312
I AM NOT
GOING TO
LOSE VIETNAM
THE GULF OF TONKIN INCIDENT (1964)
IN CONTEXT Southeast Asian nations The US fears communism
FOCUS want independence is spreading across
from colonial rule. Southeast Asia.
Intervention in
Southeast Asia
BEFORE
1947 The Truman Doctrine, The US increases its
After a war with France,
pledging American support for Vietnam splits between military presence as a
free peoples, guides US foreign a communist North and a response to communist
policy in Southeast Asia. US-backed South. successes in the region.
1953 Cambodia wins its
independence from France.
1963 President Ngo Dinh Diem
of South Vietnam is killed in a Covert American activity culminates in a US
US-backed military coup. warship being attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin.
AFTER
1967 The Association of
Southeast Asian Nations, US president Johnson uses the incident to justify military
ASEAN, is established to intervention in Vietnam, widening the frontiers of the Cold War.
promote stability in the region.
1973 The Paris Peace Accords
I
ends US combat in Vietnam, n the aftermath of World War II, rule came to an end in 1954,
but does not end the conflict the states of Southeast Asia Vietnam was divided at the
between North and South. struggled to create stable Geneva Conference into North
1976 The Socialist Republic political systems, and the region Vietnam, with a communist
of Vietnam is proclaimed, and became embroiled in the Cold War government under Vietnamese
Saigon is renamed Ho Chi between the United States and the communist revolutionary leader Ho
Minh City. Many flee abroad. Soviet Union. In few places were Chi Minh, and the US-backed South
the battle lines as sharply drawn as Vietnam. In 1960, Ho Chi Minh,
in Vietnam. After French colonial with support from communist
THE MODERN WORLD 313
See also: The construction of Angkor Wat 108–09 ■ Stalin assumes power 281 ■ Nazi invasion of Poland 286–93 ■
The Berlin Airlift 296–97 ■ The Long March 304–05
The US Navy destroyer Maddox
was sailing off the coast of North
Vietnam when it came under attack.
This incident was the spark that led
to the Vietnam War.
superpowers Russia and China,
set up the National Liberation
Front (NLF) in South Vietnam, and
started a guerrilla war to unite the
country under communist rule.
Tensions steadily rose until 1964.
In August of that year, the US Navy
destroyer Maddox was operating
off the coast of North Vietnam in
the Gulf of Tonkin, monitoring radar controlled much of the country, used civilians were killed, but despite
and radio from northern coastal the skirmish to pass the Gulf of their technological superiority, the
installations, to support attacks Tonkin Resolution in Congress. This Americans failed to crush the Viet
made by the South Vietnamese allowed him to take any measures Cong guerrillas. American troops
navy. North Vietnam, believing the necessary to deal with threats to suffered high casualties and
Maddox was linked to raids on its US forces in Southeast Asia. gradually became demoralized.
coastal targets, launched a torpedo
attack. Two days later, the Maddox US intervention The specter of communism
reported once again coming under The US feared that if Vietnam The Vietnam War was the first
fire. This second attack has since became a communist regime, other televised war in US history. As
been disputed, but US president countries in the region would soon the public watched horrific events
Lyndon B. Johnson, recognizing that follow. Using the Gulf of Tonkin unfolding, an increasing number
South Vietnam could not prevail on Resolution, Johnson poured troops opposed the conflict. Around the
its own against a communist-led into the South and bombed North world, peace movements organized
guerrilla movement that already Vietnam by air. Huge numbers of large anti-war demonstrations.
The communists’ Tet Offensive
Pol Pot’s brutal regime Pol Pot’s brutal regime intended of 1968, a series of fierce attacks on
to style the country into a more than 100 cities and towns in
During the Vietnam War, North classless agrarian society South Vietnam, crushed US hopes
Vietnam used Cambodia to inspired by Mao Zedong’s of an imminent end to the conflict,
channel soldiers and supplies Cultural Revolution in China. and peace talks were initiated in
to the South along the Ho Chi The entire population was 1969. In March 1973, the last
Minh Trail. In 1970, a joint US– marched to the countryside and American troops withdrew from
South Vietnamese force invaded forced to work as rice farmers. Vietnam, and in April 1975
Cambodia to flush out the Over the next 44 months, around South Vietnam fell to the North.
Viet Cong. The US also heavily 2 million people—a quarter of US policy-makers consistently
bombed Cambodia. The military Cambodia’s population—died, misinterpreted Asian nationalist
destabilization in Cambodia led either killed or starved. The
movements for Soviet-inspired
to a surge of support for Pol Pot, fields where people died became
communism. Ultimately, however,
the leader of the Kampuchean known as the “Killing Fields”.
Communist Party, or Khmer After three years of terror, Pol what the US feared never came to
Rouge, a guerrilla movement Pot was driven from power by pass, and with the exception of Laos
that seized power in 1975. a Vietnamese invasion. and Cambodia, the region remained
out of communist control. ■
