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automated recovery and identification system

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CNN - IT fills in puzzle of Korean, Vietnam War MIAs - November 24, 1999

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With the help of high- and low-tech tools, the Army has identified nine men 25 years after their helicopter went down.

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CNN - Cohen expected to identify Unknown Soldier from Vietnam War - June 30, 1998

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Blassie's family had urged the Pentagon to conduct modern DNA tests after news reports raised questions about the identity of the Unknown Soldier. Cohen said last month that officials had narrowed the remains down to nine likely servicemen from the Vietnam War, including Blassie. The nine families were notified of the DNA results Monday.

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So they should. There is, in all of the book, no serious attempt to define "aggression." Small wonder the task has baffled international lawyers ever since it was first at tempted. In domestic law, if I believe you are about to assault me, I can ask for an injunction or simply wait, trusting that the likelihood of pun ishment will deter you from any assault you may be planning. You may strike or kill me anyway, but the odds are tolerable. In interna tional politics, given the failure of collective security in the United Nations, the case is not the same and for obvious reasons. Failure to take preventive action can have con sequences as serious as combating an unreal but imagined risk.

We believe, for example, that Chamberlain's appeasement was as wrong as we now think the domino theory was in Vietnam. But it was appeasement that gave us the "clear cases" of aggression in World War II we now seem to expect every where. If Chamberlain had fought Hitler over the Rhineland or the Sudeten question, we would have no "proof" that the logic of the Nazi regime led to aggressive war; it would be easy to see such a hypo thetical conflict as an "imperialist struggle" against "German self‐ determination." Yet such a policy, as we now think, would have saved millions of lives. Chamberlain held an erroneous theory; our policy makers adhered to an opposite notion, one we are convinced was equally wrong, but a theory none theless. Are officials legally criminal if their ideas prove inaccurate?

It is clear, after all, that Washing ton did not think it was planning an aggressive war. It believed it was acting to forestall "Communist ex pansionism" and to reduce the risks of nuclear war, the most criminal of all wars. Johnson told Taylor that we must be prepared to make our case at the United Nations against North Vietnainese aggression (that he was prepared to go ahead in the event of delays in the Security Council is a reflection of prudence, not evil intent), and as Stavins shows, the Administration at least made a serious effort to prevent needless civilian war casualties. Rich ard Barnet dismisses the issue of intent as "not particularly impor tant" because officials must be held accountable for conduct which vio lates "the civilized conscience." But what is this "conscience"? How did our leaders so signally fail to have it? When we tried the Nazis, there was no doubt that they intended aggressive war and that genocide was an explicit policy of the regime. The absence of similar evidence is fatal to the legal case against Amer‐. ican policy in Vietnam.

Of course, officials are and should be politically accountable for the bad consequences of their acts. But it is precisely the nature of political offenses that they take place in areas where knowledge of the rela tion between ends and means is imperfect and it is all too easy to "go wrong." Unlike totalitarian states, we allow a wide range of legally protected disagreement about policy, and while it would be too much to call Raskin and his asso ciates totalitarian, it is fair to say that they are arguing for a narrowed range of permissible difference of opinion (which, I suspect, they would never do domestically). Moreover, they are demanding that this new standard be applied ex post facto, for if "the civilized conscience" were as clear as Barnet imagines, there would be no need for the lengthy draft statute Raskin proposes to explain and codify the "crimes" in question.

It is not reassuring that the terms of this statute are vague to the point of obscurity. It is legitimate for the authors to urge that we remove those officials who contributed to the war; it was equally legitimate for con servatives to argue that John Stewart Service or John Paton Davies should be purged for what they took to be incompetence in judging China. But it was and is illegi timate to change a political dis agreement into a legal prosecu tion, whether the charge is "treason" or "aggressive war."

That the disagreement is rooted in differing views of political reality is attested by such statements as Barnet's comment that "the principal thrust of United States policy in Europe has been to avoid the negotiation for a European settlement which the Soviets have been proposing," an as sertion unlikely to go without challenge especially when there is no explanation of the nature of this proposed settlement. But it also never occurs to Bar net that the same statement could be made in relation to Hanoi; as Leslie Gelb (the or ganizer of "the Pentagon Papers") argues in the summer issue of the journal Foreign Policy, Johnson was willing to negotiate but failed to re cognize that Vietnam was "not negotiable."

The unrecognized parallel can be carried further. Stavins argues that Diem and the Americans began the war first by their refusal to hold the elections scheduled for 1956. But this is inadequate: The Rus sians did not begin "aggressive war" by refusing to hold elec tions to reunify Germany or Korea, though reunification had been promised. The boundary which divides Vietnam is as valid as the tentative divisions of Germany and Korea, and the Russians acknowledged the fact by proposing both Vietnams for U.N. membership as late as 1959. (Their reason, to impeach the Eisenhower Administration of dreaming of reconquering the North-which it was-sug gests that Stavins has a strong case, but it will not do for him because that policy was aban doned by subsequent Admini strations.)

That Stavins knows the de fects of his case is demon strated by the fact that he also argues that Diem "effectively reopened" the war by forming the Can Lao Party, accepting American military assistance, abolishing local elections and waging war "against the Viet minh." All this convicts Diem of being a despot, but that is no crime in international law. Oddly, his argument is valid only if the Vietminh are treated as subjects of a foreign state, presumably Hanoi, exactly what Washington feared.

The paradox points to a serious imbalance in the evi dence which weakens the "case" made by "Washington Plans an Aggressive War": that we lack access to any "Hanoi Papers" which could document the North Vietnamese role. Washington never doubted that the Vietcong had a local base of support. It only felt that without support from the North, Saigon could cope with the insurgency, and. American officials hoped that our involve ment would eventually reduce the conflict to the level of a civil war. If the hope was vain, we have no clear evidence that the analysis was incorrect. Sta vins writes of American covert operations that such activity aims at "placing the onus of escalation on the other side while permitting his own side to disavow its acts by ascrib ing them to the client or by denying them altogether," a truth which applies equally to the similar operations of North Vietnam. So far as we know, the North may simply have been more successful; the bal ance of guilt in Vietnam is narrow enough to make it im possible to convict "beyond reasonable doubt."

Scholarly analyses and poli tical polemics which assail the assumptions of our foreign pol icy are desperately needed. The defects and dangers of the policy apparatus should, in fact, have been clear even without Vietnam, and the attack on the old "consensus" is long over due. Public awareness remains primitive, and as Leslie Gelb writes, "If anti‐Communism persists as the overriding domestic political issue it will also be the main bureaucratic issue." The zeal, the passion and the research that produced "Washington Plans an Aggres sive War" are welcome in the task of political education, even in leading Americans to a greater sensitivity to political crimes. But in relation to any conviction in a court of law, the verdict on the authors' case will have to be, "Not Proven."

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So they should. There is, in all of the book, no serious attempt to define "aggression." Small wonder the task has baffled international lawyers ever since it was first at tempted. In domestic law, if I believe you are about to assault me, I can ask for an injunction or simply wait, trusting that the likelihood of pun ishment will deter you from any assault you may be planning.

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Burton R. Tauber is a clean shaven Wall Street lawyer with his own firm and a kind of Nelson Rockefeller aura of capi talist geniality. He is notwith standing the author of a tre mendously effective satire on the Vietnamese war-done in the form of a prospectus for a new corporate stock issue: 225,000,000 shares of common stock in The War in Vietnam.

On the level of pure parody it is beautiful; the verbiage and physical format are-according to my reliable sources in these matters-exact. The war is termed "the Company". ("The business of the Company con sists primarily of acquiring and destroying real estate.")

Officers of the Company are listed as Richard M. Nixon, Spiro Agnew ("Prior to his joining the Company Mr. Ag new did not exist"), Messrs. Thieu and Ky, Laird, Mitchell, Stennis, Rivers, Abrams, John son. ("He was responsible for the Company's growth and en largement, especially since 1965. He is currently unemployed.")

Under the heading "Opera tions to Date," we have the following: "The Company has expended approximately 120 billion dollars in its business to date. It has, however, se cured 23 acres of rice pad dies, 3 square miles of high lands, 216 square miles of monsoon jungle and, according to Company sources, the lower Mekong Delta. The Company has also killed 661,290 enemy troops (these figures have been supplied by management and are unaudited) and considers its kill ratio to be successful. The approximate cost of each kill is $196,800."

On publication day, seven pretty girls descended on Wall Street and handed out 1,000 copies. The mail response has been staggering: thousands of letters containing a dollar bill and a request; an order for 3,000 copies from a business men's peace group called the Fund for New Priorities; 500 copies for the Harvard Busi ness School to be used for a course in Corporate Economic Theory.

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the war in vietnam. preliminary prospectus

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Burton R. Tauber is a clean shaven Wall Street lawyer with his own firm and a kind of Nelson Rockefeller aura of capi talist geniality. He is notwith standing the author of a tre mendously effective satire on the Vietnamese war-done in the form of a prospectus for a new corporate stock issue: 225,000,000 shares of common stock in The War in Vietnam.

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The Vietnam War ended in 1975. It did for Americans anyway. Not so for the Vietnamese.

Since 1975, more than 40,000 Vietnamese are believed to have been killed and about 60,000 others maimed by what is known as unexploded ordnance - land mines, artillery shells, cluster bombs and the like that failed to detonate decades ago. Quang Tri Province alone, along the border that once divided Vietnam into North and South, is said to have been more heavily bombed than all of Germany was in World War II.

Unexploded yet active remains of the Vietnam War now lie in wait for incautious scrap-metal scavengers or for unsuspecting children at play. They are Vietnamese like Ho Van Lai. He was 10 years old in August 2000 when he and two cousins happened upon remnants of a cluster bomb. One of the cousins accidentally set it off, and was killed. Mr. Lai, now 26, was luckier, if losing both legs and much of his right arm can qualify as good fortune.

"I imagined that I would become a useless person," he said when interviewed in Da Nang by Retro Report, a series of video documentaries exploring how major news stories of old shape modern events. "I was supposed to be living in peace," Mr. Lai said. "Yet I was entangled with the war."

The video focuses on Vietnam, but unexploded ordnance is a worldwide concern, from the detritus of long-ago combat to the armaments of modern battlegrounds like Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Ukraine. Bombs and artillery shells from the two world wars still turn up in Belgium, England and France. By some estimates, 100 million or more antipersonnel land mines remain strewn across the globe, lurking as menaces.

"Land mines, in many senses, are the perfect soldier," said Paul Heslop, the director of programs for the United Nations Mine Action Service. "They don't go to sleep. They don't need to rest. You plant them and you arm them, and they will last for 20, 30, 40, 50 years."

It could be argued that the danger, while ever-present, is less dire than it once was, thanks to global accords to rein in the weaponry. In 2014, the last year with available statistics, there were 3,678 known casualties from various types of old ordnance, as recorded by the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, a tracking organization. The 2014 figure was 12 percent higher than the previous year's, but it was well below the 9,220 dead and wounded in 1999.

That was when a mine ban treaty went into effect. It had been adopted in 1997 - in part, as the video notes, the product of a well-publicized campaign by Princess Diana, who was killed that year in a car crash in Paris. In 2008, a comparable treaty to outlaw cluster munitions was approved, taking effect in 2010.

Cluster bombs, a reality of war since the 1940s, are singularly nasty. One of them can contain dozens, even hundreds, of baseball-size "bomblets." When the mother bomb opens, its bomblets are sprayed in all directions, tearing apart whatever is in their paths.

There are no time limits to their destructive abilities. If they fail to explode right away, they can remain active for years, lying on the ground and potentially lethal to unwary civilians. All too often, the victims are children drawn to these intriguing objects, as Ho Van Lai and his cousins were. Despite the decline in the toll since the 1990s, lingering ordnance continues to kill or maim an average of 10 people a day.

Thus far, 162 nations have joined the land mine treaty and 119 the ban on cluster munitions. But the nonsigners are some of modern warfare's most formidable players, including China, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

American officials have defended their nonparticipation as an act of prudence. In 2008, a State Department spokesman said that "cluster munitions have demonstrated military utility, and their elimination from U.S. stockpiles would put the lives of our soldiers and those of our coalition partners at risk."

As for land mines, the Pentagon describes them as especially helpful in the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea. Critics say that mining that area is a pointless vestige of the Cold War. But United States military strategists regard the explosives as a useful first-line defense against a possible North Korean invasion of the South.

That said, the treaties have plainly had an effect even on the Americans. Land mines are so stigmatized that the United States has barely used them since the Persian Gulf war of 1991. Its stockpile, estimated at three million mines, is diminished.

President Obama's administration has also signaled a willingness to sign the anti-mine treaty (not that any action seems likely before the clock runs out on his term). In early September, Mr. Obama visited Laos, which American forces secretly, and heavily, bombed during the Vietnam War. He pledged to double American support, to $90 million over the next three years, to help Laotians find and dismantle active explosives buried in fields and forests.

The United States' reliance on cluster munitions has also waned, having peaked in 2003 in the early days of the Iraq war. Military spokesmen say none have been used in the air war against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

Although the United States continues to export these munitions, it attaches a requirement that they not be used in civilian areas, and they must be designed to explode in short order or else self-destruct. By the end of 2018, manufacturers will have to ensure that the failure rate for bomblet explosions does not exceed 1 percent, thereby reducing the potential future risk to civilians.

All the same, the world is obviously not at peace. The Landmine and Cluster Munitions Monitor identifies 57 countries as threatened by mines. Russia is suspected of having dropped cluster bombs in Syria. Saudi Arabia has used American-supplied cluster munitions in Yemen, including in civilian areas. Antigovernment forces resort to roadside bombs in countries like Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, Libya, Myanmar and Ukraine.

Vietnam stands as an example of the difficult future that may await them all if ever the guns are silenced. Chuck Searcy knows a lot about that. Mr. Searcy was an American intelligence officer in Vietnam in the 1960s. He is now an adviser to Vietnamese who as part of Project Renew are cleaning up unexploded ordnance and helping victims like Mr. Lai.

"This was our responsibility," he said, referring to the United States military. "We had created the problem."

By some reckonings, it could take another century to complete the mop-up.

Countries around the world that are now in conflict, Mr. Searcy said, will "face the same problem 20 or 30, 40 years from now that Vietnam is facing."

The video with this article is part of a documentary series presented by The New York Times. The video project was started with a grant from Christopher Buck. Retro Report has a staff of 13 journalists and 10 contributors led by Kyra Darnton. It is a nonprofit video news organization that aims to provide a thoughtful counterweight to today's 24/7 news cycle. Previous episodes are at nytimes.com/retroreport. To suggest ideas for future reports, email retroreport@nytimes.com.
For breaking news and in-depth reporting, follow @NYTNational on Twitter.

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A Lingering, Deadly Legacy of Wars: Unexploded Bombs

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The Vietnam War ended in 1975. It did for Americans anyway. Not so for the Vietnamese. Since 1975, more than 40,000 Vietnamese are believed to have been killed and about 60,000 others maimed by what is known as unexploded ordnance - land mines, artillery shells, cluster bombs and the like that failed to detonate decades ago.

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Half a century later, readers recall the pain and destruction on the battlefield and off.

To the Editor: I will never forget the horrors of Vietnam (" The War That Killed Trust," by Karl Marlantes, "Vietnam '67" series, Sunday Review, Jan. 8).

Say what you want about Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy and their domino theories; it was Lyndon B. Johnson's infamous Gulf of Tonkin speech in August 1964 that set the stage for lying about the war.

When I entered the University of Southern California two years later, I had to show several of my freshman classmates where the war zone was on a map. Vietnam fractured the American psyche. I ought to know. I "won" the first draft lottery on Dec. 1, 1969. Parents who had fought 25 years earlier in World War II couldn't understand why their baby-boomer children argued about Vietnam at the dinner table.

As a 21-year-old at the time, I remember watching fathers throw their sons out of the house because they refused to enlist. But I did not serve in Vietnam. That's because I had an accident a few years earlier that disqualified me.

Today, presidents and Congress must answer the question about the elusive end game before sending troops. No such questions were asked about Vietnam. Richard M. Nixon took credit for ending American involvement there, but it was Congress that pulled the plug on funding the war. Absent that, there is no telling when the killing in Vietnam would have ended.

My three children (36, 24 and 22) all know about Vietnam. I felt that it was my responsibility to pass on to them the lessons I learned nearly half a century ago. I hope that my contemporaries have done the same with their families.

DENNY FREIDENRICH

Laguna Beach, Calif.

To the Editor: Over a pay phone, my father told me never to talk to him about it again. I had told him that I was not going to Vietnam and that if drafted I was going to Canada. I was called a Communist and a traitor. After graduating from college in 1969 and moving to Canada that summer, I was never drafted. I became a Canadian citizen and have lived here ever since.

Karl Marlantes's article resonated deeply with my experience growing up in Illinois during the 1950s and '60s. The Vietnam War changed my life more than I ever expected, but I remain a wounded American at some level, too.

STEVE JOHNSON

Toronto

To the Editor: To this day, 50 years later, I can still see the verdant paddies and farmers planting their rice crop for the year. The green was so beautiful to behold. I still ask myself the same question I thought of back then: What are we doing here? These people just want to be left alone.

When will America apologize to the Vietnamese for the murder of their citizens? When will the military-industrial complex be held accountable for creating the weapons that helped destroy Laos and Vietnam? Creating a universal draft for the American military will help maintain high profits for the merchants of war.

HERMAN EDWARD SEISER

Bangkok

The writer served with the United States Marine Corps in South Vietnam from 1966 to 1968.

To the Editor: While I respect Karl Marlantes for his sense of patriotic duty, I disagree with his analysis of the origin of cynicism among the students of the Sixties generation.

Long before students became cynical about Vietnam, they watched as the police on the streets of cities in the South beat men, women and children while the federal government did nothing. If Mr. Marlantes wishes to address the negative effects of Vietnam, he needs to look to the antecedents in the cynical behavior of the political elites of both parties as they dragged their feet in responding to the civil rights struggles in this country.

FRANK MIATA

New York

To the Editor: I wish I shared Karl Marlantes's view that Vietnam was pivotal in breaking down racial barriers. During my 14 months in the war, I noticed a disturbing trend toward re-segregation, with black and white soldiers choosing to associate only with others of their own race whenever possible.

This was most evident by a rear barracks populated exclusively by black junior officers. I often wondered why the leadership of my unit tolerated this.

ART JAEGER

Linden, Va.

To the Editor: I am a 70-plus-year-old woman, and I believe that this article gets to the heart of the political division in the United States. These days, there seems to be no sense of patriotism or "country first," as there was when I was growing up.

Every man and woman must do his or her share for this country. Maybe then we will realize that we are all in this together, and maybe then the people who think "me first" and "political party before country" will realize that this kind of thinking has taken this country down a dangerous path. I am truly afraid that our country is losing its soul.

C. K. CASTILLO

St. Louis

To the Editor: I was in Vietnam in 1967, the same year as Karl Marlantes, performing in "Guys and Dolls" for the U.S.O. My experience was very different.

We spent a night on the U.S.S. Enterprise, staying awake to count the black stealth bombers. They were returning from secret sorties over Laos, contrary to stated United States policy. I never saw racial prejudice in the military, but I was shocked by our indifference to the killing of innocent Vietnamese.

From the cockpit of a chopper I saw people in black pajamas and conical straw hats working the rice paddies. The pilot said, "I'd like to plug some of them." When asked how he could tell friend from enemy, he said: "Who cares? They're not human."

I returned to Vietnam in 2013. Every Vietnamese I spoke to had moved past anger and resentment, expressing a desire to cooperate with us, a former enemy. But what have we Americans learned from the Vietnam War? Our country is more divided than ever.

SUZANNE COGAN

New York

To the Editor: Karl Marlantes is to be commended for his powerful reflection on the legacy of the Vietnam War. But in making the case for a military populated by scions of the elite as well as the working class, he does not mention an additional payoff to universal service: The power brokers who run this country would probably be a lot less inclined toward war, and more inclined toward diplomacy, if their own family members were at risk of death on the battlefield.

ANDREW SCHRANK

Providence, R.I.

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Half a century later, readers recall the pain and destruction on the battlefield and off. To the Editor: I will never forget the horrors of Vietnam (" The War That Killed Trust," by Karl Marlantes, "Vietnam '67" series, Sunday Review, Jan. 8). Say what you want about Presidents Dwight D.

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Vietnam War Battles Graphic War Footage Vietnam Women Vietnam War Movies Vietnam War 1968 Vietnam War Documentary Vietnam War Songs Gruesome Vietnam War Vietnam War Summary Vietnam War Footage History Channel Vietnam War Vietnam War Part 1 Ken Burns Vietnam War Vietnam War Crash Course Vietnam Bombing We Were Soldiers Movie PBS Vietnam War

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Vietnam War Battles Graphic War Footage Vietnam Women Vietnam War Movies Vietnam War 1968 Vietnam War Documentary Vietnam War Songs Gruesome Vietnam War Vietnam War Summary Vietnam War Footage History Channel Vietnam War Vietnam War Part 1 Ken Burns Vietnam War Vietnam War Crash Course Vietnam Bombing We Were Soldiers Movie PBS Vietnam War

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The Vietnam War greatly changed America forever. It was the longest war fought in America's history, lasting from 1955 to 1973. The Vietnam War tarnished America's self image by becoming the first time in history the United States failed to accomplish its stated war aims, to preserve a separate, independent, noncommunist government. The war also had great effects on the American people. It was the first war ever broadcast on television. The public was able to see what happened on the battlefield. One of the chief effects of the war was the division it caused among the people. Not since the Civil War had America been so divided. This war would have lasting affects on the United States.

The Vietnam conflict began long before the U.S. became directly involved. Indochina, which includes Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, was under French colonial rule. The Vietnam communist-nationalist, also known as the Vietminh, fought for their freedom from the French. The French were being slaughtered, and were doing little to keep the communist North Vietnamese out of South Vietnam. The U.S. sent financial aid to France to help them eliminate the communist threat. At the Geneva Conference in 1954, the major powers tried to come to an agreement on Indochina. There would be a temporary division on the 17th parallel in Vietnam. The Vietminh would control North Vietnam, and South Vietnam would be ruled under the emperor Bao Dai. There was to be an election held in two years to set up the permanent government. The U.S. did not agree to these terms. After the conference, the U.S. moved to create the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization to protect Indochina from communist aggression. The U.S. supported the new leader Ngo Dinh Diem when he took power in South Vietnam. The National Liberation Front, also known as Vietcong, was a guerilla group who supported the communist North Vietnamese and opposed to the Diem rule. At first the United States attention was diverted from Vietnam to other foreign affairs, but with the threat of communist taking over all of Indochina, the U.S. gradually was pulled into the conflict.

President Eisenhower had been sending aid to South Vietnam and helped them to create the Army Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). This would hopefully help stop the communist North Vietnamese from taking over. Despite American financial aid, South Vietnam was still being defeated and needed serious intervention from the U.S. With the Cold War, the United States had vowed to keep communism from spreading. President Truman stated that any nation challenged by Communism would receive aid from the United States. The Truman Doctrine, initially for Europe and the Middle East, was adopted by the future presidents and applied to the Vietnam conflict. They feared that if one of the Southeast Asian nations fell to communism, that all the others would eventually follow. This was known as the domino theory. To the U.S. communism anywhere was a threat.

When John F. Kennedy took office in 1961, Vietnam was not a major issue. There were more pressing situations to be taken care of, such as the Cold War. The Vietnam conflict became more of an issue when civil war broke out in Laos. Vice President Johnson was sent to Vietnam, and when he returned he greatly urged President Kennedy to become more involved in the conflict. John F. Kennedy decided to send military advisors and special forces (Green Berets) to work with and train the ARVN troops instead of sending combat troops. Aerial spraying of herbicides like Agent Orange were used to try and deprive the Vietcong of their food and their jungle cover. Kennedy's advisors secretly reported to him that the ARVN was weak and the situation was becoming more serious. The president wasn't ready to send troops, but increased economic aid and sent more advisors, increasing the number from 900-15,000.

The leader of Vietnam at the time was Ngo Dinh Diem. He was a Catholic, which caused much dispute because the majority of Vietnam was Buddhist. He was blamed for the worsening situation in Vietnam. Many South Vietnamese united against Diem, and in October 1963, a military coup aided by CIA and the United States ambassador overthrew and murdered Diem. On November 22,1963 President John F. Kennedy was riding through the streets of Dallas, Texas, when he was killed by an assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.
After the death of the president, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was appointed president of the United States. Johnson felt that the U.S. should stay involved in Vietnam to prove the U.S. kept its commitments and could stop communism aggression. August 2, 1964 the USS Maddox was off the coast of North Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin, when in was fired upon by North Vietnam coastal gunboats. On August 4 the USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy both reported attacks from North Vietnam forces. Johnson decided to escalate the war. He ordered bombing of different North Vietnam targets. Congress soon authorized the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave the president authority "to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression." Johnson came up with a strategy to take control of Vietnam called Operation Rolling Thunder. The operation would consist of bombing of North Vietnam, more air power, and increase the number of ground troops. In June 1965, U.S. advisors were sent into combat. This would shift the U.S. "from helping the Vietnam people help themselves, to fighting a full-scale war on and over the land mass of Asia."

In September 1967, Nguyen Van Thieu was elected president of South Vietnam. The U.S. now had a total of about 650,000 ground troops in Vietnam. Johnson tried for peace talks, but nothing was agreed upon. In January of 1968, the Vietcong and North Vietnam prepared for a major attack. Tet is the lunar New Year, and is Vietnam's biggest holiday. They planned a surprise attack, hoping the ARVN and U.S. would have let their guard down. Every important city in South Vietnam was attacked, including the capital Saigon. The fighting lasted for about a month. America was able to witness much of this footage on the news. The outcome was a major military victory for South Vietnam, but it was a great political victory for North Vietnam. It proved that the war was nowhere close to being over, and proved how determined the Vietcong was. It also demonstrated how costly the war would be. This was a major turning point in America's public opinion on the war. It made people begin to loose hope in winning the war, and to question the president's tactics for the war. When the Pentagon announced the number of U.S. casualties since the beginning of war, the number reached 15,058 killed, 109,572 wounded, and about $25 billions dollars spent each year. President Johnson knew his popularity was lost and decided not to run for reelection.

On January 20, 1969 Richard Nixon was inaugurated. A few months later he announced the removal of 25,000 United States troops by August of 1969 and another 65,000 to be sent home by the end of the year. His planned was called "Vietnamization" which would bring "peace with honor." It was designed to turn over the responsibility of war to South Vietnam. The U.S. would strengthen the South Vietnam army so they could fight without direct help from the U.S. This would allow American troops to gradually come home. Vietnamization would also set up a self sufficient South Vietnam government.

The Communist soon agreed on a peace plan, but it fell through when they claimed the U.S. wasn't going along as agreed. The same year Nixon ordered secret bombing of Cambodia to try and wipe out the Vietcong and North Vietnam base camps. On April 30, 1970, President Nixon informed the American people that troops would be sent to Cambodia. This outraged people even more. Nixon had promised peace, but was now bringing on more war. Many more young students became worried that they would be drafted. On May 1, 1970 Kent State University became grounds for anti-war rallies. About fifteen thousand dollars worth of damage was inflicted on downtown Kent. On May 2 protestors burned down the campus ROTC building. The Governor decided to call in the National Guard. On May 4 rallies started again on campus, and the National Guard used tear gas as a means to try and disperse the crowd. The crowd had become very rowdy and all of a sudden shots were fired. No one is certain as to why the shooting started, but 4 people were shot dead, and 9 were wounded. Two of those that died were innocent students switching classes. This tragic news caused much uproar across the nation. A great deal of respect for authority was lost by many citizens. The tragedy made many people realize that protest can go too far, and law enforcement can also go too far in trying to maintain the law.

In 1971, Congress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution as to limit the power of the president with the war. In January 1973, a cease-fire was negotiated. On January 25, 1973, The Paris Peace Accords were signed ending the fighting between North Vietnam and the United States. U.S. troops would be withdrawn, American POWs would be returned home, and the South Vietnam regime would remain in power. This didn't end the war, but got the U.S. and our 27,000 remaining troops and 540 POWs out of Vietnam. Soon after the United States left, fighting resumed between North Vietnam and South Vietnam's weak army. May of 1975, two years after Nixon pulled out of the war, South Vietnam surrendered. Vietnam was reunified under a communist Vietnam regime. By the end of the war the United States suffered 57,000 casualties and 153,303 soldiers were wounded.
There are many things people blame America's defeat on. For one thing the North Vietnam and Vietcong armies were much stronger than anyone anticipated. Their guerilla warfare tactics was something the U.S. soldiers were not used to. The fact that there were no clear combat zones also made fighting confusing. The Vietcong also would dress as peasants to trick the soldiers before they would attack. This made it hard for soldiers to distinguish between the enemy and friendly civilians. The Vietcong was also fighting for a cause they were willing to fight to the death for. They had heroic determination and fighting spirit. The American soldiers on the other hand didn't always have confidence in their goals, and some felt the war was unwinable. There was no direct threat to their own country and there was no support from the general population. The soldiers were also angered by the government lies they had to witness. Those who returned from war joined the forefront of the antiwar movements. They began wearing peace symbols and other signs of their digression. The African Americans were especially opposed to fighting "a racist war, in a racist army, for a racist government." Military discipline broke down, and "fragging" began. Fragging was when soldiers would attack their officers, usually by tossing fragments of grenades into the officers sleeping quarters. Some soldiers also openly refused their orders. The military also experienced financial corruption, theft, murder, and suicide. All these factors seriously hurt the U.S. army.

At first many people volunteered to fight. When the draft came into affect many questioned its fairness. Until 1969 local boards had selected those for the draft, and most of those selected were usually minorities and poor working class youths. In 1965, 20,000 men per month were drafted, by 1968, 40,000 were drafted per month, and served 12-13 months. Some people tried to avoid the draft. People moved to Canada, burned draft cards, and went to college. Others served prison sentences, like Muhammad Ali, or avoided the war on moral grounds and instead served a set term of community service. The working-class communities were also another area where resistance was strong because these were the people usually drafted. People began to see the body bags return home and video clippings from the fighting. These factors greatly worried the American people.

The anti-war movement is also blamed as to why the Untied States lost the war. The war was popular in the beginning, and most of the American public supported the war. The success of World War II kept people optimistic about the outcome of U.S. involvement and kept them from objecting. Americans wanted to preserve their way of life and stop the threat of Communism. Some people even benefited from the war at first, such as aircraft manufacturers, but this didn't last for long. When involvement of the U.S. was escalated in 1965, America supported this decision and was positive that the U.S. would come out victorious. When this escalation failed to produce the results that were expected, people started to become doubtful. America had been told that they were winning the war, but as the number of deaths and injuries increased the people realized that this war did have its costs. Just because it was fought thousands of miles away, didn't mean that it didn't affect the people at home.

The Media caused major changes in America. The media brought all the horrors of the war to life. For the first time, people were able to see the action everyday on the news. Death and destruction caused by the bombing were shown, and the nightly news even counted the dead. This greatly affected America's opinions on the war. The media itself also experienced changes. Before the war the media focused on the positive aspects of wars. It showed U.S. action in a positive way and focused on what people wanted and needed to hear. Money wasn't a factor for journalist, and they didn't need to compete. Their job was to help the public stay optimistic and keep them from panicking. Many people from the television, magazines, and newspapers were able to travel to Vietnam to gain information to write more informative stories. Most reporters supported the war initially, but after being in Vietnam for long periods of time they grew skeptical and formed biased opinions. They lost enthusiasm and started to give offensive and biased reports. In 1971 the Pentagon Papers were published by the New York Times. They were a copy of the Defense Department's history of involvement in Vietnam, and were leaked by Daniel Ellsberg. This revealed that Kennedy and Johnson had misled the public about the intentions in Vietnam. America would no longer fully trust the government. Journalist criticized the army's methods and revealed the true horrors of war. The media became an endless competition to earn money, fame, and success.

As citizens realized the seriousness of the war many people started to revolt and publicly display their opposition to the war. When Johnson approved the Operation Rolling Thunder and began the massive bombings of Vietnam, the anti-war movement grew to enormous proportions. The citizens of the nation really began questioning America's presence in Vietnam. They asked how a small country like Vietnam could cause the world to fall to communism. They used national images in a distorted way to get their opinions across. Demonstrations, rallies, sit-ins, and other anti-war movements became regular occurrences on the college campuses. Teach-ins became popular in classrooms. This was where the teacher and students would discuss the war openly in class. The protest really intensified in 1965 to 1970. On November 15,1969, 300,000 people gathered in Washington D.C. for the largest antiwar demonstration ever. Priest and other religious leaders even joined in the rallies. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the Tet offensive were both events that caused much uproar. Civil rights leaders even became active in the antiwar movements. Martin Luther King became a vocal antiwar activist and expressed his opinions about the racial discrimination occurring in the draft and army. The My Lai Massacre, the killing of 200 civilians by the U.S. soldiers who couldn't distinguish the civilians from enemy forces fueled more protest. People even started calling the soldiers "baby killers." In previous wars, soldiers had been seen as heroic, but in the Vietnam War it was just the opposite. Soldiers were embarrassed to wear their uniform when coming home. To be a soldier was no longer something to be proud of.

There were two extremist groups present during the war, the hawks and the doves. The hawks were nationalist who wanted to escalate the war. They saw the conflict as part of the struggle against Communism. They felt the war could be won. The doves in contrast opposed to the war on moral grounds. They wanted peace at all costs. Norman Morrison a strong activist burned himself to death in front of the Pentagon. Even people in congress were willing to speak out against the war, like Senator J. William Fullbright. Many celebrities and musicians became strong activist. Their speeches and music reflected the views the Americans had towards the war, their anger and feelings that the war was a hopeless cause. Woodstock held in August 1969, was a gathering of many folk and rock artist singing anti-war songs and voicing the same opinions on the war raging in Vietnam. Thousands of people attended this anti-war rally.
The war also had effects on the economy. In the beginning the war spending increased the economy, but soon the cost of war caught up to the United States. The budget had to be expanded. The cost of living rose greatly between the years of 1965 to 1975. The spending of the war was about 150 billion dollars in all. Prices of goods had increased 16% by 1970. Inflation occurred wiping out almost all economic gains, and wages were lowered, leading to many strikes. President Johnson finally asked Congress for extra taxes to help pay for the war. Congress agreed as long as he cut domestic spending. By 1961, 25 billion dollars per year were being spent on the war effort. Business leaders thought it best to end the war than to cause more civil rights movements, strikes, and youth movements against the government.

The war also had devastating results in Vietnam. Many civilians were killed and many children were born with birth defects. Their largest crops were destroyed because of the herbicides used. 800,000 children were orphaned in South Vietnam and at least 10 million people were homeless.

The transition for the soldiers back into public life was a hard one. They only received about half the benefits the veterans from other wars received. Some even faced psychological problems, drug addiction, and employment troubles. Their homecoming wasn't such a celebration as it had been in the years before. They didn't receive anywhere near the recognition they deserved.

Since the war America's views have changed greatly. The soldier are no longer looked down upon, but are honored. Today there is a national memorial in Washington D.C. in their honor. It was built in 1982 and commemorates all the U.S. Military personnel who died or were declared missing in action in Vietnam. The wall is 493 feet long and in 1984 a bronze statue called Three Servicemen was added to the site. In 1993 a bronze sculpture of 3 nurses and a wounded soldier was also added to honor those women who served. Since the war there have been many movies, documentaries, books, and poems that remember the war and honor the veterans.

The Vietnam War had many cost. Not only the billions of dollars spent, but also the thousands of American lives taken, and the effects it had on American society. The war cost Lyndon Johnson his presidency. Many programs promised to the American people were never fulfilled because of the demands from the war. The President's power in waging war was limited. The war also permanently changed the way the media functions. It changed the public view of the government and its leaders permanently. Serious questions were raised about the U.S. getting involved militarily in many future situations, and the U.S. stayed out of other countries affairs for many years. The war in all, damaged America's image and taught the U.S. about its limits of power. The war did have its positive affects. Communist pressure was kept out of Indonesia and other areas in the pacific. This enabled them to remain non-communist since most of the communists' focus was on Southeast Asia. The Vietnam War is one that will never be forgotten, and its affects on America have changed the way Americans will look at all future conflicts.

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The Vietnam War greatly changed America forever. It was the longest war fought in America's history, lasting from 1955 to 1973. The Vietnam War tarnished America's self image by becoming the first time in history the United States failed to accomplish its stated war aims, to preserve a separate, independent, noncommunist government.

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President Johnson believed that America should be committed to winning the Vietnam war, and follow through on the agreement to help.

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By Professor Robert K. Brigham, Vassar College

The Second Indochina War, 1954-1975, grew out of the long conflict between France and Vietnam. In July 1954, after one hundred years of colonial rule, a defeated France was forced to leave Vietnam. Nationalist forces under the direction of General Vo Nguyen Giap trounced the allied French troops at the remote mountain outpost of Dien Bien Phu in the northwest corner of Vietnam. This decisive battle convinced the French that they could no longer maintain their Indochinese colonies and Paris quickly sued for peace. As the two sides came together in Geneva, Switzerland, international events were already shaping the future of Vietnam's modern revolution.

The Geneva Peace Accords
The Geneva Peace Accords, signed by France and Vietnam in the summer of 1954, reflected the strains of the international cold war. Drawn up in the shadow of the Korean War, the Geneva Accords represented the worst of all possible futures for war-torn Vietnam. Because of outside pressures brought to bear by the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, Vietnam's delegates to the Geneva Conference agreed to the temporary partition of their nation at the seventeenth parallel to allow France a face-saving defeat. The Communist superpowers feared that a provocative peace would anger the United States and its western European allies, and neither Moscow or Peking wanted to risk another confrontation with the West so soon after the Korean War.

According to the terms of the Geneva Accords, Vietnam would hold national elections in 1956 to reunify the country. The division at the seventeenth parallel, a temporary separation without cultural precedent, would vanish with the elections. The United States, however, had other ideas. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles did not support the Geneva Accords because he thought they granted too much power to the Communist Party of Vietnam.

Instead, Dulles and President Dwight D. Eisenhower supported the creation of a counter-revolutionary alternative south of the seventeenth parallel. The United States supported this effort at nation-building through a series of multilateral agreements that created the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).

South Vietnam Under Ngo Dinh Diem
Using SEATO for political cover, the Eisenhower administration helped create a new nation from dust in southern Vietnam. In 1955, with the help of massive amounts of American military, political, and economic aid, the Government of the Republic of Vietnam (GVN or South Vietnam) was born. The following year, Ngo Dinh Diem, a staunchly anti-Communist figure from the South, won a dubious election that made him president of the GVN. Almost immediately, Diem claimed that his newly created government was under attack from Communists in the north. Diem argued that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV or North Vietnam) wanted to take South Vietnam by force. In late 1957, with American military aid, Diem began to counterattack. He used the help of the American Central Intelligence Agency to identify those who sought to bring his government down and arrested thousands. Diem passed a repressive series of acts known as Law 10/59 that made it legal to hold someone in jail if s/he was a suspected Communist without bringing formal charges.

The outcry against Diem's harsh and oppressive actions was immediate. Buddhist monks and nuns were joined by students, business people, intellectuals, and peasants in opposition to the corrupt rule of Ngo Dinh Diem. The more these forces attacked Diem's troops and secret police, the more Diem complained that the Communists were trying to take South Vietnam by force. This was, in Diem's words, "a hostile act of aggression by North Vietnam against peace-loving and democratic South Vietnam."

The Kennedy administration seemed split on how peaceful or democratic the Diem regime really was. Some Kennedy advisers believed Diem had not instituted enough social and economic reforms to remain a viable leader in the nation-building experiment. Others argued that Diem was the "best of a bad lot." As the White House met to decide the future of its Vietnam policy, a change in strategy took place at the highest levels of the Communist Party.

From 1956-1960, the Communist Party of Vietnam desired to reunify the country through political means alone. Accepting the Soviet Union's model of political struggle, the Communist Party tried unsuccessfully to cause Diem's collapse by exerting tremendous internal political pressure. After Diem's attacks on suspected Communists in the South, however, southern Communists convinced the Party to adopt more violent tactics to guarantee Diem's downfall. At the Fifteenth Party Plenum in January 1959, the Communist Party finally approved the use of revolutionary violence to overthrow Ngo Dinh Diem's government and liberate Vietnam south of the seventeenth parallel. In May 1959, and again in September 1960, the Party confirmed its use of revolutionary violence and the combination of the political and armed struggle movements. The result was the creation of a broad-based united front to help mobilize southerners in opposition to the GVN.

The National Liberation Front
The united front had long and historic roots in Vietnam. Used earlier in the century to mobilize anti-French forces, the united front brought together Communists and non-Communists in an umbrella organization that had limited, but important goals. On December 20, 1960, the Party' s new united front, the National Liberation Front (NLF), was born. Anyone could join this front as long as they opposed Ngo Dinh Diem and wanted to unify Vietnam.

The character of the NLF and its relationship to the Communists in Hanoi has caused considerable debate among scholars, anti-war activists, and policymakers. From the birth of the NLF, government officials in Washington claimed that Hanoi directed the NLF's violent attacks against the Saigon regime. In a series of government "White Papers," Washington insiders denounced the NLF, claiming that it was merely a puppet of Hanoi and that its non-Communist elements were Communist dupes. The NLF, on the other hand, argued that it was autonomous and independent of the Communists in Hanoi and that it was made up mostly of non-Communists. Many anti-war activists supported the NLF's claims. Washington continued to discredit the NLF, however, calling it the "Viet Cong," a derogatory and slang term meaning Vietnamese Communist.

December 1961 White Paper
In 1961, President Kennedy sent a team to Vietnam to report on conditions in the South and to assess future American aid requirements. The report, now known as the "December 1961 White Paper," argued for an increase in military, technical, and economic aid, and the introduction of large-scale American "advisers" to help stabilize the Diem regime and crush the NLF. As Kennedy weighed the merits of these recommendations, some of his other advisers urged the president to withdraw from Vietnam altogether, claiming that it was a "dead-end alley."

In typical Kennedy fashion, the president chose a middle route. Instead of a large-scale military buildup as the White Paper had called for or a negotiated settlement that some of his advisers had long advocated, Kennedy sought a limited accord with Diem. The United States would increase the level of its military involvement in South Vietnam through more machinery and advisers, but would not intervene whole-scale with troops. This arrangement was doomed from the start, and soon reports from Vietnam came in to Washington attesting to further NLF victories. To counteract the NLF's success in the countryside, Washington and Saigon launched an ambitious and deadly military effort in the rural areas. Called the Strategic Hamlet Program, the new counterinsurgency plan rounded up villagers and placed them in "safe hamlets" constructed by the GVN. The idea was to isolate the NLF from villagers, its base of support. This culturally-insensitive plan produced limited results and further alienated the peasants from the Saigon regime. Through much of Diem's reign, rural Vietnamese had viewed the GVN as a distant annoyance, but the Strategic Hamlet Program brought the GVN to the countryside. The Saigon regime's reactive policies ironically produced more cadres for the NLF.

Military Coup
By the summer of 1963, because of NLF successes and its own failures, it was clear that the GVN was on the verge of political collapse. Diem's brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, had raided the Buddhist pagodas of South Vietnam, claiming that they had harbored the Communists that were creating the political instability. The result was massive protests on the streets of Saigon that led Buddhist monks to self-immolation. The pictures of the monks engulfed in flames made world headlines and caused considerable consternation in Washington. By late September, the Buddhist protest had created such dislocation in the south that the Kennedy administration supported a coup. In 1963, some of Diem's own generals in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) approached the American Embassy in Saigon with plans to overthrow Diem. With Washington's tacit approval, on November 1, 1963, Diem and his brother were captured and later killed. Three weeks later, President Kennedy was assassinated on the streets of Dallas.

At the time of the Kennedy and Diem assassinations, there were 16,000 military advisers in Vietnam. The Kennedy administration had managed to run the war from Washington without the large-scale introduction of American combat troops. The continuing political problems in Saigon, however, convinced the new president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, that more aggressive action was needed. Perhaps Johnson was more prone to military intervention or maybe events in Vietnam had forced the president's hand to more direct action. In any event, after a dubious DRV raid on two U.S. ships in the Gulf of Tonkin, the Johnson administration argued for expansive war powers for the president.

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
In August 1964, in response to American and GVN espionage along its coast, the DRV launched a local and controlled attack against the C. Turner Joy and the U.S.S. Maddox, two American ships on call in the Gulf of Tonkin. The first of these attacks occurred on August 2, 1964. A second attack was supposed to have taken place on August 4, although Vo Nguyen Giap, the DRV's leading military figure at the time, and Johnson's Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara have recently concluded that no second attack ever took place. In any event, the Johnson administration used the August 4 attack as political cover for a Congressional resolution that gave the president broad war powers. The resolution, now known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, passed both the House and Senate with only two dissenting votes (Senators Morse of Oregon and Gruening of Alaska). The Resolution was followed by limited reprisal air attacks against the DRV.

Throughout the fall and into the winter of 1964, the Johnson administration debated the correct strategy in Vietnam. The Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted to expand the air war over the DRV quickly to help stabilize the new Saigon regime. The civilians in the Pentagon wanted to apply gradual pressure to the Communist Party with limited and selective bombings. Only Undersecretary of State George Ball dissented, claiming that Johnson's Vietnam policy was too provocative for its limited expected results. In early 1965, the NLF attacked two U.S. army installations in South Vietnam, and as a result, Johnson ordered the sustained bombing missions over the DRV that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had long advocated.

The bombing missions, known as OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER, caused the Communist Party to reassess its own war strategy. From 1960 through late 1964, the Party believed it could win a military victory in the south "in a relatively short period of time." With the new American military commitment, confirmed in March 1965 when Johnson sent the first combat troops to Vietnam, the Party moved to a protracted war strategy. The idea was to get the United States bogged down in a war that it could not win militarily and create unfavorable conditions for political victory. The Communist Party believed that it would prevail in a protracted war because the United States had no clearly defined objectives, and therefore, the country would eventually tire of the war and demand a negotiated settlement. While some naive and simple-minded critics have claimed that the Communist Party, and Vietnamese in general, did not have the same regard for life and therefore were willing to sustain more losses in a protracted war, the Party understood that it had an ideological commitment to victory from large segments of the Vietnamese population.

The War in America
One of the greatest ironies in a war rich in ironies was that Washington had also moved toward a limited war in Vietnam. The Johnson administration wanted to fight this war in "cold blood." This meant that America would go to war in Vietnam with the precision of a surgeon with little noticeable impact on domestic culture. A limited war called for limited mobilization of resources, material and human, and caused little disruption in everyday life in America. Of course, these goals were never met. The Vietnam War did have a major impact on everyday life in America, and the Johnson administration was forced to consider domestic consequences of its decisions every day. Eventually, there simply were not enough volunteers to continue to fight a protracted war and the government instituted a draft. As the deaths mounted and Americans continued to leave for Southeast Asia, the Johnson administration was met with the full weight of American anti-war sentiments. Protests erupted on college campuses and in major cities at first, but by 1968 every corner of the country seemed to have felt the war's impact. Perhaps one of the most famous incidents in the anti-war movement was the police riot in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Hundreds of thousands ofcpeople came to Chicago in August 1968 to protest American intervention in Vietnam and the leaders of the Democratic Party who continued to prosecute the war.

The Tet Offensive
By 1968, things had gone from bad to worse for the Johnson administration. In late January, the DRV and the NLF launched coordinated attacks against the major southern cities. These attacks, known in the West as the Tet Offensive, were designed to force the Johnson administration to the bargaining table. The Communist Party correctly believed that the American people were growing war-weary and that its continued successes in the countryside had tipped the balance of forces in its favor. Although many historians have since claimed that the Tet Offensive was a military defeat, but a psychological victory for the Communists, it had produced the desired results. In late March 1968, a disgraced Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not seek the Democratic Party's re-nomination for president and hinted that he would go to the bargaining table with the Communists to end the war.

The Nixon Years
The secret negotiations began in the spring of 1968 in Paris and soon it was made public that Americans and Vietnamese were meeting to discuss an end to the long and costly war. Despite the progress in Paris, the Democratic Party could not rescue the presidency from Republican challenger Richard Nixon who claimed he had a secret plan to end the war.

Nixon's secret plan, it turned out, was borrowing from a strategic move from Lyndon Johnson's last year in office. The new president continued a process called "Vietnamization", an awful term that implied that Vietnamese were not fighting and dying in the jungles of Southeast Asia. This strategy brought American troops home while increasing the air war over the DRV and relying more on the ARVN for ground attacks. The Nixon years also saw the expansion of the war into neighboring Laos and Cambodia, violating the international rights of these countries in secret campaigns, as the White House tried desperately to rout out Communist sanctuaries and supply routes. The intense bombing campaigns and intervention in Cambodia in late April 1970 sparked intense campus protests all across America. At Kent State in Ohio, four students were killed by National Guardsmen who were called out to preserve order on campus after days of anti-Nixon protest. Shock waves crossed the nation as students at Jackson State in Mississippi were also shot and killed for political reasons, prompting one mother to cry, "They are killing our babies in Vietnam and in our own backyard."

The expanded air war did not deter the Communist Party, however, and it continued to make hard demands in Paris. Nixon's Vietnamization plan temporarily quieted domestic critics, but his continued reliance on an expanded air war to provide cover for an American retreat angered U.S. citizens. By the early fall 1972, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and DRV representatives Xuan Thuy and Le Duc Tho had hammered out a preliminary peace draft. Washington and Hanoi assumed that its southern allies would naturally accept any agreement drawn up in Paris, but this was not to pass. The leaders in Saigon, especially President Nguyen van Thieu and Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky, rejected the Kissinger-Tho peace draft, demanding that no concessions be made. The conflict intensified in December 1972, when the Nixon administration unleashed a series of deadly bombing raids against targets in the DRV's largest cities, Hanoi and Haiphong. These attacks, now known as the Christmas bombings, brought immediate condemnation from the international community and forced the Nixon administration to reconsider its tactics and negotiation strategy.

The Paris Peace Agreement
In early January 1973, the Nixon White House convinced the Thieu-Ky regime in Saigon that they would not abandon the GVN if they signed onto the peace accord. On January 23, therefore, the final draft was initialed, ending open hostilities between the United States and the DRV. The Paris Peace Agreement did not end the conflict in Vietnam, however, as the Thieu-Ky regime continued to battle Communist forces. From March 1973 until the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, ARVN forces tried desperately to save the South from political and military collapse. The end finally came, however, as DRV tanks rolled south along National Highway One. On the morning of April 30, Communist forces captured the presidential palace in Saigon, ending the Second Indochina War.

Robert K. Brigham was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1960. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky where he worked with Professor George C. Herring, an expert on the Vietnam War. While pursuing his Ph.D., Brigham took Vietnamese language courses at Cornell University and traveled to Vietnam for research. Since coming to Vassar College in 1994, Brigham has led student and alumnae/i trips to Vietnam and participated in a critical oral history conference on the war in Hanoi. Brigham is the author of numerous books and essays on the Vietnam War, including Guerrilla Diplomacy: The NLF's Foreign Relations and the Vietnam War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998) and ARVN: A History of America's Ally in Vietnam (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999).

E. Kenneth Hoffman went to Viet Nam in June, 1969, as a first lieutenant in the 221st Signal Company in charge of a photo detachment. Initially stationed at a sprawling military base in Long Binh and later in Pleiku and Saigon, Hoffman took over 1500 photographs in addition to the pictures he took for the government. He traveled freely and extensively throughout the country and was able to record much of civilian culture--markets, farms, homes, shrines, and people. The bulk of his work--especially photos documenting the conflict--is archived in the Library of Congress. A more extensive selection of Hoffman's photos are on view at his Vietnam Interactive Portfolio.

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By Professor Robert K. Brigham, Vassar College The Second Indochina War, 1954-1975, grew out of the long conflict between France and Vietnam. In July 1954, after one hundred years of colonial rule, a defeated France was forced to leave Vietnam.

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The American Soldiers were not appreciated enough. They were left without information, and not valued.

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The Vietnam Veterans have been forgotten by Americans

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Aretha Franklin - Chain Of Fools (Lyrics)

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"Chain Of Fools" Chain, chain, chain (Chain, chain, chain) Chain, chain, chain (Chain, chain, chain) Chain, chain, chain (Chain, chain, chain) Chain of fools For five long years I thought you were my man But I found out I'm just a link in your chain You got me where you

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Porter Wagoner - Green Green Grass of Home

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After watching CNN and Fox News for the last several days and listening to all of the commentary about the government shut down by the different analysts and experts, I must say that I am still totally confused. It looks like we are going to do a Band-Aid fix and get the government funded and running again within a few days - then we will have to look forward to the next time.

I will leave it with this simple statement:

Remember - Piss Poor Planning Produces Piss Poor Products!

"You cannot be a good follower when there is no one leading."

Need I say more?

If you are offended by what you see on this blog, feel free to go somewhere else.

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Since I retired, I tinker around with making designs which are printed on several different products and sold through Cafe' Press and Zazzle. Proceeds from these sales helps pay for an ongoing "Partner in Hope" subscription I have set up with the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, in memory of those killed in Vietnam. The artwork is not fancy but it is all my work. I will take full credit (or blame) for anything you see there. I hope you will take a look at what I have to offer. There is no charge for looking! The most popular products are T-shirts, caps and mugs. It keeps me busy and keeps me out of the wife's way. I hope a few of you will buy some of the products, so we can continue to help the kids at St. Jude. You can also make direct donations to St. Jude by following this link -
http://www.stjude.org

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After watching CNN and Fox News for the last several days and listening to all of the commentary about the government shut down by the different analysts and experts, I must say that I am still totally confused.

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stretchers to carry dead and wounded

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casualties who are expected to die

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Viet Cong; the enemy

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medic

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an armored personnel carrier used as an aid station

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soldiers who are qualified as parachutists