UNIT 5: How effective was the U.S. at stopping the spread of communism?
KOREA
CUBA
VIETNAM
Roots of the Korean War: Korea was taken over by Japan, the USSR defeated the Japanese in the north of Korea, while the U.S in the south.
- North is communists ( Kim Sung)
- South anti-communists ( Syngman Khee)
Korean War: 1950 North Korea invades the south and wanted to spread communism over all Korea.
President Truman send help.
The US removes communist China from the UN.
The USSR leaves the UN to protest China's removal.
Background info: Koreas neighbor China becomes communism, americans worry that every neighbor will follow along and become communism (the domino theory)
Cuban Revolution: Cuba's leader is Fulgencio Batista, however, Cubans did not see a future so he was replaced by Fidel Castro.
U.S reaction: After Castro began to nationalize U.S business, the U.S placed a trade embargo and sent Cuban exiles to overthrow castro at the Bay of Pigs. It resulted in a distastes, too many casualties. This caused the USSR to provide Cubas with nuclear Missiles. The U.S was worried that the USSR was using Cuba to station the nuclear missiles. Kennedy agreed to stop the blockade and never to invade Cuba only if the USSR removed its missiles.
Vietnam was a French colony until it was captured by Japanese, The French tried to obtain Their territory but were defeated by Viet Minh.
Vietnam was divided into South and North Vietnam. South Vietnam was capitalist, its leader was the Ngo Dinh Diem,. However, the communist north was ruled by Ho Chi Minh.
Peasants supported Vietcong since they wanted to overthrow Diem for its corruptionist actions. However, the U.S supported Diem because they both were communism.
The U.S would assist the South with military equipment. While China and the Soviet Union would assist the North. It resulted that Vietcong was winning this caused the U.S to do the operation Rolling Stone which was bombing the North. It was unsuccessful, American troops were sent back to Vietnam.
Vietcong Tactics
Hanging on to American Belts: Fighting extremely close to the US so their military equipment would not be used.
Booby Traps: Safe tool that did not require the VC to be around the damage. it was like a traps.
Tunnel Complexes: Avoid bombs / smuggle weapons/ hide from attacks and move around
Peasants/farmers: VC had to be nice to the peasants in order to gather info. and blend in with them
U.S Tactics
Strategic Hamlets: separate Vietcong from Framers in order to distinguish them /Problem: Vietnamese were forced to move from their homes.
Operation Rolling Thunder: bombing to damage the supplies of weapons and troops
Problem: killed many innocent people
Search and Destroy: US would fly troops to Vietcong and destroy their equipment to fight ..images of the US destroying the property made them look bad
Chemical Weapons: Agent Orange would be sprayed from the sky by airforce in order for the leafs of trees to fall down and give the troops a better look of where the vietcong were hiding.
Problem: innocent people were killed