Origins of the Vietnam War
American History Hit
History Hit
4.3 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 5 October 2023
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1969, at the height of US presence, there were over half a million Americans in Vietnam.
But why were they there in the first place? When did the conflict in Vietnam begin and how did it escalate towards US involvement?
Pierre Asselin is the author of A Bitter Peace: Washington, Hanoi, and the Making of the Paris Agreement and Hanoi’s Road to the Vietnam War, 1954-1965. He and Don discuss the origins of the Vietnam war in domestic and international relations.
Produced by Sophie Gee. Edited by Siobhan Dale. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Focus on the man ahead, on the point man. Watch, listen. Be aware. That's the training, but it's another matter altogether in the field. |
| 0:18.0 | The breeze rustles the leaves. |
| 0:21.0 | Small animals slip into shadows. |
| 0:23.0 | Be calm. |
| 0:25.0 | One figment of imagination can trigger a firefight. |
| 0:29.0 | Keep your wits about you or men could get killed. |
| 0:32.0 | In the remote central highlands of South Vietnam |
| 0:36.5 | soldiers moved quietly through the dense foliage of the rainforest. Every step |
| 0:42.1 | could be their last, packs dripping with humidity, |
| 0:45.2 | ammoes strung around their necks, twigs creaking and cracking beneath their |
| 0:49.5 | boots. No one talked, everyone listened. Alert to any sound of the enemy hiding in the trees. |
| 0:57.0 | It's 1965 and the first cavalry, Air Mobile, just dumped this platoon into a middle of nowhere, search and destroy mission to locate a Viet Cong guerrilla force. |
| 1:09.0 | The troops are new to combat in a war they had not started. In a nation none of them has ever known. Greetings and welcome again to American History Hit. |
| 1:33.5 | We've got a really enlightening and relevant subject matter today, |
| 1:37.0 | one which speaks to so much in our modern world, |
| 1:40.0 | certainly in the ways the U.S. military operates in it. |
| 1:43.8 | The Vietnam War and its painful lessons still wields enormous influence in the strategic |
| 1:49.7 | decisions made by American political and military leaders. |
| 1:53.0 | What transpired for the U.S. in Southeast Asia from the early 1960s engagement and escalation |
| 1:59.0 | to the mid-70s collapse has become the symbol of global military |
| 2:03.6 | entanglements that we try to avoid to varying degrees of success of course. |
| 2:08.2 | Vietnam still looms large for Americans, but it's what comes before in the 1950s that sets the table for |
... |
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