVN infrastructure. These included the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos and Cambodia. The ostensibly neutral Laos had becomethe scene of a civil war, pitting theLaotian government backed by the US, against the Pathet Lao and its North Vietnamese allies.
Aerial bombardment against the Pathet Lao and PAVN forces was undertaken by the US to prevent the collapse of the government, and deny use of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Between 1964 and 1973, the US dropped two million tons of bombs on Laos, similar to the 2.1 million tons of bombs it dropped on Europe and Asia during World War II, making Laos the most heavily bombed country in history.[178]
The objective of stopping North Vietnam and the VC was never reached. TheChief of Staff of the United States Air ForceCurtis LeMay, however, had long advocated saturation bombing in Vietnam and wrote of the communists that "we're going to bomb them back into the Stone Age".[25]: 328
The 1964 offensive
ARVN Forces and a US Advisor inspect a downed helicopter,Battle of Dong Xoai, June 1965
Following the Tonkin Resolution, Hanoi anticipated the arrival of US troops and expanded the VC, as well as sending PAVN personnel southwards. They were outfitting the VC forces and standardizing their equipment withAK-47 rifles and other supplies, as well as forming the9th Division.[25]: 223 [179] "From a strength of approximately 5,000 at the start of 1959 the Viet Cong's ranks grew to about 100,000 at the end of 1964... Between 1961-64 the Army's strength rose from about 850,000 to nearly a million men."[157] US troop numbers deployed were much lower: 2,000 in 1961, rising to 16,500 in 1964.[180] The use of captured equipment decreased, while more ammunition and supplies were required to maintain regular units. Group 559 was tasked with expanding the Ho Chi Minh Trail, in light of US bombardment. The war had shifted into the final, conventional phase of Hanoi'sthree-stage protracted warfare model. The VC was tasked with destroying the ARVN, and capturing and holding areas; however, it was not yet strong enough to assault towns and cities.
In December 1964, ARVN forces suffered losses at theBattle of Bình Giã,[181] in a battle both sides viewed as a watershed. Previously, the VC had utilized hit-and-run guerrilla tactics. At Binh Gia, they defeated a strong ARVN force in a conventional battle and remained in the field for four days.[182]: 58 Tellingly, South Vietnamese forces were again defeated in June 1965 at theBattle of Đồng Xoài.[182]: 94
A Marine from1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, moves a suspected Viet Cong during a search and clear operation held by the battalion 15 miles (24 km) west ofDa Nang Air Base, 1965.
On 8 March 1965, 3,500U.S. Marines were landed nearDa Nang, South Vietnam.[25]: 246–247 This marked the beginning of America's ground war. US public opinion overwhelmingly supported the deployment.[183] The Marines' initial assignment was defense ofDa Nang Air Base. The first deployment was increased to nearly 200,000 by December.[103]: 349–351 US military had been schooled in offensive warfare. Regardless of policy, US commanders were institutionally and psychologically unsuited to defensive missions.[103]: 349–351
GeneralWilliam Westmoreland informed AdmiralU. S. Grant Sharp Jr., commander of US Pacific forces, that the situation was critical,[103]: 349–351 "I am convinced that U.S. troops with their energy, mobility, and firepower can successfully take the fight to the NLF (Viet Cong)".[184] With this recommendation, Westmoreland advocated an aggressive departure from America's defensive posture and sidelining of the South Vietnamese. By ignoring ARVN units, the US commitment became open-ended.[103]: 353 Westmoreland outlined a three-point plan to win:
Phase 1. Commitment of US and allied forces necessary to halt the losing trend by the end of 1965.
Phase 2. US and allied forces mount major offensive actions to seize the initiative to destroy guerrilla and organized enemy forces. This phase would end when the enemy had been worn down and driven back from major populated areas.
Phase 3. If the enemy persisted, a period of 12–18 months following Phase 2 would be required for final destruction of forces remaining in remote base areas.[185]
The plan was approved by Johnson and marked a profound departure from the insistence that South Vietnam was responsible for defeating the VC. Westmoreland predicted victory by December 1967.[186] Johnson did not communicate this change to the media, instead he emphasized continuity.[187] The change in policy depended on matching the North Vietnamese and VC in a contest ofattrition andmorale. The opponents were locked in anescalation cycle.[103]: 353–354 However Johnson ruled out invasion of North Vietnam due to fears of Chinese or Soviet intervention.[188] Westmoreland and McNamara touted thebody count system for gauging victory, a metric that proved flawed.[189]
Peasants suspected of being Viet Cong under detention of U.S. Army, 1966
The American buildup transformed the South Vietnamese economy and profoundly effected society. South Vietnam was inundated with manufactured goods. Washington encouraged itsSEATO allies to contribute troops; Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and the Philippines[190] agreed. South Korea asked to join theMany Flags program in return for economic compensation. Major allies, however, notably Canada and the UK, declined troop requests.[191]
The US and allies mounted complexsearch and destroy operations. In November 1965, the US engaged in its first major battle with the PAVN, theBattle of Ia Drang.[192] The operation was the first large scale helicopter air assault by the US, and first to employBoeing B-52 Stratofortress bombers.[25]: 284–285 These tactics continued in 1966–67, however, the PAVN/VC insurgents remained elusive and demonstrated tactical flexibility. By 1967, the war had generated large-scale internal refugees, 2 million in South Vietnam, with 125,000 people evacuated and rendered homeless duringOperation Masher alone,[193] the largest search and destroy operation to that point. Operation Masher had negligible impact however, as the PAVN/VC returned to the province just four months afterwards.[194]: 153–156 Despite major operations, which the VC and PAVN would evade, the war was characterized by smaller-unit engagements.[195] The VC and PAVN would initiate 90% of large firefights, and thus the PAVN/VC would retain strategic initiative despite overwhelming US force and firepower deployment.[195] The PAVN and Viet Cong had developed strategies capable of countering US doctrines and tactics: seeNLF and PAVN battle tactics.
Meanwhile, South Vietnamese politics began to stabilize with the arrival of prime minister Air MarshalNguyễn Cao Kỳ and figurehead chief of state, GeneralNguyễn Văn Thiệu, in mid-1965. In 1967, Thieu became president with Ky as his deputy, after rigged elections. Though nominally a civilian government, Kỳ was supposed to maintain real power through a behind-the-scenes military body. However, Thiệu outmanoeuvred and sidelined Kỳ. Thiệu was accused of murdering Kỳ loyalists through contrived military accidents. Thiệu remained president until 1975, having won aone-candidate election in 1971.[196]
Johnson employed a "policy of minimum candor"[197] with the media. Military information officers sought to manage coverage by emphasizing stories that portrayed progress. This damaged public trust in official pronouncements. As coverage of the war and the Pentagon diverged, acredibility gap developed.[197] Despite Johnson and Westmoreland proclaiming victory and Westmoreland stating the "end is coming into view",[198] internal reports in thePentagon Papers indicate VC forces retained strategic initiative and controlled their losses. VC attacks against static US positions accounted for 30% of engagements, VC/PAVN ambushes and encirclements for 23%, American ambushes against VC/PAVN forces for 9%, and American forces attacking VC emplacements only 5%.[195]
Viet Cong before departing to participate in the Tet Offensive around Saigon-Gia DinhARVN forces assault a stronghold in theMekong Delta
In late 1967, the PAVN lured American forces into the hinterlands atĐắk Tô and at the MarineKhe Sanh combat base, where the US foughtThe Hill Fights. These were part of a diversionary strategy to draw US forces towards the Central Highlands.[199] Preparations were underway for theTet Offensive, with the intention ofVăn Tiến Dũng forces to launch "direct attacks on the American and puppet nerve centers—Saigon,Huế, Danang, all the cities, towns and main bases [...]".[200] Le Duan sought to placate critics of the stalemate by a decisive victory.[201]: 90–94 He reasoned this could be achieved through sparking an uprising in the towns and cities,[201]: 148 along with defections among ARVN units, who were on leave during the truce period.[202]
The Tet Offensive began in January 1968, as over 100 cities were attacked by over 85,000 VC/PAVN troops, including assaults on military installations, headquarters, and government buildings, including theUS Embassy in Saigon.[103]: 363–365 US and South Vietnamese forces were shocked by the scale, intensity and deliberative planning, as infiltration of personnel and weapons into the cities was accomplished covertly;[200] the offensive constituted anintelligence failure on the scale ofPearl Harbor.[190] Most cities were recaptured within weeks,except the former imperial capital Huế, which PAVN/VC troops held on for 26 days.[203] Theyexecuted approximately 2,800 unarmed Huế civilians and foreigners they considered spies.[204][203] In the Battle of Huế American forces employed massive firepower that left 80% of the city in ruins.[58]: 308–309 AtQuảng Trị City, theARVN Airborne Division, the 1st Division and a US 1st Cavalry Division regiment held out and overcame an assault intended to capture the city.[205][206]: 104 In Saigon, VC/PAVN fighters had captured areas in and around the city, attacking key installations before US and ARVN forces dislodged them.[25]: 479 Peter Arnett reported an infantry commander saying of theBattle of Bến Tre that "it became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it".[207][208]
The ruins of a section of Saigon, in the Cholon neighborhood, following fierce fighting between ARVN forces and Viet Cong Main Force battalions
During the first month of Tet, 1,100 American and allied troops, 2,100 ARVN and 14,000 civilians were killed.[209] After two months, 5,000 ARVN and 4,000 US forces had been killed and 46,000 wounded.[209] The US claimed 17,000 PAVN/VC had been killed and 15,000 wounded.[206]: 104 [205]: 82 A month later theMay Offensive was launched; it demonstrated the VC were still capable of orchestrating nationwide offensives.[25]: 488–489 Two months later thePhase III offensive was launched. PAVN losses across the offensives was 45,267 killed and 111,179 total casualties.[210][211] It had become the bloodiest year up to then. The failure to spark a general uprising and lack of defections among the ARVN units meant Hanoi's goals had failed at enormous cost.[201]: 148–149
Prior to Tet, in November 1967, Westmoreland had spearheaded a public relations drive for the Johnson administration to bolster flagging public support.[212] In a speech to theNational Press Club he said "the end comes into view".[213] Thus, the public was shocked and confused by the Tet Offensive.[212] Public approval of his performance dropped from 48% to 36%, and endorsement for the war fell from 40% to 26%.[214] The public turned against Johnson as the offensives contradicted claims of progress.[212]
During 1968, Westmoreland considered the use ofnuclear weapons in a contingency plan codenamedFracture Jaw, which was abandoned when it became known to the White House.[215] Westmoreland and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff GeneralEarle Wheeler requested more than 200,000 additional troops.[216] This quickly leaked to the media, and the fallout combined with intelligence failures caused Westmoreland to be removed in March 1968, succeeded by his deputyCreighton Abrams.[217]
On 10 May 1968,peace talks began between the US and North Vietnam in Paris. Negotiations stagnated for five months, until Johnson halted the bombing of North Vietnam. Hanoi realized it could not achieve a "total victory" and employed a strategy known as "talking while fighting, fighting while talking", in which offensives occurred concurrently with negotiations.[218]
Johnson declined to run for re-election as his approval rating slumped from 48% to 36%.[25]: 486 His escalation of the war divided Americans, cost 30,000 American lives by that point and is regarded as having destroyed his presidency.[25]: 486 Robert McNamara later said "the dangerous illusion of victory by the United States was therefore dead",[103]: 367 but this was an exaggeration. There continued to be important Americans who hoped for victory, and Johnson was among them. In the speech of March 31, 1968, in which he announced he would not run for re-election, he offered to begin peace negotiations with Hanoi. He said that in an effort to get negotiations started, he was "reducing—substantially reducing—the present level of hostilities."[219] This was misleading. He was increasing the military pressure on enemy forces, trying to ensure that if the negotiations produced an agreement, it would be one representing a defeat for Hanoi.
Johnson did not make the huge increase in US troop strength that Generals Westmoreland and Wheeler had requested a few weeks earlier, but he did send significant reinforcements. There were about 515,000 US military personnel in Vietnam at the time of his speech. There were 536,000 two months later.[220] He narrowed the area of North Vietnam on which US bombs fell, but in April 1968, the first month in which bombing was limited to the southern part of North Vietnam, the United States dropped almost twice as many tons of bombs there as had been dropped on the whole of North Vietnam in March. More importantly, US bombing of Indochina as a whole was increasing. The most the US had dropped in Indochina in any month before Johnson's speech had been about 98,000 tons. In April 1968, the month after his speech, the figure rose to almost 113,000 tons.[221]
Nixon began troop withdrawals in 1969. His plan to build up the ARVN so it could take over defense of South Vietnam became known as "Vietnamization". As the PAVN/VC recovered from their 1968 losses and avoided contact, Abrams conducted operations aimed at disrupting logistics, with better use of firepower and more cooperation with the ARVN.[25]: 517 In October 1969, Nixon had ordered B-52s with nuclear weaponsto race to the border of Soviet airspace to convince the Soviets, in accordance with themadman theory, he was capable of anything to end the war.[223][224] Nixon had soughtdétente with the Soviet Union andrapprochement with China, which decreased tensions and led to nuclear arms reductions. However, the Soviets continued to supply North Vietnam.[225][226]
On 2 September 1969, Ho Chi Minh died.[227] The failure of the Tet Offensive to spark an uprising in the south caused a shift in Hanoi's war strategy, and theGiáp-Chinh "Northern-First" faction regained control over military affairs from the Lê Duẩn-Hoàng Văn Thái "Southern-First" faction.[228]: 272–274 An unconventional victory was sidelined in favor of conventional through conquest.[201]: 196–205 Large-scale offensives were rolled back in favor ofsmall-unit andsapper attacks as well as targeting the pacification and Vietnamization strategy.[228] Following Tet, the PAVN had transformed from alight-infantry, limited mobility force intohigh-mobility and mechanizedcombined arms.[228]: 189
U.S. domestic controversies
Theanti-war movement was gaining strength in the US. Nixon appealed to the "silent majority" who he said supported the war. But revelations of the 1968My Lai massacre,[25]: 518–521 in which a US Army unit raped and killed civilians, and the 1969 "Green Beret Affair", whereSpecial Forces soldiers, were arrested for the murder[229] of a suspected double agent,[230] provoked outrage.
In 1971, thePentagon Papers were leaked toThe New York Times. The secret history of US involvement, commissioned by the Department of Defense, detailed public deceptions by the government. TheSupreme Court ruled publication legal.[231]
Following Tet and decreasing public support, US forces began a period of morale collapse, and disobedience.[232]: 349–350 [233]: 166–175 At home, desertion rates quadrupled from 1966 levels.[234] Among the enlisted, only 2.5% chose infantry between 1969 and 1970.[234]ROTC enrollment decreased from 191,749 in 1966 to 72,459 by 1971,[235] and a low of 33,220 in 1974,[236] depriving the US of much-needed military leadership.
Refusal to engage in patrols or carry out orders emerged, with a case of an entire company refusing orders.[237] Unit cohesion began to dissipate and focused on minimizing contact with the PAVN/VC.[233] A practice known as "sand-bagging" started, where units ordered to patrol would go into the country-side, find a site out of view from superiors and radio in false coordinates and reports.[194]: 407–411 Drug usage increased, 30% regularly used marijuana,[194]: 407 while a House subcommittee found 10% used heroin.[234][25]: 526 From 1969, search-and-destroy operations became referred to as "search and avoid", falsifying battle reports while avoiding guerrillas.[238] 900fragging (killing a fellow office, usually superior) and suspected fragging incidents were investigated, most occurring between 1969 and 1971.[239]: 331 [194]: 407 In 1969, field-performance was characterized by low morale and poor leadership.[239]: 331 The decline in morale was demonstrated by theBattle of FSB Mary Ann in 1971, in which a sapper attack inflicted serious losses on US defenders.[239]: 357 Westmoreland, no longer in command but tasked with investigation of the failure, cited dereliction of duty, lax defensive postures and lack of officers in charge.[239]: 357
On the collapse of morale, Shelby Stanton wrote:
In the last years of the Army's retreat, its remaining forces were relegated to static security. The American Army's decline was readily apparent...Racial incidents, drug abuse, combat disobedience, and crime reflected growing idleness, resentment... the fatal handicaps of faulty campaign strategy, incomplete wartime preparation, and the tardy, superficial attempts at Vietnamization. An entire American army was sacrificed on the battlefield of Vietnam.[239]: 366–368
ARVN taking the lead and U.S. ground force withdrawal
ARVN and US Special Forces, 1968
Beginning in 1969, American troops were withdrawn from border areas where most of the fighting took place and redeployed along the coast and interior. US casualties in 1970 were less than half of 1969, after being relegated to less active combat.[240] While US forces were redeployed, the ARVN took over combat operations, with casualties double US ones in 1969, and triple in 1970.[241] Post-Tet, membership in theSouth Vietnamese Regional Forces andPopular Force militias grew, and they could now provide village security, which the Americans had not accomplished.[241]
In 1970, Nixon announced the withdrawal of an additional 150,000 American troops, reducing US numbers to 265,500.[240] By 1970, VC forces were no longer southern-majority, nearly 70% were northerners.[242] Between 1969 and 1971 the VC and some PAVN units had reverted tosmall unit tactics, instead of nationwide offensives.[201] In 1971, Australia and New Zealand withdrew their soldiers and US troops were reduced to 196,700, with a deadline to remove another 45,000 troops by February 1972. The US reduced support troops, and in March 1971 the5th Special Forces Group, the first American unit deployed, withdrew.[243]: 240 [A 10]
An alleged Viet Cong captured during an attack on an American outpost near the Cambodian border is interrogated.
PrinceNorodom Sihanouk had proclaimed Cambodia neutral since 1955,[246] but permitted the PAVN/VC to use the port ofSihanoukville andSihanouk Trail. In March 1969 Nixon launched a secret bombing campaign, calledOperation Menu, against communist sanctuaries along the Cambodia/Vietnam border. Only five congressional officials were informed.[A 11]
In March 1970,Sihanouk was deposed by hispro-American prime ministerLon Nol, who demanded North Vietnamese troops leave Cambodia or face military action.[247] Nol began rounding up Vietnamese civilians in Cambodia and massacring them, provoking reactions from the North and South Vietnamese governments.[248] In April–May 1970, North Vietnam invaded Cambodia at the request of theKhmer Rouge, following negotiations with deputy leaderNuon Chea. Nguyen Co Thach recalls: "Nuon Chea has asked for help and we have liberated five provinces of Cambodia in ten days."[249] US and ARVN forces launched theCambodian campaign in May to attack PAVN/VC bases. A counter-offensive in 1971, as part ofOperation Chenla II by the PAVN, recaptured most border areas and decimated Nol's forces.
Building on the success of ARVN units in Cambodia, and further testing the Vietnamization program, the ARVN was tasked withOperation Lam Son 719 in February 1971, the first major ground operation to attack the Ho Chi Minh Trail. This was the first time the PAVN would field-test its combined arms force.[201] The first few days were a success, but momentum slowed after fierce resistance. Thiệu had halted the general advance, leaving PAVN armored divisions able to surround them.[250]
Thieu orderedair assault troops to capture the Tchepone crossroad and withdraw, despite facing four-times larger numbers. During the withdrawal, the PAVN counterattack had forced a panicked rout. Half of the ARVN troops were either captured or killed, half the ARVN/US support helicopters were downed and the operation was a fiasco, demonstrating operational deficiencies within the ARVN.[251] Nixon and Thieu had sought a showcase victory simply by capturing Tchepone, and it was spun off as an "operational success".[252][25]: 576–582
Easter Offensive and Paris Peace Accords, 1972
Soviet advisers inspecting the debris of a B-52 downed in the vicinity of Hanoi
Vietnamization was again tested by theEaster Offensive of 1972, a conventional PAVN invasion of South Vietnam. The PAVN overran the northern provinces and attacked from Cambodia, threatening to cut the country in half. US troop withdrawals continued, but American airpower responded, beginningOperation Linebacker, and the offensive was halted.[25]: 606–637 The US Navy initiatedOperation Pocket Money in May, an aerial mining campaign inHaiphong Harbor that prevented North Vietnam's allies from resupplying it with weapons.[253]
The war was central to the1972 U.S. presidential election as Nixon's opponent,George McGovern, campaigned on immediate withdrawal. Nixon's Security Advisor,Henry Kissinger, had continued secret negotiations with North Vietnam'sLê Đức Thọ and in October 1972 reached an agreement. Thiệu demanded changes to the peace accord upon its discovery, and when North Vietnam went public with the details, the Nixon administration claimed they were attempting to embarrass the president. The negotiations became deadlocked when Hanoi demanded changes. To show his support for South Vietnam and force Hanoi back to the negotiating table, Nixon orderedOperation Linebacker II, a bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong in December.[25]: 649–663 Nixon pressured Thiệu to accept the agreement or face military action.[254]
On 15 January 1973, all US combat activities were suspended. Lê Đức Thọ and Henry Kissinger, along with the PRG Foreign MinisterNguyễn Thị Bình and a reluctant Thiệu, signed theParis Peace Accords on 27 January.[194]: 508–513 This ended direct U.S. involvement in the war, created a ceasefire between North Vietnam/PRG and South Vietnam, guaranteed the territorial integrity of Vietnam under the Geneva Conference, called for elections or a political settlement between the PRG and South Vietnam, allowed 200,000 communist troops to remain in the south, and agreed to a POW exchange. There was a 60-day period for the withdrawal of US forces. "This article proved... to be the only one...which was fully carried out."[255] All US forces personnel were withdrawn by March.[106]: 260
U.S. exit and final campaigns, 1973–75
American POWs recently released from North Vietnamese prison camps, 1973
In the lead-up to the ceasefire on 28 January, both sides attempted to maximize land and population under their control in a campaign known as theWar of the Flags. Fighting continued after the ceasefire, without US participation, and throughout the year.[194]: 508–513 North Vietnam was allowed to continue supplying troops in the South, but only to replace expended material. TheNobel Peace Prize was awarded to Kissinger and Thọ, but Thọ declined saying peace did not yet exist.
On 15 March 1973, Nixon implied the US would intervene militarily if the North launched a full offensive, and Defense SecretarySchlesinger re-affirmed this during his confirmation hearings. Public and congressional reaction was unfavorable, prompting the Senate to pass theCase–Church Amendment to prohibit intervention.[256]
Northern leaders expected the ceasefire terms would favor their side, but Saigon, bolstered by a surge of US aid just before the ceasefire, began to roll them back. The North responded with a new strategy developed in March 1973, according toTrần Văn Trà.[257] With US bombings suspended, work on the Ho Chi Minh Trail and other logistical structures could proceed. Logistics would be upgraded until the North was in a position to launch a massive invasion of the South, projected for the 1975–76 dry season. Trà calculated this would be Hanoi's last opportunity to strike, before Saigon's army could be fully trained.[257] The PAVN resumed offensive operations when the dry season began in 1973, and by January 1974 had recaptured territory lost during the previous dry season.
In South Vietnam, the US departure, and recession after the1973 oil crisis, hurt an economy dependent on US support and troop presence. After clashes that left 55 ARVN soldiers dead, Thiệu announced in January 1974, that the war had restarted and the Peace Accords were no longer in effect. There were over 25,000 South Vietnamese casualties during the ceasefire period.[258][25]: 683 Gerald Ford took over as US president in August 1974, and Congress cut financial aid to South Vietnam from $1 billion a year to $700 million. Congress voted funding restrictions to be phased in through 1975 and total cutoff in 1976.[25]: 686
The success of the 1973–74 dry season offensive inspired Trà to return to Hanoi in October 1974 and plead for a larger offensive the next dry season. This time, Trà could travel on a drivable highway with fueling stops, a vast change from when the Ho Chi Minh Trail was a dangerous mountain trek.[259] Giáp, the North Vietnamese defense minister, was reluctant to approve Trà's plan since a large offensive might provoke US reaction and interfere with the big push planned for 1976. Trà appealed to Giáp's superior, Lê Duẩn, who approved it. Trà's plan called for a limited offensive from Cambodia intoPhước Long province. The strike was designed to solve logistical problems, gauge the reaction of South Vietnamese forces, and determine whether the US would return.[25]: 685–690 On 13 December 1974, PAVN forcesattacked Phước Long. Phuoc Binh fell on 6 January 1975. Ford desperately asked Congress for funds to assist and re-supply the South before it was overrun.[260] Congress refused.[260] The fall of Phuoc Binh and lack of American response left the South Vietnamese elite demoralized.
The speed of this success led the Politburo to reassess. It decided operations in the Central Highlands would be turned over to General Văn Tiến Dũng andPleiku should be seized, if possible. Dũng said to Lê Duẩn: "Never have we had military and political conditions so perfect or a strategic advantage as great as we have now."[261] At the start of 1975, the South Vietnamese had three times as much artillery and twice as many tanks and armored vehicles as the PAVN. However, heightened oil prices meant many assets could not be used. Moreover, the rushed nature of Vietnamization, intended to cover US retreat, resulted in lack of spare parts, ground-crew, and maintenance personnel, which rendered most of it inoperable.[232]: 362–366
On 10 March 1975, Dũng launched Campaign 275, a limited offensive into the Central Highlands, supported by tanks and heavy artillery. The target wasBan Ma Thuột; if the town could be taken, the provincial capital Pleiku and the road to the coast, would be exposed for a campaign in 1976. The ARVN proved incapable of resisting, its forces collapsed. Again, Hanoi was surprised by the speed of its success. Dung urged the Politburo to allow him to seize Pleiku immediately and turn his attention toKon Tum. He argued that with two months of good weather until the monsoon, it would be irresponsible not to take advantage.[8]
Thiệu ordered the abandonment of the Central Highlands and less defensible positions in a rushed policy described as "light at the top, heavy at the bottom". While most ARVN forces attempted to flee, isolated units fought desperately. ARVN general Phu abandoned Pleiku and Kon Tum and retreated toward the coast, in the "convoy of tears".[25]: 693–694 On 20 March, Thiệu reversed himself and ordered Huế, Vietnam's third-largest city, held at all costs, and then changed policy several times. As the PAVN attacked, panic set in, and ARVN resistance withered. On 22 March, the PAVNattacked Huế. Civilians flooded the airport and docks hoping to escape. As resistance in Huế collapsed, PAVN rockets rained down on Da Nang and its airport. By 28 March 35,000 PAVN troops were poised to attack the suburbs. By 30 March 100,000 leaderless ARVN troops surrendered as the PAVN marched through Da Nang. With the fall of the city, the defense of the Central Highlands and Northern provinces ended.[25]: 699–700
Final North Vietnamese offensive
Further information on the final North Vietnamese offensive:Ho Chi Minh Campaign
With the north half of the country under their control, the Politburo ordered Dũng to launch the final offensive. The operational plan for theHo Chi Minh Campaign called for Saigon's capture before 1 May. Hanoi wished to avoid the monsoon and prevent redeployment of ARVN forces defending the capital. PAVN forces, their morale boosted by recent victories, rolled on, takingNha Trang,Cam Ranh andDa Lat.[25]: 702–704
On 7 April, three PAVN divisions attackedXuân Lộc, 40 miles (64 km) northeast of Saigon. Fighting raged as the ARVN defenders made alast stand to block PAVN advance. On 21 April however, the exhausted garrison was ordered to withdraw towards Saigon.[25]: 704–707 An embittered and tearful Thiệu resigned, declaring that the US had betrayed South Vietnam. He suggested Kissinger had tricked him into signing the Paris Accords, promising military aid that failed to materialize. Having transferred power toTrần Văn Hương on 21 April, he left forTaiwan.[25]: 714 After having appealed unsuccessfully to Congress for $722 million in emergency aid for South Vietnam, Ford gave a televised speech on 23 April, declaring an end to the war and US aid.[262][263]
By the end of April, the ARVN had collapsed except in theMekong Delta. Refugees streamed southward, ahead of the PAVN onslaught. By 27 April, 100,000 PAVN troops encircled Saigon. The city was defended by about 30,000 ARVN troops. To hasten a collapse and foment panic, the PAVN shelledTan Son Nhut Airport and forced its closure. Large numbers of civilians had no way out.[25]: 716
Victorious PAVN troops at the Presidential Palace, Saigon
Chaos and panic broke out as South Vietnamese officials and civilians scrambled to leave.Martial law was declared. American helicopters began evacuating South Vietnamese, US and foreign nationals from Tan Son Nhut and the embassy compound.Operation Frequent Wind had been delayed until the last possible moment, because of AmbassadorGraham Martin's belief Saigon could be held and a political settlement reached. Frequent Wind was the largest helicopter evacuation in history. It began on 29 April, in an atmosphere of desperation, as hysterical crowds of Vietnamese vied for limited space. Frequent Wind continued round the clock, as PAVN tanks breached defenses near Saigon. In the morning of 30 April, the last US Marines evacuated the embassy by helicopter, as civilians swamped the perimeter and poured into the grounds.[25]: 718–720
PAVN troops entered Saigon and overcame all resistance, capturing key buildings and installations.[264] Tanks from the2nd Corps crashed through the gates of theIndependence Palace and the VC flag was raised above it.[265] President Dương Văn Minh, who had succeeded Huong two days earlier, surrendered to Lieutenant colonel Bùi Văn Tùng, political commissar of the 203rd Tank Brigade.[266][267][268]: 95–96 Minh was escorted toRadio Saigon to announce the surrender.[269]: 85 The statement was on air at 2:30 pm.[268]
During the war a large segment of Americans became opposed to US involvement. In January 1967, 32% of Americans thought the US had made a mistake in sending troops.[270] Opinion steadily turned following 1967 and by 1970 60% believed the US had made a mistake.[271][272]
Early opposition drew its inspiration from the Geneva Conference. American support of Diệm in refusing elections was seen as thwarting the democracy that the United States claimed to support. Kennedy, while senator, opposed involvement.[180] Many young people protested because they were beingdrafted, others because the anti-war movement grew popular among thecounterculture. Some within the peace movement advocatedunilateral withdrawal. Opposition to the war tended to unite groups opposed to US anti-communism andimperialism,[273] and for those involved with theNew Left. Others, such asStephen Spiro, opposed the war based on the theory ofJust War. Some wanted to show solidarity with the Vietnamese, such asNorman Morrison emulatingThích Quảng Đức.
High-profile opposition increasingly turned to mass protests to shift opinion. Riots broke out at the1968 Democratic National Convention.[25]: 514 After reports of American military abuses brought attention and support to the anti-war movement, some veterans joinedVietnam Veterans Against the War. In October 1969, theVietnam Moratorium attracted millions.[274] The fatal shooting of students at Kent State University in 1970 led to nationwide university protests.[275] Anti-war protests declined after the Paris Peace Accords and theend of the draft in 1973, and the withdrawal of troops.
China provided significant support for North Vietnam when the US started to intervene, including finance and hundreds of thousands of military support personnel. China said its military and economic aid to North Vietnam totaled $160 billion (adjusted for 2022 prices);[7] included were 5 million tons of food (equivalent to a year's production), accounting for 10–15% of the North's food supply by the 1970s.[7]
In summer 1962,Mao Zedong agreed to supply Hanoi with 90,000 rifles and guns free of charge, and starting in 1965, China began sendinganti-aircraft units and engineering battalions, to repair damage caused by American bombing. They helped man anti-aircraft batteries, rebuild roads and railroads, transport supplies, and perform other engineering works. This freed PAVN units for combat. China sent 320,000 troops and annual arms shipments worth $180 million.[276]: 135 China claims to have caused 38% of American air losses.[7] China began financing the Khmer Rouge as a counterweight to North Vietnam. China "armed and trained" the Khmer Rouge during the civil war, and continued to aid them afterward.[277]
Sovietair defense instructors and North Vietnamese crewmen in the spring of 1965 at an air defense training center in Vietnam
The Soviet Union supplied North Vietnam with medical supplies, arms, tanks, planes, helicopters, artillery, anti-aircraft missiles and other military equipment. Soviet crews fired Soviet-madesurface-to-air missiles at US aircraft in 1965.[278] Following thedissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia acknowledged that the USSR had stationed up to 3,000 troops in Vietnam.[279] 16 Soviet military personnel were killed in action during the war.[280]
Between 1953 and 1991, the hardware donated by the Soviet Union included: 2,000 tanks; 1,700APCs; 7,000 artillery guns; over 5,000 anti-aircraft guns; 158 surface-to-air missile launchers; and 120 helicopters. The Soviets sent North Vietnam annual arms shipments worth $450 million.[281][25]: 364–371 From 1965 to 1974, fighting in Vietnam was observed by 11,000 military personnel of theSoviet Armed Forces.[282] TheKGB helped develop thesignals intelligence capabilities of the North Vietnamese.[283]
As South Vietnam was formally part of a military alliance with the US, Australia, New Zealand, France, the UK, Pakistan, Thailand and the Philippines, the alliance was invoked during the war. The UK, France and Pakistan declined to participate, and South Korea, Taiwan, and Spain were non-treaty participants.
United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races
The ethnic minorities of South Vietnam, like theMontagnards in the Central Highlands, the Hindu and MuslimCham, and the BuddhistKhmer Krom, were actively recruited in the war. There was a strategy of recruitment and favorable treatment of Montagnard tribes by the VC, as they were pivotal for control of infiltration routes.[284] Some groups split off and formed theUnited Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races (FULRO) to fight for autonomy or independence. FULRO fought against the South Vietnamese and VC, later fighting against the unifiedSocialist Republic of Vietnam, after the fall of South Vietnam.[citation needed]
South Vietnam president Diem began a program to settle ethnic Vietnamese Kinh on Montagnard lands in the Central Highlands region. This provoked a backlash from the Montagnards, with some joining the VC. The Cambodians under pro-China Sihanouk and pro-American Lon Nol, supported their fellow Khmer Krom in South Vietnam, following an anti-ethnic Vietnamese policy. Following Vietnamization, many Montagnard groups and fighters were incorporated into theVietnamese Rangers as border sentries.[citation needed]
War crimes took place, by both sides, including: rape, massacres of civilians, bombings of civilian targets,terrorism, torture, and murder ofprisoners of war. Common crimes included theft, arson, and the destruction of property not warranted bymilitary necessity.[285]
In 1966, theRussell Tribunal was organized by public figures opposed to the war led byBertrand Russell, to apply the precepts ofinternational law. The tribunal found the US and allies guilty ofacts of aggression, use of weapons forbidden by the laws of war, bombardment of targets of a purely civilian character, mistreatment of prisoners, andgenocide. Though the tribunal's lack of juridical authority meant findings were ignored by the US and other governments, the hearings contributed to growing evidence which established the factual basis for a counter-narrative to US justifications for the war and inspired hearings, tribunals and legal investigations.[286]
In 1968, theVietnam War Crimes Working Group (VWCWG) was established by the Pentagontask force set up in the wake of the My Lai massacre, to ascertain the veracity of claims ofUS war crimes. Of the crimes reported to military authorities, sworn statements by witnesses and status reports indicated 320 incidents had a factual basis.[287] The substantiated cases included seven massacres between 1967 and 1971 in which at least 137 civilians were killed; 78 further attacks targeting non-combatants resulting in at 57 deaths and 15 sexually assaulted; and 141 cases of US soldiers torturing civilian detainees, or prisoners of war, with fists, sticks, bats, water or electric shock. Journalists have documented uninvestigated war crimes, involving every active army division,[287] including atrocities committed byTiger Force.[288]R. J. Rummel estimated that American forces committed around 5,500democidal killings between 1960 and 1972.[30]
US forces establishedfree-fire zones to prevent VC fighters from sheltering in South Vietnamese villages.[289] Such practice, which involved the assumption that anyone appearing in the designated zones was an enemy that could be freely targeted, was regarded as "a severe violation of the laws of war".[290]Nick Turse argues that a drive toward higherbody counts, widespread use of free-fire zones, rules of engagement where civilians who ran from soldiers or helicopters could be viewed as VC and disdain for civilians, led to massive civilian casualties and war crimes.[291]: 251 An example cited by Turse isOperation Speedy Express, described byJohn Paul Vann as "many Mỹ Lais".[291]: 251 A report byNewsweek suggested at least 5,000 civilians may have been killed during the operation, and an official US military body count of 10,889 enemy combatants killed.[292]
Rummel estimated 39,000 were killed by South Vietnam during the Diem-era in democide; for 1964–75, Rummel estimated 50,000 people were killed in democide. Thus, the total for 1954-75 is about 80,000 deaths caused by South Vietnam.[30]Benjamin Valentino estimates 110,000–310,000 deaths as a "possible case" of "counter-guerrilla mass killings" by US and South Vietnamese forces.[293] ThePhoenix Program, coordinated by the CIA, was aimed at destroying the political infrastructure of the VC. The program killed 26,000-41,000 people, an unknown number were innocent civilians.[194]: 341–343 [294][295][296]
Torture and ill-treatment were frequently applied by the South Vietnamese to POWs, as well as civilian prisoners.[297]: 77 During their visit to theCon Son Prison in 1970, congressmenAugustus Hawkins andWilliam R. Anderson witnessed detainees either confined in minute "tiger cages" or chained to their cells, and provided with poor-quality food. American doctors found inmates suffering symptoms resulting from torture.[297]: 77 During their visits to US detention facilities, theInternational Red Cross recorded many cases of torture and inhumane treatment.[297]: 78 Torture was conducted by the South Vietnamese in collusion with the CIA.[298][299] Unlike massacres such as My Lai, media reports of torture of POWs by South Vietnamese and US forces did not generate significant public outcry in the US.[300]
"The overall volume and lethality of Viet Cong terrorism rivals or exceeds all but a handful of terrorist campaigns waged over the last third of the twentieth century", based on the definition of terrorists as a non-state actor, and examining targeted killings and civilian deaths which are estimated at over 18,000 from 1966 to 1969.[302] The Pentagon estimates the VC/PAVN conducted 36,000 murders and 58,000 kidnappings from 1967 to 1972,c. 1973.[303] Benjamin Valentino attributes 45,000–80,000 "terrorist mass killings" to the VC.[293] Statistics for 1968–72 suggest "about 80 percent of the terrorist victims were ordinary civilians and only about 20 percent were government officials, policemen, members of the self-defence forces or pacification cadres."[19]: 273 VC tactics included frequent mortaring of civilians in refugee camps, and placing of mines on highways frequented by villagers taking goods to urban markets. Some mines were set only to go off after heavy vehicle passage, causing slaughter aboard packed buses.[19]: 270–279
Notable VC atrocities include the massacre of over 3,000 unarmed civilians at Huế[304] and killing 252 civilians during theĐắk Sơn massacre.[305] 155,000 refugees fleeing the North Vietnamese Spring Offensive were reported to have been killed, or abducted, on the road toTuy Hòa in 1975.[306] PAVN/VC troops killed 164,000 civilians in democide between 1954 and 1975 in South Vietnam.[30] North Vietnam was known for its abusive treatment of American POWs, most notably inHỏa Lò Prison (theHanoi Hilton), where torture was employed toextract confessions.[307]
Women were active in a variety of roles, making significant impacts and the war having significant impacts on them.[308][309][310] Several million Vietnamese women served in the military and militias, particularly in the VC, with the slogan "when war comes, even the women must fight" widely used.[311] These women made vital contributions on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, espionage, medical care, logistical and administrative work, and direct combat.[312][313] Women took on more roles in the economy and Vietnam saw an increase in women's rights.[314] Women emerged as leaders of anti-war campaigns and made significant contributions towar journalism.[315]
Women still faced discrimination, and were targets ofsexual violence andwar crimes.[316] Post-war, Vietnamese women veterans faced difficulty reintegrating into society and having their contributions recognised, as well as advances in rights failing to be sustained.[317][318] Portrayals of the war have been criticised for their depictions of women, for overlooking the role women played and reducing Vietnamese women to racist stereotypes.[319][320] Women are at the forefront of campaigns to deal with the war's aftermath, such as the effect ofAgent Orange use and theLai Đại Hàn.[321][322][323]
The experience of African-American military personnel has received significant attention.[324]Wallace Terry's work includes observations about the impacts on black servicemen. He notes the higher proportion of combat casualties among African-American servicemen, the shift toward and different attitudes of black military volunteers and conscripts, the discrimination encountered "on the battlefield, in decorations, promotion and duty assignments", as well as having to endure "the racial insults, cross-burnings and Confederate flags of their white comrades"—and the experiences faced by black soldiers stateside, during the war and afterwards.[325]
Civil rights leaders protested the disproportionate casualties and overrepresentation in hazardous duty experienced by black servicemen, prompting reforms implemented from 1967. As a result, by the war's completion, black casualties had declined to 13% of combat deaths, about equal to the share of draft-eligible black men, though slightly higher than the 10% who served.[326]
The PAVN/VC, although having inherited US, French, and Japanese weapons from World War II and theFirst Indochina War, were largely armed and supplied by China, the Soviet Union, and itsWarsaw Pact allies. Some weapons—notably anti-personnel explosives, theK-50M, and "home-made" versions of theRPG-2—were manufactured in North Vietnam. By 1969 the US Army had identified 40 rifle/carbine types, 22 machine gun types, 17 types of mortar, 20 recoilless rifle or rocket launcher types, nine types of antitank weapons, and 14 anti-aircraft artillery weapons used by ground troops on all sides. Also in use, mostly by anti-communist forces, were 24 types of armored vehicles and self-propelled artillery, and 26 types of field artillery and rocket launchers.
Casualty estimates vary, with one source suggesting up to 3.8 million violent war deaths in Vietnam between 1955 and 2002.[329][330][331][5] A demographic study calculated 791,000–1,141,000 war-related deaths for all Vietnam, military and civilians.[18] Between 195,000 and 430,000 South Vietnamese civilians died.[19]: 450–453 [29] Guenter Lewy estimated 65,000 North Vietnamese civilians died.[19]: 450–453 Estimates of civilian deaths caused by American bombing of North Vietnam range from 30,000[8]: 176, 617 to 182,000.[20] A 1975 US Senate subcommittee estimated 1.4 million South Vietnamese civilians casualties, including 415,000 deaths.[291]: 12 The military of South Vietnam suffered an estimated 254,000 killed between 1960 and 1974, and additional deaths between 1954 and 1959, and in 1975.[31]: 275 Other estimates point to higher figures of 313,000 casualties.[108][44][18][45][46][47]
The US Department of Defense figure for PAVN/VC killed from 1965 to 1974 was 950,765. Officials believed these need to be deflated by 30 percent. Lewy asserts that one-third of the reported "enemy" killed may have been civilians, concluding the figure was closer to 440,000.[19]: 450–453
According to Vietnamese government figures, there were 849,018 confirmed military deaths on the PAVN/VC side,[22][23] for the more lengthy period of 1955–75. This includes battle deaths of Vietnamese soldiers in the Laotian and Cambodian Civil Wars, in which the PAVN was a participant. Non-combat deaths account for 30-40%.[22] However, the figures exclude deaths of South Vietnamese and allied soldiers,[43] and the estimated 300,000–500,000 PAVN/VC missing in action. Vietnamese government figures estimate 1.1 million dead and 300,000 missing from 1945 to 1979, with approximately 849,000 dead and 232,000 missing from 1960 to 1975.[21]
US reports of "enemy KIA", referred to as body count, were subject to "falsification and glorification", and a true estimate of PAVN/VC combat deaths is difficult to assess, as US victories were assessed by having a "greater kill ratio".[332][333] It was difficult to distinguish between civilians and military personnel in the VC, as many were part-time guerrillas or impressed laborers who did not wear uniforms[334][335] and civilians killed were sometimes written off as enemy killed, because high enemy casualties was directly tied to promotions and commendation.[228]: 649–650 [336][337]
Between 275,000[46]-310,000[47] Cambodians died, including 50,000–150,000 combatants and civilians from US bombings.[338] 20,000–62,000 Laotians died,[44] and 58,281 U.S. military personnel were killed,[33] of which 1,584 are still listed missing as of 2021[update].[339]
In July 1976, North and South Vietnam were merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.[340] Despite speculation the victorious North Vietnamese would, in Nixon's words, "massacre the civilians there [South Vietnam] by the millions," no mass executions happened.[341][A 12]
Vietnamese refugees fleeing Vietnam, 1984
However many South Vietnamese were sent tore-education camps where they endured torture, starvation, and disease while forced to perform hard labor.[344][345] The number involved varied depending on different observers: "..."50,000 to 80,000" (Le Monde, 1978), "150,000 to 200,000" (The Washington Post, 1978), and "300,000" (Agence France Presse from Hanoi, 1978)."[346] Such variations are because "Some estimates may include not only detainees but also people sent from the cities to the countryside." According to a native observer, 443,360 people had to register for a period in re-education camps in Saigon alone, and while some were released after a few days, others stayed for more than a decade.[347] Between 1975 and 1980, more than 1 million northerners migrated south, to regions formerly in the Republic of Vietnam, while, as part of theNew Economic Zones program, around 750,000 to over 1 million southerners were moved to mountainous forested areas.[348][349]Gabriel García Márquez described South Vietnam as a "False paradise" when he visited in 1980:
The cost of this delirium was stupefying: 360,000 people mutilated, a million widows, 500,000 prostitutes, 500,000 drug addicts, a million tuberculous and more than a million soldiers of the old regime, impossible to rehabilitate into a new society. Ten percent of the population of Ho Chi Minh City was suffering from serious venereal diseases when the war ended, and there were 4 million illiterates throughout the South.[350]
The US used itssecurity council veto to block Vietnam's UN recognition three times, an obstacle to it receiving aid.[351]
The relationship between Vietnam andDemocratic Kampuchea (Cambodia) deteriorated. In response to the Khmer Rouge takingPhu Quoc andTho Chu, and the belief they were responsible for the disappearance of 500 Vietnamese natives on Tho Chu, Vietnam launched a counterattack to recover the islands.[355] After failed attempts to negotiate, Vietnam invaded Democratic Kampuchea in 1978 and ousted the Khmer Rouge, in the Cambodian–Vietnamese War. In response, China invaded Vietnam in 1979. The two countries fought theSino-Vietnamese War. From 1978 to 1979, some 450,000 ethnicChinese left Vietnam by boat as refugees, or were deported.
The Pathet Lao overthrew the monarchy of Laos in 1975, establishing theLao People's Democratic Republic. The change in regime was "quite peaceful, a sort of Asiatic 'velvet revolution'"—although 30,000 former officials were sent to reeducation camps, often enduring harsh conditions.[120]: 575–576
The US dropped over 7 million tons of bombs on Indochina during the war, more than triple the 2.1 million tons it dropped on Europe and Asia during World War II, and ten times the amount during the Korean War. 500 thousand tons were dropped on Cambodia, 1 million tons on North Vietnam, and 4 million tons on South Vietnam. On a per person basis, the 2 million tons dropped on Laos make it the most heavily bombed country in history, "nearly a ton for every person in Laos."[178] Due to the particularly heavy impact of cluster bombs, Laos was a strong advocate of theConvention on Cluster Munitions to ban them, and host to its first meeting in 2010.[356]
Former US Air Force official Earl Tilford recounted "repeated bombing runs of a lake in central Cambodia. The B-52s literally dropped their payloads in the lake." The Air Force ran many missions like this to secure additional funding during budget negotiations, so the tonnage expended does not directly correlate with the resulting damage.[357]
Unexploded ordnance, mostly from US bombing, continues to kill, and has rendered much land hazardous and impossible to cultivate. Ordnance has killed 42,000 people since the war.[358][359] In Laos, 80 million unexploded bombs remain. Unexploded ordnance has killed or injured over 20,000 Laotians and about 50 people are killed or maimed annually.[360][361] It is estimated the explosives will not be removed entirely for centuries.[201]: 317
Over 3 million people left Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in theIndochina refugee crisis after 1975. Most Asian countries were unwilling to accept them, many led by boat and were known asboat people.[362] Between 1975 and 1998, an estimated 1.2 millionrefugees from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries resettled in the US, while Canada, Australia, and France resettled over 500,000, China accepted 250,000.[363] Laos experienced the largest flight proportionally, 300,000 out of a population of 3 million crossed the border into Thailand. Included among them were "about 90%" of Laos' "intellectuals, technicians, and officials."[120]: 575 According to author Nghia M. Vo and theUnited Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), between 200,000 and 250,000 boat people died at sea.[364][365]
A youngMarine private waits on the beach during the Marine landing,Da Nang, 3 August 1965
Failure of US goals is placed at different institutions and levels. Some have suggested it was due to failure of leadership.[366] Others point to military doctrine. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara stated that "the achievement of a military victory by U.S. forces...was indeed a dangerous illusion."[103]: 368 The inability to bring Hanoi to the bargaining table by bombing illustrated another US miscalculation, and the limitations of military abilities in achieving political goals.[367]Army Chief of StaffHarold Keith Johnson noted, "if anything came out of Vietnam, it was that air power couldn't do the job."[368] General William Westmoreland admitted bombing had been ineffective, saying he doubted "that the North Vietnamese would have relented."[368] Kissinger wrote to President Ford that "in terms of military tactics ... our armed forces are not suited to this kind of war. Even the Special Forces who had been designed for it could not prevail."[369] Hanoi persistently sought unification, and the effects of US bombing had negligible impact on North Vietnam's goals.[201]: 1–10 US bombing mobilized people throughout North Vietnam and internationally, due to a superpower attempting to bomb a society into submission.[201]: 48–52
Americans struggled to absorb the lessons of the military intervention. PresidentRonald Reagan coined the term "Vietnam syndrome" to describe the reluctance of the public and politicians to support military interventions abroad. US polling in 1978 revealed nearly 72% of Americans believed the war was "fundamentally wrong and immoral."[272]: 10 Six months after the beginning of Operation Rolling Thunder,Gallup, Inc. found 60% did not believe sending troops was a mistake in September 1965, and only 24% believed it was. Polling did not find a plurality believed it was a mistake until October 1967, and did not find a majority believing it was until August 1968, during the third phase of the Tet Offensive. Thereafter, Gallup found majorities believing it was a mistake through the signing of the Peace Accords in 1973, when 60% believed it was a mistake, and polls between 1990 and 2000, found 70% of Americans believed it was a mistake.[370] TheVietnam War POW/MIA issue, concerning the fate of US service personnelmissing in action, persisted. The costs loom large in American consciousness; a 1990 poll showed the public incorrectly believed more Americans died in Vietnam than World War II.[371]
Financial cost
US expenditures in South Vietnam (1953–74) Direct costs only[372]
Military costs
Military aid
Economic aid
Total
Total (2015 dollars)
$111 billion
$16 billion
$7 billion
$135 billion
$1 trillion
Between 1953 and 1975, the US was estimated to have spent $168 billion on the war (equivalent to $1.7 trillion in 2024).[373] This resulted in a largebudget deficit. Other figures point to $139 billion from 1965 to 1974 (not inflation-adjusted), 10 times education spending, and 50 times more than housing and community development.[374] It was stated that war-spending could have paid every mortgage in the US, with money leftover.[374] As of 2013[update], the US government pays Vietnam veterans and their families more than $22 billion annually in war-related claims.[375][376]
A marine gets his wounds treated during operations in Huế City, in 1968
More than 3 million Americans served, 1.5 million saw combat.[377] "At the height of American involvement in 1968, for example, 543,400 American military personnel were stationed in Vietnam, but only 80,000 were...combat troops."[378] Conscription existed since World War II, but ended in 1973.[379][380]
58,220 American soldiers were killed,[A 7] 150,000 wounded, and at least 21,000 permanently disabled.[381] The average age of troops killed was 23.[382][383] Approximately 830,000 veterans, 15%, sufferedposttraumatic stress disorder.[381][384] Drug use, racial tensions, and fragging—attempts to kill officers—created problems for the military and impacted its capability.[385]: 44–47 125,000 Americans left for Canada to avoid the draft,[386] and approximately 50,000 servicemen deserted.[387] In 1977, PresidentJimmy Carter granted an unconditional pardon to Vietnamdraft evaders withProclamation 4483.[388]
The war called into question army doctrine. Marine generalVictor H. Krulak criticized Westmoreland's attrition strategy, calling it "wasteful of American lives... with small likelihood of a successful outcome."[368] Doubts surfaced about the military's ability to train foreign forces. There was found to be considerable flaws and dishonesty by commanders, due to promotions being tied to the body count system touted by Westmoreland and McNamara.[189] Secretary of Defense McNamara wrote to President Johnson: "The picture of the world's greatest superpower killing or seriously injuring 1,000 noncombatants a week, while trying to pound a tiny backward nation into submission on an issue whose merits are hotly disputed, is not a pretty one."[389]
Another controversial aspect of the US effort, was use of chemicaldefoliants between 1961 and 1971. 20 million gallons of toxic herbicides, likeAgent Orange, were sprayed on 6 million acres of forests and crops.[59][390] They were used todefoliate parts of the countryside to prevent the VC from hiding weaponry and encampments, and deprive them of food. Defoliation was used to clear sensitive areas, including base perimeters and ambush sites along roads and canals.[19]: 263 The chemicals used continue to change the landscape, cause diseases and birth defects, and poison the foodchain,[391][392] including suppressing the growth of some plants and crops and proceeding into the sediment, affecting fish and other species.[393] US records have listed figures including the destruction of 20% of the jungles of South Vietnam and 20-36% of themangrove forests.[394] The environmental destruction caused was described by Swedish Prime MinisterOlof Palme, lawyers, and academics as anecocide.[395][396][56][397][57][398]
The chemicals in Agent Orange[399] pose health hazards, such as immune system disorders, developmental abnormalities, and issues with the reproductive system.[400] Agent Orange and similar substances have caused many health issues for Vietnamese people and the US crews that handled them. Reports concluded that refugees exposed to sprays continued to experience pain in the eyes, skin and gastrointestinal upsets. In one study, 92% of participants suffered incessant fatigue; others reportedmonstrous births.[401] Analysis has found significant correlation between having a parent who was exposed to Agent Orange with the likelihood of possessing or acting as a carrier of birth defects.[402] The most common deformity appears to bespina bifida. There is substantial evidence defects carry on for three generations or more.[403] In 2012, the US and Vietnam cooperated in cleaning toxic chemicals onDa Nang International Airport, marking the first time Washington has been involved in cleaning up Agent Orange in Vietnam.[404] In 2018, Vietnam treated 150,000 cubic meters of contaminated soil.[405]
Handicapped children in Vietnam, most of them victims ofAgent Orange, 2004
Vietnamese victims attempted a class action lawsuit againstDow Chemical and other US chemical manufacturers, but aUS District Court dismissed their case.[406][407] As of 2006[update], the Vietnamese government estimated there were over 4,000,000 victims ofdioxin poisoning in Vietnam, while theVietnamese Red Cross estimates up to one million people have health problems or disabilities as a result of Agent Orange.[408] The US has described these figures as unreliable,[8] and denied conclusive scientific links between Agent Orange and Vietnamese victims of dioxin poisoning. In parts of southern Vietnam, dioxin levels remain at over 100 times the accepted international standard.[409]
Stone plaque with photo of the "Thương tiếc"(Mourning Soldier) statue, originally, installed at theRepublic of Vietnam National Military Cemetery. The original statue was demolished in April 1975
The war has featured extensively in television, film, video games, music and literature. In Vietnam, theGirl from Hanoi (1974) was a film set during Operation Linebacker II, depicting wartime life. Another notable work was the diary of Đặng Thùy Trâm, a doctor who enlisted in the Southern battlefield, and was killed aged 27 by US forces. Her diaries were published in Vietnam asĐặng Thùy Trâm's Diary (Last Night I Dreamed of Peace), where it became a bestseller and was made into a filmDon't Burn. The diary has been compared toThe Diary of Anne Frank, and used in education.[412]
Myths play a role in thehistoriography of the war, and have become part of theculture of the United States. Discussion of myth has focused on US experiences, but changing myths have played a role in Vietnamese and Australian historiography. Scholarship has focused on "myth-busting",[414]: 373 attacking orthodox and revisionist schools of historiography, and challenging myths about American society and soldiery in the war.[414]: 373
Kuzmarov inThe Myth of the Addicted Army: Vietnam and the Modern War on Drugs challenges the popular and Hollywood narrative that US soldiers were heavy drug users,[415] in particular the notion that the My Lai massacre was caused by drug use.[414]: 373 According to Kuzmarov, Nixon is primarily responsible for creating the drug myth.[414]: 374 Michael Allen accuses Nixon of mythmaking, by exploiting the plight of theNational League of POW/MIA Families to allow the government to appear caring, as the war was increasingly considered lost.[414]: 376 Allen's analysis ties the position of potential missing Americans, or prisoners into post-war politics and presidential elections, including theSwift boat controversy.[414]: 376–377
^abDue to the early presence of US troops in Vietnam, the start date is debated. In 1998, after a review by theDepartment of Defense (DoD) and through the efforts ofRichard B. Fitzgibbon's family, the start date according to the US government was officially changed to 1November 1955.[48] US government reports cite 1November 1955 as the commencement date of the "Vietnam Conflict", because this marked when the USMilitary Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) in Indochina (deployed to Southeast Asia under President Truman) was reorganized into country-specific units and MAAG Vietnam was established.[49]: 20 Other start dates include when Hanoi authorized Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam to begin a low-level insurgency in December1956,[50] whereas some view 26September 1959, when the first battle occurred between the Viet Cong and the South Vietnamese army, as the start date.[51]
^According to Hanoi's official history, the Viet Cong was a branch of the People's Army of Vietnam.[3]
^Upper figure initial estimate, later thought to be inflated by at least 30% (lower figure)[18][19]: 450–453
^abcThe figures of 58,220 and 303,644 for US deaths and wounded come from the Department of Defense Statistical Information Analysis Division (SIAD), Defense Manpower Data Center, as well as from a Department of Veterans fact sheet dated May 2010; the total is 153,303 WIA excluding 150,341 persons not requiring hospital care[53] the CRS (Congressional Research Service) Report for Congress, American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics, dated 26 February 2010,[54] and the book Crucible Vietnam: Memoir of an Infantry Lieutenant.[49]: 65, 107, 154, 217 Some other sources give different figures e.g. the 2005/2006 documentaryHeart of Darkness: The Vietnam War Chronicles 1945–1975 gives a figure of 58,159 US deaths,[55] and the 2007 bookVietnam Sons gives a figure of 58,226
^Prior to this, theMilitary Assistance Advisory Group, Indochina (with an authorized strength of 128 men) was set up in September 1950 with a mission to oversee the use and distribution of US military equipment by the French and their allies.
^Shortly after the assassination of Kennedy, whenMcGeorge Bundy called Johnson on the phone, Johnson responded: "Goddammit, Bundy. I've told you that when I want you I'll call you."[165]
^A study by Jacqueline Desbarats and Karl D. Jackson estimated that 65,000 South Vietnamese were executed for political reasons between 1975 and 1983, based on a survey of 615 Vietnamese refugees who claimed to have personally witnessed 47 executions. However, "their methodology was reviewed and criticized as invalid by authorsGareth Porter and James Roberts." Sixteen of the 47 names used to extrapolate this "bloodbath" were duplicates; this extremely high duplication rate (34%) strongly suggests Desbarats and Jackson were drawing from a small number of total executions. Rather than arguing that this duplication rate proves there were very few executions in post-war Vietnam, Porter and Roberts suggest it is an artifact of the self-selected nature of the participants in the Desbarats-Jackson study, as the authors followed subjects' recommendations on other refugees to interview.[342] Nevertheless, there exist unverified reports of mass executions.[343]
^abcdefghijklmnTucker, Spencer C (2011).The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History. ABC-CLIO.ISBN978-1-85109-960-3.
^Blackburn, Robert M. (1994).Mercenaries and Lyndon Johnson's "More Flage": The Hiring of Korean, Filipino, and Thai Soldiers in the Vietnam War. McFarland.ISBN0-89950-931-2.
^abcdefgHirschman, Charles; Preston, Samuel; Loi, Vu Manh (1995). "Vietnamese Casualties During the American War: A New Estimate".Population and Development Review.21 (4):783–812.doi:10.2307/2137774.JSTOR2137774.
^abcMoyar, Mark. "Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965–1968". Encounter Books, December 2022. Chapter 17 index: "Communists provided further corroboration of the proximity of their casualty figures to American figures in a postwar disclosure of total losses from 1960 to 1975. During that period, they stated, they lost 849,018 killed plus approximately 232,000 missing and 463,000 wounded. Casualties fluctuated considerably from year to year, but a degree of accuracy can be inferred from the fact that 500,000 was 59 percent of the 849,018 total and that 59 percent of the war's days had passed by the time of Fallaci's conversation with Giap. The killed in action figure comes from "Special Subject 4: The Work of Locating and Recovering the Remains of Martyrs From Now Until 2020 And Later Years, "downloaded from the Vietnamese government website datafile on 1 December 2017. The above figures on missing and wounded were calculated using Hanoi's declared casualty ratios for the period of 1945 to 1979, during which time the Communists incurred 1.1 million killed, 300,000 missing, and 600,000 wounded. Ho Khang, ed,Lich Su Khang Chien Chong My, Cuu Nuoc 1954–1975, Tap VIII: Toan Thang (Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Chinh Tri Quoc Gia, 2008), 463."
^James F. Dunnigan;Albert A. Nofi (2000).Dirty Little Secrets of the Vietnam War: Military Information You're Not Supposed to Know. Macmillan.ISBN978-0-312-25282-3.
^abcdRummel, R. J. (1997),"Vietnam Democide",Freedom, Democracy, Peace; Power, Democide, and War, University of Hawaii System, archived fromthe original(GIF) on 13 March 2023
^abcClarke, Jeffrey J. (1988).United States Army in Vietnam: Advice and Support: The Final Years, 1965–1973. Center of Military History, United States Army.The Army of the Republic of Vietnam suffered 254,256 recorded combat deaths between 1960 and 1974, with the highest number of recorded deaths being in 1972, with 39,587 combat deaths
^Lomperis, Timothy J. (1996).From People's War to People's Rule: Insurgency, Intervention, and the Lessons of Vietnam. University of North Carolina Press.ISBN978-0-8078-2273-9.[page needed]
^abcHeuveline, Patrick (2001). "The Demographic Analysis of Mortality Crises: The Case of Cambodia, 1970–1979".Forced Migration and Mortality.National Academies Press. pp. 102–104, 120, 124.ISBN978-0-309-07334-9.As best as can now be estimated, over two million Cambodians died during the 1970s because of the political events of the decade, the vast majority of them during the mere four years of the 'Khmer Rouge' regime.... Subsequent reevaluations of the demographic data situated the death toll for the [civil war] in the order of 300,000 or less.
^abcSliwinski, Marek (1995).Le Génocide Khmer Rouge: Une Analyse Démographique [The Khmer Rouge genocide: A demographic analysis].L'Harmattan. pp. 42–43, 48.ISBN978-2-7384-3525-5.
^Miller, Edward (2024). "Introduction: Points of Departure – The Global and Local Origins of the Vietnam War". In Miller, Edward (ed.).The Cambridge History of the Vietnam War, Volume I: Origins. Cambridge University Press. pp. 8–23.doi:10.1017/9781316225240.002.ISBN9781316225240.
^America's Wars(PDF) (Report). Department of Veterans Affairs. May 2010. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 24 January 2014.
^abFalk, Richard A. (1973). "Environmental Warfare and Ecocide — Facts, Appraisal, and Proposals".Bulletin of Peace Proposals.4 (1):80–96.doi:10.1177/096701067300400105.JSTOR44480206.
^Meaker, Scott S.F. (2015).Unforgettable Vietnam War: The American War in Vietnam – War in the Jungle.ISBN978-1-312-93158-9.
^Burns, Robert (27 January 2018)."Grim reminders of a war in Vietnam, a generation later".Concord Monitor.Archived from the original on 28 January 2018. Retrieved28 February 2019.It's been more than for 40-plus years, the war that Americans simply call Vietnam but the Vietnamese refer to as their Resistance War Against America.
^Tran, Nu-Anh; Vu, Tuong (2022). "Introduction: Rethinking Vietnamese Republicanism". In Tran, Nu-Anh; Vu, Tuong (eds.).Building a Republican Nation in Vietnam, 1920–1963. University of Hawaiʻi Press. pp. 1–25.ISBN9780824892111.
^Vu, Tuong (2019). "In the Service of World Revolution: Vietnamese Communists' Radical Ambitions through the Three Indochina Wars".Journal of Cold War Studies.21 (4):4–30.doi:10.1162/jcws_a_00905.
^Asselin, Pierre (2023). "The Indochinese Communist Party's Unfinished Revolution of 1945 and the Origins of Vietnam's 30-Year Civil War".Journal of Cold War Studies.25 (1):4–45.doi:10.1162/jcws_a_01120.
^Thomas, Martin; Asselin, Pierre (2022). "French Decolonisation and Civil War: The Dynamics of Violence in the Early Phases of Anticolonial War in Vietnam and Algeria, 1940–1956".Journal of Modern European History.20 (4):513–535.doi:10.1177/16118944221130231.
^Jennings, Eric T. (2024). "Indochina during World War II". In Miller, Edward (ed.).The Cambridge History of the Vietnam War, Volume I: Origins. Cambridge University Press. pp. 84–105.doi:10.1017/9781316225240.007.ISBN9781316225240.
^Smith, Ralph B. (September 1978). "The Japanese Period in Indochina and the Coup of 9 March 1945".Journal of Southeast Asian Studies.9 (2):268–301.doi:10.1017/S0022463400009784.
^Guillemot, François (2019). "The Lessons of Yên Bái, or the "Fascist" Temptation: How the Đại Việt Parties Rethought Anticolonial Nationalist Revolutionary Action, 1932–1945".Journal of Vietnamese Studies.14 (3):43–78.doi:10.1525/vs.2019.14.3.43.
^Hughes, Geraint (September 2006). "A 'Post-war' War: The British Occupation of French-Indochina, September 1945–March 1946".Small Wars & Insurgencies.17 (3):263–286.doi:10.1080/09592310600671596.
^abGuillemot, François (2004). "Au coeur de la fracture vietnamienne : l'élimination de l'opposition nationaliste et anticolonialiste dans le Nord du Vietnam (1945–1946)". In Goscha, Christopher E.; de Tréglodé, Benoît (eds.).Naissance d'un État-Parti: Le Viêt Nam depuis 1945. Paris: Les Indes savantes. pp. 175–216.ISBN9782846540643.
^Tran, Nu-Anh (2023). "Denouncing the 'Việt Cộng': Tales of revolution and betrayal in the Republic of Vietnam".Journal of Southeast Asian Studies.53 (4):686–708.doi:10.1017/S0022463422000790.
^McHale, Shawn (2004). "Freedom, Violence, and the Struggle over the Public Arena in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 1945–1958". In Goscha, Christopher E.; de Tréglodé, Benoît (eds.).Naissance d'un État-Parti: Le Viêt Nam depuis 1945. Paris: Les Indes savantes. pp. 81–99.ISBN9782846540643.
^Vu, Tuong (2009). "'It's time for the Indochinese Revolution to show its true colours': The radical turn of Vietnamese politics in 1948".Journal of Southeast Asian Studies.40 (3):519–542.doi:10.1017/S0022463409990051.
^Hoang, Tuan (2009). "The Early South Vietnamese Critique of Communism". In Vu, Tuong; Wongsurawat, Wasana (eds.).Dynamics of the Cold War in Asia: Ideology, Identity, and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 17–32.doi:10.1057/9780230101999_2.ISBN9780230101999.
^Hansen, Peter (2009). "Bắc Di Cư: Catholic Refugees from the North of Vietnam, and Their Role in the Southern Republic, 1954–1959".Journal of Vietnamese Studies.4 (3). Berkeley, California: University of California Press:173–211.doi:10.1525/vs.2009.4.3.173.
^Dommen, Arthur J. (2001).The Indochinese Experience of the French and the Americans. Indiana University Press. p. 340.ISBN978-0-253-33854-9.
^Vu, Tuong (25 May 2007)."Newly released documents on the land reform".Vietnam Studies Group. Archived fromthe original on 20 April 2011. Retrieved15 July 2016.There is no reason to expect, and no evidence that I have seen to demonstrate, that the actual executions were less than planned; in fact the executions perhaps exceeded the plan if we consider two following factors. First, this decree was issued in 1953 for the rent and interest reduction campaign that preceded the far more radical land redistribution and party rectification campaigns (or waves) that followed during 1954–1956. Second, the decree was meant to apply to free areas (under the control of the Viet Minh government), not to the areas under French control that would be liberated in 1954–1955 and that would experience a far more violent struggle. Thus the number of 13,500 executed people seems to be a low-end estimate of the real number. This is corroborated by Edwin Moise in his recent paper "Land Reform in North Vietnam, 1953–1956" presented at the 18th Annual Conference on SE Asian Studies, Center for SE Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley (February 2001). In this paper Moise (7–9) modified his earlier estimate in his 1983 book (which was 5,000) and accepted an estimate close to 15,000 executions. Moise made the case based on Hungarian reports provided by Balazs, but the document I cited above offers more direct evidence for his revised estimate. This document also suggests that the total number should be adjusted up some more, taking into consideration the later radical phase of the campaign, the unauthorized killings at the local level, and the suicides following arrest and torture (the central government bore less direct responsibility for these cases, however). cf.Szalontai, Balazs (November 2005). "Political and Economic Crisis in North Vietnam, 1955–56".Cold War History.5 (4):395–426.doi:10.1080/14682740500284630. cf.Vu, Tuong (2010).Paths to Development in Asia: South Korea, Vietnam, China, and Indonesia.Cambridge University Press. p. 103.ISBN978-1-139-48901-0.Clearly Vietnamese socialism followed a moderate path relative to China.... Yet the Vietnamese 'land reform' campaign... testified that Vietnamese communists could be as radical and murderous as their comrades elsewhere.
^Woodruff 2005, p. 6 states: "The elections were not held. South Vietnam, which had not signed the Geneva Accords, did not believe the Communists in North Vietnam would allow a fair election. In January 1957, the International Control Commission (ICC), comprising observers from India, Poland, and Canada, agreed with this perception, reporting that neither South nor North Vietnam had honored the armistice agreement. With the French gone, a return to the traditional power struggle between north and south had begun again."
^Bostdorff, Denise M.; Goldzwig, Steven R. (1994). "Idealism and Pragmatism in American Foreign Policy Rhetoric: The Case of John F. Kennedy and Vietnam".Presidential Studies Quarterly.24 (3):515–530.JSTOR27551281.ProQuest215692085.
^Galbraith, John Kenneth (1971). "Memorandum to President Kennedy from John Kenneth Galbraith on Vietnam, 4 April 1962".The Pentagon Papers (Gravel Edition), Volume 2. Boston: Beacon Press. pp. 669–671.
^Warner, Roger (1996).Shooting at the Moon The story of America's clandestine war in Laos. Steerforth Press.ISBN978-1-883642-36-5.
^Karnow 1997, pp. 336–339. Johnson viewed many members he inherited from Kennedy's cabinet with distrust because he had never penetrated their circle during Kennedy's presidency; to Johnson's mind, those likeW. Averell Harriman andDean Acheson spoke a different language.
^VanDeMark, Brian (1995).Into the Quagmire. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 13.
^Karnow 1997, p. 339. Before a small group, including Henry Cabot Lodge, Johnson also said, "We should stop playing cops and robbers [a reference to Diệm's failed leadership] and get back to... winning the war... tell the generals in Saigon that Lyndon Johnson intends to stand by our word... [to] win the contest against the externally directed and supported Communist conspiracy."
^Karnow 1997, p. 339: "At a place called Hoa Phu, for example, the strategic hamlet built during the previous summer now looked like it had been hit by a hurricane.... Speaking through an interpreter, a local guard explained to me that a handful of Viet Cong agents had entered the hamlet one night and told the peasants to tear it down and return to their native villages. The peasants complied without question."
^Hunt, Michael (2016).The World Transformed – 1945 to the Present. New York: Oxford. pp. 169–171.ISBN978-0-19-937102-0.
^Vietnam War After Action Reports. BACM Research. p. 84.
^abKahin, George;Lewis, John W. (1967).The United States in Vietnam: An analysis in depth of the history of America's involvement in Vietnam. Delta Books.
^Moyar, Mark (2006).Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954–1965. Cambridge University Press. p. 339.ISBN978-0-521-86911-9.
^abMcNeill, Ian (1993).To Long Tan: The Australian Army and the Vietnam War 1950–1966. Allen & Unwin.ISBN978-1-86373-282-6.
^United States – Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, vol. 4, p. 7.
^United States – Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, vol. 5, pp. 8–9.
^United States – Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, vol. 4, pp. 117–19. and vol. 5, pp. 8–12.
^Public Papers of the Presidents, 1965. Washington, DC Government Printing Office, 1966, vol. 2, pp. 794–99.
^Lind, Michael (1999).Vietnam, The Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America's Most Disastrous Military Conflict. Free Press. pp. 83–89.ISBN0-684-84254-8.Until recently, the lack of detailed information about the Sino-Vietnamese relationship in the 1960s made it impossible for historians to judge whether the Johnson administration had been realistic in its fears of possible Chinese intervention or whether, as critics claimed, those fears had been exaggerated. In the 1990s, however, new archival evidence from China and Vietnam made it clear that the Johnson administration's fears were justified. The possibility that Mao would have sent combat troops to fight the United States in Vietnam had been quite real. It is now known that in late 1964 and early 1965, China clarified its commitment to North Vietnam. If the United States did not merely bomb North Vietnam but invaded it, China would send combat troops as it had during the Korean War.
^Ward, Geoffrey C.; Burns, Ken (5 September 2017).The Vietnam War: An Intimate History. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 125.ISBN978-1-5247-3310-0.By the end of the year, more than 125,000 civilians in the province had lost their homes...
^abcdefgWard, Geoffrey C.; Burns, Ken (2017).The Vietnam War: An Intimate History. Alfred A. Knopf.ISBN978-0-307-70025-4.
^abcdefghiNguyen, Lien-Hang T. (2012).Hanoi's War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam. Univ of North Carolina Press.ISBN978-1-4696-2835-6.
^abAnkony, Robert C. (2009).Lurps: A Ranger's Diary of Tet, Khe Sanh, A Shau, and Quang Tri. Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group.ISBN978-0-7618-3281-2.
^abTriều, Họ Trung (5 June 2017). "Lực lượng chính trị và đấu tranh chính trị ở thị xã Nha Trang trong cuộc Tổng tiến công và nổi dậy Tết Mậu Thân 1968".Hue University Journal of Science: Social Sciences and Humanities.126 (6).doi:10.26459/hujos-ssh.v126i6.3770 (inactive 1 July 2025).ISSN2588-1213.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link)
^Eyraud, Henri (March 1987). "Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States, and the Modern Historical Experience. By Kolko Gabriel. [New York: Pantheon Books, 1985. 628 pp.]".The China Quarterly.109: 135.doi:10.1017/s0305741000017653.
^abcWitz (1994).The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War. Cornell University Press. pp. 1–2.ISBN978-0-8014-8209-0.
^Berman, Larry (1991).Lyndon Johnson's War. W.W. Norton. p. 116.
^Wheeler to President Johnson, "Report of Chairman, J.C.S., on Situation in Vietnam and MACV Requirements," February 27, 1968, inSheehan, Neil (1971).The Pentagon Papers as Published by the New York Times. Bantam. pp. 620–621.
^Sorley, Lewis (1999).A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam. Harvest. pp. 12–16.ISBN0-15-601309-6.
^Littauer, Raphael; Uphoff, Norman (1972).The Air War in Indochina (revised ed.). Beacon Press. p. 269.ISBN978-0-8131-7369-6.
^The most detailed and reliable statistics available on the US air war were compiled by USAF Major General Raymond Furlong, and published inStatement of Information, Book XI, Bombing of Cambodia. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1974. pp. 90–111.
^Johns, Andrew (2010).Vietnam's Second Front: Domestic Politics, the Republican Party, and the War. University Press of Kentucky. p. 198.ISBN978-0-8131-7369-6.
^Sagan, Scott Douglas; Suri, Jeremi (16 June 2003). "The Madman Nuclear Alert: Secrecy, Signaling, and Safety in October 1969".International Security.27 (4):150–183.doi:10.1162/016228803321951126.Project MUSE43692.
^Van Ness, Peter (December 1986). "Richard Nixon, the Vietnam War, and the American Accommodation with China: A Review Article".Contemporary Southeast Asia.8 (3):231–245.JSTOR25797906.
^"Ho Chi Minh Dies of Heart Attack in Hanoi".The Times. 4 September 1969. p. 1.
^abcdCurrey, Cecil B. (2005).Victory at Any Cost: The Genius of Viet Nam's Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap. Potomac Books, Inc. p. 272.ISBN978-1-57488-742-6.
^Graham, Robert J. (1984). "Vietnam: An Infantryman's View of Our Failure".Military Affairs.48 (3):133–139.doi:10.2307/1987487.JSTOR1987487.
^abcdeStanton, Shelby L. (2007).The Rise and Fall of an American Army: U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1963–1973. Random House Publishing Group.ISBN978-0-307-41734-3.
^Kaminsky, Arnold P.; Long, Roger D. (2016).Nationalism and Imperialism in South and Southeast Asia: Essays Presented to Damodar R.SarDesai. Routledge.ISBN978-1-351-99742-3.
^Solis, Gary D. (2010).The Law of Armed Conflict: International Humanitarian Law in War. Cambridge University Press. pp. 301–303.ISBN978-1-139-48711-5.
^Berni, Marcel (2 October 2024). "Unheard voices: foreign journalists' coverage of Vietnamese prisoners during the American War in Vietnam".Small Wars & Insurgencies.35 (7):1260–1284.doi:10.1080/09592318.2024.2361973.hdl:20.500.11850/679805.
^Wiesner, Louis (1988).Victims and Survivors: Displaced Persons and Other War Victims in Viet-Nam, 1954–1975. Greenwood Press. pp. 318–319.ISBN978-0-313-26306-4.
^Werner, Jayne (1981). "Women, Socialism, and the Economy of Wartime North Vietnam".Studies in Comparative Communism.16:165–90.doi:10.1016/0039-3592(81)90005-3.
^Healy, Dana (2006). "Laments of warriors' wives: Re-gendering the war in Vietnamese cinema".South East Asia Research.14 (2):231–259.doi:10.5367/000000006778008149.JSTOR23750856.
^"Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics, Electronic Records Reference Report". U.S. National Archives. 30 April 2019. DCAS Vietnam Conflict Extract File record counts by casualty category (as of April 29, 2008). Retrieved2 August 2021. (generated from the Vietnam Conflict Extract Data File of the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Extract Files (as of 29 April 2008))
^Aman, Mohammed M. (April 1993). "General H. Norman Schwarzkopf: The Autobiography: It Doesn't Take a Hero; H. Norman Schwarzkopf with Peter Petre".Digest of Middle East Studies.2 (2):90–94.doi:10.1111/j.1949-3606.1993.tb00951.x.
^Elliot, Duong Van Mai (2010)."The End of the War".RAND in Southeast Asia: A History of the Vietnam War Era. RAND Corporation. pp. 512–513.ISBN978-0-8330-4754-0. cf.Porter, Gareth; Roberts, James (Summer 1988). "Creating a Bloodbath by Statistical Manipulation: A Review ofA Methodology for Estimating Political Executions in Vietnam, 1975–1983, Jacqueline Desbarats; Karl D. Jackson".Pacific Affairs.61 (2):303–310.doi:10.2307/2759306.JSTOR2759306.
^Desbarats, Jacqueline (1987).Repression in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam: Executions and Population Relocation. Indochina report ; no. 11. Singapore: Executive Publications.
^TheDocumentation Center of Cambodia has mapped some 23,745 mass graves containing approximately 1.3 million suspected victims of execution; execution is believed to account for roughly 60% of the full death toll. See:Seybolt, Taylor B.; Aronson, Jay D.; Fischoff, Baruch (2013).Counting Civilian Casualties: An Introduction to Recording and Estimating Nonmilitary Deaths in Conflict.Oxford University Press. p. 238.ISBN978-0-19-997731-4.
^Ben Kiernan cites a range of 1.671 to 1.871 million excess deaths under the Khmer Rouge. SeeKiernan, Ben (December 2003). "The Demography of Genocide in Southeast Asia: The Death Tolls in Cambodia, 1975–79, and East Timor, 1975–80".Critical Asian Studies.35 (4):585–597.doi:10.1080/1467271032000147041.
^Farrell, Epsey Cooke (1998).The Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the law of the sea: an analysis of Vietnamese behavior within the emerging international oceans regime. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.ISBN90-411-0473-9.
^"Disarmament".The United Nations Office at Geneva. United Nations. November 2011.Archived from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved20 September 2013.
^Robinson, William (1998).Terms of refuge: the Indochinese exodus & the international response. Zed Books. p. 127.ISBN978-1-85649-610-0.
^Vo, Nghia M. (2015).The Vietnamese Boat People, 1954 and 1975-1992.McFarland & Company. p. 167.ISBN978-0786482498.No one knew the exact number of people who died trying to escape by boat. Between the corrupt Vietnamese patrols, the violent tropical storms, the cruel pirates, the lack of food and water, and the heartless push backs, a large number of boat people perished at sea. It is estimated that the death rate was about 10 to 15 percent of the total number of people arriving at the camps or roughly 200,000 to 220,000.
^Lippman, Thomas W. (9 April 1995)."McNamara Writes Vietnam Mea Culpa".The Washington Post. Archived fromthe original on 28 December 2019. Retrieved28 March 2020.As recounted by McNamara... the war could and should have been avoided and should have been halted at several key junctures, one as early as 1963. According to McNamara, he and other senior advisers to President Lyndon B. Johnson failed to head it off through ignorance, inattention, flawed thinking, political expediency and lack of courage.
^Combat Area Casualty File, November 1993. (The CACF is the basis for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, i.e. The Wall), Center for Electronic Records, National Archives, Washington, DC
^Kueter, Dale (2007).Vietnam Sons: For Some, the War Never Ended. AuthorHouse.ISBN978-1-4259-6931-8.
^Zierler, David (2011).The invention of ecocide: agent orange, Vietnam, and the scientists who changed the way we think about the environment. Athens, Georgia: Univ. of Georgia Press.ISBN978-0-8203-3827-9.
^"Facts About Herbicides".US Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration.The two active ingredients in the Agent Orange herbicide combination were equal amounts of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T), which contained traces of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD).
^Shaw, William (2020). "Nonmetallic Toxic Chemical Assessment".Textbook of Natural Medicine. pp. 215–222.e2.doi:10.1016/B978-0-323-43044-9.00025-X.ISBN978-0-323-52342-4.[2, 4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic Acid (2, 4-D)] is a known endocrine disruptor and can block hormone distribution and cause glandular breakdown. It is linked to immune system damage, birth defects, and reproductive issues, possibly due to its frequent contamination with dioxins.
^Roberts 2005, p. 380 In his 234-page judgment, the judge observed: "Despite the fact that Congress and the President were fully advised of a substantial belief that the herbicide spraying in Vietnam was a violation of international law, they acted on their view that it was not a violation at the time."
^Administration, US Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health."VA.gov | Veterans Affairs".www.publichealth.va.gov. Retrieved10 September 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^abcdefMilam, Ron (2009).Not A Gentleman's War: An Inside View of Junior Officers in the Vietnam War. University of North Carolina Press.ISBN978-0-8078-3712-2.
^Kuzmarov, Jeremy (2009).The Myth of the Addicted Army: Vietnam and the Modern War on Drugs. Univ of Massachusetts Press. pp. 3–4.ISBN978-1-55849-705-4.
Palmer, Michael G. (2007). "The Case of Agent Orange".Contemporary Southeast Asia.29 (1):172–195.JSTOR25798819.
Roberts, Anthea (2005). "The Agent Orange Case: Vietnam Ass'n for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin v. Dow Chemical Co".ASIL Proceedings.99 (1):380–385.JSTOR25660031.
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