Vietnam, The 17th Parallel - Vietnamese War

The Division of the Middle EastThe Treaty of Sèvres

The Iron CurtainThe Cold War in Europe

The Mason–Dixon Line

Vietnam: The 17th Parallel

Korea: The 38th Parallel

The U.S.–Mexico BorderThe Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

ARBITRARY BORDERSPolitical Boundaries in World History

Robert C. Cottrell

Foreword bySenator George J. Mitchell

Introduction byJames I. Matray

California State University, Chico

Vietnam The 17th Parallel

ARBITRARY BORDERSPolitical Boundaries in World History

Dedicated to Sue and Jordan

FRONTIS Modern Map of Vietnam

CHELSEA HOUSE PUBLISHERSVP, NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT Sally CheneyDIRECTOR OF PRODUCTION Kim ShinnersCREATIVE MANAGER Takeshi TakahashiMANUFACTURING MANAGER Diann Grasse

Staff for VIETNAM: THE 17TH PARALLEL

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©2004 by Chelsea House Publishers,a subsidiary of Haights Cross Communications.All rights reserved. Printed and bound in the United States of America.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Dataapplied for

ISBN: 0-7910-7834-5

Foreword by Senator George J. Mitchell vi

Introduction by James I. Matray ix

Geneva, 1954 1

Vietnamese History 13

French Colonization 22

Vietnamese Resistance 32

Vietnam at War 46

The French Indochina War 55

Dienbienphu 68

A Divided Vietnam 79

The Americanization of the War 94

War’s End and the Aftermath 110

121

Source Notes 124

Bibliography 127

Further Reading 129

Index 133

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10

Contents

Chronology and Timeline

ForewordSenator George J. Mitchell

Ispent years working for peace in Northern Ireland and in the Middle

East. I also made many visits to the Balkans during the long and vio-lent conflict there.

Each of the three areas is unique; so is each conflict. But there are also

some similarities: in each, there are differences over religion, national

identity, and territory.

Deep religious differences that lead to murderous hostility are com-

mon in human history. Competing aspirations involving national iden-

tity are more recent occurrences, but often have been just as deadly.

Territorial disputes—two or more people claiming the same land—are

as old as humankind. Almost without exception, such disputes have been

a factor in recent conflicts. It is impossible to calculate the extent to which

the demand for land—as opposed to religion, national identity, or other

factors— figures in the motivation of people caught up in conflict. In my

experience it is a substantial factor that has played a role in each of the

three conflicts mentioned above.

In Northern Ireland and the Middle East, the location of the border

was a major factor in igniting and sustaining the conflict. And it is

memorialized in a dramatic and visible way: through the construction of

large walls whose purpose is to physically separate the two communities.

In Belfast, the capital and largest city in Northern Ireland, the so-called

“Peace Line” cuts through the heart of the city, right across urban streets.

Up to thirty feet high in places, topped with barbed wire in others, it is

an ugly reminder of the duration and intensity of the conflict.

In the Middle East, as I write these words, the government of Israel has

embarked on a huge and controversial effort to construct a security fence

roughly along the line that separates Israel from the West Bank.

Having served a tour of duty with the U.S. Army in Berlin, which was

once the site of the best known of modern walls, I am skeptical of their

long-term value, although they often serve short-term needs. But it can-

not be said that such structures represent a new idea. Ancient China

built the Great Wall to deter nomadic Mongol tribes from attacking its

population.

In much the same way, other early societies established boundaries and

fortified them militarily to achieve the goal of self-protection. Borders

always have separated people. Indeed, that is their purpose.

This series of books examines the important and timely issue of the

significance of arbitrary borders in history. Each volume focuses atten-

tion on a territorial division, but the analytical approach is more com-

prehensive. These studies describe arbitrary borders as places where

people interact differently from the way they would if the boundary did

not exist. This pattern is especially pronounced where there is no geo-

graphic reason for the boundary and no history recognizing its legiti-

macy. Even though many borders have been defined without legal

precision, governments frequently have provided vigorous monitoring

and military defense for them.

This series will show how the migration of people and exchange of

goods almost always work to undermine the separation that borders seek

to maintain. The continuing evolution of a European community pro-

vides a contemporary example illustrating this point, most obviously

with the adoption of a single currency. Moreover, even former Soviet bloc

nations have eliminated barriers to economic and political integration.

Globalization has emerged as one of the most powerful forces in inter-

national affairs during the twenty-first century. Not only have markets

for the exchange of goods and services become genuinely worldwide, but

instant communication and sharing of information have shattered old

barriers separating people. Some scholars even argue that globalization

has made the entire concept of a territorial nation-state irrelevant.

Although the assertion is certainly premature and probably wrong, it

highlights the importance of recognizing how borders often have

reflected and affirmed the cultural, ethnic, or linguistic perimeters that

define a people or a country.

Since the Cold War ended, competition over resources or a variety of

interests threaten boundaries more than ever, resulting in contentious

viiFOREWORD

interaction, conflict, adaptation, and intermixture. How people define

their borders is also a factor in determining how events develop in the

surrounding region. This series will provide detailed descriptions of

selected arbitrary borders in history with the objective of providing

insights on how artificial boundaries separating people will influence

international affairs during the next century.

Senator George J. MitchellOctober 2003

viii FOREWORD

Throughout history, borders have separated people. Scholars have

devoted considerable attention to assessing the significance and

impact of territorial boundaries on the course of human history, explain-

ing how they often have been sources of controversy and conflict. In the

modern age, the rise of nation-states in Europe created the need for gov-

ernments to negotiate treaties to confirm boundary lines that periodi-

cally changed as a consequence of wars and revolutions. European

expansion in the nineteenth century imposed new borders on Africa and

Asia. Many native peoples viewed these boundaries as arbitrary and, after

independence, continued to contest their legitimacy. At the end of both

world wars in the twentieth century, world leaders drew artificial and

impermanent lines separating assorted people around the globe. Borders

certainly are among the most important factors that have influenced the

development of world affairs.

Chelsea House Publishers decided to publish a collection of books

looking at arbitrary borders in history in response to the revival of the

nuclear crisis in North Korea in October 2002. Recent tensions on the

Korean peninsula are a direct consequence of the partitioning of Korea at

the 38th parallel after World War II. Other nations in the course of

human history have suffered due to similar artificial divisions. The rea-

sons for establishing arbitrary borders have differed, but usually arise

from either domestic or international factors and are often a combina-

tion of both. In the case of Korea, it was the United States and the Soviet

Union who decided in August 1945 to partition the country at the 38th

parallel. Ostensibly, the purpose was to facilitate the acceptance of the

IntroductionJames I. Matray

California State University, Chico

surrender of Japanese forces at the end of World War II. However, histo-

rians have presented persuasive evidence that a political contest existed

inside Korea to decide the future of the nation after forty years of

Japanese colonial rule. Therefore, Korea’s division at the 38th parallel was

an artificial boundary that symbolized the split among the Korean peo-

ple about the nation’s destiny. On the right were conservative landown-

ers who had closely aligned with the Japanese, many of whom were

outright collaborators. On the left, there were far more individuals who

favored revolutionary change. In fact, Communists provided the leader-

ship and direction for the independence movement inside Korea from

the 1920s until the end of World War II. After 1945, two Koreas emerged

that reflected these divergent ideologies. But the Korean people have

never accepted the legitimacy or permanence of the division imposed by

foreign powers.

Korea’s experience in dealing with the artificial division of its country

may well be unique, but it is not without historical parallels. The first set

of books in this series on arbitrary borders examines six key chapters in

human history. One volume will look at the history of the 38th parallel in

Korea. Other volumes will provide description and analysis of the division

of the Middle East after World War I; the Cold War as symbolized by the

Iron Curtain in Central Europe; the United States.-Mexico Border; the

17th parallel in Vietnam, and the Mason-Dixon Line. Future books will

address the Great Wall in China, Northern Ireland’s border, and the Green

Line in Israel. Admittedly, there are many significant differences between

these boundaries, but these books will cover as many common themes as

possible. In so doing, each will help readers conceptualize how factors

such as colonialism, culture, and economics determine the nature of con-

tact between people along these borders. Although globalization has

emerged as a powerful force working against the creation and mainte-

nance of lines separating people, boundaries are not likely to disappear as

factors with a continuing influence on world events. This series of books

will provide insights about the impact of arbitrary borders on human his-

tory and how such borders continue to shape the modern world.

James I. Matray

Chico, California

November 2003

x INTRODUCTION

Geneva,1954

1

After ten weeks of prolonged negotiations, the delegates

in Geneva finally devised a solution to bring the French

Indochina War to a close. In the fashion of the Hebrew King

Solomon or the Allies, wrestling with Korea as World War II

ended, they agreed to a temporary partition of Vietnam.

The dividing line—an arbitrary border—was the 17th par-

allel, near the country’s midsection, less than 100 miles

north of the ancient capital of Hue. This meant that the

French provinces of Tonkin and Cochinchina would be

controlled by the communist-led Democratic Republic of

Vietnam and the anticommunist State of Vietnam, respec-

tively. The third province, Annam, was also virtually split in

half, although more territory was placed under the control

of the State of Vietnam than under that of the Democratic

Republic of Vietnam. The expectation was that Vietnam

would be reunified after national elections that were to be

held within two years.

As it turned out, however, the 17th parallel, like the 38th in

Korea, long separated parties on either side of the line while

serving as a battleground for the Cold War fight that raged in

Vietnam and throughout the world. In each instance, drawing

an artificial border in no way ensured that further hostilities

would be avoided.

Despite seven and a half years of continuous warfare, the

French Indochina conflict had remained deadlocked as the

summer of 1954 approached. That spring, the French fortress

at Dienbienphu, in the northwestern sector of Vietnam near

the border with Laos, along with more than 10,000 soldiers, fell

to Vietminh forces led by General Vo Nguyen Giap. The

Vietminh, who had suffered far greater losses at Dienbienphu,

continued to harass French soldiers and those associated with

the State of Vietnam throughout the countryside. Nevertheless,

the French remained in control of large urban centers, includ-

ing Hanoi in the north, Hue and Danang in the country’s mid-

section, and Saigon in the south. Still, the defeat at

Dienbienphu was noteworthy: it was arguably the first such

2 VIETNAM: THE 17TH PARALLEL

setback Western powers had experienced in dealing with Asian

revolutionaries in modern times.

Worries that the war in Southeast Asia could spread had led

some of the great powers, including the United States, England,

France, and the Soviet Union, to call for a conference in Geneva,

Switzerland, to discuss events in Indochina. A Five-Power

Conference, which also included China, had begun in April and

was intended to tackle issues related to two divided hot spots:

Berlin and Korea. Representatives from the Five-Power coun-

tries gathered in Geneva, along with others from Cambodia,

Laos, the State of Vietnam, and the communist Democratic

Republic of Vietnam. Indian delegates were also present,

although India, a country that tried to carve out a middle path

3Geneva, 1954

The Geneva conference on Indochina opened on May 8, 1954. After 10 weeks of negotia-

tion, the parties agreed to a temporary partition of Vietnam. The expectation was that

Vietnam would be reunited following national elections to be held within two years. That

expectation was never to be realized.

during the Cold War, had not received an official invitation to

attend the conference.

The gathering began on May 8, the day following the surren-

der of the French garrison at Dienbienphu after a nearly two-

month-long siege. France’s position appeared weak, with one

diplomat indicating that the French arrived in Geneva with a

“two of clubs and a three of diamonds.”1 That European coun-

try, which had suffered German occupation of its divided home-

land during World War II, attempted to recoup wounded

national pride by retaining colonial possessions such as Vietnam

and Algeria as the postwar era unfolded. After long years of

struggle, however, the war in Indochina produced only more

casualties, mounting opposition at home, and a lack of resolution

in the field. The refusal of the United States to intervene at

Dienbienphu had ensured the French defeat. Nevertheless,

Georges Bidault, who led the French delegation in Geneva,

sought a military cease-fire that would enable France to retain the

southern portion of Vietnam, the area known as Cochinchina.

The French position increasingly appeared desperate.

The United States, on the other hand, stood as the preeminent

world leader, having won a great amount of good will because of

its fight against the Axis Powers—Japan, Italy, and Germany—

during World War II. America’s apparent support for decolo-

nization also was well received in many corners of the globe,

including Southeast Asia. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had

spoken of the need to terminate French rule in the region. The

development of the Cold War, however, led many American pol-

icymakers to insist that aggression in Indochina, which leaders

such as Secretary of State John Foster Dulles blamed on the

Vietminh, must be halted. Consequently, Dulles was determined

not to allow the Geneva Conference to relinquish any territory

to Ho Chi Minh.

Dulles, in fact, had been concerned about the possibility of

U.S. involvement at Geneva. The very appearance of American

representatives, he feared, might be viewed as amounting to U.S.

recognition of Communist China, something the staunchly


anti-communist Dulles opposed. Dulles, biographer Townsend

Hoopes indicated, therefore displayed in Geneva the “pinched

distaste of a puritan in a house of ill repute.”2 He refused to take

the hand offered in greeting by Zhou Enlai, China’s foreign min-

ister. Dulles muttered that he might run into Zhou if they were

in a car crash together, but he clearly had no intention of dis-

playing cordiality. Above all, Dulles insisted that the whole of

Indochina not fall to communist control.

On the evening of May 10, President Eisenhower met with

Dulles and Admiral Arthur Radford, chairman of the U.S. Joint

Chiefs of Staff. The president told Dulles to consider possible

military solutions for Indochina and to produce a joint resolution

that could be sent to Congress to request authorization to send

American troops into battle. As it turned out, General Matthew

Ridgway, the army chief of staff, had ordered a study of military

possibilities in Vietnam the previous year. The report indicated

that anywhere between half a million and a million soldiers would

be required, that conditions difficult in Korea would be worse still

in Vietnam because of the jungle terrain and monsoon seasons;

and furthermore, that the Vietnamese people, with their lengthy

heritage of nationalism, would hardly support an American cam-

paign. The drawing of an arbitrary border had seemed to resolve

the Korean conflict, and American policymakers envisioned a

similar solution for Vietnam. That approach, they hoped, would

avoid the loss of American lives or financial resources.

The Americans were hardly the only reluctant or less-than-

gracious participants in Geneva. The Vietminh wanted no deal-

ings with officials from the State of Vietnam, which was still led

by the former Emperor Bao Dai, and did not willingly meet with

the French, either. In an unrealistic demand, Bao Dai insisted

that Vietnam be unified under his control, and the Vietnamese

communists reasoned that their successes in the battlefield

entitled them to control the entire nation. Concerned about

the intentions of Pham Van Dong, who represented the

Democratic Republic of Vietnam, both Laos and Cambodia

feared that the Vietminh sought to dominate all of Indochina.

5Geneva, 1954

The French and the Americans distrusted one another, and the

Americans considered the British, who favored an artificial divi-

sion of Vietnam and wished to operate as peacemakers, too

weak. The Russians and the Chinese appeared mutually hostile

to one another, disproving the notion that all communists acted

in unison. Moreover, Zhou Enlai, drawing on a careful reading

of history, was opposed to the idea of a unified Vietnam,

whether placed under colonial or Vietnamese rule. At the same

time, he wanted to keep the United States out of Indochina and

avoid a repetition of the Korean War, in which the Chinese suf-

fered a million casualties. The Soviets, experiencing increasingly

strained relations with China, hoped for improved dealings with

the United States and adopted a less belligerent stance. Still,

British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden acknowledged that he

had never before encountered diplomatic maneuvering of this

sort: “The parties would not make direct contact, and we were in

constant danger of one or another backing out the door.”3

The United States apparently had little desire or few hopes that

a peaceful resolution of the conflict without communist control

over all of Indochina could be achieved in Geneva. Secretary of

State Dulles fired off instructions to the U.S. delegation on May

12, ordering them, in effect, not to deal with representatives

from China or other governments that the United States refused

to recognize. Dulles also ordered American delegates to present

themselves as representatives of an “interested nation” only, not

as a “belligerent or a principal.” American participation in

Geneva, Dulles continued, resulted from a desire to help nations

in Southeast Asia “peacefully to enjoy territorial integrity and

political independence under stable and free governments.” The

United States remained adverse to peoples in those countries

being “amalgamated into the Communist bloc of imperialistic

dictatorship.” Furthermore, the United States opposed any

action that would result in the subverting of “the existing lawful

governments” of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.4

Pham Van Dong continued to press the case of the Democratic

Republic of Vietnam, demanding that a political settlement


resulting in a withdrawal of French forces and enabling the

Vietnamese to chart their own course be arrived at first. At the

same time, he called for the Pathet Lao and the Free Khmer

guerrilla forces, backed by the Vietminh in Laos and Cambodia,

respectively, to be accorded legal recognition and allowed to

remain in control of the land they dominated.

Only a week and a half into the conference, however, a Chinese

deputy informed a French delegate that his nation was deter-

mined to help bring about peace in the region and to avoid sup-

porting the Vietminh. Zhou Enlai soon told both Eden and the

French diplomat, Georges Bidault, that he did not favor

Vietminh control of bordering states. By some accounts, Zhou

also warned Ho Chi Minh, the communist leader of the

Democratic Republic of Vietnam, that Chinese economic assis-

tance would be decreased unless the Vietminh adopted a more

conciliatory tone in Geneva.

On June 17, Pierre Mendes-France, recently named prime

minister of France, promised the French National Assembly that

he would strive to bring the war in Indochina to an end. In fact,

he informed those in attendance, “My government will give

itself—and its adversaries—four weeks.... If no satisfactory solu-

tion can be achieved by then, I will resign.”5 Mendes-France

asked for help from U.S. Undersecretary of State Walter Bedell

Smith, suggesting that the Americans convince the Vietnamese

“that they would be wise to accept the French agreement with

the Vietminh as the best agreement obtainable.”6 The appoint-

ment of Mendes-France as the French head of state caused

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to advise President

Eisenhower that the new French leader “has made up his mind

to clear out on the best terms available.” Given France’s past

reliance on “untrustworthy local troops,” Churchill continued, “I

think he is right.”7 Churchill then suggested the formation of a

military alliance for Southeast Asia similar to the one founded in

1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which

the United States, Canada, and a number of Western European

states had joined. Dulles liked this idea because he thought that

such an alliance could help “keep freedom alive.”8

7Geneva, 1954

Zhou Enlai informed a surprised Mendes-France that he

thought “two Vietnams” might result from the conference. At the

same time, he worried about the heightening of U.S. involve-

ment in the region and insisted that his country sought only

peace, held “no other ambitions [and] poses no conditions.”9

Dulles, on the other hand, worried that both Laos and

Cambodia, along with southern Vietnam, might soon come

under Communist domination.

In the midst of the negotiations in Geneva, American diplo-

mat Rob McClintock informed the U.S. State Department of the

deterioration of relations between the French and leading fig-

ures representing the State of Vietnam. McClintock called par-

ticular attention to the agitated reaction of Ngo Dinh Diem,

selected as prime minister of the State of Vietnam, and his

brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, to French actions. As McClintock

pointed out, Diem displayed “a curious blend of heroism mixed

with a narrowness of view and of egotism which will make him

a difficult man to deal with.” To McClintock, Diem was “a mes-

siah without a message. His only formulated policy is to ask

immediate American assistance in every form including refugee

relief, training of troops and armed military intervention.”10

Ho Chi Minh’s analysis of the situation in his homeland was

equally charged. In a report to the Vietnam Workers’ Party

Central Committee, delivered on July 15, Ho applauded “the

heroism of our armed forces and people,” in addition to “the

fraternal countries and the world’s people” that had provided

assistance to the resistance struggle. Ho condemned the contra-

dictory nature of U.S.-led imperialism and dismissed Ngo Dinh

Diem as an American puppet. He denounced the call for an

American-sponsored military alliance for Southeast Asia, claim-

ing that it would compel Asians to fight against other Asians.

American imperialism, Ho accused, was the greatest threat to

world peace.11

One of the most contentious matters confronting the represen-

tatives gathered in Geneva involved the question of where to tem-

porarily divide Vietnam through the establishment of a border.


Ho Chi Minh’s representatives demanded that the division

acknowledge the Vietminh’s military success, be temporary only,

and lead to elections reunifying the nation within six months. At

a bare minimum, they insisted that the division be drawn at the

13th parallel, only 100 miles north of Saigon. Equally recalci-

trant, the French called for the separation to occur at the 18th

parallel, just south of Vinh; the French ultimately accepted the

17th parallel, only miles north of Quang Tri, Khe Sanh, and Hue,

as the dividing point. After Chinese pressure was brought to

bear, Ho agreed to accept the French proposal that the country

be divided at the 17th parallel. Referring to Zhou Enlai, an infu-

riated Pham Van Dong charged, “He has double-crossed us.”12

9Geneva, 1954

Under the terms of the Geneva Accord, the partition at the 17th parallel provided the

Vietminh with the richest section of Vietnam, including control over Hanoi. Shown here in a

picture taken on October 9, 1954, barefoot children run into the streets to welcome the com-

munist Vietminh troops.

American journalists worried that the partition at the 17th par-

allel provided the Vietminh with the richest section of Vietnam,

including control over Hanoi and the Red River Delta. Newsweek

magazine fretted, like many American policymakers, about the

loss of 12 million people, along with “another 75,000 square

miles of ... rich, rice-producing territory” to communist con-

trol.13 The South, the magazine noted, was headed by “divided

and demoralized” forces, possessed a weaker army than that of

the Vietminh, and had “always been more favorable to Ho Chi

Minh than the North.”14

Despite the hostile attitudes of the American and Vietnamese

delegates, the Geneva Conference produced accords during the

late evening of July 20 and the early morning hours of July 21,

just in time to prevent the fall of Mendes-France’s government.

The final declaration noted the end of hostilities throughout

Southeast Asia. This would supposedly enable Cambodia, Laos,

and Vietnam “to play their part, in full independence and sover-

eignty, in the peaceful community of nations.”15 The govern-

ments of Cambodia and Laos agreed to hold general elections in

1955, and similar elections were slated for Vietnam in July 1956.

Other agreements included a prohibition against foreign troops,

arms, and munitions being imported into Vietnam. In addition,

there was to be no establishment of a military base controlled by

a foreign state and no military alliances drawn with other

nation-states. The Conference acknowledged that “the military

demarcation line is provisional and should not in any way be

interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary.”16

Undersecretary of State Smith confirmed that his government

was not prepared to offer full support for the agreement. Rather,

the United States delivered its own interpretation of the accords.

It would view “with grave concern” any violation of the provi-

sions devised by the Conference, the American government

warned.17 Britain’s Anthony Eden dismissed the American

response as “unreasonable.”18 On July 22, Ngo Dinh Diem con-

demned the decision to cede “to the Communists all the north

and more than four provinces of the central part” of Vietnam.


Diem refused to accept what he called “the seizure by Soviet

China—through its satellite the Vietminh—of over half of our

national territory.”19

That day, Dulles told a gathering of the National Security

Council in Washington, D.C., that the Vietminh had elected to

compromise; the Vietminh believed that they would gradually

obtain what they really desired. Allen Dulles, director of the

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the brother of the

Secretary of State, worried that Diem faced a host of problems in

South Vietnam, where, he pointed out, the partition had made

the French highly unpopular.

The Geneva Accords resolved little, in the end, by setting up an

arbitrary border at the 17th parallel. The agreement amounted

to, as Canadian diplomat John Holmes indicated, a “nasty bar-

gain accepted by all parties as the only way to avoid a dangerous

confrontation.”20 Still unresolved were the very issues that had

produced the French Indochina War, and both the United States

and the State of Vietnam expressed considerable misgivings

about the actual agreement. Nevertheless, the Eisenhower

administration, undoubtedly recalling developments in Korea,

reasoned that the temporary partition provided a chance to

create a viable anticommunist government in the area south of

the 17th parallel. Also fortunate, from the perspective of

Secretary of State Dulles, was the fact that the accords allowed

both Laos and Cambodia to emerge as independent states.

Moreover, Dulles recognized that the demands of the commu-

nist representatives had hardly been unreasonable given the

communists’ position on the battlefield. Such a development

had taken place, Dulled rationalized, because of concerns that

failing to placate the United States would increase the possibil-

ity of a larger war unfolding.

The Vietminh and the French were not thoroughly pleased

with the accords, either. The Vietminh seethed that their mili-

tary triumphs had not been matched by successes in the diplo-

matic realm while still anticipating that reunification elections

would enable them to establish control over all of Vietnam. The

11Geneva, 1954

French continued to hope that French rule in southern

Vietnam, particularly in Saigon and the Mekong Valley, could be

maintained. Thus, the setting of an arbitrary border at the 17th

parallel hardly settled long-standing issues relating to

Vietnamese nationalism and attempts by other states to establish

control over Vietnam.


Vietnamese History

2


Archeological discoveries indicate that Vietnam was inhab-

ited possibly half a million years ago. People on Vietnamese

soil may have employed agricultural techniques 9,000 years in

the past in a way few others did at that time. Approximately

3,000 years ago, the Red River Delta boasted a sophisticated civ-

ilization rooted in wet rice production and trade with other peo-

ples. Soon, the kingdom of Van Lang, whose Hong Bang Dynasty

existed for more than two millennia, emerged. Eventually

dwelling in the southern section of the Red River Delta were the

Lac Viet, who joined with other groups of Viet peoples to estab-

lish the government of Au Lac, an aristocratic and agriculturally

based state whose capital was situated in the north at Co Lao,

close to the Chinese border.

Dynastic struggles in neighboring China led to the formation of

the kingdom of Vietnam (or Nam Viet), with its capital of Canton,

by Chinese General Chao T’o. The general, whose name in

Vietnamese was Trieu Da, crushed the military forces of Au Lac,

taking control of the Red River area. After his death, the Han

Dynasty, from China, vanquished Vietnam in 111 B.C., making it

part of the Chinese empire. Almost immediately, it became clear

that the Vietnamese were not willing to accept such external con-

trol, no matter the territorial borders involved. This was especially

true if others attempted to build arbitrary borders for Vietnam.

Initially, China remained content to allow local tribal figures

to maintain control of Vietnam. As the Common Era (the period

dating to the birth of Jesus Christ) began, however, Chinese

immigration into Vietnam mounted, as did the appearance of

Chinese administrators. Those officials attempted to introduce

more Chinese practices and institutions in a deliberate effort to

transform Vietnam, which they considered backward. The

Chinese incorporated new agricultural techniques, relying on

plows and draft animals to cultivate rice paddies. They also used

advanced irrigation and flood control systems. Such changes

increased food production and resulted in a population boom.

The Vietnamese themselves employed an intricate system of

dams, dikes, and canals to take advantage of the Red River.

Despite the economic and technological improvements ush-

ered in by the Chinese, the Vietnamese demonstrated a reluc-

tance to accept political domination by their northern

neighbors. In the year 39, Trung Trac and her sister, Trung Nhi,

spearheaded a temporarily successful uprising against Chinese

rule. As defeat approached, rather than submit to the Chinese,

the sisters drowned themselves in a river. Over the course of the

next several centuries, other revolts took place, drawing on the

legend of the two women who had battled against a mighty

imperial force.

Despite repeated stirrings of Vietnamese nationalism that sug-

gested the need for national borders, China held onto Vietnam for

a full millennium. The Chinese set up a mandarin system to run

the government bureaucracy by appointing a group of

Vietnamese landlords to relatively low-level administrative posi-

tions. Serving as public officials or civil servants, these adminis-

trators (mandarins) began to adopt the dialect and style of the

Chinese, who viewed the Vietnamese as barbarians. In the villages,

Chinese rituals and practices supplanted those of the Vietnamese,

and the educational system drew from Confucian works, which

emphasized the need for social loyalty and obedience. Still, the

majority of Vietnamese held to the older customs and ways,

ensuring a divide between the countryside and provincial towns.

With the passage of time, Vietnamese mandarins grew

increasingly resentful of Chinese hegemony (dominance).

Finally, they aligned with peasants, who were suffering from

crushing taxation, to revolt against their Chinese overlords. This

occurred in the tenth century, when the T’ang Dynasty was

increasingly in disarray. In A.D. 939, the Vietnamese, guided by

Ngo Quyen, ousted the Chinese, and the reestablished state of

Nam Viet refused to pay tribute to China. Early in the following

century, the Ly Dynasty emerged and soon pushed Vietnamese

boundaries southward beyond the Red River Delta. All the while,

the Vietnamese called on Confucian practices to help centralize

government. The economy thrived, too, thanks to agricultural

pursuits, commercial transactions, and handicrafts.

15Vietnamese History

In the late thirteenth century, the Tran Dynasty—which had

supplanted another Vietnamese dynasty, the Ly—faced a grow-

ing threat from Mongols who had created a new Chinese

dynasty. In a display of resistance, the Vietnamese twice held

back the powerful Mongol invaders. Leading the defense of his

homeland was the Vietnamese hero Tran Hung Dao. In 1407,

Vietnam suffered another assault by the Chinese, this time trig-

gered by the Ming Dynasty, which was angered by the

Vietnamese refusal to pay tribute. Although the Chinese army

prevailed, the reign lasted only two decades and faced continu-

ous Vietnamese guerrilla activity. In 1428, Le Loi, who had

recently proclaimed himself king, forced a Chinese withdrawal

after relying on guerrilla strikes. A famous Vietnamese poem

heralded the triumph:

Henceforth our country is safe.

Our mountains and rivers begin life afresh.

Peace follows war as day follows night.

We have purged our shame for a thousand centuries.

We have regained tranquility for ten thousand generations.21

The new emperor undertook a series of major changes in

Vietnamese society, including the redistribution of the land of

large estate holders who had supported the Chinese. Peasants

were provided with land, had their rents reduced, and saw legal

restrictions lightened. The Le bureaucracy increased the reliance

on Confucian tenets, and the Hong Duc Code helped establish

the principle of rule of law.

The Le Dynasty also continued a hard-fought battle with the

Indianized kingdom of Champa, which flourished in Vietnam’s

central highlands until the sixteenth century. Gradually, the

Vietnamese proceeded southward, eventually taking control of

the Cham capital at Vijaya in 1471. That development, coupled

with the weakening of the Le Dynasty, led to a new struggle for

power that pitted the Trinh family against the Nguyen family.

The Trinh became dominant in the North, and the Nguyen con-

trolled the South, moving to extend Vietnamese control


throughout the Mekong Delta. As the Khmer empire of Angkor

weakened in Cambodia, the migration of farmers into newly

acquired territories cemented Vietnamese dominance.

Over the course of four centuries, the Vietnamese conducted a

long march southward, seeking more land to provide for their

growing population. It was increasingly clear that Vietnamese

nationalists were unwilling to accept any arbitrary borders that

prevented their takeover of the entire landscape all the way south

to the South China Sea. Section by section, the movement con-

tinued, with the Vietnamese establishing settlements along the

way. The Vietnamese cultivated rice until food supplies were

depleted, before moving onto the next river valley.

With the completion of the long march southward, Vietnam

extended more than 1,200 miles from north to south in an “S”

or snakelike fashion. Potentially rich rice-bearing deltas existed

along the Red River in the North and the Mekong River in the

South, and extensive mountain chains coursed over the national

landscape. Most of Vietnam was forested or covered by jungle,

with pockets of ethnic tribes residing on highlands.

The expansion of Vietnam continued until the close of the

eighteenth century, which coincided with another dynastic

struggle pitting the Nguyen family against the Trinh. This con-

flict concluded with the triumph of Prince Nguyen Anh, who

came to be known as the Emperor Gia Long. The emperor took

control of Hanoi and set up his capital in Hue, located along

Vietnam’s central coastline nearly 50 miles from what became

the 17th parallel. Gia Long governed in the typical fashion of

many Vietnamese leaders, cementing his reign over the country

as a whole while acceding to local control provided that his rule

was unquestioned. That was in keeping with the Vietnamese tra-

dition of having imperial rule stop at the village gate. At the

same time, Gia Long clearly appeared to possess the requisite

“mandate of heaven,” or approval from divine forces. This pow-

erful Confucian concept was derived from the Chinese, who

believed, as did the Vietnamese, that a ruler’s hold on power

could be lost if corruption or despotism prevailed or if there

were a failure to attend to the people’s basic needs.


* * * * *

Gia Long possessed an insular attitude about Vietnamese

involvement with the West, but he did allow French missionaries

to remain in Vietnam. The French were not the first Westerners to

come to Southeast Asia: a Portuguese ship had landed in Malaya

in the early sixteenth century. Within a matter of decades, Spanish,

Dutch, French, and English seamen could be found on the Indian

Ocean and the South China Sea. Some Westerners came to trade

with the people of the region, and others were determined to con-

duct missionary enterprises. The first Western ship to appear in

Vietnam landed in 1535, when a Portuguese boat headed into the

Bay of Danang. Shortly thereafter, Portugal established a trading

station in Faifo (later called Hoi An), just south of Danang.

By the early seventeenth century, additional European trading

posts could be found along the seaboard. That period also saw

the first group of Jesuit missionaries—fresh from the Portuguese

colony in Macao—arrive in Faifo. Within a short while, however,

French churchmen, led by Alexander of Rhodes, began to sup-

plant the Portuguese. That scholar’s impact on Vietnamese his-

tory was considerable because he trained Vietnamese to become

Catholic priests and introduced the Roman alphabet to

Vietnam. These endeavors became controversial as concerns

spread that Catholicism endangered Confucian principles and

even allegiance to Vietnamese rulers. Edicts barred proselytizing

by Christians; many missionaries faced expulsion, and some suf-

fered an even harsher fate.

For a period, European involvement in Vietnam slackened

noticeably, but the dynastic squabbles of the latter stages of the

eighteenth century again afforded an opportunity for the French

to make inroads. The backing of a French bishop, Pigneau de

Behaine, helped bring about the defeat of the Trinh.

Nevertheless, Gia Long refused to give the French preferred

trade relations, as would his successor, Minh Mang. Indeed,

Minh Mang proved to be more heavy handed in his dealings

with Christian missionaries than Gia Long had been, and he per-

secuted Vietnamese who had converted to Catholicism.


The treatment of both missionaries and Vietnamese Catholics

provided a justification for a French incursion (hostile entrance

into a territory) into Vietnam at mid-century. Perhaps even

more influential were French traders who sought expanded

commercial opportunities in Southeast Asia and worried about

losing out on the China market to the British. At the same time,

the Nguyen Dynasty’s appeal had lessened among its own peo-

ple because of corruption, land inequities, and resulting peasant

unrest. Thus, from two perspectives, the mandate of heaven held

by Nguyen rulers appeared increasingly shaky.

Then, repression suffered by Catholic missionaries in Hue led to

demands that the French protect those religious emissaries and

the Vietnamese who had adopted the faith. Consequently, in 1857,

the government in Paris instructed a French boat to take control

of Danang until France’s demands were met. The action was

undertaken the following summer but proved unsuccessful when

a hoped-for peasant revolt failed to materialize. Watching as dis-

ease afflicted his men, Admiral Charles Rignault de Genouilly

abandoned his intention to move against the capital city of Hue.

“Everything here tends toward ruin,” he declared.22 Eventually, in

1861, de Genouilly, calling on 70 ships and 3,500 soldiers, decided

to capture the southern city of Saigon. The French soon took con-

trol of larger sectors of territory and, in 1862, compelled Emperor

Tu Duc (reign: 1847–1883) to agree to the Treaty of Saigon, which

resulted in three provinces in the area ceded to France, three ports

opened up to French boats, and priests allowed to conduct mis-

sionary work. Tu Duc also relinquished Vietnam’s claims to

Cambodia, which the French would soon assume. From 1863 to

1867, the French carried out a series of military actions in the

Mekong River Delta region. At the end of this period, they formed

the colony of Cochinchina. Thus, the French began carving out

new arbitrary borders, much to the dismay of Tu Duc and other

Vietnamese nationalists. These proved to be not only territorial in

scope, but political, cultural, and economic as well.

Tu Duc’s attempts to ward off the French were weakened by

divisions that existed among the Vietnamese. He decided to


THE EMPEROR TU DUCContinuing the Nguyen Dynasty, Tu Duc was the last emperor of independ-

ent Vietnam, ruling from 1847 to 1883. He was also the one who witnessed

his nation fall increasingly under the control of the French as they created

arbitrary borders on Indochinese soil.Born in 1829, Tu Duc witnessed the reign of his grandfather, Minh Mang,

and his father, Thieu Tri, whose persecution of foreign missionaries andVietnamese Catholics provided a justification for French encroachments.Almost immediately after his rule began, Tu Duc faced challenges fromFrench military leaders and forces, which he attempted to resist. He alsowrestled with the issue of modernization, a phenomenon his immediate pred-ecessors had avoided as much as possible. Ultimately, Tu Duc, who wascompelled to accept borders arbitrarily drawn by the French, presided overthe dismemberment of much of his homeland.

Tu Duc’s reign was one of the lengthiest in the Nguyen Dynasty but wastroubled throughout because of strife among Vietnamese nobles, conflictingideas about modernization, and French challenges to Vietnam’s nationalautonomy. The first Vietnamese provinces to fall victim to French control werefound in southern Vietnam, the area the French referred to as Cochinchina. Atreaty signed in 1862 acknowledged French sovereignty over Cochinchina,including Saigon, and two decades later, France took hold of the rest ofVietnam. Beginning in August 1883, French forces attacked Hue, in centralVietnam—the territory referred to as Annam—and Hanoi in the northern sec-tor known as Tonkin.

A month before a treaty ceding this land to the French was signed, Tu Ducdied of natural causes. He was devastated by the turn of events in his home-land and reportedly cursed the French at the end of his life. The imperial courtproclaimed that sorrow resulted in Tu Duc’s death. Vietnamese nationalistswere encouraged to avenge him and to quash French efforts to devise arbi-trary borders for Vietnam.


negotiate with the French in part so that his forces could subdue

peasants in the North who were battling against mandarins they

considered corrupt. He also ordered an emissary to the United

States in 1873 in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain assistance

against French colonialism.

The French continued to make demands on the Vietnamese.

In 1873, local officials began harassing a French gunrunner, Jean

Dupuis. Subsequently, Dupuis put together a band of Europeans

and Asians to protect his interests and asked for support from

Admiral Jules-Marie Dupré, the governor of Cochinchina.

Spotting an opportunity to extend French dominion, Dupre sent

military forces to link up with Dupuis and grab hold of Hanoi.

Opposition to this action arose in Paris, leading to a withdrawal

after the Vietnamese government’s acknowledgement of French

control of Cochinchina.

As demands again arose for expanded commercial markets in

Vietnam, there was another campaign to extend French control.

After a Chinese contingent arrived in northern Vietnam at the

request of the Vietnamese court, Captain Henri Riviere and his

band of 200 soldiers swept into Hanoi and the Red River Delta.

The death of Emperor Tu Duc afforded still more opportunities

to subjugate the Vietnamese, leading to a treaty, signed in August

1883, that established a French protectorate over the whole area.

China relinquished any claims to sovereignty over Vietnam.

Within 10 years, the French added control over the kingdom of

Laos. In the process, France devised a series of arbitrary borders

that appeared to contradict the general pattern of the history of

Vietnam and the Vietnamese people’s ingrained sense of nation-

alism that soon forces clashed with the imperialist designs of the

French.


FrenchColonization

3

With the end of the nineteenth century fast approaching,

French domination of Indochina, as exemplified by the

shaping of arbitrary borders, was more fully in place. The French

undertook a concerted effort to quash Vietnamese resistance

and, in the process, to eliminate a sense of national identity long

held by the people they were subjugating. The Vietnamese were

deliberately referred to as “Annamites,” and the French refused

to mention the name “Vietnam” and divided the country itself

into three distinct regions. Northern Vietnam, including the Red

River Delta area, came to be known as “Tonkin.” The nation’s

central province, which contained Hue and Danang, was called

“Annam.” Vietnam’s southern sector, which held the Mekong

River Delta territory, was tagged with the label “Cochinchina.”

The French then established the Indochinese Union, which

included the protectorates of Tonkin, Annam, and Cochinchina,

along with the formerly sovereign states of Laos and Cambodia.

The French determination to exercise control over Indochina

was in keeping with the pattern of European imperialism that

flourished throughout the second half of the nineteenth century.

The French considered it essential to expand their colonial wings

in order to compete with other great European powers, includ-

ing Britain, Germany, and Russia. Social Darwinist thought,

with the belief that nations, like plant and animal life, had to

compete strenuously or be left behind, prevailed.

Another key idea propelling French imperialism and that of

other European actors, along with the United States, was the

“white man’s burden.” This was the notion that people of

European ancestry had a duty to care for their less fortunate and

less capable “little brown brothers”—as top American policy-

makers referred to them—found across the globe. God had sup-

posedly ordained this development to ensure that progress,

civilization, and Christian beliefs would be transmitted world-

wide. The French, for their part, spoke of the need to conduct a

mission civilisatrice, or civilizing mission, in Indochina.

Economic designs also often guided the European and American

forces that envisioned expanded market and investment

23French Colonization

opportunities in the far-flung corners of the planet. Throughout

the world the architects of imperialism drew up arbitrary bor-

ders, as in Vietnam, in keeping with their colonial aspirations.

Ultimately, those agents of Western-style imperialism proved

incapable of controlling, let alone quashing altogether, national-

ism in other lands.

As French soldiers arrived in Vietnam, so too did civilians who

supplied those troops. Others soon followed suit, including

traders, farmers, various business operators, bankers, editors,

physicians, and government officials. In the typical fashion of

colonialists, these Frenchmen sought to benefit themselves more

than the empire itself. Demands from French colons (colonial

farmers or plantation owners) could prove as troublesome for

governors-general as Vietnamese resisters, at least on occasion.

At a minimum, the provincial nature of the colons ensured that

France never truly carved out a long-term plan for Vietnam. Of

little help was the fact that many of the French administrators

sent to Vietnam were not of the finest caliber and often proved

susceptible to corruption and bribery. All the while, the levels of

bureaucracy mounted, with one Frenchman complaining that

England possessed colonies for commercial purposes whereas

France did so to provide jobs for bureaucrats.

The burden of such bureaucracy fell most heavily on the

Vietnamese, who were saddled with heavy taxation to cover part

of the costs of French governance. The poorest peasants paid

taxes at 33 times the rate of wealthy colons. Calling on a poll,

head, or “body tax,” which the Trinh family had initiated in the

early years of the eighteenth century, the French increased the

amount demanded of each man in Tonkin fivefold. Those

employed by the French and the Vietnamese who collaborated

with them paid no such tax; Europeans residing in Vietnam,

who saw themselves as forming a new aristocracy, received a

similar exemption.

The Vietnamese faced additional tax burdens, with levies placed

on paddy rice, rice wine, and land. To ensure that sufficient funds

were derived from the wine tax, French administrators required


each province to purchase a certain amount of wine. If provinces

failed to meet their quotas, local officials were punished. Also

afflicting the Vietnamese, particularly poor peasants, was the

land tax, which could take as much as one-fifth of a peasant’s

annual harvest. When harvests were sparse, peasants sold their

land for next to nothing, enabling wealthy purchasers to acquire

the property; those large landholders then exploited the labor of

the peasants.

Adding to the misery of the peasants—the vast bulk of the

Vietnamese populace—was the corruption in which officials

engaged. With the advent of French colonialism, local adminis-

tration rapidly deteriorated. Previously, a rigorous examination

system produced well-qualified officials who adhered to

Confucian precepts. When the French marched into Vietnam,

many of those officials refused to collaborate with the European

colonialists. Less well-trained and often less honest figures came

to replace them. With the passage of time, the situation became

even worse as a relatively high percentage of these newer officials

became addicted to opium, one of the government monopolies.

Those officials acted as “contractors” for the French, or so Paul

Doumer, who became governor-general of French Indochina in

1897, determined.

* * * * *

A former cabinet official, Doumer sought to convert

Indochina into a profitable concern for the French, something

that had not happened for the previous 40 years. Doumer

wanted to centralize administration, produce balanced books,

and quash guerrilla activity. He resorted to direct taxation of his

colonial subjects and obtained additional revenue from a high

tariff rate and through the sale of licenses for state-directed

monopolies on opium, rice alcohol, and salt, which was used for

food preservation; the monopolies generated nearly three-quar-

ters of the general revenue. Some of the funds were employed to

establish an extensive transportation infrastructure involving


roads, bridges, railroads, and ports. To encourage economic

exploitation of southern Vietnam, Doumer sold large plots of

land to wealthy colons and Vietnamese, resulting in the emer-

gence of a considerable number of landless tenants. Rice pro-

duction soared, enabling Vietnam to become the third-greatest

exporter of the crop by the late 1930s.

All this resulted from massive exploitation of the general

Vietnamese populace. As Vietnam turned into a leading exporter

of rice, rice consumption among the Vietnamese plummeted

dramatically, decreasing 30 percent over a four-decade period

when the population increased 80 percent; much of this decrease

occurred with the unfolding of the severe depression of the


Soon after they had secured their rule in Indochina, the French began to mistreat the

native people. In 1926, when this photograph was taken, there were many large rubber

plantations in the province of Bie Hao, French Indochina. Landless peasants by the thou-

sands went to work in these plantations. These shown are pouring rubber sap into large

vats by hand.

1930s. One report issued during World War II described the

deteriorating condition of the Vietnamese people: “It is only in

periods of intense agricultural labor, which means during one-

third of the year and particularly during the harvest, that the

people have enough to eat.”23

Landless peasants, either by choice or, much more frequently,

through conscription (forced labor, in this instance), toiled in

mines, plantations, and construction projects of various sorts

headed by French engineers and foremen. Rubber plantations,

including those run by Michelin, enforced horrific working

conditions and had high disease rates. To maintain workforces,

French employers turned to Vietnamese agents, who were paid

for each worker they signed to extended contracts that could

not be declined. The French treated reluctant Vietnamese like

deserters from military service.

The building of the Trans-Indochina Railroad from Saigon to

Hanoi, which took 40 years to construct, not the 10 years ini-

tially anticipated, required 80,000 workers, who labored on

mountains, in rivers, and through jungles. The price they paid

was enormous, with accidents and disease taking the lives of

nearly one-third of that workforce. Workers were yanked away

from their families, saddled with fines for not laboring diligently

enough, and physically abused by their overseers. Workdays were

lengthy, the laborers were ill-fed, and medical care was generally

not provided. In the end, the project they participated in, like so

many others Doumer devised, demonstrated little careful

thought on his part. The Trans-Indochina Railroad, for example,

effectively replicated an already-existing path, which peasants

often preferred. Highways likewise benefited tourists, not the

Vietnamese people.

As economic oppression befell the Vietnamese, the French

tightened their political grip. Doumer established direct control

over Tonkin, centralized French rule in Annam, and reigned in

colons and their government allies in Cochinchina; all of these

provinces involved the establishement of arbitrary borders, not

always of the territorial variety. Doumer terminated Vietnamese


PAUL DOUMERThe governor-general of Indochinafrom 1897 to 1902, Paul Doumer wasthe embodiment of French coloniza-tion in the region and the leadingadvocate of the establishment ofarbitrary borders to lengthen imperialcontrol. Striving to make Indochina aprofitable enterprise for France,Doumer attempted to tighten theexisting colonial bureaucracy whileimproving the economic condition ofFrench Indochina. This resulted in ajob freeze and a campaign to curbadministrative expenses, causing acentralized treasury to take control ofcolonial budgets.

Under Doumer’s watch, taxes fellheavily on the Vietnamese populace,causing a great deal of resentment,as did his extension of the infrastructure in the form of roads, bridges, and rail-roads, which relied heavily on the forced labor of often overworked and disease-riddled Vietnamese peasants. The French government’s monopolistic hold onsalt, opium, and alcohol also wore down the Vietnamese, many of whom laboredin coal mines and on rice plantations. Doumer’s government sponsored the useof opium by the Vietnamese and ran a modern refinery in Saigon that producedprepared opium fit for smoking by more affluent purchasers. The governmentalso set up government dens and shops where poorer workers could acquire thedrug. Opium use mushroomed, as did levels of addiction. The collected revenuesresulted in a budgetary surplus, the first in more than a decade. Doumer thuswas able to expand his public works program and to obtain a large loan thathelped with the building of hospitals and schools. Doumer witnessed the estab-lishment of the Ecole Française d’Extreme-Orient—which first appeared inSaigon in 1898—to offer an opportunity for elite education.

Residing in Hanoi, Doumer oversaw French rule of Cochinchina and the pro-tectorates of Annam, Tonkin, Cambodia, and Laos. Doumer determinedly guideda policy of pacification designed to eradicate guerrilla insurgencies, whichchallenged the placement of the arbitrary borders that he helped create.


Paul Doumer was the governor-general onIndochina from 1897–1902. He lived inHanoi and oversaw French rule ofCochinchina and the protectorates ofAnnam, Tonkin, Cambodia, and Laos.

authority in the northern and central provinces by removing

from the mandarins the power to collect taxes. Doumer effec-

tively bought off the emperor, providing him with a substantial

annual allowance, and he converted the mandarins into ill-paid

colonial employees. The French governor-general replaced the

emperor’s secret council in Annam, which was made up of

Vietnamese, with a council made up of equal numbers of

French and Vietnamese members.

Doumer attempted to keep a handle on the French colons in

Indochina, and his departure in 1902 enabled them to reassert

their dominion throughout the region. The colons continued to

favor economic enterprises designed for quick profits. Rice

farming, coffee, tea, and rubber all offered such a possibility, as

did the extraction of mineral resources. The colons proved far

more interested in such pursuits than in various types of heavy

industry, with the exception of coal mines located near

Haiphong. Consequently, rich opportunities were lost, with nei-

ther rubber factories nor steel plants established in Vietnam.

The French did take certain steps to modernize Vietnam.

Administrators introduced Western educational practices and

theories but ultimately offered such instruction only to mem-

bers of the Vietnamese elite and then only haphazardly at best.

The large majority of citizens generally failed to acquire even

that kind of exposure to Western culture.

Vietnamese schooling and literacy actually thrived more

fully before French colonization. A reported 20,000 schools

existed in Tonkin and Annam, and private tutoring by individ-

ual families was carried out in villages. One Vietnamese

researcher contended that a pair of schools could be found in

each village, resulting in an even higher literacy rate in the

country than in cities and towns. Eventually, the scholar gentry

insisted that the French adopt certain educational reforms.

Nevertheless, even at the end of World War I, only one out of

10 Vietnamese children attended Franco-Vietnamese schools.

At the onset of World War II, a mere 14 secondary schools and

one lone university could be found in Vietnam. Thus, in the


educational realm, as in so many others, the French devised

additional arbitrary borders that worked against the best inter-

ests of the Vietnamese.

In a similar fashion, the French promised to bring economic

prosperity to Vietnam and to elevate living standards of the gen-

eral populace. In the end, however, it became increasingly clear

that such improved economic conditions were limited, and

numerous Vietnamese clamored for independence.

Pockets of commercial and industrial enterprise did flourish

in various areas, including the largest urban areas, provincial

capitals, and market towns. Light industry associated with tex-

tiles, paper, and sugar thrived in particular. Infrastructural

improvements also occurred, with bridge construction allowing

passage over important waterways, railroads built across much

of Vietnam, and Southeast Asia’s most noteworthy series of met-

aled roads laid out.

Also, French agricultural techniques increased the amount of

acreage under cultivation. In the Mekong Delta region, marshlands

were drained and canals devised, and the French turned to cash

crops along the border with Cambodia; these included coffee, tea,

and rubber produced on labor-intensive plantations run by the

French. Absentee landlords often controlled the new lands opened

up in the Mekong Delta, saddling poor peasants, who had recently

migrated from northern and central Vietnam, with high rents.

Then, as agriculture became commercialized, many who had

worked the land lost their jobs and ended up working in factories

in cities or relegated to laboring in coal mines or on plantations.

To a large extent, a Vietnamese business class involved with

either commerce or manufacturing failed to develop, and the

French actively discouraged the emergence of native industry.

The result was a very skewed pattern of modernization that

proved unsettling to many Vietnamese, including an important

segment of the small but increasingly disenchanted elite.

A lack of economic and political opportunities, coupled with the

severe exploitation of the Vietnamese people, produced consider-

able resentment about French colonization. Thanks to Vietnam’s



long-standing nationalistic traditions, resistance to French rule

inevitably sprouted, and, in the end, Doumer’s determination to

eradicate guerrilla activity provided seeds for still greater discord.

The brutal treatment of Vietnamese rebels did not make the

French popular with the people they had colonized, and the carv-

ing up of Vietnam and all of Indochina with arbitrary borders did

not help. Vietnamese nationalists refused to accept the shaping of

the distinct provinces of Cochinchina, Annam, and Tonkin.

VietnameseResistance

4

The severity of French colonization, as exemplified by the

debilitating nature of forced labor, crushing levels of taxa-

tion, and a brutal pacification campaign, soon resulted in new

anticolonial efforts. After decades of colonial government,

Vietnamese nationalists called on the historic tradition of resist-

ing outside rule, and newer ideas as well, in urging their country-

men to expel the French and overcome the arbitrary borders

Doumer and other French administrators had set and main-

tained. In addition to the physical borders creating Tonkin,

Annam, and Cochinchina, social and economic borders existed

that reduced the vast majority of Vietnamese to a servile status in

relation to French colonialists. Such differentiated treatment led

to protracted battles against French control during the first several

decades of the twentieth century, through two world wars, and

into the Cold War.

In the last stages of the previous century, French colonialists

grappled with a series of irregular forces (those not belonging to

an organized or official group), including Chinese ones based in

Tonkin called the Black Flags. Both the Chinese and Vietnamese

imperial courts offered at least tacit support to those guerrillas.

After the death of a French captain in Tonkin, Commissioner-

General Jules Harmand coldly warned the Vietnamese,

We could, for we have the means, destroy your dynasty from

top to bottom down to its very roots, and seize for ourselves

all the kingdom as we have done in Cochinchina. You will be

perfectly aware that this would present no difficulty to us. You

are incapable of putting up a serious resistance to our armies

... you are at our mercy. We have the power to seize and

destroy your capital and to cause you all to die of starvation.

You have to choose between war and peace.24

Denying a desire to subjugate the Vietnamese, Harmand indi-

cated that the French protectorate, with its arbitrary borders, must

be accepted. This, he indicated, would result in “peace and pros-

perity” for the Vietnamese and offered “the only chance of sur-

vival” for the Vietnamese government and court. If this

33Vietnamese Resistance

supposedly magnanimous offer were declined, Harmand contin-

ued,“the most frightful things” would befall the Vietnamese: “The

Dynasty, its Princes and its Court will have pronounced sentence

on themselves. The name of Vietnam will no longer exist in his-

tory.”25 The Vietnamese emperor responded by signing a treaty

establishing a protectorate in Annam and giving the French con-

trol over Tonkin.

By 1885, the French had induced the Chinese to relinquish

their claims to Vietnam but quickly confronted a rebellion asso-

ciated with the boy emperor, Ham Nghi. Although Ham Nghi

was soon captured and shipped to northern Africa, the resist-

ance and his departure led to another movement, the Can

Vuong, or Rescue the King campaign, spearheaded by the

scholar Phan Dinh Phung. The Vietnamese nation had endured,

Phung believed, because “the destiny of our country had been

willed by Heaven itself.”26 Eventually, the French drove Phung


In the late nineteenth century, French colonialists were forced to grapple with Vietnamese

guerrillas who had the tacit support of the emperor’s court.

and his depleted band of rebel fighters into the mountain area by

the Laotian border, where dysentery killed the great nationalist

leader in 1896.

Although the administration of Paul Doumer was particularly

determined to eradicate the vestiges of Vietnamese resistance,

opposition to French rule never entirely dissipated. Prince

Cuong De, who traced his claim to the throne to Gia Long,

hoped that Japan, which was undergoing a time of rapid mod-

ernization, might provide military assistance to drive out the

French colonialists in Vietnam. Japan’s stunning victory in the

Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, the first example in modern

times of an Asian nation defeating a major European power,

provided still more hope for Vietnamese nationalists.

In the first decade of the twentieth century, on the heels of

Doumer’s departure from Vietnam, two great nationalists, Phan

Boi Chau and Phan Chu Trinh, offered contrasting approaches

to expelling French colonialists and aradicating their arbitrary

borders. Born in the central province of Nghe An in 1867, Phan

Boi Chau began spearheading resistance efforts against the

French shortly after completing his mandarin examinations

with honors in 1900; his organization, Duy Tan Hoi, the

Reformation Society, first appeared in 1904. Phan Boi Chau

asserted that “the French treat our people like garbage.... The

meek are made into slaves, the strong-minded are thrown into

jail. The physically powerful are forced into the army, while the

old and weak are left to die.... The land is splashed with

blood.”27 Condemning antiquated feudal ways, Phan Boi Chau

championed modernization. Initially, Phan Boi Chau backed

the restoration of the monarchy, supporting Cuong De’s claim

to the throne.

After Japan’s sweeping victory over Russia, the two men

decided to spend time in the rising Asian powerhouse, hoping to

obtain backing for their campaign to reassert Vietnamese auton-

omy. Phan Boi Chau was drawn to the reformist program that

the Emperor Meiji seemed to accept for Japan. Heeding the

advice of the Japanese, Phan Boi Chau urged scores of young


men to receive military and political instruction in Japan; such

patriots, he hoped, would lead the fight against the French.

Phan Boi Chau attempted to lead such a revolt against French

rule in late 1907, but that resulted in the execution of a number

of his supporters. Hoping to avoid capture by the French, Phan

Boi Chau spent time in Siam but went to Canton when the

Chinese Revolution of 1911 began unfolding. Attracted by Sun

Yat-sen and Chinese champions of democracy, Phan Boi Chau

became less desirous that the monarchy be reformed. Instead,

Phan Boi Chau set up the Viet Nam Quang Phuc Hoi, the

Vietnam Restoration Society, and favored the creation of a dem-

ocratic republic. Phan Boi Chau suffered imprisonment from

1912 to 1917, and blame also came his way for a failed assassi-

nation attempt against the French governor-general of

Indochina, Albert Sarraut.

Born five years after Phan Boi Chau, Phan Chu Trinh was a

member of an elite, landowning family that respected education.

His father, a military officer and supporter of the Emperor Ham

Nghi, had joined the Scholar’s Revolt but was murdered by other

rebels, who viewed him as suspect. Phan Chu Trinh received the

most advanced degree awarded to students who undertook clas-

sical studies to become mandarins, but he became disillusioned

with the imperial bureaucracy shortly after meeting Phan Boi

Chau and learning about the other man’s ideas. The two men,

however, soon disagreed about tactics, with Phan Chu Trinh ini-

tially possessing less faith in the Vietnamese monarchy and the

Japanese. Phan Chu Trinh also called for modernization, envi-

sioned a new educational bureaucracy and legal system, and

favored industrialization. In 1906, Phan Chu Trinh urged the

new French governor-general, Paul Beau, to usher in such

reforms, along with Western-style democracy:

If the French government is really determined to treat the

Annamite people more liberally, it cannot but approve my

initiative and adopt my advice. It will invite me to present

myself before its representatives to explain my case at ease.


And on that day I will open my whole heart. I will show

what we suffer and what we lack. And I dare to hope that

this will mark the awakening, the resurrection of our

nation.28

Phan Chu Trinh’s plea, like Phan Boi Chau’s exhortations, res-

onated with the Vietnamese people, who were chafing at French

colonialism and the arbitrary borders that reinforced it. Some

intellectuals established the Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc, or the Free

School of Hanoi, hoping to foster Western and Chinese concepts

of a progressive cast. Within a matter of months, however, the

French shut the school down. All the while, Phan Chu Trinh

continued to disagree with Phan Boi Chau’s willingness to resort

to violence, instead maintaining a faith in French anticolonialists

that many other Vietnamese nationalists considered naïve.

Despite his nonviolent approach, however, Phan Chu Trinh was

arrested by the French and charged with provoking tax revolts in

Annam in 1908. Receiving a death sentence, Phan Chu Trinh

ended up on the island of Con Son, where other political dissi-

dents were sent. His release came after three years at Con Son

and was followed by a stay in France, where he sharply criticized

French colonial rule in Indochina.

* * * * *

Vietnam’s two greatest nationalists of the early twentieth century

thus suffered exile and imprisonment during World War I. The

treatment Phan Boi Chau and Phan Chu Trinh received kept them

from cultivating the mass support necessary to challenge French

power. Another figure was also absent from Vietnam for an even

greater period of time, but that did not prevent him from acquir-

ing a reputation as his country’s leading nationalist and the one

most able to expel French overlords and to obliterate the arbitrary

borders that they had created. Born Nguyen Sinh Cung in Nghe An

on May 19, 1890, he later called himself Nguyen Ai Quoc—

Nguyen the Patriot—but became known as Ho Chi Minh.


Densely populated and impoverished, Nghe An proved diffi-

cult to subdue, with its stubborn people referred to as the

“Buffalos of Nghe An.”29 Ho continued a family tradition of bat-

tling against French rule, following the lead of his father, Nguyen

Sinh Sac, a mandarin with a doctorate who backed Phan Boi

Chau and lost his government job because of his nationalistic

activities. Nguyen Sinh Sac repeatedly declared, “Being a man-

darin is the ultimate form of slavery,” and refused to let his son

take the mandarin examinations.30 His daughter, Nguyen Thi

Thanh, assisted the De Tham guerrillas who were fighting the

French, which resulted in her conviction for treason and a life sen-

tence. One son, Nguyen Sinh Khiem, crafted biting letters con-

demning the destitute and servile condition of the Vietnamese,

and Khiem’s brother Ho helped the Vietnamese underground

from the time he was five years old. Among those visiting the fam-

ily home were Phan Boi Chau and Phan Chu Trinh.

Initially, Nguyen Sinh Sac tutored Ho, now referred to as

Nguyen Tat Thanh, for “he who will succeed,” in the classics.

Then, Nguyen Sinh Sac enrolled his son in a local school, where

his friend Vuon Thuc Qui, whose own father had been an ardent

Vietnamese nationalist, taught Confucian classics but also fos-

tered his students’ patriotism. Ho’s education was broader still,

because he listened to the local blacksmith discuss the Can

Vuong leader Phan Dinh Phung and other Vietnamese who

fought for independence.

In 1905, Ho and his brother enrolled in a Franco-Vietnamese

preparatory institution located in Vinh. Later, they entered a

Dong Bong upper-level elementary school, where they received

instruction in Vietnamese, French, and Chinese. By the fall of

1907, the two brothers attended the Quoc Hoc or National

Academy, Hue’s most prestigious Franco-Vietnamese school.

While there, Ho participated in a protest movement that led a

French policeman to inform this supposed troublemaker that he

had been dismissed from the National Academy.

In an effort to remain outside the clutches of French authori-

ties, Ho began a lengthy odyssey that took him first throughout


Annam and Cochinchina and then outside Vietnam altogether.

Along the way, he took on odd jobs, even serving for a time as a

teacher in Phan Thiet, where he spoke to his own students about

such French philosophers as Voltaire, Montesquieu, and

Rousseau. At the beginning of his classes, Ho led his students in

reciting a poem once heard at the Hanoi Free School:

Oh, Heaven! Can’t you see our suffering?

The nation is in chains, languishing in grief,

Foreigners have doomed it to hunger,

They’re robbed it of everything it had.31

After spending some time in Saigon, Ho left Vietnam, begin-

ning a nearly three-decade-long journey that took him to far-

flung lands, including both the United States and France. He

boarded a French freighter that eventually docked in Marseille,

briefly returned to Saigon in an attempt to see his father, and

went back to Marseille, where he discovered that he had been

denied admission to the Colonial School there. His exact where-

abouts during this period are unknown, although he may have

traveled to Paris to speak with Phan Chu Trinh.

Over the course of several months, Ho passed through both

Africa and Asia and then sailed for the Western Hemisphere. He

may have gone to Argentina and Brazil before arriving on the

eastern seaboard of the United States. Ho lived for a while in

both New York City and Boston and also traveled to southern

states, where he reportedly witnessed lynchings of African

Americans carried out by the Ku Klux Klan. Traveling back

overseas, Ho resided in London, hoping to study English

there; obtained a job as a snow sweeper at a school; and then

got work in the kitchens of various hotels. Eventually, he

worked as an assistant to Auguste Escoffier, the renowned chef

at the Carlton Hotel.

Ho’s social conscience hardly abated while he was in England. He

became active in union affairs, joining the secretive Overseas

Workers’ Association, which was largely composed of Chinese

laborers concerned about the plight of workers in British factories.


Later, Ho indicated that he also had joined in street demonstra-

tions supporting Irish independence and had begun to examine

the writings of Karl Marx. Ho’s concerns about his own home-

land remained paramount, and he wrote a series of letters to

Phan Chu Trinh. At least some of these ended up in the hands of

French officials, with one note indicating that Ho hoped to con-

tinue Trinh’s work.

At some point, either late during World War I (1914–1918) or

shortly thereafter, Ho moved to Paris. Jobs were difficult to come

by, but Ho eventually became a photo retoucher, working at a

shop run by Phan Chu Trinh. Ho was one of 50,000 Vietnamese

then dwelling in the French capital. During the summer of 1919,

Ho, supported by Trinh and Trinh’s associate, Vietnamese lawyer

Phan Van Truong, established the Association des Patriotes

Annamites, or the Association of Annamite Patriots. Aided by

Phan Van Truong, Ho wrote a petition, “Revendications du peu-

ple annamite,” or “Demands of the Annamite People,” which

called for political autonomy for Vietnam, along with demo-

cratic liberties and an end to despised colonial practices. The sig-

nature at the bottom of the petition was that of Nguyen Ai

Quoc, “Nguyen the Patriot,” the name soon associated with Ho.

The petition appeared in L’Humanité, a leading radical French

newspaper, and was distributed by the General Confederation of

Labor, but it elicited little response from the delegates attending

the Versailles Conference. Colonel House, a top adviser to

United States President Woodrow Wilson, did send a pair of

short replies; one indicated that the petition would be forwarded

to the American head of state.

Attention, desired or not, now came to Ho, who was inter-

viewed by government officials and tailed by the French police.

At a minimum, this resulted in publicity for the campaign for

Vietnamese independence. Ho soon joined the ranks of the

Socialist Party, believing, as he later recalled, that its members

“had shown their sympathy toward me, toward the struggle of

the oppressed peoples.”32 Socialism appeared to be in keeping

with Confucian ideals, because of its emphasis on community


and equality of both condition and opportunity. Soon, after

hearing discussion of Vladimir Lenin’s “Theses on the National

and Colonial Questions,” Ho moved further leftward. Lenin

seemed to be urging western communists to link up with

nationalist movements in Asia and Africa.

A series of articles by Ho began appearing in left-wing publi-

cations in Paris. He denounced the educational system that the

French had instituted in Vietnam, which had resulted in only a

few Vietnamese being exposed to Western ideas. He began craft-

ing a manuscript, Les opprimés, or “The Oppressed,” which con-

demned French policies in Southeast Asia. Police agents took

hold of the manuscript, although the same theme, with a

harsher Marxist quality, would appear in Ho’s 1925 book, Le

procès de la colonisation française, or French Colonialism on Trial.

His movement in a more radical direction led to Ho’s estrange-

ment from his mentor, Phan Chu Trinh. By late 1920, Ho had

called for the French Socialist Party to join the Communist

International (Comintern). Ho now became a founding mem-

ber of the French Communist Party, but he soon criticized oth-

ers in the new organization for failing to support revolution in

the colonial world.

The people of Asia in particular, Ho believed, would gravitate

toward communism. They recognized that wholesale reform of

their societies was necessary and had historic ties to community

concerns and the idea of social equality. A full quarter of

Vietnamese farmlands, for example, remained communal. By con-

trast, Ho debunked the very notion of the supposed superiority of

French civilization. Rather than liberty, equality, and fraternity, the

French afforded the Vietnamese humiliation and subjugation.

Ho continued to write articles condemning French colonial-

ism and urging social revolution, and he remained involved in

organizational work in radical circles. In 1922, he established a

new journal, titled Le Paria or The Pariah, which sought to reach

out to colonial people throughout the French empire. In the

summer of 1923, Ho went to Moscow, where he criticized his fel-

low communists for failing to focus on colonial concerns. He


served as a delegate representing Southeast Asia when the

International Peasant Conference was held in Moscow in October

of that year. By December, he had enrolled in classes at the

Communist University of the Toilers of the East.

Increasingly well regarded inside the communist movement,

Ho encountered several Chinese communists, including Zhou

Enlai, along with Jiang Jieshi (often called Chiang Kai-shek),

then acting as military adviser to Sun Yat-sen. At international

conferences, Ho continued to warn those in attendance not to

ignore “the fate of the oppressed peoples of the colonies.”33 Soon

serving as an agent of the Comintern, Ho undertook another

round of travels that took him back to China. He landed in

Canton in November 1924.

In the period just ahead, Ho, even more than before, began to

supplant Phan Boi Chau and Phan Chu Trinh as the most

prominent Vietnamese nationalist who could contest the arbi-

trary borders that the French had imposed in Indochina. In

1925, Phan Boi Chau faced charges of sedition in Shanghai.

French agents extradited him to Hanoi, where he was convicted

of sedition and then placed under house arrest until his death in

1940. Phan Chu Trinh returned to Vietnam in 1925 but died the

following year. The passing of these two great leaders ensured a

further weakening of the scholar-gentry class. In Vietnam, the

impact of the war and Western ideals helped lead to the growth

of an urban middle class, with a group of young intellectuals

troubled by French colonialism. Bui Quang Chieu helped estab-

lish the Constitutionalist Party, and Nguyen An Ninh set up a

journal, La Cloche Felée (The Cracked Bell), which demanded

even greater reforms.

In the meantime, Ho continued his journeys and set up the

secret Quoc Dan Dang Dong Duong, or Indochinese Nationalist

Party, in February 1925. He also linked up with the Tam Tam Xa,

a radical group that he hoped to convert into a Marxist-Leninist

organization. Ho was instrumental in establishing the Hoi Viet

Nam Cach Mang Thang Nien, or Vietnamese Revolutionary

Youth League, which championed both nationalism and social


revolution. Within two years, he was a well-regarded figure in

revolutionary circles in Canton, but he departed in 1927 as word

arrived of his impending arrest by forces associated with Jiang

Jieshi, now engaged in a bloody civil war with the communists.

In November 1927, Ho received instructions to return to Paris

to help his French comrades establish a program to assist revo-

lutionaries in Southeast Asia. Concerns that the French police

were searching for him perhaps led to the decision for Ho to

head back to Asia. In mid-1928, he traveled to Siam, which was

home to a large number of Vietnamese nationals and a branch

of the Revolutionary Youth League. Sometime in late 1929, Ho,

often in disguise at this point, got word that a court in Vinh had

condemned him to death in absentia for conspiring to provoke a

rebellion in central Vietnam.

Competitors in the Vietnamese nationalist camp continued to

surface, including those who joined the Viet Nam Quoc Dan

Dang (VNQDD, or Vietnamese Nationalist Party), in late 1927.

All the while, divisions developed within the ranks of the

Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth League; some demanded that

the fight for national independence take precedence over the

quest for social revolution and others argued to the contrary. By

the end of the 1920s, three competing communist organizations

had appeared; Ho attempted to merge the parties. In early 1930,

he called for the establishment of the Vietnamese Communist

Party (VCP), urging that both workers and peasants lead the

revolutionary struggle, something that doctrinaire communists

(those who concentrated more on putting the theory into prac-

tice than on the practical difficulties involved) opposed. Ho also

helped set up new communist parties in Siam and Malaya.

As he did so, the revolutionary movement in Vietnam suf-

fered severe blows after failed uprisings sparked by the

VNQDD took place. Nevertheless, labor unrest occurred on

plantations and in factories alike, with communist activists

involved in the campaign in central Vietnam. Peasant coun-

cils called “soviets” appeared; they declared debts and taxes

void, demanded a reduction of land rents, and confiscated


communal lands. Some even more zealous peasants took over

estates and assassinated landlords.

In October 1930, communist delegates called for an “anti-

imperialist united front,” declaring that the poor and the middle

class would line up with Vietnamese workers. They also changed

the name of the VCP, now referring to it as the Indochinese

Communist Party (Dan Cong San Dong Duong, or ICP). The

intention undoubtedly was to emphasize the class struggle more

than the fight for national independence, which was not to Ho

Chi Minh’s liking. In contrast, he was pleased with the call for a

united front, which allowed for reaching out to various classes of

Vietnamese. Less encouraging was the news about the more vio-

lent treatment the insurgency received from the French. Also

troubling to Ho were the terrorist strikes undertaken against the

French or their supposed collaborators.

Nevertheless, Ho attempted to draw attention to the plight of

his countrymen in Vietnam, and he became frustrated about his

inability to do more for them. The toll of French repression of

activists in Vietnam was heavy, with a reported 2,000 killed by

the spring of 1931 and another 51,000 detained. In June, Ho

himself was arrested by British police in Hong Kong, and French

authorities demanded that he be turned over to them. After a

year in captivity, however, the British released him, after he

promised to leave Hong Kong. In January 1933, immigration

officials in Singapore grabbed Ho and returned him to the

British colony. Once again, he was released, having agreed to

leave Hong Kong within three days.

Over the next several months, Ho spent time in Shanghai

before heading back to Moscow in the spring of 1934. Somehow

he avoided the dragnet initiated by Soviet Premier Joseph

Stalin’s regime that proved so devastating to many communists,

both Russian-born and foreigners like Ho. That same period was

a difficult one for party activists throughout Vietnam, who

endured police surveillance and lack of public interest.

Ho attended the Seventh Congress of the Communist

International held in Moscow in mid-1935, when a new party


line was adopted. Now communists were urged to support

Popular Front alliances with liberals and noncommunist radicals

and to back anti-imperialist fronts that warned against the

threat posed by Nazi Germany and Japan. Little is known about

Ho’s activities during much of this period, although he did

enroll at the Institute for the Study of the National and Colonial

Questions. He also helped translate Karl Marx and Friedrich

Engels’ The Communist Manifesto and Lenin’s Leftism: An

Infantile Disorder into Vietnamese. In September 1938, he finally

left the Soviet Union and headed for China.

That country was facing an onslaught from the Japanese, who

had occupied Manchuria as early as 1931 and had initiated a

wholesale assault against the Chinese mainland in 1937.

Desperate circumstances compelled Jiang Jieshi to seek a new

alliance with the communists, who were still in their Popular

Front phase. Now, Ho discovered more about recent develop-

ments in Vietnam, where similar united front efforts had

enabled the Indochinese Communist Party to acquire a certain

respectability. Party membership had mushroomed, and new

figures, including Vo Nguyen Giap and Truong Chinh, had

achieved recognition. Operating out of south China, Ho pro-

duced editorials for the Notre Voix, a French-language

Vietnamese newspaper that the Indochinese Communist Party

put out in Hanoi.

In July 1939, Ho relayed a message to a colleague in Vietnam,

through which he too supported the Popular Front approach.

The Communist Party, Ho wrote, should downplay its demands

for national independence and highlight instead its insistence on

Western-style democratic freedoms. To do otherwise, he feared,

“would be to play into the hands of the Japanese fascists.” What

was needed, Ho insisted, was “a broad National Democratic

Front,” which would include Indochinese and “all progressive

French people” residing in the region.34 This would bring

together workers and members of the middle class, who would

fight to vanquish arbitrary territorial, social, cultural, and eco-

nomic borders that divided the Vietnamese people.


Vietnam at War

5

In August 1939, the foreign ministers of Nazi Germany and

the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact, effectively

bringing the Popular Front to an end and almost immediately

ushering in hostilities in Eastern Europe. After the German

invasion of Poland later in 1939, Great Britain and France

issued declarations of war. In Indochina, the French moved

against the Indochinese Communist Party, arresting such lead-

ers as Nguyen Van Cu and Le Duan. In June 1940, however,

France surrendered to Germany, leading Ho Chi Minh to sug-

gest that “the French defeat represents a very favorable oppor-

tunity for the Vietnamese revolution.” Consequently, he

decided, “We must seek every means to return home to take

advantage of it.”35

During the last months of 1940, Ho called for the establish-

ment of another united front that would bring together

Indochinese patriots who were determined to rid the region of

French colonialism and the arbitrary borders France had estab-

lished in Vietnam. He envisioned the unification of his native

land in a manner that had been impossible since the reign of the

Emperor Tu Duc. Ho suggested that the new organization be

called the Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi, or the League for

the Independence of Vietnam, which came to be referred to as

the Vietminh Front. A Kuomintang military officer, Ho Hoc

Lam, became chair, and Pham Van Dong, already a leading

Vietnamese communist, served as vice chair. Insurgent activity

emerged in both urban and rural sections of Vietnam, only to be

harshly put down by the French. A number of important com-

munist figures were executed.

In early 1941, after three decades in exile, Ho Chi Minh, wear-

ing the attire of a Chinese journalist, finally returned to Vietnam.

The village of Pac Bao served as an operational base and was

where Ho greeted comrades such as Pham Van Dong and Vo

Nguyen Giap. During their discussions, Ho told Giap, “In about

five years the revolution will be victorious and we will have a

bright future. I only want to create one thing—to completely free

our country and provide everyone with the necessities of life.”

47Vietnam at War

When one compatriot asked Ho how they could succeed with-

out arms, he replied,

We must rely on our own force with some outside help. When

the people absorb this beautiful idea of revolution, they will

create the strongest of forces. Everything because of the peo-

ple; everything for the people. People first, guns last. If we

have the people on our side, then we will have guns. If we have

the people, we will have everything.36

These and other communist leaders gathered for a series of

meetings in May and June, at which Ho presided. They decided

that the Indochinese Communist Party should silence the calls

for social revolution and focus on the emancipation of Vietnam

from colonial rule. Party leaders were to support moderate social

reforms and democratic liberties rather than the nationalization

of industries or the collectivization of farming lands. To support

the nationalist struggle, the party leaders sought support from

Vietnamese across the social spectrum, including peasants,

workers, soldiers, intellectuals, and even sympathetic merchants.

Ho wrote a letter intended for a wide audience across Vietnam:

National salvation is the common cause of our entire people.

Every Vietnamese must take part in it.... The hour has struck.

Raise aloft the banner of insurrection and lead the people

throughout the country to overthrow the Japanese and the

French. The sacred call of the fatherland is resounding in our

ears, the ardent blood of our heroic predecessors is seething

in our hearts.37

Thus, Ho pointed to another problem confronting Vietnamese

nationalists: the movement of Japanese troops into Vietnam.

This had occurred in Tonkin shortly after the establishment of

the Vichy government in France, which collaborated with the

German takeover. In July 1941, only days after the German army

invaded the Soviet Union, Japanese forces headed into Annam

and Cochinchina as well. The Japanese invasion, which was wel-

comed by some Vietnamese who thought it foreshadowed an


expulsion of the French, proved at least as equally brutal as that

by the European occupier. Several Vietnamese who were mem-

bers of two religious sects, the Cao Dai and the Hoa Hao, at first

looked favorably on the Japanese move into Vietnam. Eventually,

that enthusiasm waned, along with the sense that the Japanese

truly believed in pan-Asian nationalism. Nevertheless, the

Japanese thrust was important, because it helped to dispel

notions regarding Western supremacy. Ho Chi Minh viewed the

Japanese no more favorably than he did the French. He warned

that counting on Japanese troops to fight French bureaucrats

could be likened to hunting for “the tiger only to be eaten by the

wolves.”38

Japanese and French forces both sought to quash radical

nationalists in Vietnam, resulting in the need for sanctuaries

49Vietnam at War

Ho Chi Minh spent many years fighting for Vietnamese independence. He is seen

here saddling a mule for a mission against the French in 1954.

across the northern border in China. The Japanese involvement

also produced the first signs of American military engagement

in Vietnam. The Flying Tigers of General Claire L. Chennault,

who served as a military adviser to Jiang Jieshi, began targeting

Japanese airbases in northern Vietnam by early 1942. President

Roosevelt had other interests in mind regarding Southeast Asia,

believing that European-style imperialism, particularly the kind

practiced in French Indochina, should come to an end.

Even before the United States entered the war, Roosevelt had

joined with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in issuing

the Atlantic Charter, patterned after Woodrow Wilson’s vision of

his own nation as peace keeper. From Roosevelt’s vantage point,

this was designed to counter isolationism in the United States

and to place England on record as committed to basic American

ideals, including open diplomacy, national self-determination,

and unrestricted trade. The Atlantic Charter as a whole appeared

to encompass the idealistic tenets associated with Woodrow

Wilson’s Fourteen Points and Roosevelt’s own “Four Freedoms,”

propounded in January 1941. Roosevelt frequently expressed his

opposition to the restoration of French colonialism in

Indochina, something he believed the people of the region also

opposed. The French, he said, had been in Indochina for more

than a century without bettering the situation for the people there.

By 1943, Roosevelt had informed his son Elliot that he would

strenuously oppose any plan to advance French imperialism.

Roosevelt soon envisioned an international trusteeship for

Indochina being established after the war. After all, as he saw it,

“France has had the country—30 million inhabitants—for nearly

one hundred years, and the people are worse off than they were at

the beginning.... France has milked it for one hundred years. The

people of Indochina are entitled to something better than that.”39

Both Churchill and Charles de Gaulle, who headed the Free

French government-in-exile that was based in London during the

war, however, opposed Roosevelt’s call for decolonization.

Eventually, Roosevelt turned to Jiang Jieshi, wondering if he

would care to rule over postwar Indochina. Fully cognizant of


the Vietnamese antipathy to colonialism, Jiang declined the

offer, declaring that his southern neighbors were “not Chinese.

They would not assimilate into the Chinese people.”40 Roosevelt

then called for a trusteeship that would remain in place until the

people of Indochina were prepared for independence, possibly

after two or three decades.

The historian George Moss affirms that Roosevelt remained

“anticolonialist to the core, an antiimperialist ideologue” who

“especially wanted to see Vietnam free of the burden of French

colonialism.”41 Other well-regarded scholars, however, includ-

ing journalist Stanley Karnow and historian Robert D.

Schulzinger note that on January 1, 1945, Roosevelt informed

Secretary of State Edward R. Stenninus,“I still do not want to get

mixed up in any military effort toward the liberation of

Indochina from the Japanese.... From both the military and

civilian points of view, action at this time is premature.”42

* * * * *

During World War II, many American operatives in the field

came to appreciate the guerrilla forces associated with Ho Chi

Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap, who became the leading military

strategist for the Vietminh fighters. Seeking international back-

ing for the independence struggle, Ho and another communist

leader, Le Quang Ba, had returned to China in August 1942. The

former now held a card identifying him as a Chinese reporter

named Ho Chi Minh. Chinese police, concerned that the two

might be Japanese agents, arrested them. A military court

decided that Ho was a political prisoner after he acknowledged

being involving with the Communist movement in Southeast

Asia. Over the span of one five-month period alone, Ho was held

in 18 prisons in districts throughout southern China while a

leading Chinese general called for his execution. Hopes that Ho

could revitalize the flagging Vietnamese nationalist movement

based in southern China led to his release in September 1943.

Ho became immersed in the activities of the Vietnamese

51Vietnam at War

THE VIETMINHThe Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi, or the League for the Independence ofVietnam, provided an organizational apparatus to battle French colonialism,Japanese occupation during World War II, and the arbitrary borders Francehad previously devised for Vietnam. In May 1941, the Eighth Plenum of theIndo-Chinese Communist Party established the League, whose membersbecame known as the Vietminh. Headed by prominent communists such asHo Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap, the Vietminh nevertheless adopted a front-like posture to attract Vietnamese nationalists of all types. Moreover, theCommunist Party deliberately downplayed the call for social revolution,emphasizing instead the need for all Vietnamese to battle against colonialoppression.

The Vietminh adopted a strategy of guerrilla warfare, conducting insurgentstrikes in both rural and urban sections of Vietnam. In August 1945, theVietminh helped spark the August Revolution, which resulted in the procla-mation of Vietnamese independence and the establishment of theDemocratic Republic of Vietnam.

From 1946 to 1954, the Vietminh fought against the French, a conflict thatconcluded with one of the century’s most important battles, which occurredat Dienbienphu. After the Geneva Accords of 1954, the Vietminh heeded callsto lay down their arms, which resulted in the capture and execution of manyby soldiers and government agents associated with Ngo Dinh Diem’s regimein South Vietnam. Nevertheless, Vietminh veterans began to urge peasants totake land from the gentry throughout the Mekong Delta area and the rest ofthe territory in Vietnam situated south of the 17th parallel.

Eventually, Vietminh forces would be reconstituted as members of theNational Liberation Front once another guerrilla war—this one—wagedagainst Diem and his American backers, broke out. That war continued the fightto overcome arbitrary borders, both long-standing and new, afflicting Vietnam.


Revolutionary League, known as the Viet Nam Cach Mihn Dong

Minh Hoi. He also sought to befriend American officers operat-

ing in Liuzhou on behalf of the Office of War Information. By

August 1944, Chinese General Zhang Fakui had decided that Ho

could best lead the fight against the Japanese in Vietnam.

While Ho was away in China, his colleagues in Vietnam sought

to build bases for the revolutionary struggle, particularly in the

north; they also attempted to revitalize their cadre in the central

and southern parts of the country. In July 1944, Vo Nguyen Giap

called for guerrilla insurrections that would lead to the libera-

tion of various territories. Other communist leaders worried

about a possible French counteroffensive. They also questioned

whether guerrilla fighters could battle against both the French

and the Japanese. When Ho returned from China, he argued that

a wholesale insurrection at present could prove disastrous. “The

phase of peaceful revolution has passed,” he acknowledged, “but

the hour of the general insurrection has not yet sounded.”43 He

rejected Giap’s call for the establishment of a people’s liberation

army, but Ho agreed that the first stages toward creating such a

military force should be undertaken. In late December, the

Vietnamese Liberation Army began to emerge.

By that point, Ho and the Vietminh had begun to develop

something of a sort of relationship with American operatives.

This followed the rescue of a downed American pilot,

Lieutenant Rudolph Shaw, who been forced to parachute near

the border separating Vietnam from its formidable northern

neighbor. Vietminh forces handed Shaw over to Ho, who

greeted him warmly and agreed to help the American officer

reach the Chinese border. The two men traveled together to

Kunming, where the U.S. 14th Air Force was headquartered. As

they traveled, the Japanese carried out a coup in early March,

resulting in the expulsion of the French regime. Ho informed

his new American allies about the Japanese grab for power:

“The French imperialist wolf was finally devoured by the

Japanese fascist hyena.”44

Ho met up with Charles Fenn, a Marine lieutenant, who

reported that the Vietminh leader desired “only recognition of

his group,” in addition to “arms and medicines,” in return for

helping gather intelligence information about Japanese move-

ments in the region.45 Fenn set up a meeting with Ho for

General Chennault, who thanked him for helping rescue

53Vietnam at War

Lieutenant Shaw. Then, in Paise, located in Guangxi province, Ho

encountered another American intelligence officer, Archimedes

Patti, of the Office of Strategic Services (the OSS: the precursor to

the CIA), who was ready to work with the Vietminh.

Ho agreed to track Japanese troop movements, to help any

downed American pilots or escaped prisoners of war, and to

provide guerrilla fighters who would assist on sabotage mis-

sions. The OSS promised to deliver radios, several thousand

guns, and ammunition to the Vietminh. French intelligence

agents in Kunming had spoken critically about Ho, calling him

“fearless, sly, clever, powerful, deceptive, ruthless—and

deadly.”46 The Americans, however, were impressed with Ho’s

intelligence apparatus and his guerrilla forces, with one OSS

member declaring, “They had an uncanny ability to learn and

adapt. They learned to pull a rifle apart and put it together again

after being shown only a couple of times.”47

Under Ho and Giap’s guidance, the Vietminh battled the

Japanese during the occupation; this enabled the Vietminh to

align with American intelligence operatives. At that point, as ear-

lier, both Ho and Giap remained adverse to foreign control and

attempts to establish arbitrary boundaries that violated

Vietnamese autonomy. They were committed to the unification

of Vietnam with single-minded devotion; meanwhile, they

watched as their nation experienced a terrible famine that took

the lives of one million peasants. Although apparently willing to

temporarily defer the drive for social transformation until the

end of the war, the two leaders continued to stand as ideologi-

cally rooted revolutionaries seeking to prevent artificial borders

from crippling their nation.


The FrenchIndochina War

6

When the Japanese took control of Vietnam in early 1945,

they arrested French officials and set up a government led

by the Emperor Bao Dai. On March 11, Bao Dai proclaimed an

end to Vietnam’s protectorate status within the French empire,

but at the same time, Vietnam was compelled to accept Japanese

hegemony. This helped discredit Bao Dai’s regime and enabled the

Vietminh to expand their operations. Once again, the weakening

of French rule further dampened beliefs about Western invinci-

bility. It would likewise help challenge the supposedly sacrosanct

nature of the arbitrary borders French officials had constructed

for Vietnam.

The Vietminh, led by General Giap, took control of half a dozen

provinces in Tonkin, making inroads into cities as well as the

countryside. In areas they dominated, the Vietminh abolished

taxes, reduced rents, and redistributed estates held by French

landowners. They also helped mitigate the impact of the famine

that had crippled Vietnam in 1944, resulting in the death of as

many as one million peasants. The Vietminh took control of

local granaries and passed out rice to alleviate the distress. They

also engaged in guerrilla strikes against both the Japanese and

the French, while resorting to terror to intimate and silence

political opponents.

By August 1945, Japanese forces had surrendered to the

Vietminh. Large gatherings occurred in Hanoi, Saigon, and

other major urban centers throughout Vietnam to demonstrate

support for Ho Chi Minh’s cadres (core groups of supporters).

Virtually unopposed, the Vietminh swept into both district and

provincial capitals and established the Provisional Government

of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, which was headquar-

tered in Hanoi. When speaking to a gathered throng in that city

on September 2, Ho drew from the American Declaration of

Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man

and the Citizen in proclaiming, “All men are created equal. They

are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights;

among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Ho

also requested backing from “the Allied nations, which ... have


General Vo Nguyen Giap was a talented Vietminh leader who turned a largely dis-

organized collection of guerrilla fighters into an army powerful enough to defeat

the French.

acknowledged the principles of self-determination and equality

of nations.”48

As it turned out, however, the Vietnamese path to independ-

ence and the overcoming of arbitrary borders associated with

colonialism would not proceed easily. Instead, the French, soon

supported by the United States, proved determined to reestab-

lish colonial rule.

57The French Indochina War

The death of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in

April 1945 led to the presidency of Harry S. Truman, who had to

contend with the rapidly deteriorating relationship between the

United States and the Soviet Union. Before World War II even

ended, the seeds for another conflict, the Cold War, as it came to

be called, existed. In the postwar period, the battleground

included not only war-torn Europe but also much of the colo-

nial world, such as Southeast Asia. American officials, including

Truman, did not completely understand the complexity of the

situation in Indochina. Moreover, the new American president

informed Charles de Gaulle, the head of the Free French forces

during World War II, the United States would not contest

France’s dominance of the region.

In the meantime, Truman, meeting with the other Allied lead-

ers in Potsdam, Germany, in late July, indicated that the tempo-

rary division of both Korea and Vietnam would soon follow.

This seemed natural to Truman, subsequent to the earlier deci-

sion to establish occupied zones in Germany after it was defeated

by Allied Powers—the United States, Britain, liberated France,

Soviet Union, and China—in World War II. Berlin itself had

been divided into four sectors placed under military occupation.

The partition of Vietnam would supposedly ensure the dis-

arming of the Japanese and was to take place at the 16th paral-

lel, situated between Danang and Hoi An in the central section

of Vietnam. In the northern sector, 200,000 of Jiang Jieshi’s

Nationalist soldiers, under the command of General Lu Han,

took control of the surrendered Japanese troops, and in

Vietnam’s southern half, 20,000 British troops led by General

Douglas D. Gracey were in charge. No decision was made about

the future of Vietnam, which played into the hands of French

colonialists. Desiring American support, Ho informed an OSS

agent that he would be pleased by the appearance of a million

American soldiers, but not any French ones.

Shortly after Ho Chi Minh issued his Declaration of

Independence, General Gracey called for the French to reassert

civil and military control. Using American weapons, French


soldiers ousted the Vietminh government that had been estab-

lished in Saigon. After Vietminh fighters slaughtered 150 peo-

ple in a French suburb of the city, Gracey, in an astonishing turn

of events, placed arms in the hands of the Japanese, who were

now called on to help suppress Giap’s forces. The situation in the

north was not much better for the Vietminh, who were also

driven out of power in Hanoi.

The first American casualty of the conflict in Vietnam was

OSS agent A. Peter Dewey, who had worked closely with Ho. Not

permitted by Gracey to display the American flag on his jeep,

Dewey drove to the Tan Son Nhut air base in Saigon in late

September. Recently, Dewey had affirmed, “Cochinchina is

burning, the French and British are finished here, and we ought

to clear out of Southeast Asia.”49 Vietminh forces shot at

Dewey’s jeep, killing him.

By the end of the year, British and Indian troops departed

from southern Vietnam and were replaced by American-backed

French forces. In the north, the Chinese also agreed to leave and

were also supplanted by the French. Both Ho and General

Jacques Philippe Leclerc, who now guided French operations in

Vietnam, sought a compromise. In a prophetic statement,

Leclerc warned, “Fighting the Viet Minh will be like ridding a

dog of its fleas. We can pick them, drown them, and poison

them, but they will be back in a few days.” Subsequently, he

affirmed that his nation could not “control by arms an entity of

24 million people.”50 General Douglas MacArthur, of the U.S.

army, also expressed concerns about developments in

Indochina: “If there is anything that makes my blood boil, it is to

see our allies in Indochina deploying Japanese troops to recon-

quer the little people we promised to liberate.”51

Ho again attempted to reach out to the United States, sending

a lengthy letter to President Truman on February 16, 1946. He

insisted that the French possessed no legitimate claim to

Indochina and called on the United States to intervene in the

region. Shortly thereafter, in early March 1946, French and

Vietminh representatives produced accords that resulted in


France’s recognition of Ho’s free state inside the French Union;

this attempt to produce a different kind of artificial division of

Vietnam did not please many of Ho’s compatriots, who contin-

ued to insist that a unified Vietnam should replace French colo-

nialism. Nevertheless, free elections were planned, which were to

decide the fate of Cochinchina.

As a matter of strategy, however, Ho acceded to the demand

that 25,000 French soldiers replace Chinese operatives in the sec-

tion north of the 16th parallel. When criticized by compatriots

about this decision, Ho exclaimed,

You fools! Don’t you realize what it means if the Chinese

remain? Don’t you remember your history? The last time the

Chinese came, they stayed a thousand years. The French are

foreigners. They are weak. Colonialism is dying. The white

man is finished in Asia. But if the Chinese stay now, they will

never go.52

As Ho traveled to France to finalize the agreement, however,

the recently appointed commissioner for Indochina, Georges

Thierry d’Argenlieu, proclaimed the establishment of the

Republic of Cochinchina, with its rich rice-bearing deltas. Once

again, the French sought to splinter Vietnam while ensuring that

the most fertile land remained under their control. Ho unsuc-

cessfully pressed his case for Vietnamese independence with

both French and American officials. Before returning home, he

agreed to a call for a referendum that was to take place in

Cochinchina the following year to decide the matter of unifica-

tion. Before his departure, Ho warned French Prime Minister

Georges Bidault, “If we must fight, we will fight. You will kill ten

of our men, and we will kill one of yours. But you will be the

ones to end up exhausted.” At the same time, Ho worried that he

had given up too much and had “signed my death warrant.”53

By November, the level of violence in Vietnam had mounted

once again. Angered by the killing of three French soldiers in

Hanoi, the French struck back, shelling much of Haiphong,

which resulted in the death of 6,000 and the wounding of


another 25,000. In mid-December, French troops marched into

Hanoi to demand that the Vietminh disarm. Instead, General

Giap called for a campaign of national resistance. Guerrilla

attacks followed, including the bombing of the power plant in

Hanoi, mines exploding in that city’s streets, and the assassina-

tion of several French officials.

The Vietminh under Ho and Giap resorted to guerrilla strate-

gies, retreating into the countryside and mountains in northern

Vietnam. At first, they deliberately avoided set battles with the

better armed and more numerous French forces, instead engag-

ing in political agitation in villages throughout Vietnam. Next,

they planned to build up their own units until they equaled


In December 1946, French troops came into Hanoi demanding that the Vietminh disarm.

They took up positions on rooftop perches where they could train their machine guns down

onto the street. This photo from January 1947 shows troops from the French Indochinese

Union Army in one such location.

those of their foes. Finally, the Vietminh envisioned a general

offensive that would force the French to leave Vietnam. Once

more, the Vietnamese anticipated protracted war, which they

had already waged against the Chinese and the French.

* * * * *

At the outset of the French Indochina War, the French

remained dominant in Cochinchina, and they soon controlled

the largest municipalities in both central and northern Vietnam;

these also represented borders to a great extent. In the country-

side, however, the Vietminh often seemed to be in control, and

they received considerable backing from the peasants. A major

offensive conducted by the French in late 1947 nearly resulted in

the capture of Ho and other Vietminh leaders and caused an

estimated 10,000 casualties among the Vietminh, along with the

abandonment of sanctuaries in Tonkin.

The next year, the Vietminh, relying on both guerrilla tactics

and quick strikes against French troops, won back control of the

territory lost in 1947 and strengthened their grip over the terri-

tory they held in Cochinchina; thus, the Vietminh continued to

attack the arbitrary borders linked with French imperialism.

With the Vietminh holding the upper hand in more than half of

the villages throughout Vietnam, the French worried about

being mired in a war that could be compared to quicksand. The

French also sought a political solution to the dilemma by estab-

lishing a government headed by the former Emperor Bao Dai.

However, noncommunist forces proved unable to avoid the

political squabbles that had divided them in the past, and Bao

Dai’s government was dismissed by many Vietnamese as a “pup-

pet” regime. Nevertheless, in 1949, France declared that Vietnam

was an associated state inside the French Union, thus supposedly

giving independence to the State of Vietnam.

During this period, as the Cold War unfolded in Europe and

elsewhere, the United States sided even more strongly with the

French in their fight against the Vietminh. The U.S. State


Department expressed increasing concerns about Ho’s avowed

communist affiliation. At the same time, certain conflicts existed

regarding the United States’ support of the restoration of colo-

nial rule in Indochina. The American embassy in Paris received

a cable in early 1947 declaring that nineteenth-century–styled

empires were quickly becoming antiquated. The American con-

sul in Saigon, Charles Reed, soon affirmed that “something must

be done to bring home to the French that times have changed

and that the natives have the right to more than a semblance of

independence.” Yet Reed worried if Ho’s “totalitarian” regime

would relinquish control over Annam or Cochinchina.54

Still, the United States, as Secretary of State George C. Marshall

indicated, possessed no interest in seeing “colonial empires and

administrations supplanted by philosophies and political organi-

zations emanating from and controlled by the Kremlin [the Soviet

government].”55 A State Department document from September

1948 acknowledged the “unpleasant fact” that Ho stood as the

“strongest and perhaps the ablest figure in Indochina.” Moreover,

“any suggested solution which excludes him is an expedient of

uncertain outcome.”56 In addition, American diplomats seemed to

agree that “the French are no longer capable of carrying on the war

in Indochina.” They heard warnings that “all independence move-

ment leaders can take courage from the fact that ... no matter how

large and well equipped an Army is, it can be worn down by stub-

born resistance.”57

For a time, the State Department proved unable to demon-

strate that “a Moscow-directed conspiracy” existed in

Indochina.58 As Cold War tensions heated up through 1949, that

kind of carefully drawn evaluation began to be discarded.

Secretary of State Dean Acheson pointedly denounced Ho as an

“outright Commie” who had refused to disassociate himself

from a “Moscow connection and Commie doctrine.”59 Various

State Department experts nevertheless continued to acknowl-

edge the potency of “militant nationalism” in Asia and worried

that the United States’ ties to outmoded European colonialism

could prove discrediting.60


In 1949, Cold War stances solidified. A Soviet blockade of

Berlin that had begun a year earlier remained in place for several

months, and reports spread that the Russians had detonated an

atomic bomb. Furthermore, the Chinese communists under

Mao Zedong came to power. Now China began to supply the

Vietminh with automatic weapons, bombs, and trucks. In the

United States, Cold War tensions, which had resulted in a

domestic red scare (fear of radicals, particularly communists),

heightened. The Truman administration had already subscribed

to the policy of containment urged by State Department analyst

George Kennan, which called for the United States to be always

on guard against potential encroachments by the Soviet Union.

Kennan argued that this required a willingness to act against

both military forces that attacked another country and “subver-

sives” who sought to infiltrate from within.

Increasingly, the battle in Vietnam came to be viewed through

the Cold War lens. That was particularly true as the 1950s began

to unfold. In January 1950, both China and the Soviet Union

extended formal recognition to Ho’s Democratic Republic of

Vietnam. The following month, the United States did the same

for Bao Dai’s government, although various figures warned

against doing so. In this way, both sides in the Cold War struggle

continued to maintain a belief in the arbitrary borders that char-

acterized Vietnam. Raymond B. Fosdick of the State Department

feared that Bao Dai’s regime was “doomed” and asserted that

“whether the French like it or not, independence is coming to

Indochina.” Why, he asked, “do we tie ourselves to the tail of

their battered kite?”61 Nevertheless, in March, President Truman

approved sending $15 million to assist the French war effort.

The level of support intensified greatly after the outbreak of the

Korean War in late June.

Another reason the United States chose to provide increased

assistance was the deteriorating French position in Indochina.

Beginning in September 1950, General Giap attacked French

military stations near the Chinese frontier, resulting in a heavy

loss of men and arms for the French. In January, Giap attempted


to seize the offensive, sending “human waves” at French posts

near Vinh Yen, a mere 25 miles outside Hanoi. Now the

Vietminh casualties became considerable, although the French,

who relied on napalm (a jellied gasoline) and howitzers (a type

of cannon) provided by the United States, suffered more losses

of their own. Two attacks carried out in the northern country-

side that spring were equally disastrous for Giap’s forces, causing

Giap to return to a guerrilla strategy.

The French then began building a series of forts—known as

the de Lattre Line, after General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, the

new commander of French forces in Indochina—throughout

the Red River Delta. Meanwhile, France requested and received

more American military assistance. Much of the war matériel,

however, ended up in the hands of the enemy. Fearing that a

French defeat was impending, American policymakers began

discussing what options the United States should consider. With

American forces bogged down in Korea, the Joint Chiefs of Staff

argued against becoming involved in another land war in Asia.

Still, President Truman refused to accept the possibility of a

communist victory in Indochina and began readying a plan to

bomb Chinese cities and conduct a naval blockade if China sent

troops into Vietnam as it had in Korea. The growing recognition

that the Korean conflict might result in a return to the 38th par-

allel undoubtedly influenced administration officials regarding

Vietnam, including a willingness to accept communist control in

the nation’s northern sector as long as a noncommunist regime

would be established in the South.

In October 1952, the French amassed 30,000 soldiers and

numerous tanks and airplanes, hoping to batter Vietminh forces

situated in jungle terrain northwest of Hanoi. After a matter of

weeks, however, the French were forced to head back to the Red

River Valley. In January 1953, a new administration, led by

Dwight David Eisenhower, the World War II hero, came to

power in Washington, D.C. Like Truman and Acheson had

been, Eisenhower and his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles,

were determined to prevent a communist takeover in Vietnam.


The French, it was clear, were demonstrating increasing war

weariness. With casualties mounting, support for the war effort

continued to decrease in France itself. As the Korean War came

to a close in July 1953, the Eisenhower administration, like its

predecessor, worried about the possibility of Chinese interven-

tion. Dulles suggested that nuclear bombs be dropped on China

if such an event were to occur. In the meantime, the Vietminh

remained a formidable force; journalist Theodore White con-

tended that Giap’s army had “become a modern army, increas-

ingly skillful, armed with artillery, organized into divisional

groups.”62

Shortly after the death of General de Lattre, Henri Navarre

became head of the French military campaign in Indochina.

Navarre hoped to prevent defeat by augmenting the Vietnamese

National Army and by sending additional troops to Vietnam. At

the same time, Navarre, who planned to conduct an offensive

against the Vietminh, soon informed French officials that vic-

tory would not likely result. This warning was not delivered to

the United States, which footed the bill more and more for the

French war effort. By 1954, the United States was paying for

nearly 80 percent of that campaign and would eventually cover

$2.6 billion of the $4.0 billion France spent during the war.

Despite that assistance, the position of the Vietminh contin-

ued to improve. On the other hand, the Vietnamese auxiliary

army, made up of 300,000 recruits, proved woefully ineffective,

because many peasant soldiers were not inclined to fight. While

Navarre focused on the Red River Valley, Giap’s forces expanded

their activities in the Tonkin Delta and swept into Laos.

Consequently, Navarre felt compelled to land 3,000 elite para-

chuters in an area near Dienbienphu, a village situated in

Vietnam’s northwestern corner, close to Laos. Navarre’s plan was

to draw Giap into a large-scale battle; Navarre believed that he

could build an impregnable fortress, despite American warnings

to the contrary. Navarre positioned his forces in the flat valley,

which was ringed by high hills.


At the same time, the French began negotiating with the

Vietminh, much to the displeasure of Dulles and Eisenhower.

On March 12, a memo from the Joint Chiefs of Staff indicated

that a negotiated settlement would lead to free elections, which

would result in a communist victory. That, it was believed,

would be followed by other communist successes in the region.

Thus, belief in the domino theory—that if one country fell to

communism, nearby states would probably do so as well—

guided American thinking. Communist Party leaders through-

out Vietnam similarly reasoned that if one region of the country

were liberated, then the likelihood of terminating the arbitrary

borders separating Vietnamese provinces increased. On March

13, the battle of Dienbienphu began in earnest as Vietminh how-

itzers began attacking the French garrison.


Dienbienphu

7

The decision of French military commander Henri Navarre

to concentrate his troops at Dienbienphu, the scene of a

small military base before World War II, proved to be a disas-

trous mistake. Rather than proving invulnerable to attack, as he

had anticipated, the heavily fortified French base at

Dienbienphu, situated in northwestern Tonkin, in a valley sur-

rounded by hills, soon fell under a massive assault by Vietminh

forces. Seeking to draw General Giap into battle, Navarre placed

17 battalions within the main compound. The French general

eventually stationed 12,000 men, who relied heavily on a pair of

nearby airstrips and airbases in Haiphong and Hanoi, at

Dienbienphu. Navarre selected Colonel Christian Marie

Ferdinand de la Croix de Castries to guide the French forces at

Dienbienphu, located only eight miles from the Laotian border

and 170 miles northwest of Hanoi.

Castries relied on a series of defensive perimeters to shield

Dienbienphu from a human wave assault, but little was done to

protect his men from artillery. Ever confident, Castries, in early

January 1954, foresaw “total victory after six months more of

hard fighting.”63 In reality, the crushing defeat soon experienced

by France threatened to bring the arbitrary borders long

imposed on Vietnam to an end.

Certain that he could improve the French position in

Indochina, Navarre initially believed that success was imminent:

“Now we can see it clearly—like light at the end of the tunnel.”

In a more practical vein, Navarre hoped that he had discovered

a “mooring point” that would offer an ideal springboard from

which French forces could remove Vietminh guerrillas from

mountainous areas.64 He sought to ensnare the Vietminh in a

trap, with French soldiers in Tonkin and Cochinchina bearing

down on them. Navarre also wanted to close off the opium

trade, which the Vietminh relied on for money to purchase

arms. At the same time, Navarre anticipated that both Ho and

Giap would be compelled to respond to the challenge he was

posing. The fortress at Dienbienphu, Navarre believed, would

prove sufficiently enticing to attack but would be strong enough

69Dienbienphu

to withstand such an assault. Anticipating air supremacy and an

advantage in artillery, Navarre envisioned raining death on

Vietminh attackers.

Beginning in late 1953, French pilots flying American planes

dropped thousands of elite paratroopers and vast amounts of

war matériel into the area. They joined other combat soldiers and

support personnel; a third of the French Expeditionary Corps

were members of the newly formed National Army of Bao Dai.

Others came from various parts of the French empire, including

Laos, Senegal, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon, and Syria. Also

present were Foreign Legionnaires from Germany, Italy, Spain,

Poland, and Eastern Europe. A small band of Americans was at

Dienbienphu; most of those Americans served as pilots for the

Civil Air Transport Company, which was based in Taiwan. A few

were active duty American military personnel, who, as journalist-

historian Bernard Fall saw it, were seeking to familiarize them-

selves with the area if U.S. air power were needed.

As the French buildup occurred, General Giap moved his

troops into position. Assisting them was an intricate transporta-

tion network involving both coolie (unskilled laborers usually

from the Far East) porters and a rebuilt major road that allowed

the passage of trucks and artillery. Some of the regiments trav-

eled across hundreds of miles of mountain trails. As Giap

reported, “Truck convoys valiantly crossed streams, mountains

and forests; drivers [faced] sleepless nights, to bring goods and

ammunition.” Furthermore, “our troops cut through mountains

and hacked away jungles to build roads and haul our artillery

pieces to the approaches of Dien Bien Phu. Where roads could

not be built, [cannons] were moved by nothing but the sweat and

muscle of our soldiers.”65 Giap could call on a main-force fight-

ing unit of 50,000 men backed by an equal number of support

personnel and assisted by 20,000 to 30,000 Chinese workers,

technicians, advisers, soldiers, and staff officers. The Soviets also

provided trucks, artillery, and financial assistance for Giap’s fight.

Meanwhile, both the Chinese and Soviets encouraged their

Vietminh allies to strive for a political solution to the dilemma


in Indochina. The Chinese heard French Premier Joseph Laniel,

annoyed by Bao Dai’s demand for full independence, proclaim

that his own country had “no reason to prolong its sacrifices if

the very people for whom they are being made disdain these sac-

rifices and betray them.”66 The war-weariness of the French

troubled the Chinese, who feared that a French pullout might

result in American intervention. Chinese Prime Minister Zhou

Enlai recognized that the United States posed a far greater threat

to China than did France. The Chinese therefore warned the

Vietminh to heed French peace efforts. The Soviets also hoped

that the war in Indochina could be resolved peacefully, in order

to curb East–West tensions. The Soviets particularly desired to

establish improved relations with the French, which, they hoped,

would convince France not to join the European Defense

Community, a plan that sought to integrate French and German

military units; that plan, to the dismay of the Soviet Union,

called for the rearming of West Germany. Undoubtedly respond-

ing to pressure from his allies, Ho Chi Minh had declared as

early as November 1953 that he would support the convening of

an international conference to discuss Vietnam.

France also decided that the war in Indochina could be dis-

cussed at such a forum. Plans were afoot to hold such a gather-

ing, which would begin on April 26, 1954 in Geneva, Switzerland.

A Five-Power Conference on Far Eastern Problems, to be

cochaired by Britain and the Soviet Union and includeing France,

China, and the United States, intended to discuss the now lengthy

war in Vietnam. Eisenhower and Dulles recognized that they

could not directly oppose efforts to bring about a peaceful reso-

lution of the French Indochina War. Moreover, in early January

1954, the president conveyed to the National Security Council his

opposition to sending American ground troops to Vietnam. At

the same time, he likened Southeast Asia to a “leaky dike” and

acknowledged that it was “sometimes better to put a finger in

than to let the whole structure wash away.”67

As the enemy buildup continued, Navarre received warnings

that the French position at Dienbienphu was not as impregnable

71Dienbienphu

as he had anticipated. Intelligence reports indicated that large

numbers of Vietminh were gathering near the fortress, and

Navarre had already been informed that the continued resup-

plying of the French forces was inadequate. On February 25,

1954, the French chief of air staff attempted to convince Navarre

that the fortress should be evacuated. On the other side, Giap

ignored the call by Chinese advisers to initiate massive human

wave assaults. Instead, he adopted what he considered the “fun-

damental principle of the conduct of a revolutionary war: strike

to win, strike only when success is certain; if it is not, then don’t

strike.”68 Giap also planned to surround the French defenders in

a viselike grip of his own, penetrating ever deeper until an over-

whelming final assault would occur.

* * * * *

To further weaken the French position and undoubtedly in

something of a diversionary move, Giap conducted strikes in Lai

Chau province, Laos, and Dak To in Kon Tum province. This

compelled the French to send troops from the Red River Delta to

both Laos and the western highlands. Giap’s soldiers also wiped

out 78 French planes at airfields in Hanoi and attacked enemy

posts across Cochinchina, even attacking French ships in

Saigon’s harbor. Then, sometime between March 10 and 12,

both ground action and the initial shelling of one of the French

airstrips at Dienbienphu began. At 5:00 P.M. on March 13, Giap’s

larger artillery shells began falling on Him Lam Hill at

Dienbienphu, to the dismay and surprise of the French forces.

By boring into trenches, the Vietminh avoided much of the

French artillery fire and edged ever closer to the fortress. There

was fierce fighting for hilltops, with some taken and then battled

over again and again. French bunkers and trenches collapsed,

and Thai tribesmen defected to the Vietminh.

On March 26, General Paul Ely, the French chief of staff,

informed President Eisenhower, Secretary of State Dulles, and


Admiral Arthur Radford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,

that Dienbienphu might soon be lost. At the battle site, the fight-

ing sometimes involved brutal hand-to-hand combat. In the

United States, American officials increasingly drew on the

domino theory. In a public address on March 29, Secretary of

State Dulles spoke about “The Threat of a Red Asia.” He declared,

73Dienbienphu

As the Vietminh bombarded the French defenses at Dienbienphu, the besieged

troops were desperate for reinforcements. In an attempt to help the French

forces, these paratroopers were dropped at Dienbienphu in March 1954.

Southeast Asia is astride the most direct and best developed

sea and air route between the Pacific and South Asia. It has

major naval and air bases. Communist control of Southeast

Asia would carry a grave threat to the Philippines, Australia

and New Zealand.... The entire Western Pacific area, includ-

ing the so-called “offshore island chain,” would be strategi-

cally endangered.69

Dulles pushed for something called “United Action,” a coali-

tion made up of the United States, Great Britain, France,

Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, and the

Associated States of Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia),

to provide a defense shield for the region. President Eisenhower

announced that he could foresee no larger tragedy than for his

nation to become engaged in a major conflict in Indochina.

Indeed, back in 1951, Eisenhower had written in his diary that

he could envision no attainable military victory in such a mili-

tary theater.

Nevertheless, at a news conference on April 7, the president

discussed the possibility of U.S. intervention, noting that

Indochina was an important source of tin, tungsten, and rubber.

In addition, Eisenhower asserted, China had been lost to the

communists, and the United States simply could not tolerate

more such losses. Then he warned about what fate might be in

store for the region if Vietnam fell: “You have a row of dominoes

set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the

last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you

could have the beginning of a disintegration that would have the

most profound influences.” Eventually, Japan would fall under a

communist sign. Thus, “the possible consequences of the loss,”

Eisenhower declared, “are just incalculable to the free world.”70

The British, led by Prime Minister Winston Churchill,

responded with a critical perspective of their own. The British

Foreign Office warned Washington that the fortress at

Dienbienphu could not withstand the enemy assault. British

diplomats doubted whether a successful conclusion to the war


were possible. Churchill was perfectly willing to join a collective

security agreement after the sessions in Geneva, but he opposed

military intervention in Vietnam, fearing that it might result in

the deployment of Chinese troops. Anthony Eden worried about

possible American plans, no matter how idealistically drawn, to

replace the French in Vietnam. If that occurred, disaster loomed

ahead, Eden predicted.

The French delivered their own cutting analysis, declaring “a

warning” without military intervention to be in vain and might

further dampen French support for the war. The French also

were unwilling to accept American demands that they promise

to continue fighting while granting full independence to

Vietnam. Eisenhower and Dulles were infuriated by both the

French demands and by their insistence that the Americans

“come in as junior partners.”71 Members of Congress also

expressed concerns about heightened U.S. involvement, believ-

ing that once American military action was undertaken, land

troops would follow. Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy

insisted that military assistance alone would not defeat “an

enemy of the people which has the support and covert appeal of

the people.”72

Fearing that Dienbienphu might indeed be lost, Admiral

Radford called for implementing Operation Vulture, the

employment of American B-29s to quash the Vietminh artillery

guns, an operation that Vice President Richard M. Nixon sup-

ported. Earlier, Nixon had argued,“We have adopted a new prin-

ciple. Rather than let the communists nibble us to death all over

the world in little wars, we will rely in the future on massive,

mobile retaliatory forces.”73 Radford also suggested that if nec-

essary, atomic weapons should be considered for deployment.

This was not surprising, because Radford had suggested the

“New Look” approach that the Eisenhower administration

adopted. This approach urged reliance on nuclear weapons,

which would provide “more-bang-for-the buck.”74

Eisenhower, who still desired to assist the French, worried

about the possibility of the United States becoming mired in

75Dienbienphu

another land war in Asia. Deflecting Radford’s request for the

time being, Eisenhower sent Dulles to seek support from

European allies. That effort proved useless, and General

Matthew Ridgway, the army chief of staff, expressed his opposi-

tion to the use of nuclear weapons. Ridgway also declared that

air strikes alone would not work: ground troops would be

required. Dulles soon told the French that no American inter-

vention would be forthcoming. Historian Melanie Billings-Yun

suggests that France was of mixed mind regarding greater U.S.

engagement in the war, hoping to rely on the threat of that very

possibility but worrying that it might actually take place. For his

part, Dulles, was displeased that the French had expressed a will-

ingness to negotiate with the other side. Vietnamese nationalists

such as brothers Ngo Dinh Diem and Ngo Dinh Nhu were no

happier that such talks might be conducted.

As the fighting wore on, Giap had to contend with refusals to

obey orders, which began after the Vietminh endured terrible

losses. Encouraged by political officers, the Vietminh continued

to attack, clamping down on the French even more. On May 7,

Vietminh soldiers captured Castries, who had refused to surren-

der. The next morning, the French raised a white flag of surren-

der, thereby ending the 55-day battle. The French suffered 7,500

casualties, and 10,000 men ended up in captivity; more than half

the French prisoners of war did not survive their period of cap-

tivity. The Vietminh endured 25,000 casualties of their own.

Nevertheless, the battle of Dienbienphu resulted in a telling

victory for Ho and General Giap, whose forces wore down the

French soldiers and public. Recognizing the significant nature

of the conflict, Giap declared, “A colonized and weak people

once it has risen up and is united in the struggle and deter-

mined to fight for its independence and peace, has the full

power to defeat the strong aggressive army of an imperialist

country.”75 A French soldier who had fought at Dienbienphu

later explained to a reporter that he was told in a prison camp

the Vietminh had prevailed because they, in contrast to the

French, had fought for an ideal.


The day after the surrender at Dienbienphu, the delegates

involved in the Geneva Peace Conference began to closely exam-

ine the French Indochina War. The Vietminh now held control of

80 percent of the Vietnamese landscape, and the French remained

concentrated near Hanoi and Haiphong. Giap’s forces prevailed

throughout most of Tonkin and Annam, and in approximately

half of Cochinchina, including large portions of the Mekong River

Delta. The dire situation in Vietnam helped topple the French

government of Joseph Laniel, who on June 12 was replaced as

prime minister by Pierre Mendes-France. The new French leader

promised that a cease-fire would be obtained in Indochina, and

the Geneva Accords, signed on July 21, 1954, brought the war to

an official close. The eight-year-long French Indochina War had

taken the lives of approximately 95,000 French soldiers, 300,000

Vietminh, and 1,000,000 Vietnamese civilians.

77Dienbienphu

After the surrender of the French troops to the Vietminh on May 8, 1954, 10,000 French

troops became prisoners of war. Some of these captured men are shown being marched

across the field after their surrender at Dienbienphu. This defeat ended nearly a century of

French occupation of Indochina.

The war ended inconclusively, with the decision made in

Geneva to divide Vietnam artificially at the 17th parallel, thereby

continuing the French practice of setting arbitrary borders for

the nation in defiance of Vietnamese nationalism. The demarca-

tion was intended to be temporary and actually ran just south of

the 17th parallel, from a point along the B River to the village of

Bo Ho Su and to the Vietnam border to the west. A demilitarized

zone (DMZ) extended for three miles on either side of the

demarcation line. Vietnam thus followed Korea in being saddled

with arbitrary borders, a by-product of both historical develop-

ments and the relatively new Cold War struggle.


A Divided Vietnam

8

The signing of the Geneva Accords in late July 1954 pleased

few of the parties involved. On top of the indignities they

suffered during World War II, the French now endured the loss

of a major portion of their empire; this would lead them to fight

more fiercely to retain control of Algeria, another troubled spot.

Vietnamese associated with the State of Vietnam, ranging from

Bao Dai to Ngo Dinh Diem, considered the appalling loss of the

northern half of their country to the communist government

headed by Ho Chi Minh. Ho was no happier with the final

results, which were hardly in keeping with comrade Vo Nguyen

Giap’s successes on the battlefield. The Vietnamese communists

felt pressured by their big power allies, the Chinese and Soviets,

to accept the temporary partition at the 17th parallel. This was

not pleasing to the Vietminh, who remained determined to

reunite their country and remove the arbitrary borders identi-

fied with despised colonialism. The British appeared somewhat

more content with the decision that called for France’s departure

from an imperial possession; of course, Britain had recently

given up India, the jewel of its own empire, and had relinquished

other valuable lands as well.

The Americans, who refused to sign off on the Geneva

Accords, were also somewhat comfortable with the results and

the setting up of new borders inside Vietnam; at the same time,

they appreciated that the precedent established in Korea had

proven to be a troubling one. Both President Eisenhower and

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles recognized that Ho would

likely sweep to victory if reunification elections were held soon.

On the other hand, a 24-month period of delay, they anticipated,

would enable them to create a nation-state in the area south of

the 17th parallel. Thus, the Americans immediately began an

experiment in nation building in which they sought to support

a noncommunist government situated in Saigon that would

remain in control of the former Cochinchina and parts of the

area previously known as Annam. Only the region of Tonkin was

seemingly lost to the communists, or so American policymakers

hoped. By that stage, they did not believe that a rollback of the


81A Divided Vietnam

This map of Indochina in 1954 shows the partition line between North and South

that was agreed upon by the parties who signed the Geneva Accord. This line, at

approximately the 17th parallel, did not satisfy anyone, but the communist

Vietnamese were particularly unhappy with it. Their ultimate goal remained the

reunification of their country.

communist takeover in the North was possible without conflict

that might draw in China or Russia and involve the use of

nuclear weapons.

Much depended on the creation of a viable nation–state in the

stretch of territory from just above Quang Tri to the tip of the

Mekong River Delta region. This area included much of

Vietnam’s most arable land, along with the ancient imperial cap-

ital of Hue, the port city of Danang, and the bustling metropo-

lis of Saigon, with the sweeping boulevards that had led some to

view the city as the Paris of the Orient. It soon became clear that

the Republic of South Vietnam, as the government entity in the

south came to be called, could draw on seemingly limitless sup-

port from the United States, the world’s richest nation.

All of this began to unfold despite the fact that those taking

part in the conference in Geneva hardly anticipated that the par-

titioning of Vietnam and setting up of arbitrary borders, which

followed the pattern established in Korea, would become per-

manent. They sought instead to develop a provisional military

demarcation “point, around which the various forces would

gather after they withdraw.” The initial plan called for Giap’s

forces to be situated north of the parallel and those of France

and its Vietnamese allies to be relocated to the south. Most of the

Geneva delegates, in contrast to the American representatives,

did not anticipate creating two separate states. Rather, they

hoped to prevent further fighting in Indochina by establishing a

300-day cooling-off period during which personnel would shift

from one region to the other if necessary. The two zones had the

right to self-defense, but neither was supposed to join any mili-

tary alliance, welcome additional soldiers or armaments, or

establish new military bases.

Moreover, neither side accepted the possibility of a permanent

division of their native land or the artificial border established at

the 17th parallel. The Geneva Accords called for consultations to

begin on July 20, 1955. Those, in turn, were to set the stage for

reunification elections, which were supposed to take place by the

following July and were to be overseen by an International


Control Commission, with representatives from the communist

bloc, the Western states, and the nonaligned nations. An end to

hostilities also had been called for in both Cambodia and Laos,

which were proclaimed fully autonomous states.

Ultimately, both sides, along with their allies, violated the terms

of the agreement carved out in Geneva. This would provide seeds

for another, deadlier conflict. Before that war began, the con-

tending parties jockeyed for position. Defying the expectations of

the delegates in Geneva, American officials believed that their

government would replace the French as the anticommunist bar-

rier in Indochina. Initially, the Americans hoped that Bao’s gov-

ernment would present a legitimate nationalist alternative to Ho.

In the process, the United States would help thwart communist

aggression and prevent Ho from controlling all of Vietnam.

* * * * *

The United States thus cast its lot with the Republic of

Vietnam, headed by Bao Dai. Despite their desire for Bao Dai to

create a viable government, American policymakers feared, as

they had for some time, that the former emperor hardly seemed

credible as a rival to Ho. There did exist another model for some

American officials: Ramon Magsaysay of the Philippines. That

charismatic figure was a skillful enough politician and reformer

that he, along with counterinsurgent activities, had helped sub-

due the communist-led Huk guerrillas. Colonel Edward Geary

Lansdale, a former advertising executive, had provided valuable

public relations advice to Magsaysay. Lansdale then went to

Vietnam, where he met up with a Vietnamese nationalist chosen

by the United States to become prime minister under Bao Dai:

Ngo Dinh Diem. A staunchly nationalist anticommunist, Diem

had refused to continue in a ministerial post under a govern-

ment he saw as too beholden to the French. He had also refused

to work with Ho and then left Vietnam in 1950, undoubtedly to

escape assassination at the hands of the Vietminh, a fate suffered

by one of his brothers.

83A Divided Vietnam

NATION BUILDINGIn the wake of the apparent success in fostering an anticommunist demo-cratic government in the Philippines and inconstructing arbitrary borders,American policymakers believed that they could also create a viable nation-state in the area south of the 17th parallel, another artificial partition estab-lished by the demands of Cold War participants. As the policymakers saw it,the United States was not a colonial power and had no designs of an impe-rial cast in Southeast Asia. Rather, the United States only wanted to ensurethat the people in the southern part of Vietnam could experience economicand political opportunities of the sort obviously denied to those living underthe Communist dictatorship in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Americanadministrations from Truman onward denied that nationalist sentimentsassociated with Ho Chi Minh and the Vietminh existed, considering theNorthern regime, like the guerrillas in the South, to be part of an internationalcommunist conspiracy.

Clearly, U.S. intentions in Vietnam appeared altruistic, or so the Americanpublic was led to believe. As it turned out, however, not all Vietnamese, com-munist or not, agreed with this perception of developments in Southeast Asia.For many, the United States came to be viewed as a neocolonial power deter-mined to continue the Western rule established by the French. Fair or not, theUnited States was considered arrogant, and the attempts to create a govern-ment in the South were seen as heavy-handed and oppressive. Fueling suchperceptions was the association of the United States with a series of unpop-ular and repressive governments in the South. As events unfolded, the UnitedStates never did uncover a Vietnamese version of Ramon Magsaysay but wassaddled instead with the Ngo Dinh Diem and his successors.


Not all were pleased with the decision to back Diem or the

experiment in nation building in South Vietnam, the direct by-

product of the arbitrary border allowed by the Geneva

Accords. A National Intelligence Estimate delivered in August

1954 to the Eisenhower administration warned that the likeli-

hood of establishing a viable government was “poor,” and the

Joint Chiefs of Staff indicated that it would be “hopeless” to

construct an army without a “reasonably strong, stable civil

government in control.”76 Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson

declared the situation “utterly hopeless” and suggested that the

United States should extricate itself “completely and as soon as

possible” or “nothing but grief” loomed ahead.77 Another critic

of American actions in Vietnam was British author Graham

Greene, whose 1955 novel The Quiet American scathingly

indicted CIA-styled operations in that nation.

Over the next few years, Diem acquired some powerful allies,

including a number of key figures who would later be associ-

ated with an organization called American Friends of Vietnam.

These included Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas,

Cardinal Francis Spellman, and Democratic senators Mike

Mansfield, John F. (Jack) Kennedy, and Hubert Humphrey.

Diem became prime minister of Bao Dai’s government in June

1954. Also backing Diem was Colonel Lansdale, who conducted

a series of operations, drawing on funds supplied by the CIA.

Lansdale sent paramilitary operatives north of the 17th parallel

to cripple transportation networks in that region and to carry

out psychological warfare against Ho’s regime. The CIA joined

with South Vietnamese commandos in an effort to weaken Ho’s

hold on power. One of the major efforts involved encouraging

a mass exodus of Northerners southward across the DMZ.

Propaganda indicated that “Christ has gone to the South” and

that a bloodbath would be carried out by the communists.78

Under Operation Exodus, almost a million Vietnamese

migrated across the demarcation line, assisted by the U.S. navy

and the American government, which helped resettle those who

headed south.

Operation Exodus provided a base of support for Diem. Many

of the refugees were, like Diem, both Catholics and staunch

opponents of the Vietminh. Several had worked for the French-

controlled government or had been soldiers in the auxiliary

forces. A large number of these Northern transplants would

become officials in Diem’s government or serve in his military

units. Not all were pleased with this state of affairs: some com-

plained that “Vietnamese Catholics are the claws by which the

French crab has been able to crawl across and devour our

85A Divided Vietnam

land.”79 Little troubled by such a charge, Diem established a

regional defense group that viewed the partition of Vietnam as

exactly what the delegates at Geneva had warned against: a per-

manent political boundary, and he was pleased when the United

States spearheaded the formation of the Southeast Asia Treaty

Organization (SEATO), an anticommunist alliance joined by

Great Britain, France, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand,

Pakistan, and Thailand.

Fearing that Ho would win the scheduled reunification elec-

tions, American officials also strove to ensure that such an event

would not occur. Secretary of State Dulles encouraged Diem to

insist on election safeguards that Ho could not accept. Diem

went further, refusing even to explore the matter with his com-

munist counterpart. Then, on August 9, 1954, he declared that

the planned elections would not occur as long as the commu-

nists continued to rule north of the 17th parallel.

As unrest threatened in the region south of the demarcation

line, the Eisenhower administration began to question whether

it should continue to back Diem or seek another anticommunist

alternative. In 1955, however, Diem began to quash the Cao Dai

and Hoa Hao religious sects, both of which possessed their own

militias, and the Binh Xuyen criminal gang, which controlled

gambling, prostitution, and opium rackets in the South. Diem

then held a national referendum to decide if South Vietnam

should be ruled by Bao or by himself. With 600,000 ballots

reportedly cast—although only 400,000 voters were eligible to

cast them—Diem won 98.2 percent of the vote.

Diem soon insisted on the removal of the last French troops,

declaring that their presence was incompatible with Vietnamese

independence. In deference to American complaints, he created

a legislative assembly in 1956. This assembly was dominated by

Diem and his brother and right-hand man, Ngo Dinh Nhu, who

headed a succession of police and paramilitary units. Once Diem

had established himself as the strong man of South Vietnam, the

United States backed him fully, helping build the Army of the

Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). Now, Senator Kennedy, conjuring


up the image of an artificial border, referred to South Vietnam as

the “finger in the dike” preventing “the red tide of Communism”

from enveloping Southeast Asia.80

As Diem solidified his power south of the 17th parallel, in the

North, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam continued to be

dominated by such communist leaders as Ho, Truong Chinh,

Pham Van Dong, and Vo Nguyen Giap; thus, the presence of arbi-

trary borders continued to beset the people of Vietnam. The party

leadership sought to industrialize North Vietnam by nationalizing

former French enterprises and turning commercial establish-

ments previously run by Vietnamese into producer cooperatives.

In adopting an austerity plan, North Vietnam seemingly

offered little improvement in the everyday lives of the people.

Still, a concerted effort at land reform, with small plots of land

distributed to landless peasants, was also integral to the eco-

nomic program. Those peasants, it was hoped, would produce

surplus crops, resulting in profits that would enable them to

purchase factory goods. As the land reform unfolded, many saw

fit to settle old scores, and doctrinaire party members vilified

landlords and wealthier peasants. This resulted in thousands

being jailed or murdered, and it eventually compelled Ho to dis-

card the program and issue a public apology. Despite the some-

times tragic mistakes made by his party leaders, Ho, in contrast

to Diem in the South, retained the allegiance of the vast major-

ity of people in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

The repressive nature of the regime in the South ensured that

Diem was unable to do the same there. Not helping matters was

the skewed nature of economic development that occurred, a

phenomenon intensified by the receipt of nearly one billion dol-

lars in aid from the United States from 1955 to 1959. The bulk of

that financial assistance helped finance military and paramilitary

operations, not industrial or entrepreneurial activities, in the

South. Despite such aid, the ARVN forces were hardly stellar.

Their performance was tainted by Diem’s rampant favoritism,

corruption, insistence on loyalty to Diem rather than battlefield

accomplishments, and the perception that the officer corps—

many of whom had supported the French—lacked patriotism.

87A Divided Vietnam

Also not helping matters was that in contrast to the commu-

nist government in the North, Diem’s regime failed to undertake

land reform, actually returning lands that the Vietminh had dis-

tributed to peasants to their previous owners. Thus, Diem

moved to restore arbitrary boundaries of a socioeconomic cast

that the French had inflicted on his countrymen, a move that did

not endear him to many.

Perhaps worst of all, Diem and Nhu headed a government

that proved to be highly undemocratic, despite attempts by

American officials to portray that regime in a different light.

Once in power, Diem undertook a systematic campaign, led by

Nhu, to wipe out the Vietminh who remained in the South.

Executions increased, as did the number of individuals placed

in concentration camps, where they were supposed to be “reedu-

cated.” Diem ruled with an iron fist, calling on the Can Lao, a

secret organization that dug deep roots throughout South

Vietnam. In a move that alienated many and violated longstand-

ing practices, Diem refused to allow village councils to be elected

by local communities, instead appointing officials beholden to

him. Diem angered ethnic tribes when he allowed settlements in

the Central Highlands. He infuriated some peasants whom he

compelled to relocate to enclosed agrovilles (where peasants were

placed in secure enclaves), often far removed from ancestral

grounds. Ordinance No. 6, issued by Diem, allowed the govern-

ment to arrest anyone viewed as a security threat. The later pas-

sage of Law 10/59 in May 1959, intended to eradicate the

Vietminh “stay-behinds,” set up special military courts, complete

with guillotines, to handle any individual who committed or

sought to commit crimes against Diem’s regime.

Diem believed that the greatest threat to his regime was the

possibility of a conventional attack by North Vietnamese forces

across the 17th parallel or through Vietnam’s neighbors to the

west, Laos and Cambodia. He therefore stationed troops just

below the demilitarized zone. At this stage, however, it was a new

guerrilla movement, not regular army units from the North, that

Diem had to confront.


After the July 1956 date for reunification elections passed,

Vietminh leaders in the south began to strike back. Shortly

thereafter, other Vietminh who had migrated north across the

17th parallel after the signing of the Geneva Accords returned to

do battle against Diem’s regime. Initially, Ho and the

Communist Party leadership in Hanoi refused to support armed

insurrection. As Diem’s repressive actions intensified, however,

the Communist Party shifted course, backing guerrilla action

against the South Vietnamese government. Beginning in the late

1950s, Southern leaders resorted to the politics of assassination,

murdering hundreds of local government officials. Individuals

viewed as corrupt were among those targeted, as were officials

considered to be doing a good job. Diem responded by denounc-

ing the guerrillas as communists, derisively referring to them as

Vietcong (VC: meaning Vietnamese communists); the Americans

did likewise. In reality, the Southern insurgency was rooted in

indigenous grievances but was soon spearheaded by the

Communist Party leadership in North Vietnam.

In May 1959, the Communist Party leaders in the North began

building the so-called Ho Chi Minh Trail, an intricate network

of mountain and jungle pathways that darted along the eastern-

most sectors of Laos and Cambodia, enabling North Vietnamese

soldiers to cross into South Vietnam. The very idea of that trail

challenged the survival of the artificial border at the 17th parallel

established in Geneva. Men and matériel began pouring down

south, helping fuel the insurgency there. The communist leader

in the South, Le Duan, ordered guerrillas to disperse when the

enemy massed, to harass when the enemy passed by, to withdraw

when the enemy advanced, and to mass when the enemy dis-

persed. In December 1960, Southern guerrillas established the

National Liberation Front, which urged the setting up of a coali-

tion government and the eventual obliteration of the temporary

division at the 17th parallel. Late the next year, communist forces

established the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG).

American officials again became doubtful about the effec-

tiveness of Ngo Dinh Diem. Starting in May 1959, American

89A Divided Vietnam

advisers joined military missions conducted by ARVN forces.

American military figures began to recognize that the guerrilla

activity posed the greatest threat to Diem’s regime, leading to

greater emphasis on counterinsurgency. At the same time, how-

ever, few reforms were enacted that might have improved the

chances for a successful government in the South. Then, in

November 1960, Diem prevented a coup attempt undertaken by

discontented military officers.

The new administration of President John F. Kennedy, which

came to power in Washington, D.C., in January 1961, appeared

determined to battle guerrilla forces in Vietnam and elsewhere.

A mere two weeks before Kennedy took office, Soviet Premier

Nikita S. Khrushchev proclaimed support for wars of national

liberation, the kind waged so recently in Vietnam, Cuba, and

Algeria, and that threatened to break out in other hot spots

around the globe. Kennedy hoped that economic support and

the aid provided by the newly created Peace Corps, which sent

educated Americans to provide technical and educational assis-

tance to poorer lands, would make a difference. He also believed

in the need to contain communist-inspired revolutions: thus his

focus on counterinsurgent agents such as the Green Berets.

Initially heeding warnings from the outgoing president,

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Kennedy worried that Laos might fall

under communist control, triggering a domino effect on sur-

rounding states; indeed, Eisenhower had referred to Laos as the

“cork in the bottle.”81 Thus, American policymakers believed

that Laos, like Vietnam, required artificial barriers to prevent

communist subversion.

As it turned out, Kennedy worked to bring about a coalition

government in Laos, but Vietnam proved to be the most dan-

gerous spot in the region. Reading a report by the now General

Lansdale, Kennedy recognized that the revolts in South Vietnam

endangered Diem’s government. Lansdale worried that the col-

lapse of South Vietnam would be “a major blow to U.S. prestige

and influence, not only in Asia but throughout the world.”82

Kennedy responded by increasing American economic aid and


the number of military advisers the United States sent to the

region. The president also authorized covert operations that

took place north of the 17th parallel. These included support for

South Vietnamese commando units and efforts to sabotage

installations in the North. At the same time, the Pentagon indi-

cated that eight ARVN divisions were required to safeguard both

the demilitarized zone and the Central Highlands.

Kennedy began to consider the possibility of committing

American ground troops to Vietnam, something he and others

had once opposed. Over the course of his 33-month administra-

tion, which ended abruptly with his assassination in November

1963, Kennedy increased the number of American advisers in

Vietnam from about 800 to more than 16,000. He justified this

buildup—known as “Project Beef-Up”—which apparently vio-

lated the 1954 Geneva Accords, as a response to North

Vietnamese encroachments of those same accords. Kennedy also

encouraged American representatives in Saigon to convince

Diem of the need for genuine political and economic reforms,

which the South Vietnamese leader refused to enact. The

Kennedy administration sought to create new fortified settle-

ments—now referred to as strategic hamlets—and resorted to

the use of napalm and chemical defoliants (chemicals that made

the leaves fall off plants) that destroyed to plant, animal, and

human life.

The increased American involvement temporarily appeared to

boost the morale of the South Vietnamese military. The opposi-

tion to Diem, however, continued to mount in the countryside,

where greater numbers of peasants refused to pay taxes and

failed to report for induction into ARVN units. Meanwhile, the

guerrillas, fueled in part by perceptions about the repressive and

corrupt nature of the Diem government, appeared to multiply.

In contrast, the guerrillas received support, particularly when

they carried out land reform in territories they dominated.

The ARVN forces, backed by the United States, drove some

peasants into strategic hamlets, often at the point of a gun, and

often dealt with them in a fashion that failed to discriminate

91A Divided Vietnam

between guerrillas and civilians. This enabled the guerrillas to

wage an effective propaganda campaign through which they

declared their fight to be against feudalism and imperialism,

both associated with the Diem regime. They dismissively decried

him as beholden to the Americans, resulting in the denigrating

phrase, “My Diem.” At the time, a group of young American

journalists, including David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan,

warned that optimistic reports presented by U.S. military offi-

cials were sorely exaggerated.

A series of setbacks began to befall Diem. In early January

1963, a Vietcong battalion battered a large ARVN unit at the

Battle of Ap Bac, in the Mekong Delta 50 miles outside Saigon.

The VC killed 61 ARVN soldiers and shot down five helicopters,

which had previously instilled great fear among many of the guer-

rillas. As opposition to Diem soared, religious discontent, encour-

aged by a sense that Diem favored Catholics over the Buddhist


This family portrait of President Ngo Dinh Diem and his family was taken in Saigon in 1963,

the same year that his regime was overthrown. Diem (second from the left, standing) and

his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu (left, standing) were subsequently murdered in the year this pho-

tograph was taken. The woman seated is Diem’s mother, shown with her grandchildren, the

children of Nhu and his wife.

majority, led to an attack on a religious procession in Hue that

resulted in nine deaths. Buddhist-inspired protests surged forth,

with a series of self-immolations attracting worldwide attention.

Ngo Dinh Nhu ordered his Special Forces to attack a series of

pagodas, producing more casualties and outrage.

Finally, on November 1, military officers encouraged by the

new American ambassador to South Vietnam, Henry Cabot

Lodge, ousted Diem, who had attempted to rule as a neo-

Confucian dictator. To Kennedy’s dismay, Diem and his brother

Nhu were subsequently murdered, bringing the United States’

experiment in nation building in Southeast Asia to an inglorious

end. That was assured when, only three weeks after the over-

throw of Diem, an assassin killed President Kennedy.

As 1963 neared its end, the United States had invested a great

amount of material resources, along with the lives of more than

100 of its soldiers, in an effort to sustain a nation–state in the

southern half of Vietnam. President Eisenhower refused to allow

promised reunification elections, opting instead to back Diem

and the plan to carve out an independent, noncommunist gov-

ernment in the South. Eisenhower’s successor, John F. Kennedy,

opted for a similar approach, at least until the end of Diem’s

regime. Neither president questioned the appropriateness of a

divided Vietnam, choosing instead to view that country as

another chapter in the Cold War saga that produced artificial

boundaries of various sorts. Some were territorial in nature, but

all, to a large extent, were shaped by ideological, cultural, and

political differences that pitted the East against the West.

93A Divided Vietnam

TheAmericanization

of the War

9

Disturbed by infiltration from across the DMZ, Secretary of

Defense Robert McNamara, formerly president of the

Ford Motor Company and an ardent believer in the superior-

ity of American technology, proposed the building of an elec-

tronic barrier that would sustain the arbitrary border

established more than a decade earlier in Geneva. The

“McNamara Line,” it was hoped, would make reliance on the

Ho Chi Minh Trail more difficult.

In the spring of 1966, McNamara asked the Pentagon to

explore the possibility of devising “an iron-curtain counterinfil-

tration barrier across northern South Vietnam and Laos from

the South China Sea to Thailand.”83 The Joint Chiefs of Staff did

not like McNamara’s idea, having already questioned the practi-

cality of such a barrier. In addition, they believed that it would

prove to be a “visible, fixed, long-term” violation of diplomatic

agreements. Thus, the U.S. military chiefs worried about an elec-

tronic barrier’s impact on the arbitrary border at the 17th paral-

lel established at the Geneva Conference.84

Nevertheless, responding to McNamara’s directive, the Joint

Chiefs devised a plan, as historian John Prados reports:

The concept provided for a cleared path, or “trace,” five hun-

dred yards wide, from which all vegetation had been

removed, sowed with mines or other devices. The trace was to

parallel the north side of Route 9 and have barbed-wire

entanglements along its perimeters. Behind the trace would

be an electrified fence, and behind that, watchtowers or

bunkers for observation of the barrier area. Reserve bases

would be located at intervals along the 225-mile length of the

barrier. A less developed barrier would also be placed along

the south side of Route 9 for a total length of 120 miles to pro-

tect from rear attack at key points.85

Such a barrier, the Joint Chiefs warned, would take three com-

plete divisions, years to build, and a vast amount of construction

material. It would serve as an impediment only to thrusts by

large numbers of NVA troops and would fail to prevent seaborne

95The Americanization of the War

assaults or those initiated in Cambodia. Joint Chiefs Chairman

Earle Wheeler criticized the McNamara plan, arguing that its

reliance on too many troops would weaken American military

power. General William Westmoreland; Admiral Ulysses S.

Grant Sharp Jr.; and other top military figures also condemned

the idea.

During the summer of 1966, the JASON Group of the

Institute for Defense Analysis presented to Secretary McNamara

its own report regarding an electronic barrier. This study did not

highlight the need for large numbers of troops up and down the

line but instead called for “ground and air barriers with defenses

limited to those under the DMZ, and a remote-controlled block

on the Laotian side of the border, enforced by aircraft, artillery

fire, and area-denial weapons such as mines.”86

Pleased with the JASON report, McNamara instructed the

Joint Chiefs to construct it within a year, with secrecy surround-

ing the project, called Joint Task Force 728. The Joint Chiefs

quickly indicated that this program should not replace other

military plans, but McNamara convinced President Johnson to

deliver a National Security Action Memorandum, NSAM-358,

which gave the barrier the highest priority. Laotian leader

Souvanna Phouma requested information from U.S.

Ambassador William H. Sullivan. As the ambassador indicated,

“Specifically he wanted to know if we intended to attempt to seal

the DMZ hermetically. Were we going to clear a strip, put in

minefields, barbed wire, control towers, etc., ‘line the Iron

Curtain.’” Moreover, Souvanna asked if the barrier would reach

to the border with Thailand. Secretary of State Dean Rusk

informed Sullivan that the question of the barrier’s reach

remained “an open question.” On further discussion, Souvanna

warned Sullivan that the barrier would not be “watertight.”87

Responding to continued resistance from the Joint Chiefs,

McNamara, who remained determined to solidify the border at

the 17th parallel, revised the plans for the electronic barrier, sub-

mitting the latest version to President Johnson in January 1967.

Now, the barrier began “from the coast below the Demilitarized


Zone (DMZ).” At that location, which had experienced infiltra-

tion by the NVA, the new plan called for “strongpoints of com-

pany-size backing up the trace plus observation towers. At key

terrain features would be even bigger bases manner by full bat-

talions.” Those stations would be dispersed in central Vietnam

and the foothills.88

Opposition to the electronic barrier continued. One civilian

consultant, Richard S. Greeley, insisted that a series of events

would have to take place for air strikes to knock out North

Vietnamese supply troops heading down the Ho Chi Minh Trail

and passing over the artificial boundary of the 17th parallel.

This, chemist Greeley suggested, was unlikely to occur. When

pressure was brought to bear, Greeley produced a more favor-

able estimate. Subsequent tests proved ineffective but were nev-

ertheless deemed a success.

* * * * *

As the United States came to supplant the French as the lead-

ing Western power involved with Vietnamese affairs, charges of

American “imperialism” took hold. Certainly, the American

presence intensified, because of the concern that communism

not be allowed to envelop the former jewel of French Indochina.

After the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the new man in the

White House remained determined that his country not “lose

another one” to the communists. Indeed, shortly after taking

office, Lyndon Baines Johnson asserted that he was not going to

be known as the president who allowed Southeast Asia to “fall”

as China had. Johnson received advice from a group of self-

assured men, such as Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara,

Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and National Security Advisor

Walter Rostow, a group that the journalist David Halberstam

would ironically refer to as “the best and the brightest.”89

Under Johnson’s watch, the limited nature of U.S. involvement

in the war began to be discarded. The death of Diem had not led

to improved conditions in South Vietnam, as had been hoped


for, but rather heightened political instability. The Communist

Party leaders in the North called for an escalation of activities

south of the 17th parallel. The party’s Central Committee

declared, “We must strive to attain victory step by step and grad-

ually push back the enemy before reaching the General Offensive

and Uprising to win complete victory.”90

U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge warned the State

Department that neutralism, an ever-present danger in South

Vietnam, could lead to the disintegration of anticommunist

forces there, eventual reunification with the North, and commu-

nist victories throughout the region. Convinced that a failure to

demonstrate American support for the government in Saigon

could produce such results, Johnson steadily increased the level

of American engagement in the war. The Joint Chiefs of Staff

considered the battle in South Vietnam the first genuine test of

the U.S. commitment to suppress communist-inspired wars of

national liberation. Johnson also continued Kennedy’s attempt

to take the war to the North, conducting unpublicized raids

across the 17th parallel. Such covert activities were part of

Operation Plan 34-Alpha.

After a pair of skirmishes involving American destroyers sup-

posedly took place in the Gulf of Tonkin, Johnson upped the

ante, unleashing American planes to bomb North Vietnam sites.

Later it was indicated that the second destroyer incident proba-

bly never took place, but reports of strikes against the American

ships led to the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which

gave Johnson, as he saw it, virtual carte blanche (full discre-

tionary power) to wage the war in Vietnam.

Only two members of Congress, senators Wayne Morse of

Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska, voted against the meas-

ure, although others would soon offer similar critiques. Gruening

had declared previously, “All Vietnam is not worth the life of a

single American boy.... The United States is seeking vainly in this

remote jungle to shore up self-serving corrupt dynasties or their

self-imposed successors, and a people that has demonstrated that

it has no will to save itself.”91 Now he condemned the sending of


“American boys into combat in a war in which we have no busi-

ness,” and Morse charged that future generations would rue

“such a historic mistake.”

Though little heeded at the time, the admonitions of the two

legislators suggested, even at this relatively early point, that

President Johnson’s escalation of the war in Vietnam could pro-

duce a new kind of artificial chasm: impassioned disagreement

regarding U.S. foreign policy that would fracture the Cold War

consensus and divide the American people in a manner they had

not experienced since the Civil War.92

* * * * *

In late 1964 and early 1965, Vietcong attacked American tar-

gets in Vietnam. Coupled with warnings that the situation of the

government in Saigon remained precarious, Johnson again

decided that forceful action was necessary. In February 1965,

Johnson ordered a systematic bombing campaign against North

Vietnam in an effort to compel the communist leaders in Hanoi

to “cry uncle” and withdraw support for the guerrillas in the

South. Almost immediately thereafter, Johnson introduced the

land forces other American leaders had worried might be

planted in Southeast Asia. The result was another bloody quag-

mire, both similar to and quite different from the one that had

taken place in Korea. Once again, a splintered nation, with a

demarcation line, was torn apart more fully as it became

ensnared in Cold War developments.

As had occurred in Korea, a war would be waged in Vietnam

largely to ensure that an arbitrary border remained in place;

in the case of Vietnam at least, it happened with seeming dis-

regard for the will and the well-being of the people. Once

again, key American figures were divided regarding how the

war should be waged, with some viewing the Vietnam War as

the embodiment of the containment ideal and others hoping

that the conflict would result in the liberation of the North

from communist tyranny.


On April 8, 1965, as Operation Rolling Thunder continued

and American ground troops conducted sweeps, North

Vietnamese Premier Pham Van Dong proclaimed “four points”

supposedly derived from the Geneva Accords. Those points

required, in his estimation, recognition of Vietnamese auton-

omy and territorial integrity—which urged an end to the arbi-

trary borders established in 1954—along with the termination of

all American military action in Vietnam. The points also called

for acceptance of that agreement’s prohibition of the introduc-

tion of foreign military bases or the establishment of military

alliances with other nations, for the shaping of internal affairs in

the South according to the designs of the National Liberation

Front, and for reunification of the Vietnamese people. Pham Van

Dong’s “four points” demanded the termination of the artificial

boundary established near Vietnam’s midsection 11 years earlier.

As American involvement in Vietnam escalated, opposition to

the war on the home front did as well. In the spring of 1965,

teach-ins, in which discussion of the conflict occurred, took

place on university campuses. At the same time, demonstrations

in the street cropped up, with Washington, D.C. the scene of the

largest antiwar gathering in American history, when 25,000 peo-

ple congregated in mid-April to hear speakers denounce U.S.

policy. In the period ahead, demonstrations became even larger,

and the antiwar movement employed different tactics to chal-

lenge U.S. actions in Vietnam.

Attempting to deflect criticism of his administration, President

Johnson expressed his readiness to go wherever necessary at any

point if that would help bring about an honorable peace. At the

same time, the pace and scale of U.S. operations in Vietnam

heightened, something the president attempted, in a fashion, to

keep concealed from the American public. Nevertheless, by the

end of the year, there were 185,000 American troops stationed in

Vietnam. Johnson’s refusal to explain fully the heightened nature

of U.S. involvement ensured that another kind of artificial divi-

sion emerged, one that involved a battle for the hearts and minds

of the American people.


Despite the intensified nature of American engagement, the

situation in the region south of the 17th parallel failed to

improve. As had occurred since the removal of Ngo Dinh Diem,

regimes came and went, until Air Vice Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky

and General Nguyen Van Thieu became the dominant political

figures in South Vietnam. Like Diem and other predecessors, Ky

and Thieu failed to adopt the kind of reforms that might have

lessened support for the Vietcong. Instead, the new South

Vietnamese leaders seemed willing to do America’s bidding, at

least as far as accepting greater numbers of foreign troops and

allowing the United States to conduct the bombing campaigns it

considered necessary.


Throughout the 1960s opposition to American involvement in Vietnam escalated at home

with teach-ins, demonstrations, and antiwar rallies. Despite President Johnson’s promise

that he was working for peace, thousands of new troops were continually sent to war,

including the U.S. First Calvary Air Mobile division pictured here approaching the Vietnam

beach in 1965.

That did not endear Ky and Thieu to the vast majority of the

civilian populace in South Vietnam, who were increasingly

caught in the crossfire of a brutal war that appeared both civil

and colonial in nature. American policies were unpopular too,

particularly General William Westmoreland’s emphasis on

search-and-destroy missions, body counts, free fire zones

where pilots could strafe whatever targets they considered

essential, and the production of ever-greater numbers of

refugees forced into overpopulated slums in urban centers

throughout the South. For Westmoreland, the United States

and its South Vietnamese ally had to wage a “war of attrition”

against the enemy.

Few people in the Johnson administration proved willing to

challenge the president’s Vietnam policy. One who did so was

Undersecretary of State George Ball, who warned the president

in mid-1965:

No one has demonstrated that a white ground force of what-

ever size can win a guerrilla war—which is at the same time a

civil war between Asians—in jungle terrain in the midst of a

population that refuses cooperation to the white forces (and

the South Vietnamese) and thus provides a great intelligence

advantage to the other side.93

Clark Clifford, who had advised Democratic presidents since

Truman, worried about the potential cost of expanded American

operations. He predicted, “If we lose 50,000 men there, it will be

a catastrophe for the country. Five years, billions of dollars, hun-

dreds of thousands of men—this is not for us.”94

By 1966—the year American deployment figures in Vietnam

surged to 365,000—additional critics within the ranks of the so-

called “Establishment,” those in power, emerged. These included

J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, who headed the Senate Foreign

Relations Committee and began holding televised hearings into

American operations in Vietnam. Fulbright spoke and wrote

about “the arrogance of power” that characterized U.S. dealings

in Southeast Asia.95 Delivering critical testimony before his


committee were George Kennan, the author of the doctrine of

containment, and former generals David Shoup, James Gavin,

and Matthew Ridgway. Kennan indicated that he never intended

for his theory to be applied globally or in an exclusively military


Despite intensified fighting, the situation in South Vietnam failed to improve in

the mid-1960s and both American and South Vietnamese forces suffered con-

siderable casualties. Here, a South Vietnamese soldier waits to be evacuated

while kneeling with a row of dead soldiers.

fashion, and Gavin suggested the United States had devoted an

overabundance of resources to Vietnam.

More heated rhetoric could be heard on college and university

campuses, where New Left groups such as Students for a

Democratic Society (SDS) and the Student Nonviolent

Coordinating Committee (SNCC) expressed disdain for the war.

Both organizations also offered support for young men who

desired to file with the Selective Service as conscientious objec-

tors. Dissent cropped up even within the ranks of the U.S. armed

forces, with the Fort Hood Three, a trio of enlisted men, declar-

ing that they refused to participate in an “unjust, immoral, and

illegal war.”96

The Johnson administration was also criticized by those who

believed that U.S. policy was too timid. Both John P. McConnell,

the Air Force chief of staff, and Admiral Ulysses S. Grant Sharp,

Jr., the navy’s commander in chief in the Pacific, called for the

president to bomb the North more heavily, striking military

bases, industrial plants, and transportation networks. Many

slammed the concept of limited war, which Johnson seemed to

be applying in Vietnam. General Curtis LeMay believed that the

United States should bomb cities and target dikes rather than

pummel only military and industrial centers.

Ironically, American ground and air operations in South

Vietnam led to charges that the United States was employing fire-

power indiscriminately. The use of herbicides to prevent guerril-

las from employing the countryside as a sanctuary increased;

Agent Orange was the most popular. The reliance on B-52s ini-

tially appeared to make a difference, thoroughly frightening both

civilians and combatants. With the passage of time, however, the

Vietcong and North Vietnamese soldiers, often heading down the

Ho Chi Minh Trail, began to adjust to the terrible noises, even as

500-pound bombs pockmarked the Vietnamese landscape.

Historians James S. Olson and Randy Roberts argue that

American policymakers continued to resort to bombing because

it was less expensive, in terms of resources expended and lives

lost, than ground operations. Secretary of Defense Robert


McNamara, however, had envisioned an electronic barrier to

prevent enemy forces from crossing the 17th parallel into South

Vietnam, so American marines laid out “a twenty-five-mile bull-

dozed strip of jungle complete with acoustic sensors, land mines,

infrared intrusion detectors, booby traps, and electronic wires

along the northern border of South Vietnam.”97 Opposition from

the military doomed the project. North Vietnamese General Tran

Do asked, “What is the use of barbed wire fences and electronic

barriers when we can penetrate even Tan Son Nhut air base out-

side Saigon?”98 McNamara eventually resorted to the building of

a batch of American firebases along the DMZ.

The type of warfare waged in Vietnam began to wear down

American soldiers, 475,000 of whom were stationed in that

country by 1967; 550,000 would be there by the following sum-

mer. Considerably younger on average than World War II–era

combatants, these men, an increasing number of whom were

drafted (forced into military service), contended with 12 or 13-

month tours of duty in which they effectively rotated in and

then out of Vietnam alone.

The infantrymen, or “grunts” as they were known, had it

worst. They had to endure searing heat and biting rainy cold,

debilitating levels of humidity, swamps, jungles, mountainous

terrain, malaria, dysentery, poisonous insects and snakes, traps,

feces-tinged sticks, and homemade incendiary devices.

Confronting them were battle-hardened Vietminh veterans and

fresh recruits who seemed to have more of a sense of why they

were fighting—for land, for country, to expel outside domi-

nance, to overthrow the regime in Saigon, to cut down the arbi-

trary border that splintered their nation—than their American

counterparts. As the Vietminh had against the French, the com-

munist-backed Vietcong and North Vietnamese army troops

often seemed to pick and choose when they were willing to fight.

They were generally more able to draw on support from villagers

than could the ARVN or American soldiers.

Nevertheless, enemy casualties mounted through 1967.

Westmoreland’s search-and-destroy operations seemed to


succeed, at least in terms of producing more dead VC. When a

thrust by NVA forces just below the DMZ at Con Thien resulted

in a thunderous response from American B-52s, Westmoreland

claimed, “It was Dienbienphu in reverse,” because the NVA

reportedly suffered 2,000 casualties.99

Thus, by the end of 1967, General Westmoreland’s strategy of

attrition appeared to be succeeding, or so he informed the

American people on his return home, declaring that “an impor-

tant point” in the war had reached. As Westmoreland insisted,

“The enemy’s hopes are bankrupt.”100 American and South

Vietnamese forces had driven the Vietcong into remote sections

of Vietnam or across the border into Cambodia while pushing

NVA soldiers away from central and northern border areas. By

all accounts, the enemy troops had suffered heavy casualties.

At the same time, however, the VC and NVA still controlled

the pace of fighting. Moreover, the policy of attrition produced

more negative results still, with the rural economy crumbling

and the number of civilian casualties and refugees growing. The

failure to establish a truly representative government in the

South hardly helped matters. All of this ensured that the United

States was not accomplishing what it needed to in this fight: to

win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese population. As a

consequence, the attempt to create a viable South Vietnamese

state, which would have made the artificial boundary established

at the 17th parallel genuine, failed.

It was increasingly clear that something similar was taking

place back home, where opposition to the manner in which this

first televised war was being waged intensified. The artificial

divisions in the United States, like the conflict several thousand

miles away, thus continued to intensify. So-called “hawks” (those

who supported the war) demanded more forceful action, but

attention was focused more and more on the “doves” (those who

opposed the war), many of whom challenged American involve-

ment altogether. In the spring of 1967, massive antiwar rallies

occurred in New York City and San Francisco, and Dr. Martin

Luther King, Jr., the great civil rights leader, condemned the


KHE SANHThe scene of some of the bloodiest fighting of the Vietnam War, Khe Sanh isa valley encircled by mountains, located a half-dozen miles from the Laotianborder and 14 miles from the demilitarized zone. In the summer of 1962, theU.S. Military Assistance Command instructed a Special Forces unit to joinARVN forces in setting up a surveillance camp outside the village of KheSanh. Operating out of a base constructed in the valley, U.S. Study andObservation Groups conducted a series of reconnaissance missions into Laosto check out enemy infiltration along the Ho Chi Minh Trail near the borderdrawn at the 17th parallel; those missions were designed to reinforce thatboundary. As the number of NVA troops coming down the trail increased in1966, General Westmoreland ordered American Marines to build a base oftheir own at Khe Sanh.

During the next spring, NVA fighters attacked a team of Marines west ofKhe Sanh. A firestorm of criticism resulted after a rescue patrol sufferedheavy losses because of the faulty performance of their M16 rifles. Thatsame period witnessed a series of assaults by Marines on the hills aroundKhe Sanh, where tough, hand-to-hand fighting occurred. Later that year,intelligence reports indicated that 25,000 to 40,000 NVA soldiers were gath-ering for a major assault. General Westmoreland believed that the 6,000 U.S.Marines stationed at Khe Sanh, along with massive firepower, could with-stand an enemy offensive.

On January 22, 1968, the Battle of Khe Sanh began. Fearing that anotherDienbienphu would result, Westmoreland and President Johnson remaineddetermined that Khe Sanh would not fall. The U.S. forces relied heavily onB-52s to pound enemy forces. Undoubtedly designed by the NVA as a diver-sionary move, the attack on Khe Sanh soon was overshadowed by the TetOffensive. In March, the NVA units called off the siege of Khe Sanh; threemonths later, General Creighton Abrams, the new commander of U.S. forcesin Vietnam, ordered the closing of American bases in Khe Sanh, which wereintended to maintain the border along the DMZ. The fight for Khe Sanh andthe Tet Offensive graphically demonstrated the artificiality of the border divid-ing North and South Vietnam.


United States as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world

today.”101 The Resistance, a new antidraft movement, called for

young men to refuse to register with the Selective Service. In

mid-October, street fighting broke out in Oakland, and in

Washington, D.C., thousands of demonstrators encircled the

Pentagon, the symbol of the American military establishment.

Then, beginning in late January 1968, North Vietnamese and

Vietcong forces combined to initiate the Tet Offensive, in which

provincial capitals and all the major cities in South Vietnam

were attacked. This occurred after a diversionary strike at Khe

Sanh, near the 17th parallel, and clearly caught the Americans

and their South Vietnamese allies off-guard; the size of the

offensive also demonstrated the impotence of that border.

“Seismic/acoustic sensors” first put in place for McNamara’s

proposed electronic barrier indicated that heavy enemy move-

ment was underway. General Westmoreland and President

Johnson feared that another Dienbienphu might be approach-

ing, but an NVA officer later explained that that would have been

“impossible” given the strength of the U.S. military.102 Rather,

the NVA wanted to know how the Americans would respond to

the initiation of attacks from the DMZ. Most important, mili-

tary commanders wanted to discover if such action would result

in the American troops being sent over the partition line.

Although the Vietcong in particular suffered tremendous

losses as the Tet Offensive unfolded, news of fighting on the

grounds of the U.S. embassy in Saigon and the 25-day holding

of Hue by enemy troops were among many events that called

into question the optimistic reports the Johnson administra-

tion and General Westmoreland had been delivering. Even

General Earle Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,

admitted that Tet had been a “very near thing,” and the conser-

vative Wall Street Journal suggested that “the American people

should be getting ready to accept ... the prospect that the whole

Vietnam effort may be doomed.”103 A loss of support for the

war effort became evident, as Senators Eugene McCarthy and

Robert F. Kennedy challenged Lyndon Johnson for the

Democratic Party’s 1968 presidential nomination. Equally

striking, a group of leading advisers to Democratic presi-

dents—including the newly appointed secretary of defense,


Clark Clifford—urged Johnson to deny military requests for an

additional 200,000 troops.

Eventually, Johnson withdrew from the presidential race and

agreed to open peace talks in Paris, but violence prevailed both

in Vietnam and at home. In March, in a village known as My Lai,

American soldiers engaged in a rampage that resulted in the

massacre of hundreds of civilians. The American public did not

hear of the My Lai story for another 19 months. Meanwhile,

assassinations of key political figures took place in the United

States, with both Dr. King and Senator Kennedy shot. Anger and

disillusionment spread, particularly among disaffected young

people, as exemplified by protests at Columbia University and a

violent clash with police that occurred in Chicago during the

Democratic Party’s national convention.

Thus, in the United States itself, divisions and boundaries

among the American populace increased; some of those divides

threatened to become permanent. Such developments, coupled

with the continued reports of casualties in Vietnam, led to the

November election of Republican Richard M. Nixon as presi-

dent of the United States. Nixon promised to restore “law and

order” at home and hinted that he had various plans that would

lead to an end to the war and protect the nation-state that had

resulted from the arbitrary border at the 17th parallel.


War’s End and the

Aftermath

10

The division of Vietnam at the 17th parallel, the arbitrary

border drawn during the Geneva Convention in 1954, con-

tinued to haunt that country a decade and a half later. By that

later date, Vietnam had endured another lengthy period of war

but appeared no closer to the reunification envisioned by

nationalists for centuries and promised so recently in

Switzerland. As the 1960s came to an end, the Vietnam War con-

tinued to rage, notwithstanding tremendous setbacks suffered

by Vietcong guerrillas during the Tet Offensive and caused by

Operation Phoenix, a CIA-orchestrated counterinsurgency cam-

paign throughout the South Vietnamese countryside.

With the weakening of the VC and in further response to U.S.

engagement in the war, more and more North Vietnamese sol-

diers came down the Ho Chi Minh Trail or across the demarca-

tion line. Over the next half-dozen years, this scenario was

repeated again and again, until the long-hoped-for reunifica-

tion of Vietnam did come about, not through elections but by

way of military conquest. Only that would allow for the aboli-

tion of the arbitrary border separating the Vietnamese from

their countrymen.

In January 1969, the administration of Richard Nixon came to

power in Washington, D.C. Nixon, who had been a staunch

hawk on the war, possessed varied ideas on how to bring it to a

close. He recognized the extent of opposition at home and the

difficulty of battling enemy forces—committed ones, no less—

several thousand miles away. Still, like his predecessors, Nixon

was determined not to lose the Vietnam War, even hoping at

times that his military forces might prevail. Relying on advice

from his top foreign policy advisor, Henry Kissinger, Nixon—

who insisted on achieving “peace with honor”—also explored

diplomatic angles that would allow his country to save face as

American troops withdrew. Responding to domestic and inter-

national affairs, both Nixon and Kissinger reluctantly readied to

abandon the artificial border dividing Vietnam.

Kissinger convinced the president to propose a pullout of

American and North Vietnamese troops, along with a “restora-

tion” of the 17th parallel as a point of demarcation. As historian

111War’s End and the Aftermath

William S. Turley noted, such a proposal inferred that neither

American nor NVA forces were indigenous to the area below the

17th parallel—that, in effect, Vietnam was made up of two

nation–states. This stood in stark contrast to the centuries-old

desire of Vietnam rulers and nationalists to represent a united

state, one that refused to accept foreign domination in any fash-

ion. The new American proposal was also at odds with North

Vietnam’s insistence that the Geneva Accords had called for the

nation’s reunification, because the 17th parallel was truly an

arbitrary border.

Borrowing from President Eisenhower’s move during the

Korean War, Nixon considered threatening North Vietnam with

nuclear weapons. As Nixon informed an aide,

I call it the Madman Theory. I want the North Vietnamese to

believe I’ve reached the point where I might do anything to

stop the war. We’ll just slip the word to them that “for God’s

sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about Communism. We

can’t restrain him when he’s angry—and he has his hand on

the nuclear button, and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris

begging for peace.104

Working another angle, Nixon hoped to convince the Soviet

Union to pressure Ho to accept a diplomatic solution. In return,

Nixon, long viewed as an out-and-out anticommunist, offered the

Soviets needed food supplies, technology, and an arms agreement.

While suggesting that such “linkage” of Soviet and American

assistance would benefit both sides in the Cold War struggle,

Nixon called on American firepower to demonstrate something

of the Madman Theory in action. Although the operations were

concealed from the American public and much of the govern-

ment, B-52s conducted aerial attacks against North Vietnamese

sanctuaries inside Cambodia. Nixon also urged that all

non–South Vietnamese troops be removed from the area south

of the 17th parallel.

In June 1969, Nixon declared that 25,000 American soldiers were

being withdrawn from Vietnam. Perhaps Nixon felt compelled to


do so in part because of disturbing developments plaguing

American forces on the battlefront. That spring, American sol-

diers engaged in continuous attacks on Ap Bia Mountain in the

A Shau Valley refused orders to conduct another sweep. Also,

reports increased about “fragging” incidents, in which American

troops deliberately fired on their compatriots, usually gung-ho

officers who seemed to expose them to unnecessary risks.

Still determined, however, Nixon threatened forceful action

against North Vietnam, but Ho Chi Minh—before h e died on

September 3—and his fellow Communist Party leaders refused

to heed such warnings. Nixon also had to contend with the con-

tinued opposition to the war in the United States. On October

15, a one-day moratorium enveloped America, amounting to a

strike on university campuses, businesses, and even government

offices. On November 15, 400,000 people rallied in the nation’s

capital to protest American actions in Vietnam. Later that

month, revelations of the My Lai massacre came to light, and

Nixon implored the so-called “Silent Majority” of his country-

men to support him.

Nixon remained committed to his multipronged approach to

the war, continuing to withdraw American troops and calling for

a policy of “Vietnamization” to help sustain the nation–state

made possible by the border at the 17th parallel. This required

more of the fighting of the war to be done by ARVN forces and

paralleled earlier French attempts to “yellow” the war (or replace

French casualties with Asian ones). In other ways, the Nixon

administration expanded the war, as demonstrated by an incur-

sion by American and South Vietnamese troops into Cambodia

in the spring of 1970 and a U.S.-backed push into Laos by ARVN

soldiers the following year. Both involved crossings of real terri-

torial borders by American units and forces identified with the

southern regime that had been created after the establishment of

the boundary at the 17th parallel in Vietnam.

To Nixon’s chagrin, opposition to developments in Southeast

Asia continued to unfold in the United States, with more calling

for “bringing the war back home.” Some, as had been the case


since 1967, urged revolution in America, with a small number,

including a group called the Weathermen, resorting to terror-

ism. A band of returned soldiers who joined the Vietnam

Veterans Against the War (VVAW) became important new fig-

ures in the ranks of the antiwar movement. Tragedy befell the

peace forces when National Guardsmen killed four students at

Kent State University in Ohio on May 4, 1970, in the midst of

massive protests against U.S. actions in Cambodia.

In Southeast Asia, notwithstanding the ferocity of the bomb-

ing campaigns undertaken in Cambodia, Laos, and on both sides

of the 17th parallel in Vietnam, the war remained a bloody stale-

mate. In fact, setbacks mounted as American troops withdrew,

demonstrating the poor quality of many of the ARVN forces.


When President Nixon took office he initiated the withdrawal of some American troops

from Vietnam. However, protests of the war continued in the United States, including the

demonstration shown here at the Washington Monument on Moratorium Day, November

15, 1969.

This proved true during the invasion of Laos, known as Lam Son

719, when the South Vietnamese experienced terrible losses.

Kissinger believed that ARVN units opted to withdraw quickly,

fearing a large North Vietnamese attack that could result in a

massacre of their own forces.

A continually frustrating problem for the United States

involved the plight of several hundred servicemen, most of them

aviators, held as prisoners of war (POWs) by the VC or the

North Vietnamese. Starting in May 1971, Kissinger began par-

ticipating in secret meetings with North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho,

in which the American policy advisor indicated that the United

States would remove its remaining troops from South Vietnam

in return for the release of the POWs. The North Vietnamese

delegate insisted that his country would not accept an armistice,

or truce, until the South Vietnamese government, headed by

President Nguyen Van Thieu since 1967, was replaced by one

that included VC members.

When the attempt to resolve matters diplomatically failed, the

North Vietnamese, seeking to drive Thieu from power, con-

ducted another major offensive. In the spring of 1972, North

Vietnamese troops led by General Vo Nguyen Giap flooded

across the 17th parallel. Attacks occurred in South Vietnam’s

northern sectors, across the Central Highlands, and then near

Saigon itself. The NVA offensive surprised the South

Vietnamese, whose commander in the northern sector, General

Lam, did not believe the communists would violate the Geneva

Accords so flagrantly. He had previously insisted that the North

Vietnamese simply could not move over the 17th parallel.

The enemy forces, President Nixon reflected in his diary, were

more willing than their ARVN counterparts to make the kinds of

sacrifices that would result in victory. To prevent the collapse of the

South Vietnamese regime during the so-called Easter Offensive,

Nixon undertook massive bombing strikes against the north, rely-

ing on B-52s to carry out Operation Linebacker I. Targets previ-

ously off-limits to American planes were now hit; Haiphong was

mined and a naval blockade was instituted against North Vietnam.


In the fall, Le Duc Tho informed Kissinger that the North

Vietnamese no longer demanded Thieu’s removal before a ces-

sation of hostilities. Thieu, however, insisted on the withdrawal

of all NVA forces north of the 17th parallel. Nixon, then in the

midst of a presidential election, nevertheless allowed Kissinger

to proclaim, “Peace is at hand.”105 Following Nixon’s sweeping

electoral triumph, however, Kissinger, in keeping with Thieu’s

stipulation, called for the North Vietnamese to pull back above

the 17th parallel.

Le Duc Tho responded by referring to the Geneva Accords,

which had indicated that the demilitarized zone “should not in

any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial

boundary;”106 it was, he argued, an arbitrary border that had to

be discarded. Nixon chose to strike back at the North

Vietnamese with another series of massive bombing raids. These

occurred during the Christmas season, with American pilots

dropping bombs on both Hanoi and Haiphong during

Operation Linebacker II. Once again, Nixon removed previous

restraints, informing the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “This is your

chance to use military power to win this war, and if you don’t,

I’ll consider it your responsibility.”107

The damage was considerable, ranging from the killing of

nearly 2,000 civilians to the downing of 15 B-52s and 11 other

planes, which resulted in the death or capture of almost 100

American crewmen. A firestorm of criticism erupted, with

Nixon denounced as a “madman” and Swedish Prime Minister

Olaf Palme likening Operation Linebacker II to Nazi atrocities.

In reality, the U.S. military struck at military targets only, and

those in densely populated locations were off-limits.

* * * * *

Peace negotiations resumed soon, with an agreement reached

in January 1973. For the initial time, the North Vietnamese

agreed to the inclusion of an explicit reference to the demilita-

rized zone, and the American diplomats acknowledged that it


was intended to be a “provisional” boundary, not one that was

either political or territorial. Both sides promised to release pris-

oners of war within 60 days of the cease-fire. The United States

was to withdraw its remaining 24,000 soldiers from South

Vietnam 60 days after the return of 591 American POWs, and

the North Vietnamese were not compelled to send their troops

already stationed in the South back across the 17th parallel. The

Communist Party leaders did promise that there would be no

attempts to take advantage of the cease-fire or to send more

troops into the South. This soon became a point of contention,

because American diplomats believed that the North had agreed

not to send additional forces across the demilitarized zone. The

North Vietnamese contested that interpretation of the Paris

Accords, reasoning that they could send troops to replace those

returning home.

Although Thieu remained in power in Saigon, the Committee

on National Reconciliation, which had representatives from the

National Liberation Front, was established and planned to hold

elections that would lead to the formation of a new government

in the South. The International Commission for Supervision

and Control of the Cease-Fire, made up of representatives from

Canada, Indonesia, Poland, and Hungary, was set up to track

developments and to see if the cease-fire remained in place. The

United States agreed to provide $3.25 billion in economic aid to

rebuild Vietnam. (That assistance was never forthcoming.) The

North Vietnamese began releasing American prisoners of war in

stages, beginning on February 12.

For the American public, the war had seemingly come to an

end. It had caused tremendous damage and suffering in three

Southeast Asian nations and had threatened to tear apart the

United States itself apart. An untold number of Vietnamese,

Cambodians, and Laotians lost their lives because of the conflict,

and more than 58,000 Americans died as well.

Still unresolved was the future of South Vietnam, which con-

tinued to appear to many as an artificial state made possible by

the creation of an arbitrary boundary. For several months after


the Paris Accords were signed, President Nixon intensified

bombing campaigns in Cambodia, hoping to hit sanctuaries

used by the communist Khmer Rouge and North Vietnamese. As

Congress moved to prohibit the bombing of Cambodia and

Laos, however, North Vietnam stepped up the pace of its infil-

tration into the South; the North Vietnamese also increased the

assistance provided to communist guerrillas in both Cambodia

and Laos. The North Vietnamese–backed Khmer Rouge contin-

ued their advance toward Phnom Penh in Cambodia, and by

1974, the Pathet Lao held much of northern Laos.

As fighting continued in Southeast Asia in 1974, the U.S.

Congress passed the War Powers Resolution, which requires the

president to notify Congress before sending American forces

into foreign conflicts; congressional approval is required to

keep those troops in action for more than 60 days. Congress,

dealing with a president weakened by the Watergate scandal,

which eventually led to his resignation, sharply reduced the

level of economic assistance provided to the Thieu regime in

South Vietnam.

The situation continued to deteriorate in the nation–state that

the United States had helped construct south of the the 17th

parallel. The South Vietnamese economy, so long dependent on

American dollars, experienced crippling inflation and massive

unemployment in major urban centers. Repression character-

ized Thieu’s government—dissidents were treated harshly, as

they had been all along. More and more people poured into

Saigon, which was flooded with larger numbers of prostitutes,

black marketeers, orphans, refugees, and military deserters.

Because of decreased support from the United States, the ARVN

no longer possessed a seemingly endless supply of war matériel.

Matters soon went from bad to worse, as the Communist

Party leadership in Hanoi undertook the final offensive. In

January 1975, a two-year program for taking over South

Vietnam began; the actual reunification of Vietnam occurred

much more quickly. On March 10, the North Vietnamese Army,

reinforced with additional troops that had come across the


demarcation line, struck in the Central Highlands, causing a

panicked retreat by South Vietnamese forces. On March 26, in

the midst of a growing exodus of civilians and ARVN soldiers

alike, Hue fell, and Danang did so four days later. On May 1,

Saigon—soon to be referred to as Ho Chi Minh City—fell,

Phnom Penh did so within two weeks, and Vientiane would later

in the year. The Republic of South Vietnam came to an end, as

did the temporary partitioning of Vietnam at the 17th parallel.

Thus, after decades of warfare, Vietnam was reunited. The

reunification promised through the Geneva Accords had finally

occurred, allowing the removal of the demarcation line, an arbi-

trary border that resulted from Cold War concerns and compro-

mises that offended Vietnamese nationalists. Scars and memories

remained, however, and as a new era dawned, sounds of ord-

nance exploding along the former DMZ could be heard, causing

still more casualties in beautiful, but often tragic, Vietnam.

The removal of the arbitrary boundary that had splintered

Vietnam for so long did not overcome all the cultural, political,

and ideological differences that had divided the Vietnamese peo-

ple. French imperialism had been vanquished, along with

American neocolonialism, but Vietnam was still set by internal

chasms, including those that evidently caused Northerners and

Southerners to be viewed differently. After the war ended, many

Southerners, including large numbers who had supported the

struggle against the French, the Americans, and their Saigon-

based allies, found themselves viewed with suspicion by their

supposed comrades from north of the 17th parallel.

New divisions soon surfaced, too, with Communist Party

leaders quarreling among themselves about the future of their

nation. An American-led economic and diplomatic boycott of

Vietnam continued, and the resulting isolation crippled that

country’s ability to rebuild after the war, as did communist

economic policies, which eventually compelled some in the

party to call for market solutions. That tendency heightened

after China’s adoption of economic liberalism and the collapse

of the Soviet Union.


Most striking of all is that other divisions remained in place as

Americans struggled with the meaning of the war that had gone

so badly for the United States, while the Vietnamese retained a

communist political monopoly in the midst of a campaign to

open up their nation for trade, commerce, and tourism. With

the passage of time, American government leaders, veterans, and

common citizens began responding more favorably to calls to

establish relations with the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese, in

turn, appeared increasingly receptive to that possibility, suggest-

ing that efforts be undertaken to mend various rifts and ruptures

that had wounded the peoples of both Vietnam and the United

States. As the early years of the twenty-first century unfolded,

the struggle to overcome the legacy of long-entrenched arbitrary

borders remained in place in each country and in the hearts and

minds of their citizens.


111 B.C. China’s Han dynasty conquers Nam Viet.

A.D 39–43 The Trung sisters conduct a revolt against Chinese rule.

939 Ngo Quyen drives out the Chinese and reestablishes thestate of Vietnam (Nam Viet).

1400s to 1700s Dynastic struggles and the long march southward unfold.

1407–1428 The Ming Dynasty attacks Vietnam, but King Le Loi suc-cessfully repels the Chinese.

1471 The Vietnamese capture the Cham capital at Vijaya.

1500s Europeans start making inroads into Vietnam.

1802 The reign of the Emperor Gia Long begins.

mid-1800s French incursions take hold. Vietnamese resistanceoccurs immediately.

1862 The Treaty of Saigon is signed.

1867 The French form the colony of Cochinchina.

1883 The French establish a protectorate over Vietnam.

1893 The French take control of Laos.

1897–1902 Paul Doumer serves as governor-general of Indochina.

1903–1919 Pham Boi Chau and Phan Chu Trinh are the outstandingnationalist figures of Vietnam.

1911–1941 This is the period of the lengthy exodus of Ho Chi Minh.

1930 Ho Chi Minh helps found the Indochinese CommunistParty.

1940–1945 The Japanese become the effective rulers of Vietnam.

1941 Ho returns to Vietnam and soon founds the VietminhFront.

1944–1945 The Vietminh establish relations with the agents from theOffice of Strategic Services (OSS).

1945 The Japanese stage a coup against the French. TheVietminh sweep into a series of cities and rural areasacross Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh declares the establishmentof the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The UnitedStates begins to lend support to the French, who aredetermined to reestablish their dominance in Indochina.The French Indochina War begins.

1948 The French name former emperor Bao Dai head of theState of Vietnam.

1950 The United States agrees to provide military assistance tothe French. The first U.S. Military Advisory AssistanceGroup arrives in Saigon.

121

CHRONOLOGY & TIMELINE

1954 The battle of Dienbienphu rages, culminating with aVietminh triumph. The Geneva Accords produce a tem-porary division of Vietnam at the 17th parallel. TheUnited States supports the selection of Ngo Dinh Diemas prime minister of the Republic of Vietnam. OperationExodus occurs in the North, resulting in one millionVietnamese migrating south of the 17th parallel.

1955 Diem solidifies his hold on power in the South. Herefuses to allow reunification elections, instead conduct-ing a referendum in which he receives 98.2 percent of thevote.

1960 The National Liberation Front is founded.

1963 Buddhist protests mount in Vietnam, and Diem is over-thrown.

1964 U.S.-backed actions against North Vietnam intensify.Congress passes the Tonkin Gulf Resolution.

1965 The U.S. undertakes a systematic bombing campaignagainst North Vietnam. President Johnson sends

122


111B.C. China’s Han dynastyconquers Nam Viet

1500Europeans begin tomake inroads intoVietnam

939Ngo Quyen drives outthe Chinese and reestablishesthe state of Vietnam

1802The reign of the Emperor

Gia Long begins

1862The Treaty of

Saigon is signed

1930Ho Chi Minh helps

found the IndochineseCommunist Party

1883The French establish

a protectorateover Vietnam

1850French incursions takehold with Vietnamese

resistance resulting

1930111B.C.

American ground troops to Vietnam. Opposition to thewar mounts in the United States.

1968 The Battle for Khe Sanh and the Tet Offensive occur;550,000 American troops are stationed in Vietnam.

1969 President Nixon attempts to rely on the Madman Theory.Nixon begins to withdraw American troops but expandsthe air war over Laos and Cambodia.

1970 American and ARVN forces make an incursion intoCambodia.

1971 The U.S.-backed ARVN incursion into Laos takes place.

1972 The North Vietnamese conduct a major offensive in thespring. The U.S. carries out Christmas bombings.

1973 Peace accords are signed in Paris. The last Americanground troops withdraw.

1975 The fall of Saigon occurs, resulting in Vietnam’s reunifi-cation.

123


1948French name former emperor Bao Dai headof Vietnam

1945Ho Chi Minh declares the establishmentof the Democratic Republic of Vietnam

1965President Johnson

sends American groundtroops to Vietnam

1973Peace accords are

signed in Paris

The last Americanground troops withdraw

1940—45The Japaneseeffectivelyrule Vietnam

1954Battle of Dienbienphu

The Geneva Accords producea temporary division of Vietnamat the 17th parallel

1941Ho returns to Vietnamand founds the Vietminh Front

19731940

Chapter 11. Quoted in Chester Cooper, The Lost

Crusade: America in Vietnam. New York:Dodd Mead, 1970, p. 79.

2. Quoted in Townsend Hoopes, The Deviland John Foster Dulles. Boston: Atlantic,Little, Brown , 1973, p. 222.

3. Quoted in Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: AHistory. New York: Penguin Books, 1984,p. 199.

4. Quoted in John Foster Dulles,Memorandum on Instructions to theAmerican Delegation at Geneva, May 12,1954, American Journey Online,http://www.americanjourney.psmedia.com/index.html.

5. Quoted in Karnow, Vietnam, p. 201.6. Quoted in Robert D. Schulzinger, A Time

for War: The United States and Vietnam,1941–1975. New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1997, p. 74.

7. Ibid.8. Quoted in James S. Olson and Randy

Roberts, Where the Domino Fell:American and Vietnam, 1945–1995. St.James, NY: Brandywine Press, 1999, p. 49.

9. Quoted in Karnow, Vietnam, pp.201–202.

10. Quoted in Rob McClintock to StateDepartment, July 4, 1954, AmericanJourney Online.

11. Quoted in “Report by Ho Chi Minh tothe Sixth Plenum of the Party CentralCommittee,” July 15, 1954, Vietnam: AHistory in Documents. New York:Meridian, 1971, pp. 155–157.

12. Quoted in Patrick J. Hearden, TheTragedy of Vietnam. New York:HarperCollins Publishers, 1991, p.60.

13. Quoted in “The Uncertain Calm,”Newsweek, August 2, 1954, 15.

14. Quoted in “Asia: Attack and Retaliation,”Newsweek, August 2, 1954, 32.

15. Quoted in “The Final Declarations of theGeneva Conference,” July 21, 1954, in AVietnam Reader: Sources and Essays.Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1991,p. 40.

16. Ibid, pp. 40–41.17. Quoted in “The American Response to

the Geneva Declarations,” July 21, 1954,in A Vietnam Reader, pp. 40–41.

18. Quoted in Schulzinger, A Time for War, p.77.

19. Quoted in Ngo Dinh Diem, “StatementRegarding the Geneva Accords,” July 22,1954, American Journey Online.

20. Quoted in George C. Herring, America’sLongest War: The United States andVietnam, 1950–1975. New York:McGraw-Hill, 2002, p. 49.

Chapter 221. Quoted in Karnow, Vietnam, p. 104.22. Quoted in Thomas D. Boettcher,

Vietnam: The Valor and the Sorrow.Boston: Little Brown, and Company,1985, p. 8.

Chapter 323. Quoted in Boettcher, Vietnam, p. 24.

Chapter 424. Quoted in Anthony Short, The Origins of

the Vietnam War. New York: Longman,1989, p. 13.

25. Ibid., pp. 13–14.26. Quoted in William J. Duiker, Ho Chi

Minh: A Life. New York: Hyperion, 2000,p. 14.

27. Quoted in Olson and Roberts, Where theDomino Fell, p. 11.

28. Quoted in Duiker, Ho Chi Minh, p. 30.29. Ibid., p. 15.30. Quoted in Schulzinger, A Time for War,

p.7.31. Quoted in Duiker, Ho Chi Minh, p. 40.32. Ibid., p. 62.33. Ibid., p. 99.34. Ibid., p. 235.

Chapter 535. Ibid., p. 242.36. Quoted in Cecil B. Currey, Victory at Any

Cost: The Genius of Viet Nam’s Gen. VoNyugen Giap. Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, Inc.,1999, p. 60.

37. Quoted in George Donelson Moss,Vietnam: An American Ordeal. UpperSaddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002, p. 22.


39. Quoted in Moss, Vietnam, p. 24.40. Ibid., p. 25.

124

NOTES

41. Ibid.42. Quoted in Schulzinger, A Time for War,

pp. 14–15.43. Quoted in Duiker, Ho Chi Minh, p. 281.44. Ibid., p. 296.45. Ibid., pp. 289–290.46. Quoted in Karnow, Vietnam, p. 139.47. Ibid.

Chapter 648. Quoted in “The Vietnamese Declaration

of Independence,” September 2, 1945, AVietnam Reader, p. 32–33.

49. Quoted in Karnow, Vietnam, p. 139.50. Quoted in Olson and Roberts, Where the

Domino Fell, p. 28.51. Quoted in Moss, Vietnam, p. 36.52. Quoted in Hearden, The Tragedy of

Vietnam, p. 33.53. Quoted in Duiker, Ho Chi Minh, pp.

379–380.54. Quoted in “Airgram from Reed to

Acheson,” June 14, 1947, Vietnam: AHistory in Documents, p. 66.

55. Quoted in Herring, America’s LongestWar, p. 13.

56. Quoted in “Department of State PolicyStatement on Indochina,” September 22,1948, Vietnam: A History in Documents,p. 75.


58. Quoted in Marilyn B. Young, TheVietnam Wars 1945–1990. New York:HarperCollins Publishers, 1991, p. 23.

59. Quoted in “Telegram from Acheson tothe Consulate in Hanoi,” May 20, 1949, inVietnam: A History in Documents,, p. 79.

60. Quoted in State Department Report forthe National Security Council (NSC),“U.S. Policy Toward Southeast Asia,”(NSC 51), July 1, 1949, in Vietnam: AHistory in Documents, p. 81.

61. Quoted in “Memorandum by RaymondB. Fosdick (Consultant to the Secretary ofState on Far Eastern Policy) forAmbassador at Large Philip Jessup,”November 4, 1949, Vietnam: A History inDocuments, Porter, pp. 83–84.


Chapter 763. Quoted in Olson and Roberts, Where the

Domino Fell, p. 39.64. Ibid, p. 37.65. Quoted in Currey, Victory at Any Cost, p.

193.66. Quoted in Schulzinger, A Time for War, p.

60.67. Quoted in Herring, America’s Longest

War, p. 37.68. Quoted in Currey, Victory at Any Cost, p.

191.69. Quoted in “Address by Dulles,” March 29,

1954, Vietnam: A History in Documents,p. 135.

70. Quoted in “Eisenhower Counts theDominoes,” A Vietnam Reader, pp. 38–39.

71. Herring, America’s Longest War, p. 43.72. Ibid.73. Olson and Roberts, Where the Domino

Fell, p. 44.74. Ibid., p. 43.75. Quoted in Young, The Vietnam Wars

1945–1990, p. 36.

Chapter 876. Quoted in Herring, America’s Longest

War, p. 57.77. Ibid.78. Quoted in Schulzinger, A Time for War, p.

81.79. Quoted in Hearden, The Tragedy of

Vietnam, p. 63.80. Quoted in William S. Turley, The Second

Indochina War: A Short Political andMilitary History, 1954–1975. New York:Mentor, 1987, p. 38.


82. Quoted in Hearden, The Tragedy ofVietnam, p. 87.

Chapter 983. Quoted in John Prados, The Blood Road:

The Ho Chi Minh Trail and the VietnamWar. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,1998, p. 213.

84. Ibid.85. Ibid.86. Ibid.87. Ibid., pp. 214–215.

125

NOTES

88. Ibid., p. 215.89. Quoted in David Halberstam, The Best

and the Brightest. New York: RandomHouse, 1969.

90. Quoted in “Resolution of the NinthConference of the Lao Dong PartyCentral Committee,” December 1963,Vietnam: A History in Documents, p. 257.


92. Quoted in “The Senate Debates theTonkin Gulf Resolution,” August 6–7,1964, in A Vietnam Reader, pp. 75–76.

93. Quoted in “Undersecretary of StateGeorge Ball’s Memo to PresidentJohnson,” July 1, 1965, A Vietnam Reader,p. 87.


95. Quoted in J. William Fulbright, TheArrogance of Power. New York: RandomHouse, 1967.



98. Ibid.99. Quoted in Robert Pisor, The End of the

Line: The Siege of Khe Sanh. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002, p. 70.

100. Quoted in “Address by Commander ofU.S. Forces in Vietnam, Gen. William C.Westmoreland,” November 21, 1967,Vietnam: A History in Documents, p. 354.

101. Quoted in Martin Luther King Jr.,“Declaration of Independence from theWar in Vietnam (April 1967),” in Againstthe Vietnam War: Writings by Activists.Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press,1999, p. 102.

102. Quoted in Turley, The Second IndochinaWar, p. 108.

103. Quoted in Pisor, The End of the Line, p.236.

Chapter 10104. Quoted in Hearden, The Tragedy of

Vietnam, p. 153.105. Quoted in Schulzinger, A Time for War, p.

299.106. Quoted in “The Final Declarations of the

Geneva Conference,” July 21, 1954, in AVietnam Reader, p. 40–42.

107. Quoted in Moss, Vietnam, p. 395.

126

NOTES

American Journey Online. http://www.americanjourney.psmedia.com/

index html

(1999).Boettcher, Thomas D. Vietnam: The Valor and the Sorrow.

Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1985.

Cooper, Chester L. The Lost Crusade. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1970.

Currey, Cecil B. Victory at Any Cost: The Genius of Viet Nam’s Gen. Vo

Nguyen Giap. Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, Inc., 1999.

Di Leo, David L. George Ball, Vietnam, and the Rethinking of

Containment. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press,

1991.

Duiker, William J. Ho Chi Minh: A Life. New York: Hyperion: 2000.

Fulbright, William J. The Arrogance of Power. New York: Random

House, 1967.

Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random

House, 1969.

Hearden, Patrick J. The Tragedy of Vietnam. New York: HarperCollins

Publishers, 1991.

Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and

Vietnam, 1950–1975. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 2002.

Hoopes, Townsend. The Devil and John Foster Dulles. Boston: Little,

Brown, 1973.

Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. New York: Penguin Books, 1984.

Long, Ngo Vinh. Before the Revolution: The Vietnamese Peasants under

the French. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.

Moss, George Donelson, Ed. A Vietnam Reader: Sources and Essays,

Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1991.

Moss, George Donelson. Vietnam: An American Ordeal. Upper Saddle

River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002.

127

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Olson, James S., and Randy Roberts. Where the Dominoes Fell: American

and Vietnam, 1945–1995. St. James, NY: Brandywine Press, 1999.

Pisor, Robert. The End of the Line: The Siege of Khe Sanh. New York: W.

W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2002.

Porter, Gareth, Ed. Vietnam: A History in Documents. New York:

Meridian, 1981.

Prados, John. The Blood Road: The Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Vietnam

War. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1998.

Robbins, Mary Susannah, Ed. Against the Vietnam War: Writings by

Activists. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1999.

Schulzinger, Robert D. A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam,

1941–1975. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Short, Anthony. The Origins of the Vietnam War. London: Longman,

1989.

Turley, William S. The Second Indochina War: A Short Political and

Military History, 1954–1975. New York: Mentor, 1987.

Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars 1945–1990. New York:

HarperCollins Publishers, 1991.

128

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Allen, Douglas, and Ngo Vinh Long, Eds. Coming to Terms: Indochina,

the United States, and the War. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991.

Andrade, Dale. America’s Last Vietnam Battle: Halting Hanoi’s 1972

Easter Offensive. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001.

Buttinger, Joseph. Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled. Volume I: From

Colonialism to the Vietminh; Volume II: Vietnam at War. New York:

Praeger, 1967.

Cable, James. The Geneva Conference of 1954 on Indochina. New York:

St. Martin’s Press, 1986.

Dawson, Alan. 55 Days: The Fall of South Vietnam. New York: Prentice-

Hall, 1977.

DeBenedetti, Charles, and Charles Chatfield. An American Ordeal: The

Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse: Syracuse University

Press, 1990.

Devillers, Philippe, and Jean Lacouture. End of a War: Indochina, 1954.

New York: Praeger, 1969.

Duiker, William J. The Communist Road to Vietnam. Boulder, CO:

Westview Press, 1981.

———. Vietnam: Nation in Revolution. Boulder, CO: Westview Press,

1983.

Eisenhower, Dwight D. Mandate for Change. Garden City, NY:

Doubleday, 1963.

Emerson, Gloria. Winners and Losers. New York: W. W. Norton &

Company, 1976.

Fall, Bernard. Hell in a Very Small Place. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1967.

———. Street Without Joy. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole, 1963.

———. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. New

York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1964.

129

FURTHER READING

Fitzgerald, Frances. Fire in the Lake. Boston: Atlantic/Little, Brown,

1972.

Gardner, Lloyd C. Approaching Vietnam: From World War II through

Dienbienphu. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1988.

Gettleman, Marvin, et al., Eds. Vietnam and America: A Documentary

History. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1985.

Gravel, Senator, Ed. Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of

United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam. Boston: Beacon Press,

1971–1972.

Halberstam, David. Ho. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987.

———. The Making of a Quagmire. New York: Random House, 1964.

Hammer, Ellen J. The Struggle for Indochina, 1940–1954. Stanford, CA:

Stanford University Press, 1954.

Higgins, Hugh. Vietnam. London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1982.

Johnson, Lyndon B. The Vantage Point. New York: Holt, Rinehart &

Winston, 1971.

Kaplan, Lawrence, et al. Dien Bien Phu and the Crisis of Franco-

American Relations, 1950–1954. Eds., Wilmington, DE.: Scholarly

Resources, 1990.

Kutler, Stanley I. Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War. New York: Charles

Scribner’s, 1996.

Lacouture, Jean. Ho Chi Minh. New York: Random House, 1968.

Langguth, A. J. Our Vietnam: The War 1954–1975. New York: Simon &

Schuster, 2000.

Maclear, Michael. The Ten Thousand Day War. New York: St. Martin’s,

1981.

Mann, Robert. A Grand Illusion: America’s Descent into Vietnam. New

York: Basic Books, 2001.

Marr, David G. Vietnam Anticolonialism, 1885–1925. Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1971.

130

FURTHER READING

Moise, Edwin E. Historical Dictionary of the Vietnam War. Lanham,

MD: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2001.

Nixon, Richard M. The Memoirs of Richard M. Nixon. New York:

Grosset & Dunlap, 1978.

Oberdorfer, Don. Tet! Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971.

Olson, James, Ed. Dictionary of the Vietnam War. New York: Peter

Bedrick Books, 1987.

Patti, Archimedes L. Why Viet Nam? Berkeley: University of California

Press, 1981.

Randle, Robert. Geneva 1954: The Settlement of the Indochina War.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969.

Rotter, Andrew J. Light at the End of the Tunnel: A Vietnam War

Anthology. Ed., Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1999.

———. The Path to Vietnam: Origins of the American Commitment to

Southeast Asia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989.

Roy, Jules. The Battle of Dienbienphu. New York: Carroll & Graf

Publishers, 2002.

Shaplen, Robert. The Lost Revolution. New York: Harper & Row, 1965.

Shultz, Richard H., Jr. The Secret War Against Hanoi: The Untold Story of

Spies, Saboteurs, and Covert Warriors in North Vietnam. New York:

Perennial, 2000.

Simpson, Howard R. Dien Bien Phu: The Epic Battle American Forgot.

Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s Inc., 1996.

Tucker, Spencer C., Ed. The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political,

Social, and Military History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

VanDemark, Brian. Into the Quagmire: Lyndon Johnson and the

Escalation of the Vietnam War. New York: Oxford, 1995.

Wells, Tom. The War Within: America’s Battle over Vietnam. Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1994.

131

FURTHER READING

Zaroulis, Nancy and Gerald Sullivan. Who Spoke Up?: American Protest

against the War in Vietnam 1963–1975. Garden City, NY: Doubleday

& Company, Inc., 1984.

Articles

Cottrell, Robert. “The Longest War in US History: Vietnam,” Choice 40,

June 2003, p. 1657–1666.

Immerman, Richard. “The United States and the Geneva Conference of

1954: A New Look,” Diplomatic History, 14, Winter 1990, p. 1.

132

FURTHER READING

American Imperialism, 8Americanization of the War, 94–109

bombing of North Vietnam, 98–99charges of imperialism, 97–98General Westmoreland’s strategy, 105–107and Khe Sanh, 107maintaining the arbitrary border, 99–100and the McNamara Line, 95–97photograph with caption, 103protests in America, 101–105Vietcong attacks, 99–100

Annamitesas Vietnamese, 21

Army of the Republic of Vietnam, (ARVN),86–87join Americans, 90–93, 105–106, 115–116

Atlantic Charter, Theduring the Vietnam War, 50–51

Axis Powers, 4

Bibliography, 127–128

Chau, Phan Boiand alliance with Trinh, 35–40executed supporters, 36rise of, 35–40

Chronology, 121–123 Churchill, Winston

advice to President Eisenhower, 7–8critical perspective, 74–75issuance of the Atlantic Charter, 50–51

Clifford, Clark, advisor to Johnson, 102–103Cold War, The

unfold of, 62–63Contributors, 138

Dai, Emperor Bao and Geneva conference, 5and the Japanese control of Vietnam, 56opponent of Ho, 83–84

d’Argenlieu, Georges Thierryestablished the Republic of Indochina,

60–61de Gemouilly, Admiral Charles Rignalut

movement against Hue, 19–20Dewey, OSS agent A. Peter

first United States casualty in the VietnamWar, 59

Diem, Ngo Dinh, 8, 10–11death of, 97–98

photograph with caption, 92secured power, 87–89

Dienbienphu, 68–78defeat at, 1–2as French fortress, 1–2, 4lost in war, 72–73photograph with caption, 73positioning of French troops in, 69–72and United States refusal to intervene, 4victory for Ho and Giap, 76–77

Divided Vietnam, 79–93and America, 80, 82and ARVN, 86–87big loss for the French, 80, 82and the Ho Chi Minh Trail, 89–90and Ho, 80, 82and the likelihood of a viable government,

83–85Operation Exodus, 85–86and SATO, 86–87

Dong Kinh Nghia Thucestablished during Vietnamese resistance, 37

Dong Minh Hoiand The Vietnamese Revolutionary

League, 52–53Doumer, Paul

biography, 28determination to eradicate the Vietnamese

resistance, 35and role in Indochina, 26–31

Dulles, John Forstermeeting with the National SecurityCouncil, 11orders no deals with China, 6–8role of Secretary of State, 4and the Threat of Red Asia, 73–74

Easter Offensive, 115Eisenhower, President

advice from Churchill, 7–8Enlai, Zhou, 6

encounter with Ho, 42and Mendes–France, 8

Francemisgivings of Geneva Conference,11–12

Free Khmer guerrilla forces,7

French colonization, 23–31,and arbitrary borders, 22and the cost to the Vietnamese, 24–25

133

INDEX

and Doumer’s role, 26–31economic depression of the Vietnamese,

27–28exploitation of the Vietnamese, 25–27, 30and Vietnamese resistance to, 32–45and Vietnamese schooling, 29–30

French Indochina War, 1, 55–67dominance of, 62

French troopsphotograph with caption, 61

Further Reading, 129–133

Geneva Conference of 1954, 1–12, 111acknowledgements of, 10–11arguments over the divide, 9–10conference about Vietnam, 2and the fall of Mendes–France

government, 10as five-power conference, 2misgivings of France and Vietminh, 11–12misgivings of United States and Vietnam,

11–12opening day, 2partition of Vietnam, 2–3turmoil with, 82–83as two divided hot spots, 2

Giap, Vo Nguyenattack on French troops, 64–65attacks on South Vietnamese, 115–116call for guerilla forces, 53–54photograph with caption, 57role in the Vietnam War, 51strike on Lai Chau, 72–73

Guerrilla forces, 7

Hanoi Free Schoolestablished during Vietnamese resistance, 37

Harmand, General Juleswarning to the Vietnamese, 33–34

Ho Chi Minh Trailbuilding of, 89–90

Hoopes, Townsendas Dulles’ biographer, 4–5

IndochinaFrench domination in, 21–31map of, 81and the Whites Man’s Burden’, 21

Indochinese Communist Party

war in Vietnam, 47–48Indochinese Nationalist Party

also referred to as Quoc Dan Dang Dong Duong, 42–43

Jason Group, Thereport on the McNamara Line, 96–97

Johnson, Presidentexpression of readiness for war, 100–102

Khe Sanhsynopsis of, 107

Lattre Line, deFrench forts built, 65

Lattre, General Jean deorders in French Indochinese War, 65–66

Le Dynastybattle with Champa, 16

Long, Giainsular attitude about Vietnam, 18–19

Ly Dynasty, emergence of, 15–16

Matray, James I., 134McClintock, Rob

on Diem, 8McNamara Line, The

establishment of, 95–97and the Jason Group, 96–97

McNamara, RobertAmericanization of the war, 95–97

Mendes–France, Pierreon Enlai, 8Geneva conference and the fall of his gov-ernment, 10Prime Minister of France, 7strive to bring the war in Indochina to

rest, 7Minh, Ho Chi, 4

analysis of his homeland, 8–9attempt to reach out to the United States,

59–61encounter with Enlai, 42issuance of Declaration of Independence,

58–59and the plight of his countrymen, 44–45referenced as Ho, 8–9return to Vietnam, 47–49, 51schooling of, 38–41

134

INDEX

starting the Indochinese Nationalist Party,42–43

support for, 56and the Vietnam War, 47–48

Mitchell, Senator George J., 134Mongol invaders, and Vietnamese history, 16

Nation Building, 84Nghi, Emperor Ham

as boy emperor, 34murder of, 36

Nguyen Family,struggle with Trinh Family, 17–18and Vietnamese History, 17–18

Nguygen The Patriot, 37–45see Nguygen Ali Quoc

Nhu, Ngo Dinh,8Nixon, President Richard

administration of and the end of the war,111–120

withdrawal of troops, 112–113Nonaggression pact

ending the Popular Front, 47North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

alliance of, 7–8

Operation Exodus, 85–86Operation Linebacker, 115–116 Operation Vulture

attempt to save Dienbienphu, 75–76

Pac Baooperation base for The League for the Independence of Vietnam, 47–48

Paria, Le (journal)established by Ho, 41

Pathet Lao, guerrilla forces, 7Prados, John

reporting on the McNamara Line, 95–96

Quoc Dan Dang Dong Duongalso referred to as the IndochineseNationalist Party, 42–43

Quoc, Nguyen AiVietnam’s leading nationalist, 37–45

Quyen, Ngoousted Chinese, 15–16

Radford, Admiral Arthurand meeting with Roosevelt, 5

Republic of Indochina, Theestablishment of, 60–61

Roosevelt, President Franklin D.death of, 58on French rule, 4Hooper as biographer, 4–5issuance of the Atlantic Charter, 50–51and meeting with Radford, 5

Scholar’s Revolt, The, 36 17th parallel, The, 112, 114–115,acknowledgement of the Vietminh’s

military, 9an arbitrary border, 1–12compared to the 38th parallel, 1–2controlling borders,1–2official divide by Geneva, 78

Smith, Walter BedellUndersecretary of State, 7, 10

Source notes, 124–126Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SATO),

86–87

Tam Tam Xaradical group, 42T’ang Dynasty, 15–1638th parallel, The

compared to the 17th parallel, 1–2Tho, Le Duc

response to Geneva Accords, 116–117Tran Dynasty

threats to, 16Trinh Family

dominance in the North, 16–17struggle with Nguyen Family, 17–18

Trinh, Phan Chuand alliance with Chau, 35–40death sentence of, 37rise of, 35–40

Truman, President Harry S.contentions with Vietnam War, 58

Tu Duc, Emperor, 47attempt to ward off French, 19–21continuing the Nguyen Dynasty, 20

U.S. First Calvary Air Mobile divisionphotograph with caption, 101

United States

135

INDEX

involvement in Vietnam, 63–67misgivings of Geneva Conference, 11–12refusal to intervene at Dienbienphu, 4as world leader, 4

Van Dong, Pham, 47as Democratic Republic of Vietnam repre-sentative, 5–7orders to Pathet Lao and Free Khmerguerilla forces, 7outrage of, 9–10

Viet Nam Doc Lab Dong Minh Hoileaders of, 47–48also referred to as The League for the

Independence of Vietnam, 47–48Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang

also referred to as the Vietnamese Nationalist Party, 43–44

Vietcongsuffering of, 108–109

Vietminhbattle with Japanese, 54control of Vietnam, 56feared to dominate all of Indochina, 5–6losses of, 1misgivings of Geneva Conference, 11–12photograph with caption, 77resistance of, 5synopsis of, 52their control of the divide, 9–10

Vietnamcompared to World War II, 2, 4first United States casualty in, 59guerrilla forces in, 61–62Japanese control of, 56misgivings of Geneva Conference, 11–12

Vietnam at War, 47–54 and Duc, 47and the Atlantic Charter, 50–51and Ho, 47–48and the Indochinese Communist Party,47–48The League for the Independence ofVietnam, 47–48and the movement of the Japanese into,48–49and the need for sanctuaries, 49–50and the nonaggression pact, 47

Vietnameseburden of French democracy, 24–25economic depression, 27–28exploited by the French, 25–27, 30

referred to as “Annamites”, 23Vietnamese History, 13–21

and China, 14–21emergence of Ly Dynasty,15–16and Emperor Tu Duc, 19–21European involvement in, 18–19inhabitance of, 14and the Kingdom of Nam Viet, 14and Le Dynasty, 16long march southward, 16–21and Mongol invaders, 16protection by French interests, 19–21and Quyen, 15–16and Red River Delta, 14–15stirrings of Vietnamese nationalism, 15–16and T’ang Dynasty, 15–16and Tran Dynasty, 16and Trinh Family, 16–17

Vietnamese Nationalist Partyalso referred to as the Viet Nam Quoc Dan

Dang, 43–44Vietnamese resistance, 32–45

hardships of the revolutionary movement,43–44

Vietnamese schools, 29–30, 38

War’s end and the Aftermath, 110–120and the 17th parallel, 119–120American response to, 117–118American struggle with the war, 119–120bombing in Southeast Asia, 114–115Easter Offensive, 115and the Geneva Accords, 116–117and Geneva conference, 111Giap’s attacks, 115–116and the Nixon administration, 111–120Operation Linebacker, 115–116peace agreement of 1973, 116–117and a photograph of Washington

Monument, 114plight for POWs, 115–116policy of ‘Vietnamization’, 113–114and the reunification of Vietnam, 118–120withdraw of American troops, 112–113

Washington Monumentphotograph with caption, 114

World War I, 40World War II

compared to Vietnam, 2, 4guerrilla forces in, 51and Indochina, 26–27

136

INDEX

Frontis Courtesy of the Library of CongressGeography & Map Division

3 Associated Press, AP9 Associated Press, AP26 © Bettmann/CORBIS28 © Hulton|Archive by Getty Images34 © Leonard de Selva/CORBIS49 © Hulton|Archive by Getty Images57 Associated Press, AP

61 Associated Press, AP73 Associated Press, AP77 Associated Press, VIETNAM NEWS

AGENCY81 © Bettmann/CORBIS92 Associated Press, AP101 Associated Press, AP103 Associated Press, AP114 Associated Press, AP

137

PICTURE CREDITS

page:

Robert Cottrell has been a faculty member in the Department of History

at California State University at Chico since 1984. Since arriving at the

university, Cottrell has taught over a dozen different history courses and

two American Studies courses. He was chosen as Outstanding Professor

for 1998–99, an award that recognized both scholarship and excellent

teaching. He has published a number of books, predominantly in his

major are of interest, twentieth-century U.S. history. He looks forward to

writing and is always thinking ahead to his next project. Vietnam: The

17th Parallel is his first book for Chelsea House and another is in the

planning stages.

George J. Mitchell served as chairman of the peace negotiations in

Northern Ireland during the 1990s. Under his leadership, an historic

accord, ending decades of conflict, was agreed to by the governments of

Ireland and the United Kingdom and the political parties in Northern

Ireland. In May 1998, the agreement was overwhelmingly endorsed by a

referendum of the voters of Ireland, North and South. Senator Mitchell’s

leadership earned him worldwide praise and a Nobel Peace Prize nomi-

nation. He accepted his appointment to the U.S. Senate in 1980. After

leaving the Senate, Senator Mitchell joined the Washington, D.C. law firm

of Piper Rudnick, where he now practices law. Senator Mitchell’s life and

career have embodied a deep commitment to public service and he con-

tinues to be active in worldwide peace and disarmament efforts.

James I. Matray is professor of history and chair at California State

University, Chico. He has published more than forty articles and book

chapters on U.S.-Korean relations during and after World War II. Author

of The Reluctant Crusade: American Foreign Policy in Korea, 1941–1950

and Japan’s Emergence as a Global Power, his most recent publication is

East Asia and the United States: An Encyclopledia of Relations Since 1784.

Matray also is international columnist for the Donga libo in South Korea.

138

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