1. Chapter 26
A Nation Divided
The Vietnam War, 1945–1975

2. CHAPTER TWENTY SIX: A NATION DIVIDED: THE VIETNAM WAR, 1945-1975
How did differing views on the war influence interpretations of this photograph in 1967?

4. CHAPTER TWENTY SIX: A NATION DIVIDED: THE VIETNAM WAR, 1945-1975
The Long Road to War
Fighting in Vietnam
Controversy on the Home Front
The Long Road to Peace

5. The Long Road to War The Escalating Importance of Vietnam
Taking Over from the French
Debates within the Kennedy Administration
The Kennedy Assassination
The Gulf of Tonkin

6. The Escalating Importance of Vietnam
Consider the nation’s gradual intervention in Vietnam. How important were early decisions (1945–1954) in setting the course of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War?

7. The Escalating Importance of Vietnam
Who was Ho Chi Minh to his supporters and foes?
What political and strategic importance did Vietnam assume in U.S. foreign policy by the Mid-1950?

8. The Escalating Importance of Vietnam
Vietminh - The term initially used to describe all Vietnamese communists, and used after 1954 solely for North Vietnamese communists.
Domino Theory - The fear that a communist Vietnam would open the door to a complete communist takeover of Southeast Asia.

9. 26.1 Ho Chi Minh Poses with Children, 1954
Ho Chi Minh developed a strong bond with his followers, who revered him as a wise elder who loved his nation.

10. 26.2 How About the Other Buttons?
This 1953 illustration shows Soviet leader Josef Stalin pressing his finger on a button labeled “Korea” to end the Korean War. This cartoon suggested that
Stalin had the power to stop other conflicts that he had initiated throughout the world, including the war in Indochina.

11. Taking Over from the French
What key choices did Eisenhower make in 1954 that increased U.S. involvement in Vietnam?
Why did the civil war in Vietnam reignite in the late 1950s and early 1960s?

12. Taking Over from the French
Geneva Accords - Called for a temporary partition of Vietnam along the seventeenth parallel, with the Vietminh in the north and the French in the south, and a general election in two years to reunify the country under one government.

13. Taking Over from the French
Southeast Asia Treaty Organization alliance among the United States, Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, the Philippines, and Pakistan who pledged to “meet common danger” in Southeast Asia together.
Vietcong - Slang term for South Vietnamese communists.

14. Debates within the Kennedy Administration
How did the Cold War influence presidential decision making about Vietnam from 1945 to 1975?
How did the political situation within Vietnam shape the war?
What conflicting recommendations did Kennedy receive from his advisors about Vietnam?

15. 26.3 Burning Monk
Thich Quang Duc wanted the Western press to photograph his 1963 suicide to publicize the Buddhist protest against the corrupt Diem regime.
What insight does the story behind this 1963 photo offer into the Vietnam War?

16. The Kennedy Assassination
How did images both provoke and quell controversy surrounding the Kennedy assassination?

17. 26.4 Jackie Kennedy
On November 22, 1963, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, the First Lady’s personal tragedy became enveloped in political symbolism. Here she stands by as the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, takes the oath of office to visibly assure the nation that she supported the smooth transition of power.

18. The Gulf of Tonkin
Why was the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident a turning point in the Vietnam War?

19. The Gulf of Tonkin
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution - Gave Johnson permission “to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression” in Vietnam.

20. 26.5 Johnson’s Scar
In 1966 the political cartoonist David Levine transformed President Lyndon Johnson’s scar, into the shape of Vietnam, portraying the conflict as an ugly mark on Johnson’s administration.

21. Johnson’s Dilemma. He is shown here with Defense Secretary, Robert McNamara.

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Why was Johnson’s decision to escalate U.S. troop levels in 1965 important?
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23. Fighting in Vietnam The Bombing Campaign On the Ground
The Tet Offensive

24. The Bombing Campaign
What messages did North Vietnamese propaganda send?

25. The Bombing Campaign
Ho Chi Minh Trail - A 600-mile North Vietnamese supply route that ran along the western border of Vietnam through neighboring Laos and Cambodia.
Agent Orange - A defoliant that stripped trees of their leaves to expose Vietcong hideouts and killed crops.

26. The Bombing Campaign
Peace Movement - A loose coalition of antiwar activists that included pacifists, students, professors, clergy, hippies, civil rights activists, and middle-class liberals.

27. On the Ground
What military challenges did American troops face fighting in Vietnam?
What motivated American men to volunteer to fight in Vietnam?

28. On the Ground
What tactics did the military adopt to fight the Vietcong?
What problems surfaced from using enemy body counts to measure victory?

29. 26.7 American Gunner Rescues Downed Comrades, 1965
Life photographer Larry Burrows captured the harrowing nature of combat in a photo that shows a U.S. soldier clearing the ground of enemy fire as his helicopter lands to aid a downed American helicopter crew.

30. 26.8 Drawing of Vietcong Hideout
Intricate tunnel complexes concealed Vietcong guerilla forces beneath villages.

31. 26.9 Doonesbury Lampoons Body Counts
Cartoonist Gary B. Trudeau underscored the meaninglessness of the official body count figure. Many Americans were becoming skeptical of the government’s claim that victory was imminent.

32. The Tet Offensive
Why did the 1968 Tet Offensive have such tremendous political fallout?

33. The Tet Offensive
Tet Offensive - A massive, coordinated Communist assault against more than a hundred cities and towns in South Vietnam.

34. 26.10 Map of Vietnam
From the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 to the final evacuation of U.S. personnel in 1975, the United States actively tried to defeat Communist forces in Vietnam.

35. THE POWER OF THE PRESS IN VIETNAM

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Why did this image become the defining one of the Tet Offensive?
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37. THE POWER OF THE PRESS IN VIETNAM

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How does this image compare to combat photographs from World War II and the Korean War (see Chapters 23 and 24)
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39. Controversy on the Home Front
The Antiwar Movement
My Lai 

40. The Antiwar Movement
How did competing images of the war create turmoil at home?
What differing visions did peace activists offer on the war?

41. The Antiwar Movement
How did domestic concerns influences the peace movement?
Why did the peace movement have trouble winning support from mainstream America?

42. 26.11 Stop the War. It’s Killing Us
This antiwar poster highlighted the disproportionate numbers of African Americans fighting and dying on the frontlines in the late 1960s, linking that imbalance to continued racial inequity in American society.

43. 26.12 The Presidential Election of 1968
Republican Richard Nixon won easily in the electoral college, but he received only about a half million more popular votes that his Democratic Party opponent, Hubert Humphrey.

44. My Lai
Why did photos of the My Lai massacre provoke conflicting response from Americans?

45. My Lai
My Lai - A Vietnamese village where American soldiers massacred five hundred civilians in 1968.

46. 26.13 My Lai Villagers Moments before their Execution, 1968
Americans expressed more outrage over the publication of photographs from My Lai than over the actual killings.

47. Time Magazine Cover, Lieutenant William Calley

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What was the ultimate historic significance of the My Lai massacre?
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49. The Long Road to Peace Seeking Peace with Honor
Cambodia: Invasion and Outrage
Withdrawal

50. Seeking Peace with Honor
What motivated Nixon to implement Vietnamization?

51. Seeking Peace with Honor
Vietnamization - A Nixon administration policy that turned the bulk of the ground fighting over to the South Vietnamese Army.
“Silent Majority” - Nixon’s term for the large number of Americans who supported the war quietly in the privacy of their homes.

52. Seeking Peace with Honor
Détente - Relaxing Cold War tensions by using diplomatic, economic, and cultural contacts to improve U.S. relations with China and the Soviet Union.

53. Vietnam
THE WAR BY THE NUMBERS

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What does this data reveal about the various stages of America’s involvement in Vietnam?
Vietnam
THE WAR BY THE NUMBERS
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55. Cambodia: Invasion and Outrage
What do the debates surrounding the My Lai massacre and Kent State shootings reveal about Americans’ competing visions about the war?
How did Nixon try to win the war?
What competing visions emerged in response to the Kent State killings?

56. 26.14 Kent State University, 1970
The images of students wounded and killed at Kent State University by National Guardsmen prompted fears in some quarters that a war undertaken to protect American democracy was instead destroying it.

57. Withdrawal How did Nixon reshape the contours of the Cold War?
How did Vietnam War finally end for the United States and the Vietnamese?
Why does the Vietnamese War continue to provoke controversy among Americans?

58. Withdrawal
Watergate scandal - A botched Republican-engineered break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., that eventually forced Nixon to resign in 1974.

59. 26.15 The Final Evacuation
Fleeing Vietnamese scramble for a spot aboard an American helicopter as the North Vietnamese Army approaches Saigon in 1975, a final portrait of the
failed American mission in Vietnam.