HIST2475 Lecture 6: Vietnam 9-21-15
Document Summary
Johnson looks towards korea to see what he should and should not do. We wanted to maintain a separate independent non communist government in the south, but not try to unify them. Korean war- not a lot of statues, very few people remember it, not thought of as significant, some times called the forgotten war. At the time, it loomed large though, thought it could be turned in wwiii. Korean war had highest civilian death percentage of anyway this century. Japan ruled since 1910, us and ussr split up taking the troops and responsibility, split 38th parallel as marker, us took south, ussr took north. Cold war dashed all hopes of unified korea, kim il song, dictator of the north. 1945-1950 partisans fought among themselves and nk troops eventually invaded south, Pentagon thought it was a soviet challenge, and but most likely that us misread there would be no us help.
