Later War Strategy

Students will view selected video segments from Ken Burns & Lynn Novick: The Vietnam War and review the conditions on the ground in mid-1965.

Conditions in South Vietnam grew steadily worse and the country was near collapse. By the spring of 1965, the North Vietnamese were destroying the equivalent of a South Vietnamese battalion every week. Desperate, General Westmoreland requested tens of thousands more American troops right away. But neither the continued bombing, nor the growing likelihood of full-scale American intervention, seemed to intimidate Hanoi. NOTE: This video is part of a lesson plan titled 1965 Troop Escalations.

President Johnson sends 50,000 more troops to General Westmoreland, and pledges another 50,000 by the end of 1965—and still more if they were needed. NOTE: This video is part of a lesson plan titled 1965 Troop Escalations.

In this lesson, students will view selected video segments from Ken Burns & ​Lynn Novick: The Vietnam War that examine the concern held by some Johnson administration officials, Congress, and even President Johnson himself over US involvement in Vietnam.

In early February of 1966, President Johnson got more bad news. His old friend, J. William Fulbright, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, planned to hold hearings on the Vietnam War. And the television networks intended to cover the hearings from gavel-to-gavel. Johnson tried to deflect the tension by announcing he was going to a military conference in Honolulu to meet for the two generals who now headed the Saigon government. NOTE: This video is part of a lesson plan titled Questioning the Mission.

As they continued to escalate the war, President Johnson and Defense Secretary McNamara were frustrated that American Commanders in Vietnam, who had come of age during World War II and Korea, were having a hard time making sense of what was happening on the ground. Further, Johnson had tried to forge an international coalition to defend South Vietnam, but America's most important allies – Britain, France, and Canada – refused to take part and were calling instead for peace talks. As 1966 began, nearly 200,000 American soldiers were stationed in Vietnam, and more were on the way. Those soldiers quickly discovered that the war they were being asked to fight was not their father's war. NOTE: This video is part of a lesson plan titled Questioning the Mission.

In this lesson, students will view selected video segments from Ken Burns & ​Lynn Novick: The Vietnam War and evaluate the crossover point strategy and the use of overwhelming force in fighting the war.

When the U.S. Navy blockaded the coastline of South Vietnam, the North Vietnamese sent their supplies overland through Laos and Cambodia by turning 12,000 miles of jungle footpaths into roadways. Dubbed the "Ho Chi Minh Trail," the American military reasoned that if it could be sufficiently damaged, the enemy would be unable to sustain itself. Three million tons of explosives would be dropped on the Laos portion of the trail alone. But as often as the Trail was bombed, it was repaired. As many as 230,000 North Vietnamese teenagers—many of them volunteers and over half of them women—worked to keep the roads open. NOTE: This video is part of a lesson plan titled Trying to Find the Right Formula.

Since there was no front in Vietnam, as there had been in the First and Second World Wars, and no ground was ever permanently won or lost, the American military command fell back on a singly grisly measure of supposed success—body count. General Westmoreland's Binh Dinh offensive was the first of many large-scale U.S. "search and destroy" campaigns. It lasted 42 days, and killed more than 2,000 enemy soldiers. But most of the North Vietnamese regulars managed to escape back into the Central Highlands, and over 100,000 civilians were driven from their homes. NOTE: This video is part of a lesson plan titled Trying to Find the Right Formula.

By early 1966, Viet Cong guerrillas had made substantial gains and were believed to control nearly three-quarters of South Vietnam. But General Westmoreland thought his most urgent task was to destroy the North Vietnamese regular army units Hanoi was sending south. Westmoreland's target was reaching what he called the "crossover point"—the point at which US and ARVN forces were killing more enemy troops than could be replaced. NOTE: This video is part of a lesson plan titled Trying to Find the Right Formula.

Students will view selected video segments from Ken Burns & Lynn Novick: The Vietnam War and examine the 1965 US bombing campaign of North Vietnam, code-named “Operation Rolling Thunder,” and President Johnson’s decision to send ground troops into South Vietnam.

A week after his inauguration, President Johnson was informed that the United States' strategy in Vietnam was not working, and he was given options as to how to move forward. NOTE: This video is part of a lesson plan titled Operation Rolling Thunder and Widening the War.

In March of 1965, President Johnson sent American ground troops to Vietnam. NOTE: This video is part of a lesson plan titled Operation Rolling Thunder and Widening the War.

In this lesson, students will view selected video segments from Ken Burns & ​Lynn Novick: The Vietnam War and examine the tactical plans laid out by the US military command to find and destroy enemy forces. They will then see the reality on the ground as soldiers speak of their experiences and assess the effectiveness of the US military plan.

South Vietnam had been divided into four tactical zones. By the summer of 1967, American troops were fighting in all four of them. But some of the most intense combat took place in I Corps, made up of the five northernmost provinces of South Vietnam, where the Marines bore the brunt of the fighting. General Westmoreland insisted they move further north in I Corps and establish bases close to the DMZ. This brought them within close range of highly accurate North Vietnamese artillery and rocket launchers hidden within the DMZ. NOTE: This video is part of a lesson plan titled The Theory and Reality of a War Strategy.

In this lesson, students will view selected video segments from Ken Burns & ​Lynn Novick: The Vietnam War and examine General Westmoreland’s crossover point strategy and his request for more troops to end the war.

Students will view selected video segments from Ken Burns & Lynn Novick: The Vietnam War and review General Westmoreland’s assessment of the progress in the war and his request for an additional 200,000 troops to end the war within two years.

In April 1967, General Westmoreland addressed a joint session of Congress — the first general ever to be called home from a battlefield by his president to do so. In his address, Westmoreland confidently asserted that the United States would prevail in Vietnam, but behind the scenes, neither he nor the administration were confident. NOTE: This video is part of lesson plans titled Reassessing the Crossover Point and 1967 General Westmoreland Promises to End the War.

President Johnson tried to find a middle ground—he expanded the list of bombing targets but refusesd to mine the harbors, and in mid-1967, he agreed to send General Westmoreland only 47,000 more troops. NOTE: This video is part of lesson plans titled Reassessing the Crossover Point and General Westmoreland Promises to End the War.

In this lesson, students will view selected video segments from Ken Burns & ​Lynn Novick: The Vietnam War and examine the effectiveness of the bombing campaign known as “Rolling Thunder,” which directed air attacks against Hanoi and Haiphong in hopes of forcing North Vietnam to negotiate a peace settlement.

Operation Rolling Thunder destroyed most of North Vietnam's oil storage facilities. But the North Vietnamese shifted most of their oil to underground tanks, and more arrived every day from China and the Soviet Union. The bombing was stepped up anyway. Over a million people were said to be working around the clock to undo whatever damage American bombs inflicted. They worked under the slogan "the enemy destroys, we repair." The strategic bombing campaign had little or no impact on the North's resolve, and the American public's doubts about the morality of the war grew. NOTE: This video is part of a lesson plan titled Reassessing Rolling Thunder.

The military claimed to have killed some 57,000 enemy soldiers in the first six months of 1966. But privately, the Johnson administration worried that General Westmoreland's crossover point—the moment when more enemy soldiers had been killed than could be replaced—seemed no nearer. Despite his concerns about bringing the Soviet Union and China into the war, and increased civilian causualties, Johnson agreed to intensify the bombing campaign called Operation Rolling Thunder. Increased civilian casualties resulted, as he had feared. NOTE: This video is part of a lesson plan titled Reassessing Rolling Thunder.