HIST 357 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Agent Orange, Blackboard, Tet Offensive
Document Summary
Elections in s. vietnam: meaningful contact in the eyes of s. vietnamese themselves. Nation-building exercise - rural majority in south vietnam. Real surprise: astonishing second place finisher, obscure lawyer. No doubt the military was going to prevail. 1968 tet offensive: provides a lens through which to view the 1967 offensive: every province headquarters attacked by communist forces, occupied everything. Communists through urban s. vietnamese would join them and overthrow the military government: this does not happen at all, they don"t rally to the communist side because they"re shocked by the violence all of sudden. 1971: scheduled election, meant to happen every 5 years, staple of the new constitutional order in the. Us leaves, and this is a catastrophe for the s. vietnamese economy. Written instructions on how to rig the election on the local level. Put in writing what should have been done orally. Recognize lewey"s project and critically assess it: some kind of progress going forward.
