Effect of Public Opinion on American Vietnam Policy

This research paper examines American foreign and diplomatic policy toward the Vietnam War and the effects of American public opinion on that policy.

From the late 1940s American policy toward Vietnam was dictated by Cold War considerations --i.e. the imperative need as perceived by American foreign policymakers to contain communist expansion in French Indochina, and, after 1954, to prevent a communist takeover in South Vietnam. Up until the escalation of American military involvement in the Vietnam War under President Lyndon Johnson and for some time thereafter, American public opinion was supportive of the government's Vietnam policy. As, however, American casualties mounted and the indeterminable nature of the conflict became manifest through the mass media, American public support for the American war effort in Vietnam declined, especially after the communist Tet offensive in early 1968. Attitudes of influential elites as well as public opinion generally were influenced by the antiwar movement in the United States, which both reflected and sharpened domestic divisions over the war. More importantly, the American public lost confidence in the conduct of the war by the Johnson administration. It later became impatient with the slow pace of American withdrawal from the war during the presidency of Richard Nixon. Public support for the Nixon administration's attempt to forestall the collapse of South Vietnam gradua

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am alienated many peasants because of how it was administered by Diem's brother Nhu, who used it to tighten the control of the Saigon government over rural areas, and local government and army corruption. Kennedy increasingly saw Vietnam as an important area in which to counter what Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev called 'wars of liberation.' Kennedy became even more determined, as Cold War tensions increased over Berlin and Cuba in 1961-1962, to ensure that South Vietnam did not fall to communism. Throughout his time in office, however, Kennedy remained skeptical of the prospects of employing American ground troops in Vietnam. He rejected the recommendations of General Maxwell Taylor and National Security Advisor Walt Rostow to send 13,000 combat troops there in late 1961. However, the President did accept their recommendation to send more American military advisers to South Vietnam and to increase supplies of "helicopters, transport aircraft and maritime equipment." The number of U.S. in-country advisers increased from 700 or 800 in 1960 to more than 16,000 at the time of Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963. In 1962 American pilots began flying helicopters in support of South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) operations. T
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Approximate Word count = 4838
Approximate Pages = 19 (250 words per page)

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