The Vietnam War
The war that changed the relationship between the government and its people forever. How did a war that was so popular become so hated so quickly?
“We are not going to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves." - Lyndon B. Johnson, October 21, 1964 on US involvement in the Vietnam War
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The Domino Theory"You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences.” - President Eisenhower, 1954
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Gulf of Tonkin Resolution |
"Our policy in southeast Asia has been consistent and unchanged since 1954. I summarized it on June 2 in four simple propositions: America keeps her word. Here as elsewhere, we must and shall honor our commitments.The issue is the future of southeast Asia as a whole. A threat to any nation in that region is a threat to all, and a threat to us. Our purpose is peace. We have no military, political, or territorial ambitions in the area.This is not just a jungle war, but a struggle for freedom on every front of human activity. Our military and economic assistance to South Vietnam and Laos in particular has the purpose of helping these countries to repel aggression and strengthen their independence."
- President Johnson's Message to Congress August 5, 1964
- President Johnson's Message to Congress August 5, 1964
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US escalation following the Gulf of Tonkin Incident |
"Come you masters of war / You that build all the guns / You that build the death planes / You that build all the bombs / You that hide behind walls / You that hide behind desks / I just want you to know / I can see through your masks." -Bob Dylan, lyrics from "Masters of War," 1963 |
Tet Offensive
"We can see the “light at the end of the tunnel.”
- General Westmoreland, late 1967
- General Westmoreland, late 1967
Tet Offensive Images
"The picture of the world's greatest superpower killing or seriously injuring 1,000 noncombatants a week while trying to pound a tiny backward nation into submission on an issue whose merits are hotly disputed, is not a pretty one." - Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, private letter to Pres Lyndon B. Johnson, May 1967
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"If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America."
- President Lyndon B. Johnson, February 27th, 1968
Public Reaction to the Tet Offensive
Results of the 1968 Presidential Election
The Living Room War |
"Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America--not on the battlefields of Vietnam."
- Marshall McLuhan, 1975 |
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"No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then,
and it is misremembered now." - Richard Nixon, New York Times, Mar. 28, 1985
and it is misremembered now." - Richard Nixon, New York Times, Mar. 28, 1985
My Lai Massacre
"Who is the enemy? How can you distinguish between the civilians and the noncivilians? The same people who come and work in the bases at daytime, they just want to shoot and kill you at nighttime. So how can you
distinguish between the two? The good or the bad? All of them look the same."
- Private Varnado Simpson, a U.S. soldier from Charlie Company of the 23rd Infantry Division, 1969
distinguish between the two? The good or the bad? All of them look the same."
- Private Varnado Simpson, a U.S. soldier from Charlie Company of the 23rd Infantry Division, 1969
My Lai Massacre Images
"I was ordered to go in there and destroy the enemy...That was my job on that day. That was the mission I was given. I did not sit down and think in terms of men, women and children."
- Lieutenant William Calley, testifying at Court-Martial in defense of his actions in My Lai, 1970
- Lieutenant William Calley, testifying at Court-Martial in defense of his actions in My Lai, 1970
"I had prayed to God that this thing was fiction."
- Colonel William Wilson
- Colonel William Wilson
Anti-War Movement
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"I'm tired. I'm tired of feeling rejected by the American people. I'm tired of waking up in the middle of the night worrying about the war." - Lyndon B. Johnson
Anti-War Movement Images
The Kent State Massacre
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Kent State Massacre Images
Pentagon Papers |
"Look, all administrations, all governments lie, all officials lie and nothing they say is to be believed.
That's a pretty good rule." - Daniel Ellsberg |
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Pentagon Papers Editorials and Political Cartoons
"In revealing the workings of government that led to the Vietnam War, the newspapers nobly did precisely that which the Founders hoped and trusted they would do."
- Hugo L. Black, judicial opinion, Jun. 30, 1971
- Hugo L. Black, judicial opinion, Jun. 30, 1971
The End of the Vietnam War
"[Nixon] has ended the war, because you don't see the war on the tube any more. So the war has ended, though we are bombing the hell out of those poor people, more than ever." - An American news executive, 1972