“Mired in Stalemate”

Abstract

Abstract This chapter discusses the year 1968 and America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. American involvement in the affairs of Vietnam had begun decades earlier when the Truman administration agreed to extend economic and military aid to France, which had been struggling against a communist-led independence movement that threatened colonial rule in Indochina. That commitment had been expanded by President Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy to include the creation and subsequent protection of a separate anticommunist government in South Vietnam. Under President Lyndon Johnson, the war rapidly became a massive, highly visible, and profoundly divisive affair. The American peace movement, which had struck its deepest roots on college campuses, also expanded rapidly during this time. By November 1968, when Richard Nixon was elected president of the United States, the public was bitterly split over issues of race, crime in the streets, sexual norms, cultural values, attitudes toward authority, and beliefs about the role of government in correcting social injustice.