Tuesday, January 20, 2009

The Vietnam War

The conclusion of World War II saw the United States and the Soviet Union attempting to carve out separate spheres of economic influence. The political future of Vietnam became an open question. French and Japanese occupying forces had fought bitterly for control during the war; Japan’s defeat allowed France to regain control of much of Southern Vietnam. National forces under the command of communist leader Ho Chi Minh had sought to liberate Vietnam from both French and Japanese colonialism and held power mostly in northern rural areas, filling the power vacuum left by the retreating Japanese. A new struggle in Vietnam developed between French colonialists and nationalist communists, who came to be known as the Viet-Minh.

After a bitter struggle in Korea against communist-backed North Korean forces ended in stalemate, U.S. President Harry Truman determined to take a more stringent and proactive interventionist course in Southeast Asia. The United States naturally hoped that French colonialism and occupation would last in Vietnam. Communism and Capitalism were incompatible economic systems, and Vietnam was an important market for natural resources, including tin and rubber. Truman supported the relatively impotent French occupation against a home-grown communist nationalist movement which swelled its ranks with each passing day. By the time French forces finally collapsed in 1954, Washington was financing nearly 80 percent of France’s war costs against the Viet-Minh. After 8 years of fighting, France eventually signed the 1954 Geneva Accords, recognizing the end of French colonialism and the independence of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Vietnam was temporarily divided at the 17th parallel, pending an internationally supervised national election to be held within 2 years.

The United States refused to acknowledge the provisions of the Geneva Accords and established a puppet government in South Vietnam, led by anti-communist dictator Ngo Dinh Diem. Backed by billions of dollars in U.S. aid in addition to millions distributed by the CIA to bribe detractors, Diem initially enjoyed wide support. Yet over the next 5 years, Diem’s oppressive domestic policies and suppression of communist and non-communist political rivals alike triggered another guerilla revolt among disaffected South Vietnamese. These insurgents came to be known as the Vietcong, and allied with the northern Viet Minh to unify their country in the continued struggle against western colonialism. The CIA supported a coup in 1963 to overthrow Diem, with hopes that a more pliable leader could be found; yet as Washington's influence over South Vietnamese government policy increased, Ho Chi Minh's efforts to portray South Vietnam as a U.S. puppet dictatorship were bolstered.

Kennedy became the first U.S. President to intervene in Vietnam with direct military action, using Green Beret Special Forces to conduct covert warfare. By 1964, the U.S. regularly patrolled the Gulf of Tonkin and occasionally attacked North Vietnamese coastal installations. In July, North Vietnamese patrol boats fired on a U.S. destroyer. U.S. fighter planes returned fire, and operations ceased. In August, the navy reported a second “unprovoked” attack. Recently unclassified documents show that this attack never actually occurred. Nevertheless, President Johnson used the false report to urge Congress to pass the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which granted the President broad powers to escalate military action in Vietnam. Johnson initiated a massive aerial bombing campaign and ordered 100,000 additional soldiers into Vietnam. Growing resentment of foreign interventionism galvanized the Vietcong movement, while the bombings - though overwhelmingly destructive - failed to neutralize the Viet Minh. Troop commitments continued to escalate until by 1968 over 500,000 U.S. soldiers were embroiled in a full-blown Vietnamese civil war, supporting an unpopular, corrupt and militarily ineffective regime against grass-root rebels in South Vietnam, supported militarily by northern Viet-Minh Communists. Early in 1968, the Vietcong launched assaults on every major population center in South Vietnam. The Tet Offensive, as it came to be known, confirmed the fears of the American public that ultimate victory in Vietnam would not be attainable. Public support of the war diminished further when newspapers published photos of the My Lai massacre; 347 unarmed peasants, mostly women, children and the elderly, had been slaughtered by U.S. troops under the command of Lieutenant William Calley. Calley alone was convicted of murder, but his sentenced was reduced by President Nixon and he was paroled, later receiving an honorable discharge after serving only 3 years of house arrest.

Searching for an exit strategy amid mounting anti-war sentiment and protests, Nixon settled on a strategy of “Vietnamization”, where the U.S. would continue to provide air support and munitions assistance while Southern Vietnamese forces gradually took over ground operations. Nixon’s power to implement this strategy was weakened by the Watergate Scandal. Reacting to public pressure, Congress set a deadline of August 1973, after which no more support would be given to fund combat activities in Indochina. The last U.S. combat troops were withdrawn the same year. In 1974, Nixon resigned the Presidency. Without U.S. support, the South Vietnamese government was unable to stop communist advances. On April 30, 1975 North Vietnamese troops marched into the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon and renamed it Ho Chi Minh City. The war had cost the lives of at least 1.5 million Vietnamese and more than 58,000 U.S. soldiers.

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