INTA 4803 TP      WAR IN THE 20th CENTURY
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Vietnam: Great Society to Great Quagmire
 
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"For it seems now more certain than ever, that the
bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate."

Commentator Walter Cronkite
CBS Evening News, February 27, 1968




"That's it.   If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America."

President Lyndon B. Johnson, February 27, 1968
After hearing Walter Cronkite's editorial comment
CBS Evening News


 
Lesson Objectives

•  Describe and analyze the changes in the American home front and their impact on US conduct of the war prior to and after the Tet 1968 offensive.

•  Describe the operational and strategic significance of the Tet Offensive (1968) and analyze its impact on US foreign policy since.

•  Describe and analyze the changes in strategy US and North Vietnamese strategies from 1965 to the end of the war

•  Describe and analyze the significance and history of the bombing campaign against North Vietnam.

• Describe the Ho Chi Minh Trail and analyze its significance in the Vietnam War.



 
Study Guides

•  Describe ways in which technology was used in the ground war, air war, and interdiction efforts in Southeast Asia (SEA).

•  What were the strategic objectives of the bombing campaign against North Vietnam?   How successful was this campaign?

•  What was the Ho Chi Minh Trail?   Why was it so important?   What did the U.S. do to interdict it?

•  Describe the Tet 1968 Offensive in Vietnam.   What were the results on the battlefield?   What was its impact on the war?




 
Assignment

Readings:


"The Military and Diplomatic Course of the Vietnam War"
David L Anderson
The Oxford Companion to American Military History
John Whiteclay Chambers II (ed)
Oxford UK: Oxford University Press, 1999
   • Also available as "Vietnam War (1960-75): Military & Diplomatic Course" (Answers.com)

Tet's Truths, Myths and Mysteries"
James Willbanks
Vietnam Magazine, February 2013

"The Domestic Course of the War"
Melvin Small
The Oxford Companion to American Military History
John Whiteclay Chambers II (ed)
Oxford UK: Oxford University Press, 1999
   • Also available as "Vietnam War (1960-75): Domestic Course" (Answers.com)


Supplemental Resources:

"The Tet Offensive - A Turning Point"
John Omicinski
Gannett News Service

"The Anti-War Movement in the United States"
Mark Barringer
Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History
Spencer C. Tucker (ed)
Oxford, UK: ABC-CLIO, 1998
    and
Tom Wells
The Oxford Companion to American Military History
John Whiteclay Chambers II (ed)
Oxford UK: Oxford University Press, 1999




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