US HISTORY: VIETNAM WAR DBQ
PROMPT: "Analyze the ways in which the Vietnam War heightened tensions in the United States between 1960 and 1975. Choose TWO of the following as the focus of your body paragraphs:Social tensions, Political tensions, Economic tensions.
Document 1: Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, 1964
“Whereas the United States is assisting the peoples of southeast Asia to protect their freedom and has no territorial, military or political ambitions in that area, but desires only that these people should be left in peace to work out their destinies in their own way: Now, therefore be it
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Congress approves and supports the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.”
1. What is the stated purpose of the United States in Southeast Asia?
2. What significant powers are granted by Congress and why is it significant to the Vietnam War?
Document 2: Muhammad Ali press conference, 1966
“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over… The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.”
Document 3: Martin Luther King, speech, 1967
“. . . it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem.”
1. Why does Ali feel he shouldn’t fight for the US in Vietnam?
2. What is Martin Luther King Jr.’s position on the Vietnam War?
3. What injustices do both men point out?
Document 4: LBJ Economic Cartoon & Nixon Economic Speech
Document 5: Richard Nixon Address to the Nation Outlining a New Economic Policy: “The Challenge of Peace.”
“One of the cruelest legacies of the artificial prosperity produced by war is inflation. Inflation robs every American, every one of you. The 20 million who are retired and living on fixed incomes--they are particularly hard hit. Homemakers find it harder than ever to balance the family budget. And 80 million American wage earners have been on a treadmill. For example, in the 4 war years between 1965 and 1969, your wage increases were completely eaten up by price increases. Your paychecks were higher, but you were no better off.
We have made progress against the rise in the cost of living. From the high point of 6 percent a year in 1969, the rise in consumer prices has been cut to 4 percent in the first half of 1971. But just as is the case in our fight against unemployment, we can and we must do better than that.
The time has come for decisive action-action that will break the vicious circle of spiraling prices and costs…I am today ordering a freeze on all prices and wages throughout the United States for a period of 90 days.1In addition, I call upon corporations to extend the wage-price freeze to all dividends.”
- How are LBJ’s domestic programs pictured in the cartoon versus Vietnam?
- According to the cartoon, what is happening economically to the US?
- According to Nixon, how has the war affected Americans economically?
- What is the war doing to the US economy?
- What is Nixon’s solution?
Document 6: Nixon & Ho Chi Minh Letters, 1969
President Richard Nixon’s letter to Ho Chi Minh, July 15, 1969.
Dear Mr. President:
“I realize that it is difficult to communicate meaningfully across the gulf of four years of war. But precisely because of this gulf, I wanted to take this opportunity to reaffirm in all solemnity my desire to work for a just peace. I deeply believe that the war in Vietnam has gone on too long and delay in bringing it to an end can benefit no one—least of all the people of Vietnam. My speech on May 14 laid out a proposal which I believe is fair to all parties.”
Source: President Ho Chi Minh’s letter to Richard Nixon, Hanoi, August 25, 1969.
“Mr. President: . . .
The war of aggression of the United States against our people, violating our fundamental national rights, still continues in South Vietnam. The United States continues to intensify military operations, the B-52 bombings and the use of toxic chemical products multiply the crimes against the Vietnamese people. . .
Our Vietnamese people are deeply devoted to peace, a real peace with independence and real freedom. They are determined to fight to the end . . .
In your letter you have expressed the desire to act for a just peace. For this the United States must cease the war of aggression and withdraw their troops from South Vietnam, respect the right of the population of the South and of the Vietnamese nation to dispose of themselves, without foreign influence.”
1. Why is Nixon writing to Ho Chi Minh and what is he asking for?
2. What is Ho Chi Minh’s response? What terms would the United States agree to for peace to be reached & why would this create a challenge for Nixon?
Document 7: Statements by John Kerry, 1971
Source: John Kerry, of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations, April 23, 1971.
I would like to talk on behalf of all those veterans, In our opinion and from our experience, there is nothing in South Vietnam which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America. And to
attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom. . .is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart. . .
We found most people [in Vietnam] didn't even know the difference between communism and
democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing [repeatedly attacking] them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart. . . .
We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. . . .We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of Orientals. . .
Each day . . . someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn'thave to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can't say that we have made a mistake. Someone has to die so that President Nixon won'tbe, and these are his words, "the first President to lose a war."
We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this administration has wiped away their memories of us.
- What does Kerry say about US containment policy in South Vietnam?
- What does Kerry say about the people of Vietnam?
- Why does Kerry feel the US wants to continue the war?