ON MARCH 8, 1965, 3,500 US Marines landed near the shore of the central Vietnamese city of Da Nang, the first American combat troops to arrive in Vietnam. There to secure the Da Nang air base, the marines were a visible symbol of America’s increasing resolve to support the government in South Vietnam against the Communists.
Meanwhile, the Northern government in Hanoi was making determinations of its own, mobilizing its economy and people for the war effort. Although Hanoi officials would deny it for years, tens of thousands of North Vietnamese Army (NVA) soldiers had already been moving south by way of a network of jungle pathways collectively known as Ho Chi Minh Trail. Along with the NVA soldiers came weapons, supplies, and ammunition, which would also support the soldiers of the People’s Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF)—known by their enemies as the Vietcong (VC)—in the South.
Although the Vietnamese population knew exactly where the fighting was, the same could not be said for most Americans at the time: few could even locate Vietnam on a map. Nevertheless, Americans did understand that Communist-controlled nations, such as those in Eastern Europe and China, did not have the freedoms enjoyed in democracies. Despite US senator Joseph McCarthy’s chilling anti-Communist crusade throughout the 1950s—which destroyed the careers and reputations of thousands of Americans and caused a cloud of fear and suspicion to fall over the country—US citizens realized that nations implementing Communism were oppressive, totalitarian regimes intolerant of dissent, frighteningly similar to the Fascist states the United States and its allies had defeated during World War II. And most Americans were willing to support a war that fought the ideology they considered to be the world’s new threat: a poll taken in 1965 revealed that a majority of them approved of sending combat troops to Vietnam.
The marine landing at Da Nang, though a dramatic moment, wouldn’t be nearly enough to keep Saigon from falling to the Communists. US general William Westmoreland, commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), told President Lyndon B. Johnson that he would need 180,000 men total for defensive measures in South Vietnam. To do more—that is, to mount successful offensives called search-and-destroy missions against the VC hidden in the countryside—he would need an additional 100,000 soldiers.
If the United States was, as it claimed, only present to support the South in its fight to remain free of the North, why did the military need such large numbers of American fighting men? Because the Southern military commanding the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) was ineffective and unable to convey the same nationalistic zeal that was inspiring its enemies. Southern military officers seemed to be interested more in bickering with each other than in fighting the VC. Most were granted positions based on a corrupt reward system, not on skill or experience. ARVN soldiers, required to serve for the duration of the war, were given little motivation to remain loyal to their corrupt leaders, and they deserted by the thousands—often temporarily, to care for their families or receive treatment for battle wounds.
Communism is an ideology in which a society’s economy—that is, its wealth and means of producing goods—is directly controlled by its citizens. The idea grew out of the French Revolution, when, in the late 18th century, poverty-stricken peasants successfully rose up against wealthy aristocrats. But German political philosopher Karl Marx was the first to detail the idea in writing, during the mid to late 19th century; in western nations, the industrial revolution had made business owners wealthy at the expense of their overworked and underpaid employees, many of whom were school-age children.
Marx and his associate Friedrich Engels envisioned a classless society in which everyone would labor to the best of their abilities and be provided for, whether or not they were able to work. Communism, as originally intended, has been practiced by some utopian, religious, and tribal societies throughout history. But the nations that have claimed to establish Communist governments—beginning with the former Soviet Union—have ultimately been responsible for a tragic number of human rights abuses. Why? These nations’ economies have never been managed by the people of those nations. Rather, power has always fallen into the hands of leaders who establish autocratic regimes supported and enforced by a privileged ruling class of loyal Communist Party members. These leaders and party members not only control the economy but also severely limit freedom of speech, religion, and political opinion. Citizens of Communist nations who attempt to exercise any one of these freedoms contrary to the dictates of their government—or who are even suspected of doing so—are imprisoned, forced into labor camps, or executed. To date, the number of people murdered by their own Communist-controlled governments exceeds 100 million.
As more Americans came to Vietnam, they radically altered the character of the South’s capital city. Saigon retained its French architecture, but its identity was becoming increasingly American. Shops and businesses were created to cater to the foreigners, and Saigon’s economy became as dependent on the Americans as the Southern military was.
Despite the shaky foundation upon which the United States was building this war, a general spirit of optimism ran through the US news broadcasts about the conflict: the search-and-destroy missions against the VC were as effective, reporters said, as Operation Rolling Thunder, the bombing campaign against the North that had begun on March 2, 1965. It was only a matter of time, proclaimed the reports, before the United States would receive offers of surrender from North Vietnam.
That opinion received a blow three years later on January 21, 1968, however, when 20,000 NVA soldiers began their siege of the US air base outside the central Vietnamese city of Khe Sanh. Americans’ optimism was absolutely devastated nine days later; in the early morning hours of January 30, 70,000 Communist fighters—NVA and VC—attacked more than 100 Southern cities, towns, and military bases in what became known as the Tet Offensive because it began on Tet, the Vietnamese New Year.
The offensive—a complete surprise because the Communists had agreed to a cease-fire during this important national holiday—was a defeat for both sides. The Communists had hoped their show of military strength would rally Southerners to their side as they rose up together against the Americans and the Southern government. This didn’t happen. And what occurred in the Southern city of Hue during the Tet Offensive made the South Vietnamese fear, rather than welcome, the idea of a Northern takeover: while Hue was in their control, Communist forces conducted a brutal massacre of at least 3,000 previously targeted Vietnamese civilians.
The Communist forces were defeated in a matter of weeks. And because the VC had suffered greater losses than the NVA, the government in Hanoi realized it would have to send even more NVA troops south down Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Yet, in one important way, the Tet Offensive was a victory for the Communists: it signaled the end of American optimism regarding the Vietnam War by making it obvious that the Communist effort in the South was still strong. This war clearly had no end in sight.
And 1968 would bring more bad news to Americans. On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr., beloved civil rights leader and promoter of nonviolent civil disobedience, was assassinated. He had not only led his fellow African Americans in the struggle to end legalized racism but also publicly criticized US involvement in Vietnam as immoral.
News of his assassination was met with riots in more than 100 American cities; 43 people were killed, 3,500 injured, and entire city blocks destroyed. Army troops were called to the nation’s capital to restore order. In some instances, racial tensions erupted into fights within the integrated American forces stationed in Vietnam.
President Johnson, devastated by the Tet Offensive, had announced in March that he would not seek a second term in that year’s election. By that time two challengers for the Democratic presidential nomination had already stepped forward—Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy, brother of the slain president. The strong antiwar stance of these two senators had put President Johnson in the extremely uncomfortable position of appearing prowar.
When Senator Kennedy was gunned down by an assassin on June 5, minutes after winning the California primary, hopes of the United States pulling out of Vietnam were that much dimmer, and the nation seemed to be drowning in violence. One young police officer named Dennis Pierson claimed Kennedy’s death made many Americans believe that “there was no more law, order, or even sanity” in their country.
That summer’s continued violence proved this bleak outlook to be painfully accurate.
Antiwar activists decided to bring their message to the streets of Chicago; the city would be the focus of the nation’s attention during the Democratic National Convention. Knowing that the protestors were on their way and threatening violent disruptions, the Chicago police force was there to meet them in unusually large numbers, along with members of the Illinois National Guard.
The protestors despised the police and guardsmen, viewing them as ignorant supporters of a nation conducting an immoral war. The police, many of whom were veterans of previous wars, despised the protestors in equal measure, considering them to be spoiled, privileged, and—as they often burned flags as a symbol of protest—profoundly anti-American.
Violent clashes erupted, with neither side appearing in a positive light. The activists knew they would have to lie low until they could reemerge with more effective plans that might benefit the movement.
Hubert Humphrey, the politician nominated as the presidential candidate at the Democratic National Convention, narrowly lost the presidential election to Republican Richard M. Nixon, a politician who during his campaign had pledged “an honorable end to the war in Vietnam.”