nist North led to President John F. Kennedy’s decision in 1961 to allow US
military advisers to fight with the troops they were training, and the involve-
ment continued to escalate through the remainder of his presidency and into
the Johnson and Nixon presidencies. The point at which the US effort shifted
from aid to outright warfare was in 1965, when an alleged attack on US naval
units by the North Vietnamese allowed Johnson to persuade Congress to pass a
resolution, the ‘Gulf of Tonkin Resolution’, authorizing a major troop
deployment. At first the war appeared to be going well for the USA, but the
sudden outbreak of unsuspected Northern forces throughout South Vietnam
in 1968, the Tet Offensive, which very nearly took control of all urban centres,
shook American self-confidence. Widespread opposition to the war in the late
1960s and the polarization of opinion on the issue weakened American
commitment. The deterioration of the military situation in favour of the
North Vietnamese and mounting congressional opposition to the war forced
President Nixon to commence withdrawal of US troops in 1969. By August
1972 the last US combat troops were withdrawn and in January 1973 a cease-
fire was implemented. In 1975 the North Vietnamese army successfully
invaded the South and captured its capital, Saigon, requiring the evacuation
of remaining US personnel.
Apart from the tragedy of the war for the Vietnamese themselves, the war
dominated American political life for nearly a decade and cast doubt on the
willingness of the USA to intervene again in a military confrontation with
communist forces. Indeed as late as the Gulf War there was a clear hesitancy on
the part of the Pentagon to risk involvement. The USA clearly had in mind the
analogy between the Soviet Union’s failure in Afghanistan and its own
Vietnam failure when forced to make war in Afghanistan as part of President
George W. Bush’s ‘war on terrorism’ of 2002. The ease with which US-
supported forces did prevail may have finally laid the Vietnam Ghost to rest.
The Vietnam War also contributed to the abuses of executive power which
culminated in theWatergatecrisis. The long-term consequence was to
weaken American morale and self-image so much that President Ronald
Reagan was able to be elected in 1980, and re-elected in 1984, on a
programme that deliberately set out to build up US military might and restore
to the USA a sense of being an invulnerablesuperpower. The resultingarms
racecontributed to the demise of the Soviet Union through the pressure
exerted on its economy. It is, therefore, arguable that precisely because the
USA ‘lost’ the war in Vietnam, it ultimately ‘won’ thecold war.
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