Вьетнамская война

Plan:

I. INTRODUCTION

II. VIETNAMESE INDEPENDENCE STRUGGLE

III. THE NEW WAR BEGINS

IV. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL TURBULENCE IN SOUTH VIETNAM

V. DEEPENING US INVOLVEMENT

VI. THE TET OFFENSIVE

VII. VIETNAMIZATION OF THE WAR (1969-1971)

VIII. CONTROVERSY IN THE UNITED STATES

IX. NEGOTIATION IMPASSES

X. QUANG TRI OFFENSIVE

XI. RE-ESCALATION

XII. TEMPORARY PEACE

XIII. CEASEFIRE AFTERMATH

XIV. NATURE OF THE WAR

XV. SUMMARY

At the Vienna conference in 1961 Kennedy and Khrushchev had agreed on the establishment of a neutralist government in Laos. In South Vietnam, however, increased pressure by the Communist-dominated nationalists known as the Vietcong led Kennedy to expand US military aid for the government of Ngo Dinh Diem. On November 1, 1963, Diem’s unpopular regime was deposed and Diem was assassinated with tacit US approval. The succeeding military junta received immediate US recognition.

INTRODUCTION

Vietnam War, military struggle fought in Vietnam from 1959 to 1975. It began as a determined attempt by Communist guerrillas (the so-called Vietcong) in the South, backed by Communist North Vietnam, to overthrow the government of South Vietnam. The struggle widened into a war between South Vietnam and North Vietnam and ultimately into a limited international conflict. The United States and some 40 other countries supported South Vietnam by supplying troops and munitions, and the USSR and the People's Republic of China furnished munitions to North Vietnam and the Vietcong. On both sides, however, the burden of the war fell mainly on the civilians.

The war also engulfed Laos, where the Communist Pathet Lao fought the government from 1965 to 1973 and succeeded in abolishing the monarchy in 1975; and Cambodia, where the government surrendered in 1975 to the Communist Khmer Rouge.

This article is concerned primarily with the military aspects of the war; for further discussion of the historical and political issues involved, see Vietnam: History.

VIETNAMESE INDEPENDENCE STRUGGLE

(1945-1954). The war developed as a sequel to the struggle (1946-1954) between the French, who were the colonial rulers of Indo-China before World War II, and the Communist-led Vietminh, or League for the Independence of Vietnam, founded and headed by the revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh. Having emerged as the strongest of the nationalist groups that fought the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China during World War II, the league was determined to resist the re-establishment of French colonial rule and to implement political and social changes.

Following the surrender of Japan to the Allies in August 1945, Vietminh guerrillas seized the capital city of Hanoi and forced the abdication of Emperor Bao Dai. On September 2 they declared Vietnam to be independent and announced the creation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, commonly called North Vietnam, with Ho Chi Minh as president. France officially recognized the new state, but the subsequent inability of the Vietminh and France to reach satisfactory political and economic agreements led to armed conflict beginning in December 1946. With French backing Bao Dai set up the state of Vietnam, commonly called South Vietnam, on July 1, 1949, and established a new capital at Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City).

The following year, the United States officially recognized the Saigon government, and to assist it, US President Harry S. Truman dispatched a military assistance advisory group to train South Vietnam in the use of US weapons. In the meantime, the two main adversaries in Vietnam—France and the Vietminh—were steadily building up their forces. The decisive battle of the war developed in the spring of 1954 as the Vietminh attacked the French fortress of Điên Biên Phu (also known as Điên Biên) in northern Vietnam. On May 8, 1954, after a 55-day siege, the French surrendered.

On the same day, both North and South Vietnamese delegates met with those of France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, the United States, Communist China, and the two neighbouring states, Laos and Cambodia, in Geneva, to discuss the future of all of Indo-China. Under accords drawn up at the conference, France and North Vietnam agreed to a truce. It was further agreed to partition the country temporarily along the 17th parallel, with the north going to the Communists and the south placed under the control of the Saigon government. The agreement stipulated that elections for reunification of the country would be held in 1956.

Neither the United States nor the Saigon government agreed to the Geneva accords, but the United States announced it would do nothing to undermine the agreement. Once the French had withdrawn from Vietnam, the United States moved to bolster the Saigon government militarily and, as asserted by some observers, engaged in covert activities against the Hanoi government. On October 24, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower offered South Vietnam direct economic aid, and the following February, US military advisers were dispatched to train South Vietnamese forces. American support for the Saigon government continued even after Bao Dai was deposed, in a referendum on October 23, 1955, and South Vietnam was made a republic, with Ngo Dinh Diem as president. One of Diem's first acts was to announce that his government would refuse to hold reunification elections, on the grounds that the people of North Vietnam would not be free to express their will and because of the probability of falsified votes (although Diem and other South Vietnamese officials were also accused of fraudulent election practices).

THE NEW WAR BEGINS

The position taken by Diem won the backing of the United States. The Communist government in Hanoi, however, indicated its determination to reunify the nation under their rule. The truce arranged at Geneva began to crumble and by January 1957, the International Control Commission set up to implement the Geneva accords was reporting armistice violations by both North and South Vietnam. Throughout the rest of the year, Communist sympathizers who had gone north after partition began returning south in increasing numbers. Called Vietcong, they began launching attacks on US military installations that had been established, and in 1959 began their guerrilla attacks on the Diem government.

The attacks were intensified in 1960, the year in which North Vietnam proclaimed its intention “to liberate South Vietnam from the ruling yoke of the US imperialists and their henchmen”. The statement served to reinforce the belief that the Vietcong were being directed by Hanoi. On November 10, the Saigon government charged that regular North Vietnamese troops were taking a direct part in Vietcong attacks in South Vietnam. To show that the guerrilla movement was independent, however, the Vietcong set up their own political arm, known as the National Liberation Front (NLF), with its headquarters in Hanoi.

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL TURBULENCE IN SOUTH VIETNAM

In the face of the deteriorating situation, the United States restated its support for Saigon. In April 1961, a treaty of amity and economic relations was signed with South Vietnam, and in December, President John F. Kennedy pledged to help South Vietnam maintain its independence. Subsequently, US economic and military assistance to the Diem government increased significantly. In December 1961, the first US troops, consisting of 400 uniformed army personnel, arrived in Saigon in order to operate two helicopter companies; the United States proclaimed, however, that the troops were not combat units as such. A year later, US military strength in Vietnam stood at 11,200.

The Diem government, meanwhile, proved unable to defeat the Communists or to cope with growing unrest among South Vietnamese Buddhists and other religious groups. Anti-government agitation among the Buddhists was especially strong, with many burning themselves to death as a sign of protest. Still others were placed under arrest, the government charging that the Buddhist groups had become infiltrated by politically hostile individuals, including Communists. Although this contention was supported by outside observers, including a US fact-finding team, religious friction between the Buddhists and the Catholic-led government was at least as powerful a force as political conflict.

On November 1, 1963, the Diem regime was overthrown in a military coup. Diem and his brother and political adviser, Ngo Dinh Nhu, were executed. The circumstances surrounding the coup were not fully clear at the time. In the summer of 1971, however, with the publication by the US press of a secret Pentagon study of the war (see Controversy in the United States below), it was revealed that the coup had been known to be imminent and that the United States was prepared to support a successor government.

The government that replaced the Diem regime was a revolutionary council headed by Brigadier General Duong Van Minh. A series of other coups followed, and in the 18 months after Diem's overthrow South Vietnam had ten different governments. None of these proved capable of dealing effectively with the country's military situation. A military council under General Nguyen Van Thieu and General Nguyen Cao Ky