Diplomatic Negotiations between America and Vietnam

For the sake of conciseness, and in order to focus the bulk of the content on the main topic, this essay will make certain assumptions. Most importantly, the essay assumes that the conflict in Vietnam was, indeed, lost by the US. It also presupposes that � due to the political climate in the US � the war itself was unavoidable. Finally, the essay takes for granted

In 1960s, the US was faced with another crisis of communist expansion in the war between North and South Vietnam. The Kennedy Administration decided to further pursue their containment strategy out of fear being seen by the international community as weak towards communism. During the Johnson Administration, an attack against American vessels that happened in the Gulf of Tonkin led to President Johnson being granted the ability to conduct broad military operations without congressional approval. The American public began to largely oppose American intervention in Vietnam because the optimistic statements made by the government ran contradictory to the reports of the violent fighting by American news outlets. During the Nixon administration, the US switched to a policy, later known as Vietnamization, where the main goal was to strengthen the South Vietnamese forces and provide them with better armaments so they can better defend themselves. Vietnamization proved to be ineffective as the South Vietnamese forces were unable to hold their own against the North without US air support as proven during Operation Lam Son 719 and the Easter Offensive. The signing of the Paris Peace Accords officially ended US involvement in the Vietnam War. The US followed containment policies during beginning of the war due to the underlying fear of the spread of communism and since the policies were inherited from previous

The Vietnam War lasted longer, bloodier, and more hostile than any U.S. President or American citizen imagined. Lyndon Johnson faced many other enemies during the war such as the duration, the immense number of deaths, and for the first time in most American’s history, failure. Through deep evaluation of Lyndon B. Johnson’s foreign policies as President during the Vietnam war, failure was a recurring outcome, as he faced military and political difficulties over having complete authority over political decisions made leading to the misuse of his respective power, receiving split support through torn Americans at home, and his accord to deport so many troops into combat in Vietnam.

The first thing that one must do when discussing Vietnam is remember the historical context in which the conflict took place. The United States and it's Free World allies were attempting to confine the Communist Bloc, which by this time included both the Soviet Union and China, and keep it from expanding into surrounding nations. The U.S. felt that if the Communists were not allowed to expand, they would eventually collapse under the weight of their centralized economy. So in order to accomplish the policy of containment, the U.S. need to ally itself with nations bordering Communist ones. However, one of the most important aspects of political alliances is the trust each must have in the

When President Nixon took office in 1969, the U.S. was currently sending american troops to fight in the Vietnam war.Shortly after taking office in 1969, President Nixon introduced a policy called Vietnamization that was intended to end american military involvement in Vietnam war by encouraging all south vietnamese to take more responsibility for fighting the war on their own.

Ending the war in Viet Nam, Richard Nixon believed himself the consul to succeed in presidency. In less than a year, Nixon effortlessly worked hard to bear troops on Northern Viet Nam and settle negations. Moreover, Nixon rallied troops, secretly settling B-52 bombings in North Vietnamese base camps in Cambodia. He began bringing diplomatic pressure onto the Soviet Union in order to persuade Northern Viet Nam to settle for negotiations. Nixon then used Vietnamization to strengthen forces for U.S troops in South Viet Nam. Furthermore, Nixon set up conferences in Paris, France for negations between North Viet Nam, South Viet Nam, and the United States. However, these public peace talks became “Propaganda Theater” to both sides. This lead to secret meetings in order for successful agreements to occur. In the end, it took until 1975 for the war between the United States and Viet Nam to be considered “over.”

The War in Vietnam remains to be a blemish of American foreign policy today and remains as a crisp thought to those who lived it. As the decades pass away through the sands of time, historians and civilians alike further their wonder of who was truly responsible for this calamity. Verily, this war was the full responsibility of Lyndon Johnson because he failed to learn from former presidents of why fighting was happening, he accrued some of Kennedy’s inept advisors and, he was selfish in terms of the reason why he gave the approval for war.

“The war in vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit.” Martin Luther King, Jr. once said. The Vietnam War was considered one of America’s greatest defeats of all time. Not only did the US failed to stop the spread of communism, but they also embarrassed this country as a whole with the outcome of this war. The overall outcome from this war will be remembered for years to come. In this essay, I will be talking about how the United States would have won the Vietnam war if the home front was for the war, if the the US was more familiar with the land, and the U.S.’s goal was not successful.

On October 31, 1968, President Johnson announced to the United States during a televised speech that they were going to halt bombings of North Vietnam in order to have peace talks and hopefully create a resolution to end the war. “We have been engaged in discussions with the North Vietnamese in Paris since last May. The discussions began after I announced on the evening of March 31st in a television speech to the Nation that the United States—in an effort to get talks started on a settlement of the Vietnam War—had stopped the bombing of North Vietnam in the area where 90 percent of the people live. Therefore, our Ambassadors Harriman and Vance made it abundantly clear to the representatives of North Vietnam in the beginning that—as I had indicated on the evening of March 31st—we would stop the bombing of North Vietnamese territory entirely when that would lead to prompt and productive talks, meaning by that talks in which the Government of Vietnam was free to participate. Our ambassadors also stressed that we could not stop the bombing so long as by doing so we would endanger the lives and the safety of our troops. For a good many weeks, there was no movement in the talks at all. The talks appeared to really be deadlocked. Then a few weeks ago, they entered a new and a very much more

There were many lessons that the United States could take away from the war in Vietnam. The American presence in Vietnam lasted from 1964-1972. America lost a lot in the war they put $111 billion into the war and lost 58,000 american lives and 300,000 were injured in the war. Many of the decisions in Vietnam were not the right decisions but these mistakes could be learned from for future wars like Vietnam. Two lessons that America should take away from the experience in Vietnam was to enter with a specific goal, and leave once it is complete, and the President should not have total power over the military.

In the beginning of his presidency, Nixon lacked the capability of reaching agreements with the Vietnamese and ending the war, displaying his weaknesses in war matters. Nixon campaigned with the promise of ending the war, but prolonged it 6 years longer than he intended, much to the public’s dismay. Nixon’s weakness and lack of skills in foreign affairs and war caused many more years of this unpopular war. However, he had a plan for a peaceful deliverance out of war, rather than an immediate withdrawal. Ultimately, with the help of his strategy, Vietnamization, Nixon delivered the U.S. out of the Vietnam

A quarter of a century after the Fall of Saigon, Vietnam continues to exercise a powerful hold of the American psyche. No deployment of American troops abroad is considered without the infusion of the Vietnam question. No formulation of strategic policy can be completed without weighing the possibility of Vietnanization. Even the politics of a person cannot be discussed without taking into account his opinion on the Vietnam Ware. This national obsession with Vietnam is perfectly national when viewed from a far. It was the only war that the United States has ever lost. It defined an era of American history that must rank with the depression as one of this nation’s most traumatic. It concluded with Watergate and led many to believe that the

In 1958, Communist-led guerrillas, eventually known as the Viet Cong, began to battle the government of the South Vietnamese. The United States then sent 2,000 military advisors t support South Vietnam’s government. This number grew to 16,3000 by 1963. The military force slowly deteriorated. By 1963 the fertile Mekong Delta was lost to the overpowering Viet Cong. The war rose in 1965, when President Johnson issued commencing air strikes on North Vietnam and ground forces, which had risen to 536,000 by 1968. The Tet Offensive by North Vietnam turned many Americans against the waging war. President Nixon, following Johnson, promoted Vietnamization, the withdrawing of American troops and handing over the great responsibility of the war to South Vietnam. Protesting of the war dramatically increased, especially after Nixon’s attempt to slow North Vietnam forces and supplies into the South by sending American forces to destroy supply bases in Cambodia in 1970, which violated Cambodian neutrality. This provoked antiwar protests on many of the United Stats’ college campuses. In 1968 through 1973 attempts were made to end the ongoing conflict through diplomacy. Then in January 1973, an agreement was reached. U.S. forces withdrew from Vietnam and the U.S. POWs were released. In April 1975, South Vietnam surrendered to the North and Vietnam was once again united. The Vietnam War ended, but it took the lives of 58,000

The United States intervention in Vietnam is seen by the world as America’s greatest loss and longest war. Before the start of the war in Vietnam, the thought of the United States losing this war was unheard of because America was technologically superior, no country in south East Asia could contend with them. Lyndon B. Johnson announced that he would not be the president to allow South East Asia to go Communist . Why the United States lost the war has been a huge debate since the end of the war, because there were so many factors affecting why they lost; the war was a loss politically, after losing support from not only the American public but also the South Vietnamese and losing a political mandate for the war by 1973, when the last

Robert Brigham writes that the Vietnam War, 1954-1975, started as a conflict between Vietnam and France. After many years, the French could no longer keep control in Vietnam and resulted in the French making a peace agreement with Vietnam in Geneva, Switzerland in 1954. The United States did not agree with this, so President Eisenhower created the “Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).” In 1955, the Government of the Republic of Vietnam (GVN or South Vietnam) was created. Later that year, Ngo Dinh Diem won an election that made him president of the GVN. On December 20, 1960, the Communist Party’s new united front, the National Liberation Front (NLF), was created. In 1961, President Kennedy sent people to report the conditions in the South, which was later known as the “December 1961 White Paper.” This report argued for more military and economic aid, however, the people of his administration were urging the president to just withdraw from Vietnam altogether. According to Brigham, by 1963, it was clear that the GVN was on the road to political collapse. It was later decided that Diem had to be taken out of power and on November 1, 1963, Diem was killed. In August 1964, “the DRV launched an attack on the C. Turner Joy and the U.S.S. Maddox, two American ships in the Gulf of Tonkin, in response to American and GVN issues along its coast.”