Vietminh Unit 37-64 Analysis

At the beginning of the chapter, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies and Harry Truman becomes president. Unlike Roosevelt, Truman was not particularly concerned about Southeast Asia. However, due to the United States’ relationship with France, as well as their fear that Southeast Asia would fall to communism, President Truman supplied $15 million in military assistance to France to fight the Vietminh, a communist group that was gaining control primarily in North Vietnam (Olson & Roberts, 27). Although the Vietminh were small in numbers, they were fiercely passionate about their cause. Because of this, Vo Nguyen Giap, a leader within the Vietminh, developed a three-stage formula for defeating the French. The first stage’s objective was

Although he had an ambitious program of antipoverty and civil rights he wanted to implement in the United States, he knew he would be unable to do this if he got strong international and national opposition of his decisions in Vietnam, so in April and May of 1964, the National Security Council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and MACV in Saigon developed what would later be known as Operation Plan 37-64. Operation Plan 37-64’s objective was “to conduct graduated operations to eliminate or reduce to negligible proportions DRV [Democratic Republic of Vietnam] support of VC [Vietcong] insurgency in the Republic of Vietnam.” Operation Plan 37-64 involved three projects: eliminating Vietcong sanctuaries in Cambodia and Laos, increasing attacks on North Vietnamese coastal installations, and strategic bombings in North Vietnam by the Americans as well as the South

The United States responded with Operation Rolling Thunder, which consisted of sustained bombing in North Vietnam. Instead of intimidating, pressuring, or frightening the North Vietnamese, the bombing raids of Operation Rolling Thunder solidified the North Vietnamese’s thoughts that the United States was intent on destruction. This reminded the North Vietnamese of the French, and increased their resilience.

Chapter 6 – Into the Abyss, 1965-1966 One reason why the United States had to aid South Vietnam in the war was due to the fact that the ARVN suffered from desertion, absenteeism, cronyism, and nepotism (117). This led the United States to change their strategy in aiding South Vietnam. A way they did this is by increasing the amount of American troops and military infrastructure in Vietnam. The increase of Americans in Vietnam deeply impacted the general American public, specifically the young people. Not only were there many young American men serving in the military, but many developed a drug addiction, and over 50,000 American women, mostly young, also served in Southeast Asia in military and civilian capacities (133). There were also many antiwar organizations on college campuses, such as the Student for a Democratic Society