“Why did the world’s most powerful nation fail to achieve its objectives and suffer its first defeat in war, a humiliating and deeply frustrating experience for a people accustomed to success?” -- George Herring

1. Vietnam
The
Consensus
Unravels

2. America’s Longest War
1950 - 1975

3. Why?

4. Why?
despite the expenditure of
more than $150 billion,

5. Why?
despite the application of its
great technical expertise,

6. Why?
despite the employment of
a huge military arsenal,

7. “Why did the world’s most powerful
nation fail to achieve its objectives
and suffer its first defeat in war, a
humiliating and deeply frustrating
experience for a people accustomed
to success?”

8. George C. Herring
Author, America’s Longest War

9. John Olson, ©1968

10. ~58,000 ~millions

17. Ho Chi Minh

18. Vietminh + OSS
Office of Strategic Services

19. 1941-42

20. 1941-42

21. “Your statesmen
make eloquent
speeches about
helping those
with self-
determination.
WE are self-
determined.

22. Why not help us?
Am I any
different from...
even your George
Washington?”

23. September, 1945
INDEPENDENCE

24. “We hold these
truths to be
self-evident.
That all men are
created equal.”

25. March, 1946

26. “French…troops are
making active
preparations for a
coup…. I therefore
most earnestly appeal
to you…and to the
American people
to…support…our
independence…”
TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:

27. President Harry S Truman

28. The United States could not
“afford to assume that Ho is
anything but Moscow-directed.”
US State Department, 1947

29. “Fall” of China
1949

30. “domino theory”

32. Bao Dai
(SOUTH)

34. $50 million >
1950-51

35. $152 million >
1952

36. “New Look”

37. $385 million >
1953

38. Dienbienphu
1954

39. Dienbienphu
1954

40. Dienbienphu
1954

41. “No more
Koreas”

42. Geneva Accords
1954

43. “[The USA]
has not been
party to or is
not bound by
the decisions
taken by the
conference.”

44. 17th
parallel

45. Elections
1956

46. CIA
(formerly, OSS)

47. Ngo Dinh Diem
98%

49. patronage

50. abolished elections

51. shut down

52. dissenters

53. A two-part Civil War

54. Ho
Diem
vs.

55. Ho
Diem
vs.
NLF vs.

56. NLF: National Liberation Front
> Vietcong (VC)

57. Understanding Vietnam

58. vs.

59. Consensus Assumptions

60. JFK

61. “Project Beef-up”

62. 16,000 “Advisers”
489 killed

63. Strategic Hamlet program

64. Thich Quang Duc burns himself to death on a Saigon street.

65. “I feel that we must bear a good deal of the responsibility for it…”

66. “Why do the leaves fall?....
<pause> I was shocked by…”

67. Dallas, TX: 11/22/63

69. LBJ
“I’m not going down in history as the first
American President who lost a war.”

70. Tonkin Gulf Resolution
August 7, 1964

71. “take all necessary measures to repel any
armed attack against the forces of the United
States and to prevent further aggression.”
Tonkin Gulf Resolution

72. Tonkin Gulf Resolution
416-0 (House)
88-2 (Senate)

73. On Kawara, Title ©1965

75. Tet Offensive
January, 1968

76. My Lai: March 16, 1968

78. Above and Beyond © 2016

79. “I feel like a hitchhiker caught in a
hailstorm on a Texas highway.
I can’t run, I can’t hide,
and I can’t make it stop.”

81. Nixon

82. Kent State: May 4, 1970

83. “Vietnamization”

84. The
Consensus
Unravels

85. “The United States’ involvement in
Vietnam was not primarily the
result of errors of judgment of the
personality quirks of the
policymakers, although these
things existed in abundance.

86. “It was the logical, if not
inevitable, outgrowth of a world
view and a policy; the policy of
containment which Americans in
and out of government accepted
without serious question for more
than two decades.”

87. George C. Herring
May, 1979

88. We must act to stop
Communism and we have the
right to do this, everywhere.

89. DEFEAT
April 29, 1975

90. We have faith in our leaders
and our [superior] political
institutions.

91. End of the Great Society

92. America can solve or is already
solving all of its problems.

93. Vietnamese “boat people”