United States–Vietnam relations

In 1829, US President Andrew Jackson sent a diplomatic delegation led by Edmund Roberts on the USS Peacock to the kingdom of Vietnam to establish bilateral relations and expand trade between the two countries. The ship arrived in Vũng Lấm, Phú Yên province on 2 January 1833.[8] The ruler of Vietnam at the time, emperor Minh Mạng was not eager to allow foreigners to freely enter Vietnam and engage in trade. The emperor required that Americans follow Vietnamese laws, and only them to do business in Da Nang, central Vietnam. After receiving this unwelcome message, Edmund Roberts's delegation left Vietnam.[9]^:24 The American-Vietnamese relationship remained frozen after many disagreements and tensions from 1836 to 1859. This lasted until 1873, when Vietnam had trouble fighting against the invading French forces in northern Vietnam. Emperor Tự Đức appointed Foreign Minister Bùi Viện as "Grand Emissary" and sent him to the United States to seek support and aid against the French Empire. The diplomatic delegation passed through Yokohama, Japan, then arrived in San Francisco in mid-1873.[9]^:274 Bùi Viện and the Vietnamese emissaries came to Washington D.C. and met with US President Ulysses Grant. The President promised aid and an alliance with Vietnam. However, the US Congress cancelled Grant's intervention in Vietnam.[9]^:275 In 1884, Vietnam was completely conquered by France.

The United States and Vietnam had relations during World War II, though this was with the Viet Minh rebels and not with France's colony of Vietnam, when a group of American agents of the OSS, the predecessor of the CIA, landed in Vietnam and met with the future leader of North Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, who was the leader of the Viet Minh and fiercely pro-American.[10] The agent group, led by Archimedes Patti, had co-operated together in French Indochina against Japan. The Viet Minh had given shelter to the American agents. The People's Army of Vietnam, founded at 1944 in mountainous Northwest Vietnam, had been backed and supported by the OSS and trained by American military personnel including Archimedes Patti, a pro-Vietnamese OSS officer. The first commander of the future PAVN was Võ Nguyên Giáp.

The surprise relations between the communist-backed Viet Minh and the OSS marked the beginning of US involvement in Vietnam. In those days, the United States, sympathizing with Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh, supported the group in order to overthrow Japanese rule in Indochina. Later, Ho Chi Minh asked to set up an alliance with the United States, which was approved by U. S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt with support from U. S. General Dwight Eisenhower. However, following a series of incidents in Vietnam including the killing of A. Peter Dewey, a pro-Vietnamese independence officer of the OSS by the Viet Minh, as well as the sudden death of Roosevelt, which brought Harry S. Truman to power, it was never established.

The actions of North Vietnam in breaking the peace treaty with South Vietnam in 1955 abruptly concluded three decades of United States intervention in Vietnam and brought to a close a painful and bitter era for both countries. From 1954 to 1975 the United States Military was involved in the development of Vietnam. With fears that the United States would lose Vietnam to communism, the country was divided at the 17th parallel, creating temporarily separate states, the North being communist and the South as a non-communist state. While the southern province had the support of the United States, billions of American dollars were spent in efforts to modernize the country. This involvement increased tensions between the two provinces, resulting in the second Indochina War, otherwise known to the Western World as the "Vietnam War". In Tours of Vietnam: War, Travel Guides and Memory, by Scott Laderman, he argues that calling the second Indochina War the Vietnam War "is to thus reveal a certain bias. Should we therefore call it the "American War?" (ix) The war generated considerable social and political discord in the United States, massive disruption in Vietnam, and was enormously costly to both sides. Vietnam endured physical destruction—ravaged battle sites, leveled factories and cities, and untold numbers of military and civilian casualties. The United States escaped physical devastation, but it suffered the loss of 58,000 lives (2,400 unaccounted for) and spent roughly $140 billion ($950 billion in 2011) in direct expenses to build infrastructure, train an army and police force and modernize the young country.[11] The war polarized and disillusioned American society during and after the conflict. For instance, in 1964 the "Gulf of Tonkin incident" which many have attributed to overzealous radar officers aboard the USS Maddox, was used as extra justification for Congress' decision to allow the then president, Lyndon B. Johnson, to take any necessary retaliatory measures. A large scandal sprung up and documentaries were produced to argue one side or the other of this controversy.

United States-South Vietnam relations

United States	South Vietnam

U.S. forces drop Napalm on suspected Viet Cong positions in 1965

To the Vietnamese communists, the war against the United States simply extended the war for independence initiated against the French. In Hanoi's view, when the United States displaced the French in Indochina, it assumed the French role as a major-power obstacle to Vietnam's eventual reunification under the North's Communist rule.

For the United States, intervention was primarily derived from political ideology (i.e. the Cold War) considerations that largely transcended Vietnam.

United States involvement in Vietnam was driven by many factors, including: ideology, Cold War strategy as well inheriting a colonial legacy from the 4th Republic of France, one of its major allies. There were two major drivers: anticommunist considerations and anticolonialist considerations. Where there was little risk of Communist involvement, for example, in the Anglo-French Suez Canal adventure of 1956, against Egypt, the United States would often intervene forcefully—even against their strongest allies—on behalf of the principles of self-determination and sovereignty for all nations.

In the closing months of World War II, the United States had supported the idea of an international trusteeship for all of Indochina. Subsequently, in spite of misgivings in Washington about French intentions to reimpose colonial rule in Indochina, the United States was reluctantly forced to support French colonialism in order to assure it as an ally against a potential Soviet threat. Anticolonial sentiment in the United States after World War II thus failed to outweigh policy priorities in Europe, such as the evolving North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)[12] relationship. The formal creation of NATO and the communist victory in China, both of which occurred in 1949, led the United States to support materially the French war effort in Indochina. The perception that communism was global and monolithic led the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower to support the idea of a noncommunist state in southern Vietnam, after the French withdrawal under the Geneva Agreements of 1954.

Although this goal arguably ran counter to two key features of the Geneva Agreements (the stipulation that the line separating North and South Vietnam be neither a political nor territorial boundary and the call for reunification elections), it was based on the United States assessment that the Viet minh—which, contrary to the agreements, had left several thousand cadres south of the demarcation line—was already in violation. The first United States advisers arrived in the South within a year after Geneva to help President Ngo Dinh Diem establish a government that would be strong enough to stand up to the communist regime in the North.

Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson visiting a textile mill in Saigon, 1961

Staff Sergeant Ermalinda Salazar, a female U.S. Marine, helps the children of the St. Vincent de Paul Orphanage in Vietnam

Although Washington's advisory role was essentially political, United States policy makers determined that the effort to erect a non-communist state in Vietnam was vital to the security of the region and would be buttressed by military means, if necessary, to inhibit any would-be aggressor. Defending Vietnam's security against aggression from the North and from southern-based communist insurgency was a mission Washington initially perceived as requiring only combat support elements and advisers to South Vietnamese military units. The situation, however, rapidly deteriorated, and in 1965, at a time when increasing numbers of North Vietnamese-trained soldiers were moving in South Vietnam, the first increment of United States combat forces was introduced into the South and sustained bombing of military targets in North Vietnam was undertaken. Nearly eight more years of conflict occurred before the intense involvement of the United States ended in 1973.

An "Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam" was signed in Paris on January 27, 1973,[13] by Washington, Hanoi, Saigon, and the Provisional Revolutionary Government, representing the Vietnamese communist organization in the South, the Viet Cong. The settlement called for a cease-fire, withdrawal of all United States troops, continuance in place of North Vietnamese troops in the South, and the eventual reunification of the country "through peaceful means." In reality, once United States Forces were disengaged in early 1973 and effectively barred from providing any military assistance whatsoever under the so-called "Case-Church Amendment", there was no effective way to prevent the North from overwhelming the South's defenses and the settlement proved unenforceable. The Case–Church Amendment was legislation approved by the U.S. Congress in June 1973 that prohibited further U.S. military activity in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia unless the president secured Congressional approval in advance. With both the Senate and House under Democratic control, approval of any renewed air support for the South was virtually impossible. Following the fragile cease-fire established by the agreement, PAVN units remained in the South Vietnamese countryside, while Army of the Republic of Vietnam units fought to dislodge them and expand the areas under Saigon's control. The last U.S. combat troops left in March 1973.[14] Despite the treaty, there was no let-up in fighting. South Vietnamese massive advances against the Viet Cong controlled territory inspired their opponents to change their strategy. In March, communist leaders met in Hanoi for a series of meetings to hammer out plans for a massive offensive against the South. In June 1973, the U.S. Congress passed the Case-Church Amendment to prohibit further U.S. military involvement, so the PAVN supply routes [15] were able to operate normally without fear of U.S. bombing. As a result, the two sides battled from 1973 to 1975, but the ARVN, having to fight without the close United States air, artillery, logistical, and medevac (medical evacuation) support to which it had become accustomed, and without the financial support to pay its troops or supply them properly, acquitted itself badly, losing more and more ground to the Nationalist pro-Soviet forces which were supported by the Soviet Union and Communist China. General Vo Nguyen Giap of North Vietnam has been reported to have stated that the North planned to test the United States' resolution and in the spring of 1975, Giáp sent four star General Văn Tiến Dũng to launch the deadly attack on Buôn Ma Thuột. Despite the frantic pleas by South Vietnam, the Democratic controlled U.S. Congress blocked any attempts at aid to the South. Upon receiving word of this, Giap launched the planned invasion of the South.

The surprisingly swift manner in which the South Vietnamese government finally collapsed in 1975 is argued by some to confirm that the Paris agreement had accomplished little more than to delay an inevitable defeat for the United States ally, South Vietnam, and that Washington had been impotent to avert this outcome. The situation in Vietnam was no different than that in the divided Korea, except that there was no bar to support from the U.S. in the event of an invasion by the communist North as there was in Vietnam. Further, there was no continuing United Nations support for South Vietnam as there was in South Korea, although South Korea sent troops in to aid in the Vietnam War effort.

The influence of Vietnam War veterans John McCain and John Kerry on Bill Clinton was instrumental in the Clinton administration's decision to lift the trade embargo against Vietnam.[17] Both Kerry and McCain were decorated war veterans and congressmen who served on the Senate Select Committee on P.O.W./M.I.A. Affairs.[18] In this role, they became intimately familiar with the issue of missing American soldiers, frequently traveling to Vietnam and coordinating with Vietnamese government officials.[18] Following years of public anguish in the United States over the fate of missing servicemen as well as measurable progress by the Vietnamese government in meeting related American demands, Kerry and McCain began to advocate lifting the embargo. They believed the policy would foster bi-national reconciliation, public healing in the United States, and further American economic and security interests. According to then Senator Ted Kennedy, “John Kerry did it because the issue of the war burned in his soul, and he found a soulmate in John McCain.”[18] On many occasions, McCain and Kerry met personally with Clinton to promote lifting the embargo. In one conversation with the president, McCain stated, “It doesn’t matter to me anymore, Mr. President, who was for the war and who was against the war. I’m tired of looking back in anger. What’s important is that we move forward now.”[18] In arguing their case to Clinton, the Senators “offered geopolitical and economic reasons, but also emphasized the matter of national honor, since the Vietnamese had diligently done all that we had asked them to in the matter of M.I.A [soldiers].”[18]

The efforts of Kerry and McCain in Congress and in public created the political capital and consensus necessary for the Clinton administration to credibly lift the embargo.[19] Although officials in the Clinton administration were ultimately in consensus to lift the embargo, the administration perceived they did not possess sufficient political credibility.[18] Clinton had avoided military service in the Vietnam War as a young man, infamously describing the conflict in a letter in 1969 as “a war I opposed and despised with a depth of feeling I had reserved solely for racism in America before Vietnam.”[20] Consequently, Kerry and McCain sought to use their widespread credibility on the matter to create an environment in which Clinton could lift the embargo. In 1993, Kerry and McCain accompanied Clinton to the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial, despite substantial opposition from veterans’ groups.[18] Moreover, the two men accompanied Clinton in 1993 “as his escorts” to “deliver the commencement address at Northeastern University.”[18] Later, in 1994, Kerry and McCain co-sponsored a bipartisan Senate resolution urging the Clinton administration to lift the embargo. Despite significant opposition from Republican leadership and veterans’ groups, “McCain’s sponsorship persuaded twenty Republicans to vote for the measure, which passed by a vote of sixty-two to thirty-eight.”[18] While developing the bill, Kerry was in frequent communication with officials within the Clinton administration.[18] Following the vote, Kerry emphasized the promotion of national healing, stating, “it was time to put the war behind us.”[18] Likewise, McCain described the resolution as “as a seminal event in U.S.Vietnamese relations,” adding that “the vote will give the President the… political cover he needs to lift the embargo.”[21]

The U.S. embargo on Vietnam was eventually lifted in February 1994. Formal normalization of U.S.-Vietnam diplomatic relations took place in 1995, followed by booming trade volumes between the two countries in the subsequent years.[22]

In 1997, President Clinton appointed former-POW and U.S. Congressman Douglas "Pete" Peterson as the first U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam.

Handicapped children, most of them victims of Agent Orange

Agent Orange is the combination of the code names for Herbicide Orange (HO) and Agent LNX, one of the herbicides and defoliants used by the British military during the Malayan Emergency and the U.S. military as part of its herbicidal warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971. Vietnam estimates 400,000 people were killed or maimed, and 500,000 children born with birth defects as a result of its use.[23] The Red Cross of Vietnam estimates that up to 1 million people are disabled or have health problems due to Agent Orange.[24] The United States government has dismissed these figures as unreliable and unrealistically high.[25][26]

A 50:50 mixture of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D, it was manufactured for the U.S. Department of Defense primarily by Monsanto Corporation and Dow Chemical. The 2,4,5-T used to produce Agent Orange was later discovered to be contaminated with 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (TCDD), an extremely toxic dioxin compound. It was given its name from the color of the orange-striped 55 U.S. gallon (208 l) barrels in which it was shipped, and was by far the most widely used of the so-called "Rainbow Herbicides".[27]

As of December 14, 2007, the U.S. government listed 1,763 Americans unaccounted for in Southeast Asia, including 1,353 in Vietnam. Since 1973, as part of investigating the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue, 883 Americans have been accounted for, including 627 in Vietnam. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Defense has confirmed that of the 196 individuals who were "last known alive" (LKA), the U.S. government has determined the fate of all but 31. The United States considers achieving the fullest possible accounting of Americans missing and unaccounted for in Indochina to be one of its highest priorities with Vietnam.