Vietnam_The_Path_to_War

VIETNAM -The Path to War- France ruled Vietnam as part of its colony of French Indochina from the late 1800s until World War II. The colony of French Indochina also included Laos and Cambodia, which neighbored Vietnam. During this colonial period, France gained wealth by exporting rice and rubber from Vietnam. But while France gained power, Vietnamese peasants lost their land and became poor. The Vietnamese never really accepted French rule; several groups of nationalists revolted against the French, hoping that their actions would help Vietnam become an independent nation. In 1930, revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh united three Communist groups, forming the Indochinese Communist Party, or the ICP. This party called for an independent Vietnam controlled by peasants and other workers. The ICP organized protests of peasants against the French government. In response, the French arrested suspected Communists and executed several leaders. Ho Chi Minh, who was living in China at the time, was sentenced to death. In 1940, when World War II was going on, Japan gained control of Indochina. A year later, Ho Chi Minh returned in secret to Vietnam; he hid in a jungle camp. He directed the ICP to join other nationalists, forming an organization called the Viet Minh. The Viet Minh trained soldiers to make Vietnam independent of all foreign rulers. Because Japan was America’s enemy in World War II, the US government helped Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh fight the Japanese. Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnamese independence in 1945, after the Japanese surrendered to the Allies. But France soon tried to regain control of Vietnam. Although Ho Chi Minh wanted to find a peaceful solution to this conflict, war broke out between France and the Viet Minh in 1946. France bombed Haiphong; the Viet Minh attacked Hanoi. Meanwhile, the United States was competing against the Soviet Union in the Cold War. President Truman was trying to prevent the spread of communism in West Europe. Then, in 1949, Communists took over China. American leaders began to worry about the spread of Communism in Asia, and when France asked the US to help them fight the Viet Minh, the US agreed. Besides the fact that they didn’t want Vietnam to become Communist, the US needed French support in opposing the Soviets in Europe. So in 1950, President Truman offered the French $10 million in aid and the United States entered the Vietnam conflict. After Dwight Eisenhower was sworn in as president in 1953, he continued to aid the French in Vietnam. Truman and Eisenhower explained the importance of supporting anti-Communism in Vietnam with the domino theory. According to this theory, if one country became fell to communism, nearby countries would also fall. US leaders worried that is communism spread to Vietnam, the rest of Southeast Asia would become Communist as well. But even with the US’s support, France could not defeat the Viet Minh. In May of 1954 France and the Viet Minh met in Geneva, Switzerland for peace talks. Here they reached an agreement called the Geneva Accords. This agreement divided Vietnam along the 17th parallel. A demilitarized zone surrounded this line. The split was meant to be temporary; the two sides agreed that they would reunite the country by having elections for a single government in 1956. Until then, the North and South would have separate governments. Ho Chi Minh and the Communists controlled the North; anti-Communist Ngo Dinh Diem became the prime minister and later the president of South Vietnam. Thousands of anti-Communists who had been living in the north fled to the south; the US provided ships for their transportation. While Ho Chi Minh was greatly popular in North Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem had little support in South Vietnam. His army, which was called the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), was just as unpopular. Because of this, Diem refused to hold the elections that had been planned in 1956. If the elections had been held, there is little doubt that Minh would have won by a huge margin. So Eisenhower continued sending aid and advisors to South Vietnam to help the Diem government. But despite the aid he was getting from the US, Diem did not establish a democratic government in South Vietnam. His government was corrupt; in the country, he allowed landlords to take back land that had been given to peasants. Diem tortured, imprisoned, and even killed his adversaries. Among Diem’s opponents were South Vietnamese Communists. In 1960, they joined other dissatisfied South Vietnamese and formed the National Liberation Front. Diem ridiculed the group, calling them the Viet Cong, for Vietnamese Communists. The goal of the Viet Cong was to overthrow the Diem government and reunite the country under Communist rule. North Vietnam supported the Viet Cong and sent them soldiers and supplies. By 1963, when John F. Kennedy was president, victory for the Viet Cong was near. President Kennedy continued to support the fight against communism in Vietnam. He sent military advisers and equipment to South Vietnam; by late 1963, the US had over 16,000 military personnel there. But as aid from the US increased, so did opposition to Diem in South Vietnam. American officials told Diem that he needed to make political, economic and military reforms; he refused. The Kennedy Administration lost their faith in Diem. On November 1, 1963, with the support of the US, a military revolution overthrew Diem. Against Kennedy’s wishes, the group’s leaders had Diem killed. Three weeks later, there was a tragedy unrelated to Diem’s demise; President Kennedy was assassinated. Vice-President Lyndon Johnson became president. South Vietnam was thrown into a state of turmoil after Diem’s assassination as ineffective leaders headed the government one after another. All the while, North Vietnam was sending aid to the Viet Cong; by late 1964, most of the Southern Vietnamese countryside was under the control of North Vietnam and the Viet Cong. Although the ARVN outnumbered the Viet Cong by more than 10 to one, they could not contain much less defeat these guerrilla warriors. Like Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy, President Johnson did not was Vietnam to fall to communism. Because of this, he increased the US’s efforts there. In the summer of 1964, Johnson’s military advisers made plans to bomb North Vietnam; they hoped t pressure Ho Chi Minh to stop supporting the Viet Cong. But before the bombing could start, the plan had to be approved by Congress. Several incidents of the coast of North Vietnam triggered Congress to give the plan its approval. The US destroyer //Maddox// had been on patrol in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin when it was fired on by to North Vietnamese torpedo boats. On August 4th, just two days after the first incident, //Maddox// and another destroyer reported a second attack. No one could confirm either of the attacks, and US jet pilots who had been flying overhead during the second alleged attack said they had not seen any North Vietnamese boats. Nonetheless, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving the president the power to use military force in Vietnam. President Johnson began bombing North Vietnam in March of 1965; he sent the first combat troops to Vietnam at about the same time. The first troops he sent to Vietnam were the Marines. The number of troops in Vietnam quickly grew from 75,000 at the beginning of the year to 184,000 at the end of the year.

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