In January 1973, the United States and North Vietnam concluded a final peace agreement, ending open hostilities between the two nations. READ MORE: Kent State Shootings: A Timeline of the Tragedy The Pentagon Papers Known as the Christmas Bombings, the raids drew international condemnation. Kissinger and North Vietnamese representatives drafted a peace agreement by early fall, but leaders in Saigon rejected it, and in December Nixon authorized a number of bombing raids against targets in Hanoi and Haiphong. At another protest 10 days later, two students at Jackson State University in Mississippi were killed by police.īy the end of June 1972, however, after a failed offensive into South Vietnam, Hanoi was finally willing to compromise. During one, on May 4, 1970, at Kent State University in Ohio, National Guardsmen shot and killed four students. The invasion of these countries, in violation of international law, sparked a new wave of protests on college campuses across America. The South Vietnamese then led their own invasion of Laos, which was pushed back by North Vietnam. In 1970, a joint U.S-South Vietnamese operation invaded Cambodia, hoping to wipe out DRV supply bases there. Nixon ended draft calls in 1972, and instituted an all-volunteer army the following year. Tens of thousands of soldiers received dishonorable discharges for desertion, and about 500,000 American men from 1965-73 became “draft dodgers,” with many fleeing to Canada to evade conscription. troops were withdrawn, those who remained became increasingly angry and frustrated, exacerbating problems with morale and leadership. For other Americans, opposing the government was considered unpatriotic and treasonous.Īs the first U.S. For some young people, the war symbolized a form of unchecked authority they had come to resent. The anti-war movement, which was particularly strong on college campuses, divided Americans bitterly.
On November 15, 1969, the largest anti-war demonstration in American history took place in Washington, D.C., as over 250,000 Americans gathered peacefully, calling for withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam. In 19, there were hundreds of protest marches and gatherings throughout the country. By June, 82,000 combat troops were stationed in Vietnam, and military leaders were calling for 175,000 more by the end of 1965 to shore up the struggling South Vietnamese army.Īfter the My Lai Massacre, anti-war protests continued to build as the conflict wore on. In March 1965, Johnson made the decision-with solid support from the American public-to send U.S. bombings made Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita in the world. The bombing campaign was meant to disrupt the flow of supplies across the Ho Chi Minh trail into Vietnam and to prevent the rise of the Pathet Lao, or Lao communist forces. The bombing was not limited to Vietnam from 1964-1973, the United States covertly dropped two million tons of bombs on neighboring, neutral Laos during the CIA-led “Secret War” in Laos. planes began regular bombing raids, codenamed Operation Rolling Thunder, the following year. Congress soon passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave Johnson broad war-making powers, and U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, Johnson ordered the retaliatory bombing of military targets in North Vietnam. In August of 1964, after DRV torpedo boats attacked two U.S. Johnson, and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to further increase U.S. The ensuing political instability in South Vietnam persuaded Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Communist forces ended the war by seizing control of South Vietnam in 1975, and the country was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the following year. Opposition to the war in the United States bitterly divided Americans, even after President Richard Nixon signed the Paris Peace Accords and ordered the withdrawal of U.S. More than 3 million people (including over 58,000 Americans) were killed in the Vietnam War, and more than half of the dead were Vietnamese civilians. The conflict was intensified by the ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The Vietnam War was a long, costly and divisive conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States.
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