Document A
 |
| Gardner L. et al., 1985, p. 39-41 |
Document B
 |
| Dudley, 1998, p. 27-29 |
Document C
A collection of primary document gathered by the Avalon project demonstrating how the United States was involved in the Vietnam conflict as early as 1950.
Document D
Kennedy to Ngo Dinh Diem
December 14, 1961
Dear Mr. President, I have received your recent letter in which you described so cogently the dangerous conditions caused by North Vietnam's effort to take over your country. The situation in your embattled country is well known to me and to the American people. We have been deeply disturbed by the assault on your country. Our indignation has mounted as the deliberate savagery of the Communist programs of assassination, kidnapping, and wanton violence became clear.
Your letter underlines what our own information has convincingly shown - that the campaign of force and terror now being waged against your people and your Government is supported and directed from outside by the authorities at Hanoi. They have thus violated the provisions of the Geneva Accords designed to ensure peace in Vietnam and to which they bound themselves in 1954.
At that time, the United States, although not a party to the Accords, declared that it "would view any renewal of the aggression in violation of the Agreements with grave concern and as seriously threatening international peace and security." We continue to maintain that view.
In accordance with that declaration, and in response to your request, we are prepared to help the Republic of Vietnam to protect its people and to preserve its independence. We shall promptly increase our assistance to your defense effort as well as help relieve the destruction of the floods which you describe. I have already given the orders to get these programs underway.
The United States, like the Republic of Vietnam, remains devoted to the cause of peace and our primary purpose is to help your people maintain their independence. If the Communist authorities in North Vietnam will stop their campaign to destroy the Republic of Vietnam, the measures we are taking to assist your defense efforts will no longer be necessary. We shall seek to persuade the Communists to give up their attempts to force and subversion. In any case, we are confident that the Vietnamese people will preserve their independence and gain the peace and prosperity for which they have sought so hard and so long.
Source: Department of State Bulletin, January 1, 1962
 |
| Undoing a historic mistake. (1970, Apr 15). New York Times (1923-Current File), pp. 42-42. |
Document F
Bob Muller, Vietnam Veterans Against the War
Presented at a meeting of the Student Assembly of Columbia University Student Assembly, July 23, 1971.
Vietnam is something you have to experience firsthand to believe. I know I didn't believe what anybody told me about Vietnam before I went; it was something I had to go through myself.
Let me go back and tell you who I am and what I'm about. I'm a retired first lieutenant in the Marines -- retired, because today, when you're separated from service for a disability, you're put on a retired basis; you're not simply discharged as you were in World War II. [Mr. Muller spoke from a wheelchair, the result of a crippling injury sustained in Vietnam.]
In 1967, I was in my senior year in college at Hofstra University. And one day that spring, I went into the Student Union Building, and there was a Marine officer standing there. He looked very sharp: he had his dress blues on, and he had the old crimson stripe down the side of his trousers. I said, "That looks good! I'm going to be a marine."Right there, in that sentence, is really the tragedy of my life, as I view it. The tragedy of my life was not being shot in Vietnam; the tragedy in my life is one that has been shared by all too many Americans, and is still being shared today. For me, knowledge of the fact that my government had seen fit to involve us militarily in Vietnam was sufficient for me. I never asked the reason why. I just took it on blind faith that my government knew a hell of a lot more than I ever could, and that they must be right. My opinion has changed since then....
Still the fact is, I went. I went all the way, with no reservation. I said, "If you're going to fight, you might as well go all the way." So I joined the Marines, and then became an officer. I didn't request the infantry, and I didn't request to go to Vietnam; I literally demanded it. I was "the Marine's Marine:" I could run faster, do more push-ups and more pull-ups. I had leadership capability and so on and so forth. I got what I was after.
When I was in the Marine Corps, as I said before, I never really asked "Why are we in Vietnam? What's the history behind our involvement in that country?" I went in -- boom! There's something you have to understand about a system like the military: once you become a part of the machinery, it works on you. By the time it came time for me to go overseas, I was a fanatic; I was the epitome of John Wayne; I wanted but one thing: I wanted to kill.
You go through this environment of the military, and everything sort of works on itself. Your instructors, the guys you're going through with, your peers, what have you -- all the time it's an indoctrination. "We're out there, and we're fighting the `gooks.'" You get a couple of hundred guys out in the field, and they put the old bayonet on the rifle. "Kill, kill." Who do you kill? "Luke the Gook" and "Link the Chink." You get psyched up on this ...
I have a friend who spent four years in Laos. Don't try to tell him what we're doing in Laos is winding down the war; that's hogwash. He can tell you about day after day after day in Laos -- a country that we're not even at war with -- where our guys are going over and not limiting themselves to the Ho Chi Minh trail, but are going throughout the entire region of populated areas, and knocking out the villages. These stories about people living in caves and tunnels; that's no joke; it's reality. It's what's going on...
The revolution I'm talking about may be one reason why you're here tonight: an increased sensitivity on your part, a greater awareness of your function as a human being, and of your responsibility, as a citizen of this country, to be held accountable for, and to try to direct, what the United States of American is doing in your name. That's the revolution I'm talking about -- a social revolution, a change in thinking, one that says, "Throw out `kill ratios' as the logic for continuing the war." Our commanders are happy; they say, "We will continue. We're winning in Vietnam, because we are getting fifteen `gooks' for every American killed." It is that that I want to see a total rejection of. I want to see people recognize that a Laotian, a Cambodian, a North Vietnamese, a Viet Cong, has got as much right to live -- and live any way he chooses to -- as any American. The day that we really incorporate that into our thinking is the day that we're going to change.
Source: http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Manifestos/VVAW_Muller.html
Direction: Using your interpretation of Documents A-F and your knowledge of the Vietnam War, answer the following questions.
- In Document A, what is the President refusing to do and explain the reason behind his stance.
- What are your thoughts about Ho Chi Minh letter to the President Truman in Document B. Explain what made you come with your thoughts.
- Click on the link on Document C and read the documents in the year of 1950-1951. Summarize what you read in each document. Use information from Document A-D and infer why the United States finally decided to help the French?
- Read Document D, what type of relationship do you think President Kennedy and Diem had. Support your choice of relationship with clues from the letter.
- Summarize Document E, think of a reason why this ploy was deemed necessary by the President Johnson.
- Read Document F, what are the reasons the writer of the letter renegaded on his earlier stance. Would you have joined the war, why and why not?
