Why Did the US Intervene in Indochina between 1941 and 1975 - Essay Example

As the war went on, it began to change perceptions of what America was supposed to be about.  Some of the new radicals did not see the war in Vietnam as a policy issue tall, but rather a reflection of things that were deeply wrong with American society and needed to be structurally changed.  Before Vietnam, US wars were generally popular, or, if they weren’t, the public at least did not go out into the streets demonstrating against them, or herald themselves as the bringers of a new culture.  SDS, or Students for a Democratic Society, was one such fringe-radical group that drew up a plan for a new society in which many of the founding documents of America did not provoke feelings of hypocrisy and unease in its inhabitants.  SDS and other radical organizations held frequent rallies in Washington and elsewhere, teach-ins continued, and the anti-war movement gained force and momentum, with some rallies drawing hundreds and thousands of protesters.  People in this generation were active in terms of trying to bring about social change in the nation, and this affected future generations of people who were influenced by them positively, as well as changes in terms of those who were opposed to them. 

Politically, Lyndon Johnson was concerned that many of the conservatives in his government, some of whom were put off by his revolutionary democratic domestic reforms, would drift far from his influence and gain ground in attacks against him, and he wanted to prevent any possible loss of face to conservative agenda-makers.  Having applied successfully a liberal series of programs on the home-front, Johnson initially expanded the war in Vietnam in the hopes that a display of might would allow the North

Vietnamese has no other choice than to begin negotiations for a settlement.  What Johnson did not perhaps fully recognize was that the depth of commitment of the North Vietnamese had existed even before initial American intervention in the area during the late 1940s, and was not likely to be shocked into stopping a decades-long conflict by a brief show of thunder.  “…the National Liberation Front and the North Vietnamese calculated that they could gain more by outlasting the United States than by negotiating. So the war ground on…” (Boyer et al 399). 

Domestically challenged by conservative politicians who were looking for a sign of weakness on which to challenge him, Johnson decided to step up action against North Vietnam, using a dubious (counter)attack in the Gulf of Tonkin as a lever to force Congress to allow him practically free reign in the continuance of “aggression prevention” with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.  The bombings were unsuccessful, and Johnson began sending ground troops to Vietnam in increasingly large numbers.  At home, people saw televised “scenes of fleeing refugees, of children maimed by US bombs, and of dying Americans replayed in living rooms night after night, undercutting the official optimism of government press agents” (Boyer et al 401).  Johnson, in his efforts to fend off conservative criticism and not appear a coward to the American people, ignored his own advisors’ opinions on the futility of continuance and continued to escalate the struggle in a manner that was almost obsessive in nature.            

The military goals and objectives of the war in Vietnam began as an American presidential continuance of the failed French efforts against the Vietminh.  President Johnson was resolved that South Vietnam, a country in which France had already fought and lost many battles helping the South against the North, must not fall under communism, and he often ignored pointed advice to discontinue the military action because he, ironically, did not want to become unpopular with the American people. Though one can see how Johnson felt the weight of history in deciding to keep up US intervention in Vietnam, this does not completely explain why he chose to broaden and magnify the scope of the conflict.

The contemporary American public realizes that no one is perfect, Lowry said, and it is willing to accept someone as a hero, despite slight "flaws and questions of character." Lowry said the Vietnam era was a major turning point in the American's conception of a hero because the country's citizens "learned that they can't fully trust anyone, including the government” (Cooper, 2007).  It could be argued that Watergate did this as well, as further aftermath that continued the Vietnam War’s countercultural message of not trusting the government implicitly, as previous generations had, and questioning authority and power structures.