Between July and December , more than , U. Bombarded by horrific images of the war on their televisions, Americans on the home front turned against the war as well: In October , some 35, demonstrators staged a massive Vietnam War protest outside the Pentagon. Opponents of the war argued that civilians, not enemy combatants, were the primary victims and that the United States was supporting a corrupt dictatorship in Saigon. On January 31, , some 70, DRV forces under General Vo Nguyen Giap launched the Tet Offensive named for the lunar new year , a coordinated series of fierce attacks on more than cities and towns in South Vietnam.
Taken by surprise, U. Reports of the Tet Offensive stunned the U. With his approval ratings dropping in an election year, Johnson called a halt to bombing in much of North Vietnam though bombings continued in the south and promised to dedicate the rest of his term to seeking peace rather than reelection.
Despite the later inclusion of the South Vietnamese and the NLF, the dialogue soon reached an impasse, and after a bitter election season marred by violence, Republican Richard M. Nixon won the presidency. In an attempt to limit the volume of American casualties, he announced a program called Vietnamization : withdrawing U.
In addition to this Vietnamization policy, Nixon continued public peace talks in Paris, adding higher-level secret talks conducted by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger beginning in the spring of The North Vietnamese continued to insist on complete and unconditional U. The next few years would bring even more carnage, including the horrifying revelation that U. After the My Lai Massacre , anti-war protests continued to build as the conflict wore on.
In and , there were hundreds of protest marches and gatherings throughout the country. On November 15, , the largest anti-war demonstration in American history took place in Washington, D. The anti-war movement, which was particularly strong on college campuses, divided Americans bitterly.
For some young people, the war symbolized a form of unchecked authority they had come to resent. For other Americans, opposing the government was considered unpatriotic and treasonous. As the first U. Nixon ended draft calls in , and instituted an all-volunteer army the following year. In , a joint U. The invasion of these countries, in violation of international law, sparked a new wave of protests on college campuses across America.
At another protest 10 days later, two students at Jackson State University in Mississippi were killed by police. By the end of June , however, after a failed offensive into South Vietnam, Hanoi was finally willing to compromise. Kissinger and North Vietnamese representatives drafted a peace agreement by early fall, but leaders in Saigon rejected it, and in December Nixon authorized a number of bombing raids against targets in Hanoi and Haiphong.
Known as the Christmas Bombings, the raids drew international condemnation. Some of the papers from the archive of Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers in A top-secret Department of Defense study of U. The report, leaked to the Times by military analyst Daniel Ellsberg, further eroded support for keeping U.
In January , the United States and North Vietnam concluded a final peace agreement, ending open hostilities between the two nations.
In , Vietnam was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, though sporadic violence continued over the next 15 years, including conflicts with neighboring China and Cambodia. Under a broad free market policy put in place in , the economy began to improve, boosted by oil export revenues and an influx of foreign capital.
Trade and diplomatic relations between Vietnam and the U. March 16, Over the course of four hours, American soldiers kill more than unarmed civilians in and around the hamlet of My Lai. May 4, Four days after Nixon announced the expansion of the war into Cambodia, four students at Kent State are shot by National Guardsmen during a protest.
March 30 — Oct. POWs begin to return home. More: The Vietnam War: Why it was the conflict that no one wanted to talk about. Facebook Twitter Email.
There were a number of long-term and short-term reasons to explain why the USA became involved in Vietnam in the late s. During World War Two it had been invaded by Japan. Ho Chi Minh was the leader of the Vietminh, a resistance army which fought for Vietnamese independence. The French tried to take control again, but this was unpopular with the people. They were defeated by the Vietminh at Dien Bien Phu in Peace was discussed at Geneva in and the Treaty of Geneva agreed that the French would leave Vietnam and the country would be split along the 17th Parallel until elections could be held.
The elections were never held and the country remained divided:. The Vietminh wanted to unite the country under communist leader Ho Chi Minh. War broke out between the North and South.
0コメント