In 1961, the new administration of President John F. Kennedy took a new approach to aiding
anti-communist forces in Vietnam which differed from the administrations of Presidents Truman and Eisenhower, who felt the neighboring country Laos was the "cork in the bottle" in combating the threat of Communism in southeast Asia. Kennedy was fearful of the domino effect, that by allowing Vietnam to fall to Communism, the rest of South East Asia would follow suit. In 1961 he asserted:I think that the struggle is close enough. China is so large, looms so high just beyond the frontiers, that if South Vietnam went, it would not only give them an improved geographic position for a guerrilla assault on Malaysia, but would also give the impression that the wave of the future in southeast Asia was China and the Communists.During 1961, his first year in office, Kennedy assigned $28.4 million to the enlargement of the South Vietnamese army and $12.7 million to enhance the civil guard. He also found himself faced with a three-part crisis: The failure of the
Bay of Pigs invasion in
Cuba; the construction of the
Berlin Wall by the
Soviets; and a negotiated settlement between the pro-Western government of
Laos and the
Pathet Lao communist movement. Fearing that another failure on the part of the U.S. to stop communist expansion would fatally damage U.S. credibility with its allies, Kennedy realized, "Now we have a problem in making our power credible... and Vietnam looks like the place." The commitment to defend South Vietnam was reaffirmed by Kennedy on May 11 in National Security Action Memorandum 52, which became known as "The Presidential Program for Vietnam". Its opening statement reads: U.S. objectives and concept of operations [are] to prevent communist domination of South Vietnam; to create in that country a viable and increasingly democratic society, and to initiate, on an accelerated basis, a series of mutually supporting actions of a military, political, economic, psychological, and covert character designed to achieve this objective. Nevertheless, the Kennedy administration held onto its fundamental belief in nation building. Kennedy was intrigued by the idea of utilizing
United States Army Special Forces for counterinsurgency conflicts in
Third World countries threatened by the new "wars of national liberation". Originally intended for use behind front lines after a conventional invasion of Europe, Kennedy believed that the
guerrilla tactics employed by Special Forces would be effective in the "brush fire" war in South Vietnam. Thus, in May 1961, Kennedy sent detachments of
Green Berets to South Vietnam. Kennedy had faced much international pressure against his increasing involvement in Vietnam, non the least from
Charles De Gaulle on, but Kennedy held steadfast, stating on September 2: We hope that he comes to see that, but in the final analysis it is the people and the government itself have to win or lose this struggle. All we can do is help, and we are making it very clear, but I don't agree with those who say we should withdraw. That would be a great mistake. The
Diệm regime had been initially able to cope with the VC insurgency in South Vietnam with the aid of U.S. matériel and advisers, and, by 1962, seemed to be gaining the upper hand. Senior U.S. military leaders received positive reports from the U.S. commander, General
Paul D. Harkins of the
Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, or MACV. By the following year, however, cracks began to appear in the façade of success. In January, a possible victory that was turned into a stunning defeat for government forces at the
Battle of Ap Bac caused consternation among both the military advisers in the field and among politicians in Washington, D.C. JFK also indicated to
Walter Cronkite that the war might be unwinnable, and that it was ultimately a Vietnamese war, not an American war. Diệm was already growing unpopular with many of his countrymen because of his administration's nepotism, corruption, and its apparent bias in favor of the
Catholic minority—of which Diệm was a part—at the expense of the
Buddhist majority. This contributed to the impression of Diệm's rule as an extension of the French Colonial regime. Promised land reforms were not instituted, and Diệm's strategic hamlet program for village self-defense (and government control) was a disaster. Diệm also feared the escalation of American military personnel in South Vietnam, which threatened his nationalist credentials and the independence of his government. He opposed the US sending troops to South Vietnam. The Kennedy administration grew increasingly frustrated with Diệm. One major frustration among the Kennedy administration was the continued prominent role of Ngo Dinh Nhu, the younger brother of Diem, within the South Vietnamese regime. Nhu held a prominent role in the Diem government, to the chagrin of US officials. Following a meeting with Nhu, Hillsman surmised US frustrations with the Diem government, statingThe American military are still chasing Viet Cong and advising the Vietnamese to chase Viet Cong. They're not adopting the program the President has recommended, our own military are not. Diem has turned the strategic-hamlet program over to Nhu, who's taken the title, the name of it, and nothing else. And in fact, what Diem signed, what we persuaded him to, had not been adopted.Frustrations boiled over following Nhu's American-trained special forces crackdown on Buddhist pagodas in Hue in 1963. More than 1,400 Buddhists were arrested. Buddhist monks were protesting discriminatory practices and demanding a political voice. The repression of the protests sparked the so-called
Buddhist crisis, during which several monks committed
self-immolation, which was covered in the world press. The VC took full advantage of the situation and fueled anti-Diệm sentiment to create further instability. In August, the State Department stated:We wish to give Diem reasonable opportunity to remove Nhu, but if he remains obdurate, then we are prepared to accept the obvious implications that we can no longer support Diem. You may tell appropriate military commanders that we will give them direct support in any interim period of breakdown central government mechanismIt was never, however, the prerogative of the Kennedy administration to remove the Diem government from power. As the McNamara-Taylor report cautioned, "Our policy should be to seek urgently to identify and build contacts with an alternative leadership if and when it appears." Though reluctant to immediately launch full scale U.S. involvement in the Vietnam conflict, the Kennedy Administration would escalate the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam who acted as advisors to the South Vietnamese military. At the time of Kennedy's assassination in 1963, the number of U.S. military advisors in Vietnam had grown to at least 16,000. South Vietnam was considered a key democratic ally in Southeast Asia, and its potential to fall to communism was seen as a direct threat to regional stability and U.S. credibility. After the intervention of
Joseph Stalin and
Mao Zedong in the
Indochina War, the U.S. was fearful of a repeat of the
Korean War. U.S. leaders subscribed to a worldview characterised by sharply defined distinctions between communism and democracy, firmly believing that any communist gains would undermine the broader strategy of containment. The "loss" of China to communism in 1949 played a pivotal role in shaping this mindset, as political opponents relentlessly used it, especially conservatives, to accuse the Democratic party of weakness. This climate was further inflamed by the post-war
second Red Scare and "counter-subversion" campaigns, which created a political environment where being seen as "soft on communism" was perceived as a significant vulnerability. These domestic dynamics were often intertwined with gendered political pressures, compelling U.S. leaders to project strength in the face of communist expansion, both internationally and domestically.
Gendered political pressures Domestic political pressures, particularly those influenced by Cold War-era ideals of masculinity, played a role in President Lyndon B. Johnson's decision to escalate U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Historian, K.A. Cuordileone has argued that the political culture of the 1950s and 1960s emphasized a binary between "hard" and "soft" approaches, where strength and assertiveness were associated with masculinity, while caution and dissent were often portrayed as weak and feminine. Johnson operated within a political environment that, according to Robert Dean, valued a form of "imperial manhood", in which national credibility was linked to displays of masculine strength, a cultural norm reinforced by elite institutions including Ivy League universities. There was use of heavily masculine language within domestic political discourse, highlighting "toughness" and "honour" which ultimately framed discussion surrounding the Vietnam War. Use of language as such was incredibly common within the political sphere, also being known as "masculine socialisation". "Masculine socialisation" was rooted in education and upbringing of particularly upper-class men. The political aftermath of the "loss" of China and the Second Red Scare contributed to Johnson's fear of being held responsible for "losing" Vietnam, not wanting to be labelled as a "unmanly man". Johnson frequently used terms such as "honour", "credibility", and "spine", reflecting the influence of these domestic political gendered norms on his decision making. Scholars like Steinburg have suggested that concerns about political credibility and masculinity were significant factors driving Johnson's escalation of U.S. intervention
Lyndon B. Johnson's role A great deal of the blame for U.S. failures in Vietnam has been cast on Johnson by historians. His decision making was motivated by a variety of reasons, including his personal fear of appearing soft on communism, but also his fear of engaging America in another stalemate like the Korean War. It is largely agreed upon that Johnson inherited a complicated situation from his predecessor, Kennedy. Consequently, Johnson faced a difficult situation regarding whether the costs of intervening outweighed the benefits. In essence, America had reached the point of no return. The pride of America and the pride of Johnson as a strong President means that the individual actions and responses of Johnson in Vietnam are somewhat responsible for the failures resulting from U.S. intervention. Johnson himself did not want to appear weak against communism as he feared the backlash from the U.S. public and his Republican rivals. However, public opinion in early 1965 was not uniformly in favour of intervention. While there was concern about the spread of communism, polls indicated that many Americans were hesitant to support the deployment of combat troops. Support for direct military involvement increased temporarily following the deployment of troops, a phenomenon sometimes described as a "rally around the flag" effect, but it began to decline significantly by 1967, as public concerns over the war's cost and progress grew. Johnson also expressed reservations about entering a potentially costly and unpopular conflict. Discussing Vietnam with Senator
Richard Russell Jr. in May 1964, he expressed serious concerns about countering guerrilla tactics, the likely ineffectiveness and probable domestic political impact of conducting a bombing campaign in the north, and a number of other factors. Whilst these challenges would have been faced by any President in office at the time, it is ultimately Johnson's individual decisions and attitudes that brought America into the Vietnam War. Historians have been sympathetic towards Johnson's situation, but others believe that the inevitability of war and Johnson's trapping by previous Presidents like John F. Kennedy is a dubious proposal. Fredrick Logevall believes there were choices available to him debate and fluidity was more of a reality than a Cold War consensus as key figures such as Russell opposed the war: "exact numbers are hard to come by, but certainly in the Senate a clear majority of Democrats and moderate Republicans were either downright opposed to Americanisation or were ambivalent". Robert Dean says McNamara recognised that Johnson could have avoided war in his 1995 memoirs. Dean believes "the basic explanation McNamara offers is that the Kennedy and Johnson policy makers were blinded by their own rigid anti-communist ideology". Arnold R. Isaacs says that there was limited public pressure to escalate war whilst his political position was already safe because of an electoral vote of 486 in the
1964 presidential election. He further suggests escalation posed greater political risks to Johnson than disengagement, particularly due to the potential consequences on his domestic legislative priorities. Johnson feared that a prolonged and costly war would divert attention away from key social reforms and spark political debate. In early 1965, Vice President Hubert Humphrey and several senior Democratic lawmakers, warned that military escalation could destabilise domestic policy, cutting into the Great Society funding. Despite these warnings, Johnson opted to escalate U.S. involvement without a formal declaration of war, pursuing what some critics described as a strategy of waging "war on the sly". This approach allowed Johnson to avoid triggering a full-scale public debate. Analysts have argued that Johnson was aware of the fragile nature of domestic consensus on the war and feared that open debate might expose the extent of elite opposition and jeopardise the administration's domestic policy.
Laos or Vietnam? According to Seth Jacobs, during the 1950s and 1960s, there was a conceptualisation of Asian nations across a hierarchy of good and bad within the American imagination, which affected US policymakers view of how intervention would materialise. Jacobs states: Americans at the mid century considered some Asians tough and therefore dependable anticommunist allies while consigning other to the ranks of those who, in the words of a State Department working paper "will not fight for themselves" much less for the free world. No Asian was rated lower in American eyes than the LaoJacobs writes that Eisenhower and later Kennedy both "reduced the Lao to a set of stereotypes: childlike, lazy, submissive, unfit to fight the free world's battles". Therefore, Kennedy was dissuaded from sponsoring a military intervention in Laos and instead compromised with the Pathet Lao, which Jacobs argues meant that Kennedy felt he had to intervene elsewhere in Southeast Asia in Vietnam and that the dovish attitude towards Laos was antithetical to the hawkish outlook towards Vietnam. Jacobs argues that Kennedy viewed the Vietnamese people more able to fight communism than the "unfit Lao". Jacobs argues the "American statesmen and the American media constructed a putative Lao national character that differed from South Vietnam's and that made Lao chances of withstanding communist pressure appeal negligible". ==Americanization==
Gulf of Tonkin On July 27, 1964, 5,000 additional U.S. military advisers were ordered to South Vietnam, bringing the total American troop level to 21,000. Shortly thereafter an incident occurred off the coast of North Vietnam that was destined to escalate the conflict to new levels and lead to the full scale
Americanization of the war. On the evening of August 2, 1964, the
destroyer was conducting an electronic intelligence collection mission in international waters (even as claimed by North Vietnam) in the
Gulf of Tonkin when it was attacked by three
P-4 torpedo boats of the
Vietnam People's Navy. Reports later reached the Johnson administration saying that the
Maddox was under attack. Two nights later, after being joined by the destroyer , the
Maddox again reported that both vessels were under attack. Regardless, Johnson addressed
Congress asking for more political power to utilize American military forces in South Vietnam, using the attack on the
Maddox as cause to get what he wanted. Confusion was abound around the circumstance of the attacks. The ''Turner Joy's'' reports of the second attack were met with scepticism from many U.S. officials. While it is 'indisputable' that the first attack occurred, the evidence of the second attack, McNamara contends, "appears probable but not certain". This incited rampant confusion in Washington. Nevertheless, the incident was seen by the administration as the perfect opportunity to present Congress with "a pre-dated declaration of war" in order to strengthen weakening morale in South Vietnam through reprisal attacks by the U.S. on the North. The attack was pivotal in justifying the Johnson administration's intensification of the war. Even before confirmation of the phantom attack had been received in Washington, Johnson had decided that an attack could not go unanswered. Johnson ordered
attacks on North Vietnamese naval bases almost immediately, and capitalised on the incident by convincing congress to accept intensified military action in Vietnam. Neither Congress nor the American people learned the whole story about the events in the Gulf of Tonkin until the publication of the
Pentagon Papers in 1969. It was on the basis of the administration's assertions that the attacks were "unprovoked aggression" on the part of North Vietnam, that the United States Congress approved the Southeast Asia Resolution (also known as the
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution) on August 7. The law gave the President broad powers to conduct military operations without an actual declaration of war. The resolution passed unanimously in the
House of Representatives and was opposed in the
Senate by only two members. National Security Council members, including Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara,
Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and General
Maxwell Taylor, agreed on November 28 to recommend that Johnson adopt a plan for a two-stage escalation of the bombing of North Vietnam.
Operation Rolling Thunder, 1965–68 In February 1965, a U.S. air base at
Pleiku, in the
Central Highlands of South Vietnam, was attacked twice by the VC, resulting in the deaths of over a dozen U.S. personnel. These guerrilla attacks prompted the administration to
order retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnam. Operation
Rolling Thunder was the code name given to a sustained strategic bombing campaign targeted against the North by aircraft of the
U.S. Air Force and
Navy that was inaugurated on March 2, 1965. Its original purpose was to bolster the morale of the South Vietnamese and to serve as a signaling device to Hanoi. U.S. airpower would act as a method of "strategic persuasion", deterring the North Vietnamese politically by the fear of continued or increased bombardment.
Rolling Thunder gradually escalated in intensity, with aircraft striking only carefully selected targets. When that did not work, its goals were altered to destroying North Vietnam's will to fight by destroying the nation's industrial base, transportation network, and its (continually increasing) air defenses. After more than 300,000 sorties were flown and three-quarters of a million tons of bombs were dropped,
Rolling Thunder was ended on November 11, 1968. Other aerial campaigns (
Operation Barrel Roll,
Operation Steel Tiger,
Operation Tiger Hound, and
Operation Commando Hunt) were directed to counter the flow of men and material down the
People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) logistical system that flowed from North Vietnam through southeastern Laos, and into South Vietnam known as the
Ho Chi Minh Trail. These operations as a whole were an expensive failure - the bombings, despite the devastation did not stop the flow of supplies coming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Build-up Johnson had already appointed General
William C. Westmoreland to succeed General
Paul Harkins as commander of MACV in June 1964. Under Westmoreland, the expansion of American troop strength in South Vietnam took place. American forces rose from 16,000 during 1964 to more than 553,000 by 1969. With the U.S. decision to escalate its involvement it had created the
Many Flags program to legitimize intervention and
ANZUS Pact allies
Australia and
New Zealand agreed to contribute troops and material to the conflict. They were joined by the
Republic of Korea,
Thailand, and the
Philippines. The U.S. paid for (through aid dollars) and logistically supplied all of the allied forces. As the manpower demand increased to meet these obligations McNamara initiated
Project 100,000 which witnessed a significant reduction in recruiting standards for the U.S. military. Meanwhile, political affairs in Saigon were finally settling down — at least as far as the Americans were concerned. On February 14 the most recent military
junta, the National Leadership Committee, installed Air Vice-Marshal
Nguyễn Cao Kỳ as prime minister. In 1966, the junta selected General
Nguyễn Văn Thiệu to run for president with Ky on the ballot as the vice-presidential candidate in the 1967 election. On April 1, 1967, a new constitution was promulgated and the Second Republic of Vietnam was established in South Vietnam.
Presidential and
bicameral elections would be held a few months later. Thiệu and Kỳ were elected and remained in office for the duration of the war. In the presidential election of 1971, Thieu ran for the presidency unopposed. With the advent of
Rolling Thunder, American airbases and facilities needed to be constructed and manned for the aerial effort. On March 8, 1965, 3,500 United States Marines came ashore at Da Nang as the first wave of U.S. combat troops into South Vietnam, adding to the 25,000 U.S. military advisers already in place. Although the landing was approved by the South Vietnamese government before, the details of the landing location and time were decided by the United States without prior notice to South Vietnam. Instead the initial deployment and gradual build-up was a unilateral decision by the US government. In a series of meetings between Westmoreland and Johnson held in
Honolulu in February 1966, Westmoreland claimed that the U.S. presence had succeeded in preventing the immediate defeat of the South Vietnamese government but that more troops would be necessary if systematic offensive operations were to be conducted. The issue then became in what manner American forces would be used. The nature of the American military's strategic and tactical decisions made during this period colored the conflict for the duration of the American commitment. The logistical system in Laos and Cambodia should be cut by ground forces, isolating the southern battlefield. However, political considerations limited U.S. military actions, mainly because of the memory of Chinese reactions during the Korean War. Ever present in the minds of diplomats, military officers, and politicians was the possibility of a spiraling escalation of the conflict into a
superpower confrontation and the possibility of a
nuclear exchange. Therefore, there would be no invasion of North Vietnam, the "neutrality" of Laos and Cambodia would be respected, and
Rolling Thunder would not resemble the bombing of Germany and Japan during the Second World War. These limitations were not foisted upon the military as an afterthought. Before the first U.S. soldiers came ashore at Da Nang, the Pentagon was cognizant of all of the parameters that would be imposed by their civilian leaders, yet they still agreed that the mission could be accomplished within them. Westmoreland believed that he had found a strategy that would either defeat North Vietnam or force it into serious negotiations.
Attrition was to be the key. The general held that larger offensive operations would grind down the communists and eventually lead to a "crossover point" in PAVN/VC casualties after which a decisive (or at least political) victory would be possible. It is widely held that the average U.S. serviceman was 19 years old, as evidenced by the casual reference in a pop song ("
19" by
Paul Hardcastle); the figure is cited by
Lt. Col. Dave Grossman ret. of the
Killology Research Group in his 1995 book
On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (p. 265). However, it is disputed by the Vietnam Helicopter Flight Crew Network Website, which claims the average age of MOS 11B personnel was 22. American forces would conduct operations against PAVN forces, pushing them further back into the countryside away from the heavily populated coastal lowlands. In the backcountry the U.S. could fully utilize its superiority in firepower and mobility to bleed the enemy in set-piece battles. The cleaning-out of the VC and the pacification of the villages would be the responsibility of the South Vietnamese military. The adoption of this strategy, however, brought Westmoreland into direct conflict with his
Marine Corps commander, General
Lewis W. Walt, who had already recognized the security of the villages as the key to success. Walt had immediately commenced pacification efforts in his area of responsibility, but Westmoreland was unhappy, believing that the Marines were being underutilized and fighting the wrong enemy. In the end, MACV won out and Westmoreland's
search and destroy concept, predicated on the attrition of enemy forces, won the day. Both sides chose similar strategies. PAVN, which had been operating a more conventional, large-unit war, switched back to small-unit operations in the face of U.S. military capabilities. The struggle moved to the villages, where the "hearts and minds" of the South Vietnamese peasants, whose cooperation was absolutely necessary to military success, would be won or lost. The U.S. had given responsibility for this struggle to the
Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), whose troops and commanders were notoriously unfit for the task. For the American soldier, whose doctrine was one of absolute commitment to total victory, this strategy led to a frustrating small-unit war. Most of the combat was conducted by units smaller than
battalion-size (the majority at the
platoon level). Since the goal of the operations was to kill the enemy, terrain was not taken and held as in previous wars. Savage fighting and the retreat of the communists was immediately followed by the abandonment of the terrain just seized. Combined with this was the anger and frustration engendered among American troops by the effective tactics of the NLF, who conducted a war of
sniping, booby traps, mines, and terror against the Americans. As a result of the conference held in Honolulu, Johnson authorized an increase in troop strength to 429,000 by August 1966. The large increase in troops enabled MACV to carry out numerous operations that grew in size and complexity during the next two years. For U.S. troops participating in these operations (
Operation Masher/White Wing,
Operation Attleboro,
Operation Cedar Falls,
Operation Junction City and dozens of others) the war boiled down to hard marching through some of the most difficult terrain on the planet and weather conditions that were alternately hot and dry, or cold and wet. It was the PAVN/VC that actually controlled the pace of the war, fighting only when their commanders believed that they had the upper hand and then disappearing when the Americans and/or ARVN brought their superiority in numbers and firepower to bear. North Vietnam, utilizing the Ho Chi Minh and
Sihanouk Trails, matched the U.S. at every point of the escalation, funneling manpower and supplies to the southern battlefields. During the Vietnam War, the use of the helicopter, known as "Air Mobile", was an essential tool for conducting the war. In fact, the whole conduct and strategy of the war depended on it. Vietnam was the first time the helicopter was used on a major scale, and in such important roles. Search and destroy missions, for example, would have been nearly impossible without it. Helicopters allowed American commanders to move large numbers of troops to virtually anywhere, regardless of the terrain or roads. Troops could also be easily resupplied in remote areas. The helicopter also provided another new and vital capability: medical evacuation. It could fly wounded soldiers to aid stations very quickly, usually within the critical first hour. This gave wounded soldiers a higher chance of survival in Vietnam than in any previous war. The helicopter was also adapted for many other roles in Vietnam, including ground attack, reconnaissance, and electronic warfare. Without the helicopter, the war would have been fought very differently.
Tactical nuclear weapons and cluster bombs Although the use of nuclear weapons was proposed as a contingency plan by the military, Johnson shut this idea down, approving instead the use of
cluster bombs (termed
Controlled Fragmentation Munition or
COFRAM by the military) In the 1964 presidential campaign, Johnson presented himself as the candidate who would be less willing to use nuclear weapons (see "Daisy" ad). As President, Johnson urged the military not to give the president the authority to use tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam. Throughout the war, President Johnson did not change his stance on the use of tactical nuclear weapons against the Vietcong.
Border battles and the Tet Offensive By mid-1967, Westmoreland said that it was conceivable that U.S. forces could be phased out of the war within two years, turning over progressively more of the fighting to the ARVN. That fall, however, savage fighting broke out in the northern provinces. Beginning below the
DMZ at
Con Thien and then spreading west to the Laotian border near
Dak To, large PAVN forces began to stand their ground and fight. This willingness of the communists to remain fixed in place inspired MACV to send reinforcements from other sectors of South Vietnam. Most of the PAVN/VC operational capability was possible only because of the unhindered movement of men along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. To threaten this flow of supplies, the Marine Corps established a combat base on the South Vietnamese side of the Laotian frontier, near the village of
Khe Sanh. The U.S. used the base as a border surveillance position overlooking
Route 9, the only east–west road that crossed the border in the province. Westmoreland also hoped to use the base as a jump-off point for any future incursion against the Trail system in Laos. During the spring of 1967, a series of small-unit actions near Khe Sanh prompted MACV to increase its forces. These small unit actions and increasing intelligence information indicated that the PAVN was building up significant forces just across the border. Indeed, PAVN was doing just that. Two regular divisions (and later elements of a third) were moving toward Khe Sanh, eventually surrounding the base and cutting off its only road access. Westmoreland, contrary to the advice of his Marine commanders, reinforced the outpost. As far as he was concerned, if the PAVN were willing to mass their forces for destruction by American air power, so much the better. He described the ideal outcome as a "
Dien Bien Phu in reverse". MACV then launched the largest concentrated aerial bombardment effort of the conflict (
Operation Niagara) to
defend Khe Sanh. Another massive aerial effort was undertaken to keep the beleaguered Marines supplied. There were many comparisons (by the media, Americans military and political officials, and the North Vietnamese) to the possibility of PAVN staging a repeat of its victory at Dien Bien Phu, but the differences outweighed the similarities in any comparison. MACV used this opportunity to field its latest technology against the North Vietnamese. A sensor-driven, anti-infiltration system known as
Operation Igloo White was in the process of being field tested in Laos as the siege of Khe Sanh began. Westmoreland ordered that it be employed to detect PAVN troop movements near the base and the system worked well. By March, the long-awaited ground assault against the base had failed to materialize and communist forces began to melt back toward Laos. MACV (and future historians) were left with only questions. What was the goal of the PAVN? Was the siege a real attempt to stage another Dien Bien Phu? Or had the battles near the border (which eventually drew in half of MACV's maneuver battalions) been a diversion, meant to pull forces away from the cities, where another PAVN offensive would soon commence? Westmoreland's public reassurances that "
the light at the end of the tunnel" was near were countered when, on January 30, 1968, PAVN and VC forces broke the truce that accompanied the
Tết holiday and mounted their largest offensive thus far, in hopes of sparking a general uprising among the South Vietnamese. These forces, ranging in size from small groups to entire regiments, attacked nearly every city and major military installation in South Vietnam. The Americans and South Vietnamese, initially surprised by the scope and scale of the offensive, quickly responded and inflicted severe casualties on their enemies. The VC was essentially eliminated as a fighting force and the places of the dead within its ranks were increasingly filled by North Vietnamese. The PAVN/VC attacks were speedily and bloodily repulsed in virtually all areas except
Saigon, where the fighting lasted for three days, and in the old imperial capital of
Huế, where it continued for a month. During the occupation of the historic city, 2,800 South Vietnamese were
murdered by the VC in the single worst massacre of the conflict. The hoped-for uprising never took place; indeed, the offensive drove some previously apathetic South Vietnamese to fight for the government. Another surprise for the North was that the ARVN did not collapse under the onslaught, instead turning in a performance that pleased even its American patrons. After the Tet Offensive, influential news magazines and newspapers, including the
Wall Street Journal,
Time and
The New York Times, increasingly began to characterize the war as a stalemate. What shocked and dismayed the American public was the realization that either it had been lied to or that the American military command had been dangerously overoptimistic in its appraisal of the situation in Vietnam. The public could not understand how such an attack was possible after being told for several years that victory was just around the corner. The Tet Offensive came to embody the growing
credibility gap at the heart of U.S. government statements. These realizations and changing attitudes forced the American public (and politicians) to face hard realities and to reexamine their position in Southeast Asia. Moreover, the U.S. media coverage made it even more clear that an overall victory in Vietnam was not imminent. It also massively weakened the domestic support for the Johnson administration at the time. The days of an open-ended commitment to the conflict were over. The psychological impact of the Tet Offensive effectively ended Johnson's political career. On March 11, Senator
Eugene McCarthy won 42 percent of the vote in the Democratic
New Hampshire primary. Although Johnson was not on the ballot, commentators viewed this as a defeat for the President. Shortly thereafter, Senator
Robert F. Kennedy announced his intention to seek the Democratic nomination for the 1968 presidential election. On March 31, in a speech that took America and the world by surprise, Johnson announced that "I shall not seek, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your President" and pledged himself to devoting the rest of his term in office to the search for peace in Vietnam. Johnson announced that he was limiting bombing of North Vietnam to just north of the DMZ and that U.S. representatives were prepared to meet with North Vietnamese counterparts in any suitable place "to discuss the means to bring this ugly war to an end". A few days later, much to Johnson's surprise, North Vietnam agreed to contacts between the two sides. On May 13, what became known as the
Paris peace talks began. Due to the ever-increasing demands for manpower and the unpopularity of the war, Army recruiting standards were lowered and training programs were shortened. Some
NCOs were referred to as "
Shake 'N' Bake" to highlight their accelerated training. Unlike soldiers in World War II and Korea, there were no secure rear areas in which to get rest and relaxation. One unidentified soldier said to
United Press International that there was nothing to do in Vietnam and therefore many of the men smoked
marijuana. He said, "One of the biggest reasons that a lot of GIs do get high over here is there is nothing to do. This place is really a drag; it's a bore over here. Like right now sitting around here, we are getting loaded. Whereas, it doesn't really get you messed up; that's I guess the main reason why we smoke it."
My Lai massacre On March 16, 1968, three companies of Task Force Barker, part of the
Americal Division, took part in a search and destroy operation near the village of
My Lai, in
Quang Ngai Province. Lieutenant
William Calley personally ordered the executions of hundreds of villagers in large groups. The killings ended only when an American helicopter crew, headed by Warrant Officer
Hugh Thompson, Jr., discovered Calley's unit in the act and threatened to attack them with his aircraft's weapons unless they stopped. One of the soldiers on the scene was
Ron Haeberle, a photographer for the newspaper
Stars and Stripes, who took unobtrusive official black-and-white photos of the operation through the lens of his military-issued camera and color shots of the massacre with his personal camera. Although the operation appeared suspicious to Calley's superiors, it was forgotten. In 1969, investigative journalist
Seymour Hersh exposed the My Lai massacre in print, and the Haeberle photos were released to the world media. The Pentagon launched an investigation headed by General
William R. Peers to look into the allegations. After a flurry of activity, the Peers Commission issued its report. It declared that "an atmosphere of atrocity" surrounded the event, concluding that a massacre had taken place and the crime had been covered up by the commander of the Americal Division and his executive officer. Perhaps 400 Vietnamese civilians, mostly old men, women, and children had been killed by Charlie company. Several men were charged in the killings, but only Calley was convicted. He was given a life sentence by a
court-martial in 1970, but after numerous appeals, he was finally set free; he had served just over three years of house arrest. Although My Lai generated a lot of civilian recriminations and bad publicity for the military, it was not the only massacre. The
Vietnam War Crimes Working Group Files made public in 1994 by the "Freedom of Information Act" reveals seven, albeit much smaller, massacres previously unacknowledged by the Pentagon, in which at least 137 civilians had died. Cover-ups may have occurred in other cases, as detailed in the
Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles concerning the
Tiger Force of the
101st Airborne Division by the
Toledo Blade in 2003. ==Vietnamization, 1969–73==