Unit 6 Vocab: Vietnam War and COUNTERCULTURE

Haight-Ashbury

• Haight-Ashbury is a district of San Francisco, California, named for the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets. The neighborhood was known for being the origin of the hippie counterculture.

SEATO

• The Southeast Asian Treaty Organization was an organization which was created to prevent the spread of communism. Countries like the United States, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand and Pakistan joined this organization.

Napalm

• Napalm was a jelly like gasoline which was used to clear vietnamese jungles and burn down sections of forest and bushes in hopes of eliminating any enemy guerrilla fighters. It was first used by the US in flamethrowers. Later on, Bomber planes dropped napalm bombs on vietnam.

Domino Theory

• The Domino Theory was he idea that if one key nation in a region fell to control of communists, others would follow like toppling dominoes. The theory was used by many American leaders to justify American intervention in the Vietnam War.

Vietcong

• The Vietcong were a Communist-led army and guerrilla force in South Vietnam that fought its government and was supported by North Vietnam.

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

• The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was a resolution passed by Congress which authorized President LBJ to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate and to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia.

Doves

• A dove is someone who opposes the use of military pressure to resolve a dispute. This term related to the people in the vietnam war who did not like America's involvement in Vietnam

Agent Orange

• Agent Orange was a powerful herbicide used by U.S. military forces during the Vietnam War to eliminate forest cover and crops for North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops. Agent Orange contained the deadly chemical dioxin, was the most commonly used herbicide.

Hawks

• The hawks believed that due to the aggression of North Vietnamese it forced us into the war. They thought that the United States should do what ever is necessary to win. They supported the US involvement in Vietnam

War Powers Act

• The War Powers Act was passed in 1973 by both Houses of Congress, overriding the veto of President Nixon. It was passed to establish Congressional authority over the decision to send American troops to war.

Tet Offensive

• The Tet Offensive was an event where North Vietnamese and communist Viet Cong forces launched a coordinated attack against a number of targets in South Vietnam. It was a surprise attack and US was defeated.

Counter Culture Movement

• The counterculture movement involved large groups of people, predominantly young people and youth, who rejected many of the beliefs that were commonly held by society at large. Haight-Ashbury was a city where the Counterculture movement was most prominent.

Kent State Massacre

• The Kent State Massacre was a controversial incident in 1970 Kent State University in Ohio. Unarmed students were demonstrating their opinions against the US involvement in the Vietnam War. They were fired on by National Guard troops. Four students were killed and nine wounded.

Pentagon Papers

• The Pentagon Papers were was the name given to a top-secret Department of Defense study of U.S. political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967.

Vietnamization

• Vietnamization was a policy of the Richard Nixon administration which ended the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. It emplyed a program to expand, equip, and train South Vietnamese forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily reducing the number of U.S. combat troops.

Ho Chi Minh

• Ho Chi Minh was a Vietnamese revolutionary leader of the twentieth century. He led the communists of Vietnam in their efforts to drive out the forces of Japan, France, and the United States.

Diem

• Ngo Dinh Diem was an anticommunist Vietnamese statesman who refused to ally with Ho Chi Minh after the Franco-Vietnamese War. He got the support of the United States government and led South Vietnam.

Lyndon B Johnson

• LBJ was the president who escalated American involvement in the Vietnam War. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and this resolution gave Johnson the power to use military force in Southeast Asia without an official declaration of war.

Richard Nixon

• President Nixon was the president of US which used the Vietnamization strategy. This strategy involved building up South Vietnam's armed forces and withdrawing U.S. troops. This would prepare the South Vietnamese to act in their own defense against a North Vietnamese takeover and allow the United States to leave Vietnam.