the vietnam war assignment quizlet

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Course: US history   >   Unit 8

• John F. Kennedy as president
• Bay of Pigs Invasion
• Cuban Missile Crisis
• The Cuban Missile Crisis
• Lyndon Johnson as president
• Vietnam War

The Vietnam War

• The student movement and the antiwar movement
• Second-wave feminism
• The election of 1968
• 1960s America

• The Vietnam War was a prolonged military conflict that started as an anticolonial war against the French and evolved into a Cold War confrontation between international communism and free-market democracy.
• The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) in the north was supported by the Soviet Union, China, and other communist countries, while the United States and its anticommunist allies backed the Republic of Vietnam (ROV) in the south.
• President Lyndon Johnson dramatically escalated US involvement in the conflict, authorizing a series of intense bombing campaigns and committing hundreds of thousands of US ground troops to the fight.
• After the United States withdrew from the conflict, North Vietnam invaded the South and united the country under a communist government.

Origins of the war in Vietnam

Lyndon johnson and the war in vietnam, richard nixon and vietnam, what do you think.

• For more on the origins of US involvement, see Mark Atwood Lawrence, Assuming the Burden: Europe and the American Commitment to War in Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005) and Mark Atwood Lawrence, The Vietnam War: A Concise International History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).
• See William S. Turley, The Second Indochina War: A Concise Political and Military History (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009); Lawrence, The Vietnam War , 71-73.
• The exact circumstances of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and the extent to which US officials may have misrepresented the incident, remain in dispute. Tonkin Gulf Resolution; Public Law 88-408, 88th Congress, August 7, 1964; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives.
• For more on Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War, see Michael H. Hunt, Lyndon Johnson’s War: America’s Cold War Crusade in Vietnam, 1945-1968 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1997).
• Paul S. Boyer, Promises to Keep: The United States since World War II (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1999), 283-284.
• Lawrence, The Vietnam War , 143.

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How The Pentagon Papers Changed Public Perception Of The War In Vietnam

Terry Gross

Fifty years ago, Daniel Ellsberg leaked classified information about U.S. policy in Vietnam to the press. We listen back to archival interviews with Ellsberg and Ben Bradlee of The Washington Post.

Copyright © 2021 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

• Lesson Plans
• Teacher's Guides
• Media Resources

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and Escalation of the Vietnam War

A North Vietnamese  Shantou -class gunboat burns near Hon Ne Island, after an attack by aircraft from the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS  Constellation , off North Vietnam's Lach Chao Estuary, August 5, 1964.

Wikimedia Commons

"On the first attack, the evidence would be pretty good. On the second one the amount of evidence we have today is less than we had yesterday. This resulted primarily from correlating bits and pieces of information eliminating double counting and mistaken signals. This much seemed certain: There was an attack. How many PT boats were involved, how many torpedoes were fired, etc. - all this was still somewhat uncertain. This matter may be of some importance since Hanoi has denied making the second attack." – National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, at the White House staff meeting at 8 a.m. on August 5, 1964, discussing the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

"I believe that within the next century, future generations will look with dismay and great disappointment upon a Congress which is now about to make such a historic mistake." – Senator Wayne Morse, during the Senate debate of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, August 6-7, 1964

In August 1964, a small military engagement off the coast of North Vietnam helped escalate the involvement of the United States in Vietnam; the Vietnam War would become the longest military engagement in American history prior to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Many historians now agree that the Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which many believed North Vietnamese ships had attacked American naval forces, may not have occurred in the way it was described at the time. The decisions made by President Lyndon B. Johnson and his top advisors, and the Congressional debate that ensued, resulted in a resolution giving LBJ authority to pursue a military policy in Vietnam that many people have come to believe was flawed and misguided. 

Guiding Questions

What were the factors that led to Congressional action authorizing military force in the Gulf of Tonkin incident?

By studying this incident and the debate it has generated, what can we learn about twentieth century American democracy and military affairs?

Learning Objectives

Explain the chronology of events in the Tonkin Gulf incident in 1964.

Evaluate the decisions made by the Johnson Administration that led to their request for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

Explain the major thrust of the Senate debate on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and why this measure passed with overwhelming support.

Analyze documents from the time to help students reach their own interpretation about these events and their significance.

Understand the process by which historians use declassified materials to understand how interpretations of events need to be modified.

Use the Tonkin Gulf incident to explore connections between the military, intelligence, Executive and Congressional branches in modern foreign affairs.

Lesson Plan Details

On August 4, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson announced that the North Vietnamese had attacked U.S. ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. Johnson sent airplanes against the North Vietnamese and asked Congress for a resolution that supported his actions. Congress authorized the President to take “all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression” in the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. The vote in the Senate on August 7 was 88-2 with only Senators Wayne Morse and Ernest Gruening opposing the joint resolution “to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia.”

The Tonkin Gulf Resolution gave the President authority “to take all necessary measures” to oppose any armed attack upon the United States; President Johnson and President Nixon relied upon the resolution as the legal basis for their Vietnam military policies. Yet 40 years after the incident, evidence now available reveals that the Johnson administration may have misled the public and Congress about the nature of the Tonkin incident.

The details of the debate around the Tonkin Gulf Resolution reveal that some of the senators accepted Cold War theories of the domino effect and containment, which may have limited their ability to consider a range of responses to the incident. A great deal of information about the Tonkin incident has become readily available to scholars and the public in the past few years. This makes it possible for Americans and others to gain access and attempt to formulate their own opinions.

• For a chronological summary and detailed account of the incident, see the essay " 40th Anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident " by National Security Archive research fellow John Prados. Especially useful are the “Background Information” and “New Evidence” sections. Some of this information is highly technical, but readers without a military background should be able to grasp the main points. Likewise, teachers may decide to embrace Prados’ political arguments or reject them.  This document is on the EDSITEment-reviewed National Security Archive site.
• Historians’ and journalists’ evaluations of the incident, the intelligence and the administration’s response are available in the short article by John Prados " Tonkin Gulf Intelligence ‘Skewed’ According to Official History and Intercepts ." Like the previous document, this is available from the National Security Archive . This site also includes links to many other sources related to the Gulf of Tonkin.
• President Johnson’s Message to Congress and an excerpt of the Joint Resolution of Congress are available at the EDSITEment-reviewed Avalon Project at Yale University . The complete Tonkin Gulf Resolution is available at the National Archive’s Our Documents site. For the most readable version, click on “Document Transcript” to the right of the original document. The National Archives is an EDSITEment-reviewed website.
• A short excerpt " The Senate Debates the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, August 6-7, 1964 ," includes both the Senate resolution, opposition from Senators Nelson and Gruening, and support for the amendment from Senator Fulbright. This site is from The Wars for Viet Nam: 1945 to 1975 linked to History Matters , an EDSITEment-reviewed website.

Finally, former military intelligence official R. A. Mackinnon, an advisor on Southeast Asia in 1965, wrote a comprehensive review of the intelligence on the Gulf of Tonkin . This document totals 111 pages, but reading the first few pages of the Introduction gives the reader a sense for the officials’ own criticism and scrutiny of the Tonkin incident and its use by the Johnson administration. The document is available on the National Security Agency’s website .

This lesson raises a number of questions relating to the Gulf of Tonkin incident and subsequent decisions.  How important was flawed, manipulated, or disregarded intelligence in the American decision to escalate our military involvement in Vietnam following the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964? Did American officials, including President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, intentionally manipulate the information they were receiving to reach the conclusion they wanted? What does historical hindsight teach us about this one specific event and, more broadly, about presidential decision-making in times of crisis? What lessons can be learned that have bearing on current and future policies?

NCSS.D2.His.1.9-12. Evaluate how historical events and developments were shaped by unique circumstances of time and place as well as broader historical contexts.

NCSS.D2.His.2.9-12. Analyze change and continuity in historical eras.

NCSS.D2.His.3.9-12. Use questions generated about individuals and groups to assess how the significance of their actions changes over time and is shaped by the historical context.

NCSS.D2.His.12.9-12. Use questions generated about multiple historical sources to pursue further inquiry and investigate additional sources.

NCSS.D2.His.14.9-12. Analyze multiple and complex causes and effects of events in the past.

NCSS.D2.His.15.9-12. Distinguish between long-term causes and triggering events in developing a historical argument.

NCSS.D2.His.16.9-12. Integrate evidence from multiple relevant historical sources and interpretations into a reasoned argument about the past.

To prepare to teach this lesson, download or bookmark the following EDSITEment websites:

• For the homework reading the night before the lessons start, bookmark the essay "" 40th Anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident " by scholar John Prados. 
• Download this .pdf file with the official record of the August 5, 1964 White House Staff Meeting. This is available from the National Security Archive .   
• Bookmark this site providing phone conversations between LBJ and McNamara , available as audio clips in Windows Media Audio format or as transcripts. It’s provided by the National Security Archive .
• For LBJ’s speech and an excerpt of the Congressional Joint Resolution , bookmark this webpage.

Bookmark a segment of the Senate debate .

Activity 1. Domestic vs. Military Considerations

Students should read or listen to LBJ’s two conversations with Robert McNamara from August 3, 1964, available as Clip 1 and Clip 2 of " LBJ Tapes on the Gulf of Tonkin Incident ." The clips are in .wma format, and so running the audio will require Windows.

These conversations reveal the convergence of military and domestic considerations for the President and his Secretary of Defense. Students should write short quotations from the text which demonstrate the connection of domestic political concerns with military actions, then follow each quote with their commentary on how it illustrates this theme

To explore this theme further, students should analyze the series of four conversations ( Clips 3 through 6 ) from August 4, 1963, in which LBJ and McNamara discussed and analyzed the second series of alleged attacks. But were these actual attacks? Many historians (as well as McNamara himself) have cast doubt on this question. Ask students to  comment on a variety of possible issues: confusion on the part of the administration; LBJ’s domestic political concerns; and specific issues or details where historians now believe the information was wrong (students would have some background on this from the introductory remarks to each section of the telephone conversations). Teachers can decide to split students into groups, and have each one focus on a specific theme from above, and then report back to the class as a whole.

Activity 2. What’s Important Here?

Next, students should read the text of the August 5, 1964, White House staff meeting (available as a .pdf file) to begin to analyze the military and political intelligence overlap that is so important in the Tonkin Gulf incident. Noting answers on paper, students will comment on three key aspects of this document:

• Do the participants in the meeting think the evidence is clear and convincing that the North Vietnamese have attacked the American ships?
• What reservations are advanced by Cater? How does Bundy respond to them?
• What is Bundy’s attitude about Congress’ involvement in this issue?
• What does this indicate about the relationship between the Executive branch and Legislative branch on foreign policy issues at that time?
• What does the Constitution say about the Executive and Legislative branch in foreign affairs? What, in your (student’s) opinion, is the most important piece of information from these minutes? Explain your choice.

Teachers may find the following definitions helpful in preparing for this lesson; they can determine how to share with their students:

• DRV – Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam)
• ChiComs – The People’s Republic of China (Communist China)
• USIA – United States Information Agency

W.Y.S. – William Y. Smith (initials at end), staff member of the National Security Council, working for McGeorge Bundy

Activity 3. LBJ’s Rationale and the Dissenters

Finally, students should analyze President Johnson’s Message to Congress of August 5, 1964 , presenting the case for a Congressional commitment to military action in Southeast Asia; a small part of the Senate debate on it (focusing on Senators Morse and Gruening’s dissents); and the resolution itself . On LBJ’s speech, students should examine two topics: LBJ’s use of recently received intelligence  (using the knowledge they gained in the earlier activity using the phone calls) AND the President’s overall foreign-policy concerns in this matter. In analyzing the debate, students should discuss the two dissenters’ main concerns. Finally, they should discuss the Congressional resolution to highlight the sections that indicate Congress’ acceptance of LBJ’s rationale, as well as those that reflect Cold War politics and ideals.

• Students engage in a simulation of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution debate, using the information that is now available – which was not disclosed then – that they have been examining. The goal would be to help them see how differently the debate might have unfolded, if the intelligence had been fully disclosed.
• Students write an op-ed piece for August 8, 2004, on the 40th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. They are asked to reflect on why the original measure was passed and whether they now think the measure was justified, given the information that has come to light.

1. Historical context and hindsight: Students can analyze the evolution of Walter Cronkite’s views on this issue, by listening to Cronkite’s discussion of the Gulf of Tonkin incident and its aftermath , which offers a good assessment of what was known then and now. (Note: this audio clip is nearly 13 minutes.) This clip is linked from the Internet Public Library, an EDSITEment-reviewed website.

Students could analyze part of an article by National Security Agency historian Robert J. Hanyok on military intelligence and the Tonkin Gulf, which confirms what some historians have long argued: that there was no second attack on U.S. ships in Tonkin on August 4, 1964. The document is long, but teachers could decide what portions they want to use with their students. This document is from the National Security Archive , linked to the EDSITEment-reviewed History Matters site.

2. Going to War: Students could compare and contrast LBJ’s speech to Congress on the Tonkin Gulf incident with those of other presidents seeking Congressional support for war:

• James Polk on the need for war with Mexico, May 11, 1846 . This text is available from New Perspectives on the West , an EDSITEment-reviewed website.

William McKinley's request for Congressional approval of his declaration of war against Spain, April 5, 1898 , is available from The Spanish American War Centennial Website . This site is linked to American Memory , an EDSITEment-reviewed site.

Selected EDSITEment Websites

American Memory

• President McKinley and the Declaration of War

The Avalon Project at Yale Law School

• President Johnson’s Message to Congress and an excerpt of the Joint Resolution of Congress

National Archives Education

• Tonkin Gulf Resolution

National Security Archive

• Essay: 40th Anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident
• LBJ Tapes on the Gulf of Tonkin Incident
• R.A. Mackinnon, "The Gulf of Tonkin Incident"
• Robert J. Hanyok, ‘Skunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds and the Flying Fish: The Gulf of Tonkin Mystery, 2-4 August, 1964’
• The Senate Debates the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, August 6-7, 1964
• “Tonkin Gulf Intelligence ‘Skewed’ According to Official History and Intercepts”
• White House Staff Meeting, August 5, 1964

Internet Public Library

• Walter Cronkite, ‘Gulf of Tonkin’s Phantom Attack’

New Perspectives on the West

• James K. Polk, Message on War with Mexico, May 11, 1846

Related on EDSITEment

The korean war (1950–1953), doing oral history with vietnam war veterans, the things they carried : tim o’brien’s vietnam war novel endures, cold war europe.

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The Nation in Conflict: The Vietnam War

• Technological project:  Photostory or Movie Maker.  The student is to create a visual presentation that tells the historical facts of the Vietnam War.  They are also to include in their presentation music that reflects the era of the war and also examine a singular individual or event of the time.

 The included example examines the history of the war, a music track that reflects the time, and an examination of the history and events of the Kent State deaths.

• Exercise on President Johnson’s speeches:  Speech at Johns Hopkins 1965 and Speech to the Nation 1968.  Depending on the level or the class, this can be done as an individual or partner exercise.  The two speeches have a series of questions to be answered after reading the documents.  Once all questions have been answered (however the instructor may wish to have them answered), a comparison/contrast of the speeches as an

 in-class discussion or a written assignment would be appropriate.  (class level should be considered)

• Song Analysis:  the students are to be divided into pairs or small groups n(depending on the level of the students).  They are to be given a song (lyrics only).  Using the song lyrics and the accompanying Song Analysis Worksheet (created by Jess McClain), the students are to interpret the meaning of the lyrics.  They will then listen to the song and create a comprehensive interpretation and its application to the society of the era of the Vietnam War.

South Carolina State Social Studies Standards:  USHC-9.3  Summarize the key events and effects of the Vietnam War, including the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the Tet offensive; the protests and opposition to the war; and the policies of presidents John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon. (H, P, G)

SHOW ME STANDARDS

2. Continuity and change in the history of Missouri, the United States and the world

6. Relationships of the individual and groups to institutions and cultural traditions

7. The use of tools of social science inquiry (such as surveys, statistics, maps, documents)

KANSAS STANDARDS (High School-US History)

Benchmark 3: The student uses a working knowledge and understanding of individuals, groups, ideas, developments, and turning points in the era of the Cold War (1945-1990)

4. (A) evaluates the foreign policies of Kennedy and Johnson during the Cold War (e.g., Cuban Missile Crisis, Berlin Wall, Vietnam War, Peace Corp).

Benchmark 5: The student engages in historical thinking skills.

1. (A) analyzes a theme in United States history to explain patterns of continuity and change over time.

2. (A) develops historical questions on a specific topic in United States history and analyzes the evidence in primary source documents to speculate on the answers.

3. (A) uses primary and secondary sources about an event in U.S. history to develop a credible interpretation of the event, evaluating on its meaning (e.g., uses provided primary and secondary sources to interpret a historical-based conclusion).

4. (A) compares competing historical narratives in United States history by contrasting different historians’ choice of questions, use of sources, and points of view, in order to demonstrate how these factors contribute to different interpretations.

• U. S. History Textbook:  Danzser, Gerald. The Americans.  Orlando, Fla:  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2005.
• Gordan, Irving.  A Review Text in American History.  New York, NY:  Amsco Publishing Co., 1990.
• ETV Streaming Video:  “Archives of War:  The Vietnam War”.

http://player.discoveryeducation.com/index.cfm?guidAssetId=A5132C3E-F52B-4208-9E1E-1C6F1D620A0E&blnFromSearch=1&productcode=US

This is an excellent video that does an overview of the War.  The video comes in clips from a few minutes to (if you choose….not recommended) the full video of approximately 1.5 hrs.

• There is a full teacher’s guide that accompanies this video.  It is found with the video at

http://gtm-media.discoveryeducation.com/videos/21526/F7A8FD17-A013-3DCF-E971918862A2F78A.pdf

• Various Vietnam War Songs:  there are MANY websites devoted to the music of the time.  Here are a few.

http://www.k-state.edu/english/nelp/vietnam_music.html

Photostory or Movie Maker

• This is a very basic unit plan for the Vietnam War chapter.  It has two in-class activities, a project and the general notes as are covered by the student textbook.  (I would highly encourage the supplementation if material from other texts to broaden the information presented).
• The teacher’s job is to enhance the basic knowledge for the student.  The teacher is to deliver the basic knowledge and guide the students through the research and interpretive portions of the unit.
• The student is to complete the research necessary for the project and be a willing participant in the class activities and discussions provided by the teacher.
• All other information is provided in the first section of this plan.

President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Address to the Nation Announcing Steps To Limit the War in Vietnam and Reporting His Decision Not To Seek Reelection March 31, 1968

Good evening, my fellow Americans:

Tonight I want to speak to you of peace in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

No other question so preoccupies our people. No other dream so absorbs the 250 million human beings who live in that part of the world. No other goal motivates American policy in Southeast Asia.

For years, representatives of our Government and others have traveled the world--seeking to find a basis for peace talks.

Since last September, they have carried the offer that I made public at San Antonio. That offer was this:

That the United States would stop its bombardment of North Vietnam when that would lead promptly to productive discussions--and that we would assume that North Vietnam would not take military advantage of our restraint.

Hanoi denounced this offer, both privately and publicly. Even while the search for peace was going on, North Vietnam rushed their preparations for a savage assault on the people, the government, and the allies of South Vietnam.

Their attack--during the Tet holidays--failed to achieve its principal objectives.

It did not collapse the elected government of South Vietnam or shatter its army--as the Communists had hoped.

It did not produce a "general uprising" among the people of the cities as they had predicted.

The Communists were unable to maintain control of any of the more than 30 cities that they attacked. And they took very heavy casualties.

But they did compel the South Vietnamese and their allies to move certain forces from the countryside into the cities.

They caused widespread disruption and suffering. Their attacks, and the battles that followed, made refugees of half a million human beings.

The Communists may renew their attack any day.

They are, it appears, trying to make 1968 the year of decision in South Vietnam--the year that brings, if not final victory or defeat, at least a turning point in the struggle.

This much is clear:

If they do mount another round of heavy attacks, they will not succeed in destroying the fighting power of South Vietnam and its allies.

But tragically, this is also clear: Many men--on both sides of the struggle--will be lost. A nation that has already suffered 20 years of warfare will suffer once again. Armies on both sides will take new casualties. And the war will go on.

There is no need for this to be so.

There is no need to delay the talks that could bring an end to this long and this bloody war.

Tonight, I renew the offer I made last August--to stop the bombardment of North Vietnam. We ask that talks begin promptly, that they be serious talks on the substance of peace. We assume that during those talks Hanoi will not take advantage of our restraint.

We are prepared to move immediately toward peace through negotiations.

So, tonight, in the hope that this action will lead to early talks, I am taking the first step to deescalate the conflict. We are reducing--substantially reducing--the present level of hostilities.

And we are doing so unilaterally, and at once.

Tonight, I have ordered our aircraft and our naval vessels to make no attacks on North Vietnam, except in the area north of the demilitarized zone where the continuing enemy buildup directly threatens allied forward positions and where the movements of their troops and supplies are clearly related to that threat.

The area in which we are stopping our attacks includes almost 90 percent of North Vietnam’s population, and most of its territory. Thus there will be no attacks around the principal populated areas, or in the food-producing areas of North Vietnam.

Even this very limited bombing of the North could come to an early end--if our restraint is matched by restraint in Hanoi. But I cannot in good conscience stop all bombing so long as to do so would immediately and directly endanger the lives of our men and our allies. Whether a complete bombing halt becomes possible in the future will be determined by events.

Our purpose in this action is to bring about a reduction in the level of violence that now exists.

It is to save the lives of brave men--and to save the lives of innocent women and children. It is to permit the contending forces to move closer to a political settlement.

And tonight, I call upon the United Kingdom and I call upon the Soviet Union--as cochairmen of the Geneva Conferences, and as permanent members of the United Nations Security Council--to do all they can to move from the unilateral act of deescalation that I have just announced toward genuine peace in Southeast Asia.

Now, as in the past, the United States is ready to send its representatives to any forum, at any time, to discuss the means of bringing this ugly war to an end.

I am designating one of our most distinguished Americans, Ambassador Averell Harriman, as my personal representative for such talks. In addition, I have asked Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson, who returned from Moscow for consultation, to be available to join Ambassador Harriman at Geneva or any other suitable place--just as soon as Hanoi agrees to a conference.

I call upon President Ho Chi Minh to respond positively, and favorably, to this new step toward peace.

But if peace does not come now through negotiations, it will come when Hanoi understands that our common resolve is unshakable, and our common strength is invincible.

Tonight, we and the other allied nations are contributing 600,000 fighting men to assist 700,000 South Vietnamese troops in defending their little country.

Our presence there has always rested on this basic belief: The main burden of preserving their freedom must be carried out by them--by the South Vietnamese themselves.

We and our allies can only help to provide a shield behind which the people of South Vietnam can survive and can grow and develop. On their efforts--on their determination and resourcefulness--the outcome will ultimately depend.

That small, beleaguered nation has suffered terrible punishment for more than 20 years.

I pay tribute once again tonight to the great courage and endurance of its people. South Vietnam supports armed forces tonight of almost 700,000 men--and I call your attention to the fact that this is the equivalent of more than 10 million in our own population. Its people maintain their firm determination to be free of domination by the North.

There has been substantial progress, I think, in building a durable government during these last 3 years. The South Vietnam of 1965 could not have survived the enemy’s Tet offensive of 1968. The elected government of South Vietnam survived that attack--and is rapidly repairing the devastation that it wrought.

The South Vietnamese know that further efforts are going to be required:

·         --to expand their own armed forces, ·         --to move back into the countryside as quickly as possible, ·         --to increase their taxes, ·         --to select the very best men that they have for civil and military responsibility, ·         --to achieve a new unity within their constitutional government, and ·         --to include in the national effort all those groups who wish to preserve South Vietnam’s control over its own destiny.

Last week President Thieu ordered the mobilization of 135,000 additional South Vietnamese. He plans to reach--as soon as possible--a total military strength of more than 800,000 men.

To achieve this, the Government of South Vietnam started the drafting of 19-year-olds on March 1st. On May 1st, the Government will begin the drafting of 18-year-olds.

Last month, 10,000 men volunteered for military service--that was two and a half times the number of volunteers during the same month last year. Since the middle of January, more than 48,000 South Vietnamese have joined the armed forces--and nearly half of them volunteered to do so.

All men in the South Vietnamese armed forces have had their tours of duty extended for the duration of the war, and reserves are now being called up for immediate active duty.

President Thieu told his people last week:

"We must make greater efforts and accept more sacrifices because, as I have said many times, this is our country. The existence of our nation is at stake, and this is mainly a Vietnamese responsibility."

He warned his people that a major national effort is required to root out corruption and incompetence at all levels of government.

We applaud this evidence of determination on the part of South Vietnam. Our first priority will be to support their effort.

We shall accelerate the reequipment of South Vietnam’s armed forces--in order to meet the enemy’s increased firepower. This will enable them progressively to undertake a larger share of combat operations against the Communist invaders.

On many occasions I have told the American people that we would send to Vietnam those forces that are required to accomplish our mission there. So, with that as our guide, we have previously authorized a force level of approximately 525,000.

Some weeks ago--to help meet the enemy’s new offensive--we sent to Vietnam about 11,000 additional Marine and airborne troops. They were deployed by air in 48 hours, on an emergency basis. But the artillery, tank, aircraft, medical, and other units that were needed to work with and to support these infantry troops in combat could not then accompany them by air on that short notice.

In order that these forces may reach maximum combat effectiveness, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have recommended to me that we should prepare to send--during the next 5 months--support troops totaling approximately 13,500 men.

A portion of these men will be made available from our active forces. The balance will come from reserve component units which will be called up for service.

The actions that we have taken since the beginning of the year:

·         --to reequip the South Vietnamese forces, ·         --to meet our responsibilities in Korea, as well as our responsibilities in Vietnam, ·         --to meet price increases and the cost of activating and deploying reserve forces, ·         --to replace helicopters and provide the other military supplies we need, all of these actions are going to require additional expenditures.

The tentative estimate of those additional expenditures is $2.5 billion in this fiscal year, and $2.6 billion in the next fiscal year.

These projected increases in expenditures for our national security will bring into sharper focus the Nation’s need for immediate action: action to protect the prosperity of the American people and to protect the strength and the stability of our American dollar.

On many occasions I have pointed out that, without a tax bill or decreased expenditures, next year’s deficit would again be around $20 billion. I have emphasized the need to set strict priorities in our spending. I have stressed that failure to act and to act promptly and decisively would raise very strong doubts throughout the world about America’s willingness to keep its financial house in order.

Yet Congress has not acted. And tonight we face the sharpest financial threat in the postwar era--a threat to the dollar’s role as the keystone of international trade and finance in the world.

Last week, at the monetary conference in Stockholm, the major industrial countries decided to take a big step toward creating a new international monetary asset that will strengthen the international monetary system. I am very proud of the very able work done by Secretary Fowler and Chairman Martin of the Federal Reserve Board.

But to make this system work the United States just must bring its balance of payments to--or very close to--equilibrium. We must have a responsible fiscal policy in this country. The passage of a tax bill now, together with expenditure control that the Congress may desire and dictate, is absolutely necessary to protect this Nation’s security, to continue our prosperity, and to meet the needs of our people.

What is at stake is 7 years of unparalleled prosperity. In those 7 years, the real income of the average American, after taxes, rose by almost 30 percent--a gain as large as that of the entire preceding 19 years.

So the steps that we must take to convince the world are exactly the steps we must take to sustain our own economic strength here at home. In the past 8 months, prices and interest rates have risen because of our inaction.

We must, therefore, now do everything we can to move from debate to action--from talking to voting. There is, I believe--I hope there is--in both Houses of the Congress--a growing sense of urgency that this situation just must be acted upon and must be corrected.

My budget in January was, we thought, a tight one. It fully reflected our evaluation of most of the demanding needs of this Nation.

But in these budgetary matters, the President does not decide alone. The Congress has the power and the duty to determine appropriations and taxes.

The Congress is now considering our proposals and they are considering reductions in the budget that we submitted.

As part of a program of fiscal restraint that includes the tax surcharge, I shall approve appropriate reductions in the January budget when and if Congress so decides that that should be done.

One thing is unmistakably clear, however: Our deficit just must be reduced. Failure to act could bring on conditions that would strike hardest at those people that all of us are trying so hard to help.

These times call for prudence in this land of plenty. I believe that we have the character to provide it, and tonight I plead with the Congress and with the people to act promptly to serve the national interest, and thereby serve all of our people.

Now let me give you my estimate of the chances for peace:

·         --the peace that will one day stop the bloodshed in South Vietnam, ·         --that will permit all the Vietnamese people to rebuild and develop their land, ·         --that will permit us to turn more fully to our own tasks here at home.

I cannot promise that the initiative that I have announced tonight will be completely successful in achieving peace any more than the 30 others that we have undertaken and agreed to in recent years.

But it is our fervent hope that North Vietnam, after years of fighting that have left the issue unresolved, will now cease its efforts to achieve a military victory and will join with us in moving toward the peace table.

And there may come a time when South Vietnamese--on both sides--are able to work out a way to settle their own differences by free political choice rather than by war.

As Hanoi considers its course, it should be in no doubt of our intentions. It must not miscalculate the pressures within our democracy in this election year.

We have no intention of widening this war.

But the United States will never accept a fake solution to this long and arduous struggle and call it peace.

No one can foretell the precise terms of an eventual settlement.

Our objective in South Vietnam has never been the annihilation of the enemy. It has been to bring about a recognition in Hanoi that its objective--taking over the South by force--could not be achieved.

We think that peace can be based on the Geneva Accords of 1954--under political conditions that permit the South Vietnamese--all the South Vietnamese--to chart their course free of any outside domination or interference, from us or from anyone else.

So tonight I reaffirm the pledge that we made at Manila--that we are prepared to withdraw our forces from South Vietnam as the other side withdraws its forces to the north, stops the infiltration, and the level of violence thus subsides.

Our goal of peace and self-determination in Vietnam is directly related to the future of all of Southeast Asia--where much has happened to inspire confidence during the past 10 years. We have done all that we knew how to do to contribute and to help build that confidence.

A number of its nations have shown what can be accomplished under conditions of security. Since 1966, Indonesia, the fifth largest nation in all the world, with a population of more than 100 million people, has had a government that is dedicated to peace with its neighbors and improved conditions for its own people. Political and economic cooperation between nations has grown rapidly.

I think every American can take a great deal of pride in the role that we have played in bringing this about in Southeast Asia. We can rightly judge--as responsible Southeast Asians themselves do--that the progress of the past 3 years would have been far less likely--if not completely impossible--if America’s sons and others had not made their stand in Vietnam.

At Johns Hopkins University, about 3 years ago, I announced that the United States would take part in the great work of developing Southeast Asia, including the Mekong Valley, for all the people of that region. Our determination to help build a better land--a better land for men on both sides of the present conflict--has not diminished in the least. Indeed, the ravages of war, I think, have made it more urgent than ever.

So, I repeat on behalf of the United States again tonight what I said at Johns Hopkins--that North Vietnam could take its place in this common effort just as soon as peace comes.

Over time, a wider framework of peace and security in Southeast Asia may become possible. The new cooperation of the nations of the area could be a foundation-stone. Certainly friendship with the nations of such a Southeast Asia is what the United States seeks--and that is all that the United States seeks.

One day, my fellow citizens, there will be peace in Southeast Asia.

It will come because the people of Southeast Asia want it--those whose armies are at war tonight, and those who, though threatened, have thus far been spared.

Peace will come because Asians were willing to work for it--and to sacrifice for it--and to die by the thousands for it.

But let it never be forgotten: Peace will come also because America sent her sons to help secure it.

It has not been easy--far from it. During the past 4½ years, it has been my fate and my responsibility to be Commander in Chief. I have lived---daily and nightly--with the cost of this war. I know the pain that it has inflicted. I know, perhaps better than anyone, the misgivings that it has aroused.

Throughout this entire, long period, I have been sustained by a single principle: that what we are doing now, in Vietnam, is vital not only to the security of Southeast Asia, but it is vital to the security of every American.

Surely we have treaties which we must respect. Surely we have commitments that we are going to keep. Resolutions of the Congress testify to the need to resist aggression in the world and in Southeast Asia.

But the heart of our involvement in South Vietnam--under three different presidents, three separate administrations--has always been America’s own security.

And the larger purpose of our involvement has always been to help the nations of Southeast Asia become independent and stand alone, self-sustaining, as members of a great world community--at peace with themselves, and at peace with all others.

With such an Asia, our country--and the world--will be far more secure than it is tonight.

I believe that a peaceful Asia is far nearer to reality because of what America has done in Vietnam. I believe that the men who endure the dangers of battle--fighting there for us tonight--are helping the entire world avoid far greater conflicts, far wider wars, far more destruction, than this one.

The peace that will bring them home someday will come. Tonight I have offered the first in what I hope will be a series of mutual moves toward peace.

I pray that it will not be rejected by the leaders of North Vietnam. I pray that they will accept it as a means by which the sacrifices of their own people may be ended. And I ask your help and your support, my fellow citizens, for this effort to reach across the battlefield toward an early peace.

Finally, my fellow Americans, let me say this:

Of those to whom much is given, much is asked. I cannot say and no man could say that no more will be asked of us.

Yet, I believe that now, no less than when the decade began, this generation of Americans is willing to "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

Since those words were spoken by John F. Kennedy, the people of America have kept that compact with mankind’s noblest cause.

And we shall continue to keep it.

Yet, I believe that we must always be mindful of this one thing, whatever the trials and the tests ahead. The ultimate strength of our country and our cause will lie not in powerful weapons or infinite resources or boundless wealth, but will lie in the unity of our people.

This I believe very deeply.

Throughout my entire public career I have followed the personal philosophy that I am a free man, an American, a public servant, and a member of my party, in that order always and only.

For 37 years in the service of our Nation, first as a Congressman, as a Senator, and as Vice President, and now as your President, I have put the unity of the people first. I have put it ahead of any divisive partisanship.

And in these times as in times before, it is true that a house divided against itself by the spirit of faction, of party, of region, of religion, of race, is a house that cannot stand.

There is division in the American house now. There is divisiveness among us all tonight. And holding the trust that is mine, as President of all the people, I cannot disregard the peril to the progress of the American people and the hope and the prospect of peace for all peoples.

So, I would ask all Americans, whatever their personal interests or concern, to guard against divisiveness and all its ugly consequences.

Fifty-two months and 10 days ago, in a moment of tragedy and trauma, the duties of this office fell upon me. I asked then for your help and God’s, that we might continue America on its course, binding up our wounds, healing our history, moving forward in new unity, to clear the American agenda and to keep the American commitment for all of our people.

United we have kept that commitment. United we have enlarged that commitment.

Through all time to come, I think America will be a stronger nation, a more just society, and a land of greater opportunity and fulfillment because of what we have all done together in these years of unparalleled achievement.

Our reward will come in the life of freedom, peace, and hope that our children will enjoy through ages ahead.

What we won when all of our people united just must not now be lost in suspicion, distrust, selfishness, and politics among any of our people.

Believing this as I do, I have concluded that I should not permit the Presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing in this political year.

With America’s sons in the fields far away, with America’s future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world’s hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office--the Presidency of your country.

Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.

But let men everywhere know, however, that a strong, a confident, and a vigilant America stands ready tonight to seek an honorable peace--and stands ready tonight to defend an honored cause--whatever the price, whatever the burden, whatever the sacrifice that duty may require.

Thank you for listening.

Good night and God bless all of you.

NOTE: The President spoke at 9 p.m. in his office at the White House. The address was broadcast nationally.

Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1968-69. Volume I, entry 170, pp. 469-476. Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1970.

Questions for Johnson’s Address to the Nation Announcing Steps to Limit the War in Vietnam and Reporting his Decision not to seek Reelection March 31, 1968

•  Concerning the Vietnam situation, what does President Johnson announce that the U.S. is going to stop doing…immediately?
• In all the fighting, what does President Johnson state that the North Vietnamese have not been able to do?
• What does President Johnson hope to accomplish with this action?  What is the purpose?
• How many U.S. troops are currently in Vietnam and how many South Vietnamese troops does President Johnson state are actively involved in the fighting?  How does he predict this will change?
• What does President Johnson state the South Vietnamese will have to do in order to succeed as the U. S. begins to draw back its presence in Vietnam? (Name as least 5 reasons)
• What does South Vietnam institute in March and May 1968? 
• What will be the focus/jobs of any new American forces that will be moving into Vietnam and what will be the cost to the United States?
• Why is President Johnson upset with Congress and what does he specifically state that Congress has NOT done?
• What does President Johnson state the American public must assist the country in reducing, and what does he state will be the consequences of NOT reducing this issue for not only our country but the global world?
• What does President Johnson state that the North Vietnamese government (also referred to as Hanoi) will have to do to accomplish peace?
• What accomplishments have other S.E. Indochina nations accomplished and why does the President state this has happened?
• President Johnson references his Johns Hopkins Address and states that there are still issues from that address that he thinks are applicable.  What does he think is still important and what actions does he feel the U.S. should still be taking?
• As a consequence of the Vietnam War, what does President Johnson believe has happened to the American people as well as Congress? What does he ask the people and Congress do to fix this problem?
• Why does President Johnson state that he will not seek a second term of office?

President Lyndon B. Johnson’s

Address at Johns Hopkins University:"Peace Without Conquest"

April 7, 1965

Mr. Garland, Senator Brewster, Senator Tydings, Members of the congressional delegation, members of the faculty of Johns Hopkins, student body, my fellow Americans:

Last week 17 nations sent their views to some two dozen countries having an interest in southeast Asia. We are joining those 17 countries and stating our American policy tonight which we believe will contribute toward peace in this area of the world.

I have come here to review once again with my own people the views of the American Government.

Tonight Americans and Asians are dying for a world where each people may choose its own path to change.

This is the principle for which our ancestors fought i

• Test and Quiz will be given over material and vocabulary
• Project will be graded by Rubric (attached).  Projects count 20% of the quarter grade.
• In-class activities count as a quiz grade (song analysis and Speech activities).

The Military Draft During the Vietnam War

In November 1965, draftees are leacing Ann Arbor, MI to be processed and sent to basic training camps. The November 1965 draft call was the largest since the Korean War.

The Draft in Context

The military draft brought the war to the American home front. During the Vietnam War era, between 1964 and 1973, the U.S. military drafted 2.2 million American men out of an eligible pool of 27 million.  Although only 25 percent of the military force in the combat zones were draftees, the system of conscription caused many young American men to volunteer for the armed forces in order to have more of a choice of which division in the military they would serve. While many soldiers did support the war, at least initially, to others the draft seemed like a death sentence: being sent to a war and fight for a cause that they did not believe in. Some sought refuge in college or parental deferments; others intentionally failed aptitude tests or otherwise evaded; thousands fled to Canada; the politically connected sought refuge in the National Guard; and a growing number engaged in direct resistance. Antiwar activists viewed the draft as immoral and the only means for the government to continue the war with fresh soldiers. Ironically, as the draft continued to fuel the war effort, it also intensified the antiwar cause. Although the Selective Service’s deferment system meant that men of lower socioeconomic standing were most likely to be sent to the front lines, no one was completely safe from the draft. Almost every American was either eligible to go to war or knew someone who was.

Selective Service induction statistics during the Vietnam War era.

History of the Draft

Conscription during the 1960s took place under the legal authority of the peacetime draft, because the United States never formally declared war on North Vietnam. Legal authority for a peacetime draft came from the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, signed by President Franklin Roosevelt in order to mobilize American civilian-soldiers in anticipation of entry into World War II. During the Korean War, the Selective Service began the policy of granting deferments to college students with an academic ranking in the top half of their class. Between 1954-1964, from the end of the Korean War until the escalation in Vietnam, the “peacetime” draft inducted more than 1.4 million American men, an average of more than 120,000 per year. As part of their Cold War mission, many state universities required ROTC training by male students, although campus protests caused administrators to begin repealing mandatory ROTC in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

President John F. Kennedy, who began the escalation of the American military presence in Vietnam, also defended the peacetime draft and the Selective Service in 1962 statement, stating that “I cannot think of any branch of our government in the last two decades where there have been so few complaints about inequity.” One year later, the Pentagon acknowledged the usefulness of conscription, because one-third of enlisted soldiers and two-fifths of officers “would not have entered the service if not for the draft as a motivator.” The Selective Service also authorized deferments for men who planned to study for careers labeled as “vital” to national security interests, such as physics and engineering, which exacerbated the racial and socioeconomic inequalities of the Vietnam-era draft. Of the 2.5 million enlisted men who served during Vietnam, 80 percent came from poor or working-class families, and the same ratio only had a high school education. According to Christian Appy in Working-Class War , “most of the Americans who fought in Vietnam were powerless, working-class teenagers sent to fight an undeclared war by presidents for whom they were not even eligible to vote.”     

In the 1964 Presidential election,

LBJ makes a speechwhere he

promises to not escalate the war

in Vietnam. 

Broken Promises Lead to Discontent

Lyndon Johnson ran as the “peace” candidate in his 1964 campaign against conservative Barry Goldwater, who wanted to escalate the military offensive against North Vietnam and the Viet Cong guerillas. In October, at a campaign appearance in Ohio, Johnson promised that “we are not about to send American boys 9 or 10,000 miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.” But in the months after the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, Johnson rapidly increased the U.S. military presence in the defense of South Vietnam, with 184,000 troops stationed there by the end of 1965. During that pivotal year, while UM professors organized the first Vietnam teach-in and Students for a Democratic Society launched the campus antiwar movement, the U.S. military drafted 230,991 more young men. During the next four years, the Selective Service inducted an average of around 300,000 young men annually--including a significant percentage of the 58,156 American troops who would die in the conflict.  

America Had No Choice But to Escalate?

In July 1965, at the beginning of this steady escalation, President Johnson attempted to explain the need for increased military intervention in Vietnam in a press conference announcing that draft inductions would increase from 17,000 to 35,000 per month. LBJ started his address by quoting a letter from an American mother asking why her son had to serve in Vietnam for a cause that she did not understand. The president rephrased the question in his own words: “ Why must young Americans, born into a land exultant with hope and with golden promise, toil and suffer and sometimes die in such a remote and distant place?” Johnson lamented his responsibility “to send the flower of our youth, our finest young men, into battle” and said he knew “how their mothers weep and how their families sorrow.” But, he explained, America had no choice, because North Vietnam and Communist China sought to “conquer the South, to defeat American power, and to extend the Asiatic dominion of communism. . . . An Asia so threatened by Communist domination would certainly imperil the security of the United States itself.”  

President LBJ discusses why the U.S. is at war with Vietnam in a 1968 speech entitled, "Why Are We in Vietnam?"

Feelings Towards the Draft

The military draft and the escalation of the Vietnam war played a major role in turning direct action resistance into a mass movement on college campuses in the mid-1960s, including at the University of Michigan. In a 1965 Michigan Daily article, experts unveiled the fear that the military was not receiving enough volunteers and recognized the need to make military service more attractive to well-educated Americans, not just to those who had no other option but enlistment or induction. Bill Ayers, a UM student activist who was arrested in a 1965 sit-in at the Selective Service Office, discussed how conscription can actually benefit society in a 2015 interview. First, he argued, because the draft affects the people around an individual, they are more likely to pay attention to the foreign policy decisions being made by the government. Therefore, Americans in the era of the draft were much more actively engaged in politics and in questioning the true consequences of foreign policy decisions. Second, Ayers pointed out that an all-volunteer military has created a poor man’s army, because enlistment is attractive to individuals who have no other options because they are poor or uneducated.

Bill Ayers says the draft made people, who were normally

unaware of U.S. foreign policy decisions, more concious to

what was going on.

On December 1, 1969, the first draft lottery since 1942 began, but college deferments were kept intact. Anti-war activists recognized the draft lottery system did not produce truly random results. The draft received even more resistance as dissenters became more frustrated with the system. Finally, Nixon ended the draft in January 1973, but by then the war was almost over.

Citations for this page (individual document citations are at the full document links).

1. Michael S. Foley, Confronting the War Machine: Draft Resistance during the Vietnam War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), esp. pp. 35-40; Christian G. Appy, Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), esp. pp. 1-43 (quotation p. 27).

2.  Selective Service System, “Induction Statistics, < https://www.sss.gov/induct.htm >, accessed April 26, 2015.

3.  Lyndon B. Johnson, “Remarks in Memorial Hall, Akron University,” October 21, 1964, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States , 1964, Book II, pp. 1391-1393

4.  Lyndon B. Johnson, “The President’s News Conference: Why Are We in Vietnam?” July 28, 1965, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States , 1965, Book II, pp. 794-803 .

5.  “Experts See Changes Needed in Draft Policy,” Michigan Daily , May 20 1965.

6. Interview of Bill Ayers by Obadiah Brown and Chris Haughey, March 26th, 2015.

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This 21-Year-Old College Student Designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

By: Erin Blakemore

Updated: April 24, 2024 | Original: September 13, 2017

You’ve probably seen it: the simple black walls that emerge from the peaceful Constitution Gardens in Washington, D.C., the more than 58,000 half-inch-high names inscribed on the granite. It’s the Vietnam Veterans Memorial , and since 1982, it has commemorated military personnel who died or were declared missing in action during their Vietnam War service.

The moment plans for the memorial were unveiled, it was clear the structure would be immediately recognizable—and controversial. It was all the more astonishing because of its creator, an unknown, 21-year-old student with no professional experience.

Maya Lin was still an undergraduate at Yale University when she beat out more than 1,400 competitors in a competition to design the memorial. A Chinese-American, Lin was born in Ohio, where her parents were professors. They escaped mainland China as young adults when it became clear that their families might be threatened by Maoist revolutionaries.

Though she majored in architecture, Lin was far from a professional architect. And while she had little personal connection to Vietnam, she did experience the cascading effects of the war: During the 1970s, the conflict indelibly impacted American life and popular culture. Television news brought the war into peoples’ living rooms in unprecedented—and graphic—detail. Young adults lived in fear of the draft and the father of one of Lin’s high school friends was killed in combat.

For veterans, the toll was even greater. The war had profound psychological effects, and even 40 years later veterans suffer from PTSD, exposure to chemicals like Agent Orange and wounds they received in the war. More than 300,000 Americans were wounded during the war.

Lin was aware of those costs, and she wanted to commemorate them with a fiercely modern design. She created it as part of a college architecture class that challenged students to make an entry for the national design competition for the planned memorial.

Instead of something heroic or celebratory, Lin imagined two stark black walls that began inside the earth, then grew and grew in height until they met—like a “wound that is closed and healing.” The V-shaped wall, designed to point toward the Lincoln and Washington Memorials, would be inscribed with the names of the dead in chronological order. It would exist inside a park, as inextricable from the landscape as it was from the minds of Americans.

“I just wanted to be honest with people,” Lin told The Washington Post . “I didn’t want to make something that said ‘They’ve gone away for a while.’ I wanted something that would just simply say ‘They can never come back. They should be remembered.’”

The jury, which judged the entries blind, agreed. (Meanwhile, Lin only got a B on her assignment; she ended up beating out her professor in the competition.) But Lin’s bleak concept didn’t sit well with many members of the public, who expected a more imposing, complex and grandiose monument with marble, columns and statues in the vein of other buildings on the Mall, like the Lincoln or Jefferson Memorials.

A group of veterans protested the design, claiming that it was an ugly insult that portrayed the war as shameful, dishonorable and worth hiding. “For too long the veterans of that miserable conflict have borne the burden of the national ambivalence about the war,” wrote one critic. “To bury them now in a black stone sarcophagus, sunk into a hollow in the earth below eye level, is like spitting on their graves.”

Critics found an ally in then-radio host Patrick Buchanan and Congressman Henry Hyde. They launched a campaign to change the wall to a white color and add an eight-foot-high sculpture of soldiers to the site. The wall’s detractors used everything from Lin’s age to her ethnicity to her as reasons the design should be changed or abandoned altogether. Lin vehemently disagreed and accused Hyde of “drawing mustaches on other people’s portraits.”

The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, which was in charge of the final design, finally brokered a compromise. They kept Lin’s design and added a sculpture that had won third place in the design competition, Frederick Elliot Hart’s “Three Soldiers,” nearby. A tribute to the 11,000 in uniform—the first to honor women’s military service in the nation’s capital—was added in 1993.

Lin did not attend the compromise meeting, and was so hurt by the controversy over her work that it took her years to discuss it publicly. In 2000, she published an essay about her design process. “It wasn’t so much of an artistic dispute as a political one,” she wrote. “It was extremely naïve of me to think that I could produce a neutral statement that would not become politically controversial simply because it chose not to take sides.” She had always intended the memorial to be apolitical, she wrote, but she regretted the ways she had become a weapon in the fight against a memorial intended to highlight veterans.

The critics may have been louder at the time, but many Americans were appreciative of Lin’s striking design. Spurred on by the activism of the wounded Vietnam veteran Jan C. Scruggs and sympathetic celebrities like Bob Hope, some 275,000 Americans, as well as businesses and veterans’ groups, donated $8.4 million so the memorial could be built. While U.S Congress had allocated three acres on the National Mall for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, funding for the project came from the private sector, not the government.

Today, the wall has become a destination for visitors to Washington D.C., even those who did not experience the war firsthand. People with friends or relatives who fought in the war search for their names and rub impressions of them onto paper. Offerings like letters, medals, photos and dog tags are left almost daily.

In 1999, Congress expanded its definition of both the length of the war and the areas it covered. As a result, the Department of Defense regularly learns of more service members who died during combat or whose service records have been re-evaluated and adds their names.

In 2010, a study even found that visiting the wall multiple times can help Vietnam veterans better cope with post-traumatic stress.

Now a world-respected artist and architect , Lin continues to design iconic structures like the Civil Rights Memorial , a fountain and sculpture in Montgomery, Alabama that is inscribed with the names of activists who died during the Civil Rights Movement. A member of the National Women’s Hall of Fame, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016. But her most lasting legacy will likely be the wall she designed as a 21-year-old student—and how it honors the veterans it was meant to commemorate.

HISTORY Vault: Vietnam in HD

See the Vietnam War unfold through the gripping firsthand accounts of 13 brave men and women forever changed by their experiences.

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