Vietnam Part - 8

The Vietnam war was an interesting period that has interesting pieces with the war vs hippies and an antiwar movement. The Vietnam War book was requested by my cousin as it was an interesting period and the start of the war against the enemy. The Vietnam War was one of the longest wars in history, and one of the few that they lost with the United States being a rare country that has a plus 90%-win rate in wars. This Piece of writing on the Vietnam War includes first, second and third person sources.

Vietnam was a political power play to resist communism’s advance. The war in Vietnam was an extremely long standing war, which was carried over four administrations, at this point, and the general consensus was: “There is, above all, much evidence that the four administrations that progressively deepened American involvement in the war which felt like a private commitment to resist communisms advance, and then a private readiness to wage war against North Vietnam”(Sheehan 648.) The war against Vietnam was generally very difficult and included many administration’s - pro action policies. They deemed it important to resist communist advancement and to defend democracy. At a minimum, the plan was to keep half the country from communism. North Vietnam was turning the tide of the war by late 1964 into a potential win or very high attrition.

The North Vietnamese were winning the war against the South Vietnamese and the Americans hands were tied. In 1964, South Vietnam was on the brink of collapse- into being defeated by north Vietnam. The President authorized 206,000 men to be rushed into combat zones, in 1964. The president resigned in late 1964 and tried to negotiate with the North Vietnamese but they realized at the start of the war- as well as the end of the war- it was not all in the Americans hands. The Americans soon realized that: “It is now clear, was the American hand in Vietnam ever “free “(Sheehan 652.)”  The Americans realized it wasn’t exactly optional to start the war- and wasn’t exactly optional to leave the war either.

Document One: June 16, 1971: Vietnam Document: the Vietnam Papers

On Nov. 25, 1964,”- significantly after the President’s election- the times observed that “another Vietnam reassessment is under way” the country has a right to insist that it be told what has changed so profoundly in the last two months to justify it.” The premise of not allowing the media to cover the war and to not read the documents was to protect American interests, war support, morale and military secrets. It also was to protect the ability of America’s ability to fight the war.

Complete Analysis:

The Vietnam war -by 1964- was a position that the Americans needed to discuss a major peace treaty -which made the American Administration realize that: they didn’t have complete control to start the war- neither did they have it to end the war. The Americans realized that they needed to send another 206,000 troops to combat zones as well as relax the number of bombers. The president: Lyndon B. Johnson resigned and the elections for Goldwater were hotly contested with some sketchy politics. The American Government hid the Vietnam war from the public/ or at least media, which was to keep the US's morale high, keep military secrets and to help the Americans.