Social Issues

The French and Vietnamese had had conflict for quite a while

The Vietcong- South Vietnamese who are sympathetic to and joined with the communist Vietminh

It is very hard for American soldiers to tell the difference between the Vietcong, the Vietminh, and the nationalists. Part of the problem of not doing so well in the war.

We contained Communism in the Korean war. The 28th parallel still divided the two nations. The Korean War was a pretty pointless war because thousands of people died and the outcome wasn't different from what was happening before the war.

In 1954 the French decided to get out of Dien Bien Phu and this was basically the same time as the war in Korea was ending.

The main role of Americans in the Vietnam War was to help train the South Korean. They were called advisors.

Diem was leader of South Vietnam

He discriminated against Budhists

The main religion of Vietnam was Budhism

He also didn't hold the elections

He didn't want to lose

Many South Vietnamese sympathized with Communists

The elections were to be held when the country split

The Soviets didn't hold the elections required in the Declaration of Liberated Europe either

Many Vietnamese wanted a united, connected Vietnam. They didn't really care what kind of government there was.

They were mostly nationalists and had been colonized many times.

Americans gave the green light of Diem's overthrow and assassination in 1963 after visiting South Vietnam

Three weeks later Kennedy was assassinated

The government in South Vietnam got worse and more unstable

We were worried that Diem wouldn't be able to contain communism and have a strong country.

There were 200,000 troops in Vietnam by the end of 1964

Support for the war began to decline as the war progressed.

There were a lot of student protests against the war in Vietnam.

Walter Cronkite- famous reporter. Uncle Walter. If he says that we cannot win Vietnam, we cannot win Vietnam-- Johnson said this.

Johnson