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

1968

• Democratic national convention

• Chicago

• Famous anti-war movement

• Police riot

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

Historians

Tet offensive

- military defeat

- psychological victory - communists

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

Nixon Years Expansion of the war - Laos - Cambodia Violated international rights – secret

campaigns

April 1970

Intense bombing campaigns

&

intervention in Cambodia

Intense campus protests all across America

Expanded air war

Didnt deter the communist party

continued to make hard demands in Paris

Fall 1972

U.S secretary of state and DRV representatives – preliminary peace draft

Kissinger-Tho peace draft

Leaders in Saigon - rejected

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

Jan. 23

• Final draft was initialed

- ended open hostility between the U.S and the DRV

Paris Peace Accords

• Did not end the conflict in Vietnam

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

July 2,1976 North Vietnam united North and South

Vietnam form the “Socialist Republic of Vietnam”

South Vietnamese government

• Supports

- executed

- imprisoned

Saigon

• Renamed - Ho Chi Minh City

- honor of former president of North Vietnam

Communist rule continues in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to the present day.