The Vietnam War, a conflict within South Vietnam as well as between North and South Vietnam that embroiled the world’s major powers, ended 50 years ago and triggered long-lasting changes in United States politics and foreign policy.
The U.S. entered the war seeking to prevent the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. Marc Selverstone, Gerald L. Baliles Professor and director of Presidential Studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, said the fall of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, in April 1975 was a long time in coming.
“By late 1974 and 1975, we certainly understood the limits and the futility of our support for Saigon, ” Selverstone said. “The prospect of providing just a little more aid and the likelihood that that would have held off the communists for a sufficient amount of time to let the army of the Republic of Vietnam regroup would, by that time, only have staved off the inevitable.”
Selverstone studies the impact of the Vietnam War on U.S. policy decisions and domestic policies. (University Communications photo)
Selverstone said that to the U.S., the conflict was a limited war, with limited objectives.
“This was not total war,” Selverstone said. “We were not going to mobilize for that, particularly because President Lyndon Johnson thought it would really alarm the Soviets and the Chinese, and he feared it might have become World War III. Part of his strategic calculus was to fight the war in cold blood, as it was said, so that the passions wouldn't run so deep.”
But passions ran deep domestically, and that exacerbated other social pressures.
“The war cracked open a lot of what was already at work in American society underneath the surface,” Selverstone said. “The war itself was not just a symptom of something larger, but a cause that would continue to roil the country for decades afterward.”
The Vietnam War left scars, political and emotional, in the U.S.
“President Gerald Ford said he wanted to simply put the war behind us,” Selverstone said. “That was an impossibility for a host of reasons. The impact of the war and the so-called ‘Vietnam syndrome’ meant we were more cautious before we entered into any future engagement that might look like Vietnam. The United States was less willing to throw its power around in the world, lest we stumble into situations that we didn’t really understand, particularly as we had done in Southeast Asia.”
Both countries continue to feel the impact of the Vietnam War many years after the fighting ended. (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration photo)
As the U.S. faced uncertainty abroad, the release of the Pentagon Papers undermined faith in the government at home.
“When the Pentagon Papers came out in 1971, Americans were still fighting in Vietnam,” Selverstone said. “Once those documents were published, it became clear that America’s presidents and leaders had been, in various cases, lying to the country about the nation’s prospects for a positive outcome in Vietnam, the nature of our allies, the nature of our enemies, what we thought about both, and that was really disturbing.”
Selverstone said public opinion was conflicted.
“It was really difficult for people to separate the war from the warrior,” he said. “To recognize those who fought and those who endured, even if one was not inclined to thank them for their service, at least to acknowledge what it was that they did, what they had to endure, and separate that from what the war meant. It was very difficult for the country to come to grips with that.”
As time passed, efforts emerged to reshape the war’s legacy, and the U.S. military slowly regained public support.
“With the Persian Gulf War, you saw the great outpouring of support and appreciation for those who fought in that conflict, and then the parades, the huge public celebration of American veterans that the country didn’t provide for those who served in Vietnam,” Selverstone said.
Vietnam is now discussed as a potential strategic partner for the U.S. in the conflicts with China – a pivot Selverstone said began during President Barack Obama’s administration.
