Article
As the premiere episode of the new PBS documentary miniseries shows, America’s involvement in Vietnam can be tracked back to World War II.
A wise man once wrote that “the past is prologue,” meaning that everything happening today most probably has its roots in yesterday. The new PBS documentary miniseries by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick about the Vietnam War engraves that point in stone.
We think of Vietnam as a series of 1960s clichés: rock-music anthems, antiwar demonstrations, General William Westmoreland reporting on “light at the end of the tunnel,” and Walter Cronkite asking on camera while reporting during the Tet Offensive,"What the hell is going on? I thought we were winning this war."
In fact, as the first episode of the documentary—titled, appropriately enough, “Déjà Vu”—reminded us, what happened in Vietnam in the 1960s owed a great deal to World War II.
Follow the logic. Vietnam had been a colony of France since 1858, when French troops landed at Da Nang. Natural resources were the lure, since Vietnam was one of the world’s greatest sources of natural rubber. The French acted badly, as colonial masters always do: a plantation economy seeking to extract raw materials as cheaply as possible, exploitation of cheap local labor, and vicious suppression of any native bold enough to demand civil or political rights. The Vietnamese hated their French masters, the French despised the supposedly inferior natives, and a vigorous anti-French resistance—led by a shadowy figure who burned through one alias after another but eventually settled on “Ho Chi Minh”—had already arisen by the 1930s.And here’s where World War II changed Vietnam forever. In 1940, the German army sliced through France like butter. Germany’s ally, Japan, eventually invaded Vietnam and replaced the French as colonial masters. Vietnam was now a Japanese colony, and that put it squarely in the crosshairs of US foreign policy after 1941. Washington wanted to weaken Japan anywhere it could, but couldn’t devote too many military resources to the place. The result was the insertion of a team of Office of Strategic Services (OSS) agents into the country. The OSS used covert agents to move events in America’s direction: making contact with local anti-Japanese patriots like Ho Chi Minh, carrying out acts of sabotage against the Japanese, and helping rescue downed American pilots.
When Japan surrendered in 1945, Ho—by now a legendary figure to Vietnamese patriots—declared an independent Vietnamese state. He actually presided over a great parade in the northern city of Hanoi and gave a speech drawn liberally from that great statement of American liberty, the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” he proclaimed to a delirious, cheering crown, “that all men are created equal.”
From here it all went south. The United States wasn’t interested in an independent Vietnam. In the new Cold War of the postwar era, Washington wanted to reinstall the French as rulers of Vietnam. Ho and his followers launched a vicious guerrilla war in the countryside to drive out the French, and France was soon in deep trouble—with losses rising in Vietnam and dissatisfaction at home at the cost of the war. By 1950, America was footing 30 percent of the bill for the French war to suppress the Vietnamese rebels, and a few years later the subsidy had risen to 80 percent. Ho was a patriot, yes, but also a committed communist, and that labeled him an enemy of America in the 1950s. By the time the French suffered a decisive defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, it almost seemed inevitable that the United States would step in and try to succeed where the French had failed.
Burns and Novick handle all this in the first episode of The Vietnam War in typically deft fashion: strong visuals, narrative flow, and first-person testimony (including a welcome number of Vietnamese voices). It moves slowly at times, but only because of the denseness of the historical material. The underlying idea comes through clearly, however. America’s fateful involvement in Vietnam happened for a lot of reasons, but mainly it happened because of World War II.
-
General William Westmoreland and President Lyndon B. Johnson. April 4, 1968. Courtesy of Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, Audiovisual Archives.
-
New Yorkers demonstrate in support of the Vietnam War, 1970. Courtesy of Burt Glinn/Magnum Photos.
- See Also1943: World War II’s Forgotten Year of VictoryThe Vietnam War: nu te zien op NPO StartVietnamoorlog Tijdlijn - Oorzaak, feiten & datumsWaarom ging de VS de oorlog in Vietnam in?
Marines marching in Danang. March 15, 1965. Courtesy of Associated Press.
Meet the Author
Watch the September 20, 2017, Meet the Author event featuringCharles W. “Chuck” Newhall III discussing his book Fearful Odds: A Memoir of Vietnam and Its Aftermath. Find it at Livestream.com/nww2m,
Learn more
Contributor
Robert Citino, PhD
Robert Citino, PhD, is the Samuel Zemurray Stone Senior Historian in the Jenny Craig Institute for the Study of War and Democracy. Dr. Ci...
Learn More
Topics
Pacific Theater of Operations
The Jenny Craig Institute for the Study of War and Democracy
Article Type
Article
The Pacific Strategy, 1941-1944
On December 7, 1941, Japan staged a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, severely damaging the US Pacific Fleet. When Germany and Italy declared war on the United States days later, America found itself in a global war.
Explore Further
-
Article Type
Article
Lend-Lease to the Eastern Front
Despite being overlooked in many circles, American “Lend-Lease” support sent to the USSR not only tipped the scales in Eastern Europe but enabled the victory on the Russian Front.
-
Article Type
Article
Britain Moves Leftward: The Labour Party and the July 1945 Election
The July 1945 British election shocked the world, with Winston Churchill and the Conservatives voted out, and Clement Attlee and the Labour Party voted in.
-
Event Recap
Meet the Author: Mark T. Calhoun, "General Lesley J. McNair"
Mark Calhoun, PhD, offered a detailed examination of General Lesley J. McNair, a man so instrumental to America’s military preparedness and Army modernization but remains little-known today.
-
Article Type
Article
Navy Exonerates 256 Black Sailors Punished after 1944 Port Chicago Explosion
The exoneration was announced on the 80th anniversary of the explosion at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in California that killed 320 people and injured 400 others.
-
Article Type
From the Collection
The Depths of Courage: Howard Gilmore and the USS Growler
Commander Howard Gilmore’s story is certainly one of extraordinary valor, dedication, and sacrifice.
-
Article Type
Profile
Jefferson DeBlanc and the Air Battle for Guadalcanal
When Jefferson Joseph DeBlanc entered Guadalcanal, the United States had been fighting a defensive campaign against Japanese attempts to retake Henderson Airfield and dominate the surrounding seas.
-
Article Type
Profile
Soldier’s Remains Identified 81 Years after Capture in Philippines
Private First Class Harry Jerele was among the thousands of U.S. and Filipino service members who were captured and interned in prisoner-of-war camps after the surrender.
-
Article Type
Article
July 4, 1941: FDR's Address to the Nation
From Franklin D. Roosevelt’s perspective in the White House, democracy was under attack overseas and at home in mid-1941.