The Limits of Power: The United States in Vietnam
Printed Curriculum [$20]
Downloadable Curriculum [$16]
Classroom Set [$9.75ea] (10 min)
Seventh edition.
Overview
Few topics are more difficult to teach, nor more important for our students to understand, than our country's involvement in Vietnam. The Limits of Power: The United States in Vietnam takes students back into history to evaluate how successive U.S. administrations perceived the situation in Vietnam, weighed the stakes, gauged the options, and implemented the policy decisions. The centerpiece of the unit engages students as decision-makers as they wrestle with four distinct options that confronted U.S. leaders in the summer of 1965.
The Research Base This unit draws on research emerging from three international conferences and numerous international planning meetings involving participants, historians, and documents from all sides.
Readings
Parts I and II of the background reading in The Limits of Power: The United States in Vietnam creates the context for mid-1965, preparing studenst to consider the policy debate surrounding the Vietnam War at that time. Parts III-VI prepares students to consider the history that followed. The unit relies heavily on primary sources, such as speeches, newspaper articles and editorials, political cartoons, songs, and policy memoranda.
- Part I explores the victory of communist Vietminh forces over the French in the years after World War II.
- Part II asks students to consider the relevance of Vietnam in U.S. Cold War strategy and examine America's growing involvement in the region. Students then evaluate the events that led to the passage of the Tonkin Gulf resolution in 1964.
- Part III probes four critical junctures in America's Vietnam experience from 1968 to 1973.
- Part IV considers the shifting civic values underlying U.S. policy in Vietnam.
- Part V presents the lyrics of American, Vietnamese, and French songs from the Vietnam era.
- Part VI weighs the lessons that have been drawn from America's involvement in Vietnam.
Framework of Policy Options
The four distinct policy directions, or options, reconstruct the debate that took place among U.S. policymakers in mid-1965. Each is grounded in a clearly defined philosophy about U.S. Cold War strategy, American interests in Southeast Asia, and the nature of the conflict in Vietnam. By exploring a broad spectrum of alternatives, students gain a deeper understanding of the competing values and assumptions that framed the debate on U.S. policy in Vietnam.
Suggested Ten-Day Lesson Plan
The Teacher's Resource Book accompanying The Limits of Power: The United States in Vietnam contains a day-by-day lesson plan and student activities.
- Days One and Two involve students in a role-play activity focused on the 1954 Geneva Conference on Indochina that brought the French colonial presence in Southeast Asia to an end.
- Days Three and Four have students assess the background of the 1964 Tonkin Gulf resolution.
- Days Five and Six engage students in a simulation revolving around the four options for U.S. policy in Vietnam.
- Day Seven uses primary source documents to engage students in critical turning points for U.S. policy from 1968 to 1973.
- An Options Lesson takes advantage of new research to probe the perspective of the North Vietnamese leadership in 1965.
- Day Eight has students weigh the values and interests at stake for the United States in Vietnam.
- Day Nine has students explore the human side of the war by discussing American, Vietnamese, and French songs from the Vietnam era.
- Day Ten calls on students to assess the often contradictory lessons that have been drawn from the Vietnam War.
- AnOptional Lesson gives teachers and students an opportunity to come to terms with the social and psychological impact of Vietnam through an oral history exercise.