The World Played Chess

The Vietnam War began in 1955, in the midst of the Cold War. During the previous year, Vietnam had been divided into two states: South Vietnam, which was allied with the Western bloc, and North Vietnam, which was allied with communist Russia and China. Supported by North Vietnam, an armed uprising by a new organization called the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam (aka the Viet Cong) sparked the beginning of the conflict, which lasted for two decades.

From the beginning, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower pledged American support for South Vietnam in an effort to curtail the growth of communist influence in Asia, but it wasn’t until 1962, during the John F. Kennedy administration, that US troops became involved. This developed the idea of the domino theory, according to which the fall of one country to communism would lead to others doing the same, like a line of dominoes falling one after the other, provided the rationale for direct US engagement. In 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave President Lyndon B. Johnson broad power in making decisions about the war, and by 1965, over 100,000 US troops were fighting in Vietnam. Two years later, the number had risen to 500,000, thanks to a mandatory draft. While millions were able to avoid the draft through academic or health exemptions, over 2 million American men were sent to Vietnam. If they didn’t die there, many returned with post-traumatic stress disorder, having lost years of their youth to the war.

In The World Played Chess, William volunteers to go to war because he is certain he will be conscripted anyway. His deployment is the result of the Tet Offensive of January 30, 1968, when the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong launched a series of surprise attacks on the South Vietnamese and their US supporters. It was the largest military operation in the war at that point and caused widespread destruction in South Vietnam. The Tet Offensive shocked the American public because it was the first time they found out that, contrary to government narrative about the war, the US military was being defeated in Vietnam. It also made Americans rethink their role in a prolonged and deadly conflict in Southeast Asia. While popular opinion was turning against the war, the military reaction to the Tet Offensive was to call up even more young American men for active duty. Robert McNamara, who had been serving as Secretary of Defense since 1961, was the main proponent of this escalation, and although he resigned later in 1968 under pressure from President Johnson, McNamara became the face of the pointless and deadly involvement of American troops in the Vietnam war.

After the Tet Offensive, the war dragged on despite widespread protests in the United States and newly elected President Richard Nixon’s promises to end it—not immediately, however. Instead, he pursued a strategy of “Vietnamization,” which involved US reinforcements of the South Vietnamese, on the assumption that they would take over the fighting themselves, and gradual withdrawal of US troops. Although this withdrawal was completed in 1973, the North and South Vietnamese continued fighting until 1975, when the North, aided by China, defeated the South. In all, it is estimated that over 2 million Vietnamese people, including many civilians, died during the war, and some 12 million were displaced. The number of American casualties was over 58,000 (all figures from “Vietnam War.” Sky History).