Download - By: Stephanie Cartagena
Vietnam War
• Second indochina war – 1954-1975
• France and Vietnam - 1954
• France forced to leave Vietnam
• To sides came together - Geneva, Switzerland
- events shaped the future – Vietnams modern revolution
Geneva Peace Accords
• France and Vietnam – 1954 – international cold war
• Worst future for Vietnam
• Pressure – soviet union and peoples republic of china
- separate – 17th parallel
- France – face-saving defeat
Terms of the Geneva Peace Accords
• 1956 – election to unify the country
• Division at the 17th parallel – vanish with elections
U.S
• Sec. John Foster Dulles
- no support – Geneva peaces accords
- to much power – communist party of Vietnam
Dulles and President Eisenhower
• Supported - counter-revolutionary alternative
- south of the 17th parallel
• U.S – supported - multilateral agreements
- Southeast Asia Treaty Organization
South Vietnam
• Southeast Asia Treaty Organization – political cover
• New nation from dust – southern vietnam
(republic of Vietnam)
Republic of Vietnam
• 1955 – born
• Help of American
- military
- political
- economic aid
• Ngo Dinh Diem
Diems Claims
• Attack from communists in the North
• Democratic republic of Vietnam – South Vietnam
1957 – counterattack
Law 10/59
• Series of acts
• Diem
• Legal to hold someone in jail if he/she was a suspected Communist without bringing formal charges.
Diem's Actions
• Immediate outcry
• People joined to stop his rule
• More attacks – more communist were trying to take the south
kennedy
• Administration split
- peaceful or democratic the Diem regime
• White house – Vietnam's policy
- change in strategy – communists party
Communists Party of Vietnam
• From 1956-1960
• Reunify the country – political means
• Accept soviet unions model of political struggle
- Diem collapse – political pressure
15th Party Plenum
• Jan. 1959
• Revolutionary violence
a) overthrow Diem's gov.
b) liberate Vietnam south of the 17th parallel
May 1959 and sept. 1960
Revolutionary violenceCombination political and armed struggle movement
Result - creation of broad-based united front - helped mobilize southerners in
opposition to the GVN
United Front
Long and historical roots in Vietnam
Mobilized anti-French forces
Joined
communists & non-communists
- umbrella organization
Dec. 20,1960
Party's new united front – “National Liberation Front”
- anyone could join
1. must oppose Diem
2. want Vietnam unified
National Liberation Front
Character vs. relationship to communists in Hanoi
- debate
- scholars
- anti-war activists
- policymakers
Gov. officials – NLF- attack against Saigon regime
Government “white papers”
Washington insiders – NLF
- puppet of Hanoi
- non-communists elements were communists dupes
Washington- discard NLF
- calling it Viet Cong ( Vietnamese Communist )
White Paper
Dec. 1961
President Kennedy
- sends troops to Vietnam to report conditions of South Vietnam
Calls for large scale military build up
Kennedy sought a limited accord with Diem
Kennedy
Argued for increase in: - military - technical - economic aid - large scale advisers - stabilize Diem's regimeUrged to leave Vietnam - dead-end alleyChoose middle route
Limited Accords
U.S – increase level of its military involvement- south Vietnam
- more machinery & advisers
- would not intervene whole-scale with troops
Communist party
• 1960-1964
• - military victory in the south
• - new American military commitment
• - march 1965
• 1. Johnson sent first combat troops to Vietnam
• 2. communists party moved to a protracted strategy
Strategy
• Get U.S in a war they could not win militarily
• Create a unfavorable conditions for political victory
• Communists party – could prevail in a protracted war
War in America
• Washington moved toward limited war in Vietnam
• Johnson – war in “cold blood”
• - called for mobilization of resources material and human and caused little disruption in every day life in America
• - goal never made
Vietnam War impact
• Johnson administration forced to consider domestic consequences of its decisions every day
• Not enough volunteers to continue to fight a protracted war and the government instituted a draft
• 1968- everybody felt war impact
Tet offensive 1968 – bad to worse for the Johnson
administration DVR and NLF – coordinated attacks –
major southern cities - tet offensive 1. force Johnson's administration to the
bargaining table
Communist Party American people growing war-weary Continued success in the countryside –
balance of forces
March 1968
Lyndon Johnson
- would not seek the democratic party's re-nomination for president
- would go to bargaining table with communists to end the war
Spring of 1968 Secret negotiations began Paris Americans & Vietnam were discussing
plans to end the war
Richard Nixon
Democratic party would not rescue presidency
claimed he had a secret plan to end the war
New President
Vietnamization
- Vietnamese were not fighting and dying in the jungles of Southern Asia
- bought american troops home
- increased air over the DRV
- relied more on ARVN for ground attacks
April 1970
Intense bombing campaigns
&
intervention in Cambodia
Intense campus protests all across America
December 1972
Nixon administration
unleashed a series of deadly bombing raids against in the DRV's largest cities
- Christmas Bombings
January 1973
Nixon White House
- convinced the Thieu-Ky regime in Saigon that they would not abandon the GVN if they signed onto the peace accords
March 1973 until the fall of Saigon on April 30,1975
ARVN forces – save the south from military and political collapse
Second Indochina war
• April 30
• Communist forces – presidential palace in Saigon captured
- ended the Second Indochina War