SAQs for APUSH Topic 8.8 — The Vietnam War
Ten questions designed to help students review for the annual exam and that relate to the second-longest war in American history, after the war in Afghanistan.
“An arrogant and stubborn faith in America’s power to shape the course of foreign events compounded the dangers sown by ideological rigidity. Policymakers . . . shared a common . . . conviction that the United States not only should, but could, control political conditions in South Vietnam, as elsewhere throughout much of the world. This conviction had led Washington to intervene progressively deeper in South Vietnamese affairs over the years. . . . This conviction prompted policymakers to escalate the war. . . . Domestic political pressures exerted an equally powerful . . . influence over the course of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. . . . Another ‘loss’ to communism in East Asia risked renewed and devastating attacks from the right.”
— Brian VanDeMark, historian, Into the Quagmire, 1995“The escalation of U.S. military intervention [in Vietnam] grew out of a complicated chain of events and a complex web of decisions that slowly transformed the conflict . . . into an American war. . . . [President Lyndon Johnson] made the critical decisions that took the United States into war almost without realizing it. . . . Although impersonal forces . . . influenced the president’s Vietnam decisions, those decisions depended primarily on his character, his motivations, and his relationships with his principal advisers. . . . The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field, nor was it lost on the front pages of The New York Times or on the college campuses. It was lost in Washington, D.C., even before Americans assumed sole responsibility for the fighting.” H. R. McMaster, historian, Dereliction of Duty, 1997Briefly explain one specific historical impact of the Vietnam War.
- Briefly explain one major difference between VanDeMark’s and McMaster’s historical interpretations of the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War.
- Briefly explain how one historical event or development in the period 1945 to 1975 that is not explicitly mentioned in the excerpts could be used to support VanDeMark’s interpretation.
- Briefly explain how one historical event or development in the period 1945 to 1975 that is not explicitly mentioned in the excerpts could be used to support McMaster’s interpretation.
- Briefly describe a historical event, development, or process that occurred in Vietnam before any significant number of American troops entered the war.
- Concerned by expansionist Communist ideology and Soviet repression, the United States sought to contain communism through a variety of measures, including major military engagements in Korea and Vietnam. Briefly describe one major similarity and one major difference between the Vietnam War and the Korean War.
- Briefly explain one specific historical impact of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.
- Briefly explain one specific historical impact of the Tet Offensive?
- The Vietnam War-inspired sizable and passionate antiwar protests that became more numerous as the war escalated, and sometimes led to violence. Name and briefly describe one specific piece of historical evidence in support of the claim that sometimes the antiwar protests led to violence.
- The Vietnam War occurred during the Cold War. What was the Cold War (being sure to include the words ‘proxy,’ ‘satellite states,’ and ‘tension’ in your answer)?
- Place the following Cold War-related historical events in order of occurrence: The Cuban Missile Crisis, the Kennan’s ‘Long Telegram’, the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the U2 Incident the Berlin Airlift, Richard Nixon’s visit to China, the Vietnam War, and the Korean War.
