overview northcommunist ho chi minh – leader viet minh – political party nva - army...
TRANSCRIPT
Overview
North CommunistHo Chi Minh – leaderViet Minh – political
partyNVA - army
South Republic Ngo Dinh Diem -
leaderAVRN – army
Viet Cong – our term for guerilla soldiers in SV
Vietnam before the war: Vietnam was a
French colony starting in the mid 1800s. (before that it was independent
or ruled by China)
Ho Chi Minh
HCM was seen by many Vietnamese as a leader of the people, a freedom fighter, the
“George Washington” of Vietnam.
Our Interactions with HCM before the war:
* At age 20, he was at the Treaty of Versailles, and
President Wilson told him we wanted to help Vietnam become
free from France.
* During WWII, HCM gave aid to America to help fight Japan, and the US sent equipment and men
over to train the NVA.
* Roosevelt said he wanted to help Vietnam gain
independence from France.
* When Truman was president, the French came back into Indochina, and we did not
intervene. We actually encouraged the French. HCM
was angry at us for not helping.
After WWII, NV fought for almost 8 years to gain
independence from France.
By 1954, we were giving France over $1 billion a month to help
them fight NV
Fear of Communism:
When China fell under Communist rule and Communist North Korea
invaded South Korea, we feared the Domino Effect (red scare)
Countries divided by Communism after WWII: China, Germany, Korea,
Vietnam
The Defeat of the French
France was losing, so they agreed to leave Vietnam
Communist forces were instrumental in defeating of the French; the ideology of
communism and nationalism were closely linked.
Vietnam was divided into North (Communist)
and South (non-communist).
The DMZ (demilitarized zone) was the dividing line.
Many viewed the South Vietnamese leadership as a French colonial, and later, an American puppet regime.
CompromiseGeneva Accords: Vietnam would
remain split into 2 “countries” for two years, then they would hold an election to decide which form of
government would unite the country
This was a huge compromise and caused a lot of controversy.
Eisenhower was president. We were deep into the Cold War at the time.
We backed SV, and we did not sign the Geneva Accords.
Ngo Dinh Diem* We helped choose a leader for
SV, Ngo Dinh Diem to replace emperor Bảo Đại
* We wrote the constitution for the new country.
* Diem was a former Catholic priest, wealthy, pro-French, not in touch with the people of Vietnam.
* Diem ran SV as a tyrant, and we supported him.
Fighting Begins
* HCM encouraged communists living in SV to fight against the SV government, and this group
came to be known as the Viet Cong.
* At this point, we were not officially fighting in Vietnam, but we had over 15,000 service men
there as “advisors”
•1959 - NV began to invade SV, and the US kept increasing aid to SV.
* 1963 - Diem was assassinated by his own generals.
*1964 – Gulf of Tonkin – we were attacked (maybe?) and we needed to
retaliate – controversial.
* 1965 - Lyndon Johnson sent Marines into SV, and we were
officially a part of the war.
* 1968 – we had about 300,000 troops, Tet Offensive – NV
attacked everywhere, even in the deep South of Saigon,
attacked US Embassy. * Feelings in the US changed –
what are we doing there?? * By the early 70s we were pulling troops out (1973 we
withdrew all but some advisors).* 1975 Saigon (SV capital) fell,
and NV took over entire
country.
Cost of the War
* Approximately 58,000 American lives were lost in
Vietnam
* The estimated cost of Vietnam in current dollars was $584 billion, according
to the Congressional Research Office
Vietnamese casualties are far less specific, and they were deliberately
falsified prior to 1995, leading to some of the confusion. According to the French Press Agency, "...the true
civilian casualties of the Vietnam War were 2,000,000 in the north, and 2,000,000 in the south. Military
casualties were 1.1 million killed and 600,000 wounded in 21 years of war.
These figures were deliberately falsified during the war by the North
Vietnamese Communists to avoid
demoralizing the population."