User:Ahudson/Sandbox
This is my sandbox page. I am using it as a temporary online repository for draft versions of very large and apparently controversial article changes, such as reducing the length of major war articles. Ahudson 20:52, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
By the way, please leave comments on the corresponding talk page, not here. Ahudson 00:19, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Excerpt from Vietnam War
Escalation and Americanization, 1963-1968
On August 4 1964, just days after the U.S. increased its troop level to 21,000, the destroyer U.S.S. Maddox reported being attacked by three North Vietnamese torpedo boats while on an intelligence run; this caused retaliatory strikes against the North Vietnamese, and prompted Congress to approve the Southeast Asia Resolution (also known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution), which among other things gave the president power to conduct military operations without a declaration of war. It was later shown, however, that this attack never took place. [1] This was not apparent at the time, though, and had no effect on the war until later.
Following this, the National Security Council recommended that Johnson adopt a plan for a two-stage escalation of the bombing of North Vietnam; therefore, on March 2 1965, following a previous attack and reprisal at Pleiku (see Operation Flaming Dart), Operation Rolling Thunder commenced. It was a three year bombing operation aimed primarily at destroying North Vietnam's industrial, transportation, and air defense infrastructures; it was intended to bolster the morale of the South Vietnamese, and to deter the North politically.[2] Other aerial campaigns, such as Operation Commando Hunt, targeted different parts of the NVR infrastrucutre, including their supply chain.
These campaigns needed ground support, so on 8 march 1965, 3,500 United States Marines were assigned to South Vietnam. Due to attacks from the NLF, Operation Starlite began as the first major ground operation, and was successful; because of their defeat, the NLF began to engage in small-unit guerrilla warfare instead of the standard American-style ground war.
Under the command of newly appointed General Westmoreland, the U.S. announced that it would dramatically increase its 16,000-troop commitment in Vietnam. Because of this decision, allies Australia, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Thailand, and The Phillipines agreed to send in troops as well, which were supported by U.S. aid money and logistics. The American troop count continued to rise to more than 553,000 by 1969. This allowed for more complex operations on the behalf of the U.S., such as operations Masher/White Wing, Attleboro, Cedar Falls, and Junction City.
Meanwhile, the South Vietnamese government began to settle down with the election of Nguyen Van Thieu as President and Nguyen Cao Ky as Vice President in 1967, ending a series of military juntas. This allowed them to collaborate directly with their western allies, and to become a more effective force in the war.
However, the PAVN/NLF still controlled the pace of the war; they engaged the U.S. only when they beleived that they had an advantage, and moved troops around very quickly through the use of the Ho Chi Minh and Sihanouk Trails. These trails, however, ran through neighboring Laos and Cambodia, so the U.S. began a covert bombing campaign into Laos that would last until 1973.
In January 1968, the PAVN an NLF broke the truce that accompanied the Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday and mounted their largest offensive thus far (referred to as the Tet Offensive), in the hopes of sparking an uprising among the South Vietnamese. Although the U.S. and South Vietnamese were initially surprised by the scale and scope of the Offensive, they responded quickly and devastated the ranks of the NLF. However, this effectively ended the political career of President Johnson; he refused to run for reelection, and spent the rest of his term working for peace in Vietnam.
On 10 May 1968, in spite of low expectations, peace talks began in Paris between the U.S. and the DRV. Negotiations were stagnant for five months, until Johnson gave preliminary orders to halt the bombing of Vietnam. However, this gave an electoral boost to Hubert H. Humphrey, who was running against Nixon; so, through an intermediary, Nixon advised Saigon to wait until after elections, saying that canidate Richard M. Nixon would give them a better deal once elected. They obliged, leaving almost no progress made in the negtiations when Johnson left office.