Major Concepts:
The Vietnam Conflict, a bitter struggle between the "free world" and Communist
powers for political control of Asia, led to profound and bitter division in
the United States.
Objectives: The student will be able to:
- Understand the Vietnam Conflict as a logical consequence of American Cold
War policy, and identify the connections between it and earlier
confrontations.
- Understand the origins and causes of Vietnamese nationalism, and explain why
four U.S. administrations consistently underestimated this factor in their
strategic planning.
- Identify and explain the reasons for U.S. military failure in the fight
against North Vietnam and the Vietcong, and for American political failure in
the effort to build a stable anti-communist bulwark in South Vietnam.
- Understand why, in the aftermath of obvious collapse of public support for
the war, and a winding-down of the military effort that took all bargaining
leverage out of U.S. hands, the Nixon administration kept the war going for
another four years.
- Identify and explain the causes for an upsurge in student political activism
during this period.
Suggested lesson/activity:
- Introduce the lesson by asking students to describe any motion picture,
videos, or television shows that dramatized the Vietnam Conflict -- either from
the war zone or the domestic front. Create a list of themes/topics from the
response. Indicate that the activities in the lesson are to be looked at in
terms of validating the authenticity of the various dramas they have seen.
A Crossroads Resource: Lesson 5 - Part One
A Crossroads Resource: Group One Worksheet: Vietnam Conflict
A Crossroads Resource: Group Two Worksheet: Vietnam Conflict
A Crossroads Resource: Group Three Worksheet: Vietnam Conflict
A Crossroads Resource: Group Four Worksheet: Vietnam Conflict
A Crossroads Resource: Group Five Worksheet: Vietnam Conflict
A Crossroads Resource: Documents-Based Activity on the Vietnam Conflict