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© Copyright 1999, Jim Loy
In 1881, France took control of the region now called Vietnam, and they called it French Indochina. During World War II, Japan took over the region. After the war France regained it. Beginning in World War II, the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh, rebelled against the French. The U.S. supported France, with money and equipment. In 1954, the Viet Minh defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu. The country was divided into communist North Vietnam and "democratic" South Vietnam. In 1956, President Ngo Dinh Diem, of South Vietnam, refuse to hold elections, fearing that he would lose. Buddhists objected to Diem's government being run by the Catholic minority.
War continued. The communist National Liberation Front (NLF) was called the Viet Cong (VC) by the Americans. South Vietnam's army was the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). The U. S. sent more and more advisors to help South Vietnam. North Vietnam sent men and equipment to fight the war, via the Ho Chi Minh trail, which wound through Laos, Cambodia, and South Vietnam. In 1963, Kennedy and the CIA supported the overthrow of Diem's corrupt government. Kennedy may have accidentally given the OK to have Diem assassinated.
In 1964, The U.S. Navy destroyer Maddox was attacked by North Vietnamese patrol boats, 30 miles off the coast of North Vietnam. The Maddox sank one of the boats. Two days later, the Maddox and the Turner Joy spotted North Vietnamese boats on radar, and fought for four hours, maybe. The radar blips may have been caused by the weather. This was the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. And President Johnson used it as the excuse for the U.S. to being fighting in Vietnam. Congress, in the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorized Johnson to do what was necessary to defend Americans in the area. General William Westmoreland took command of U.S. forces in Vietnam.
The U.S. was hampered by not knowing where the enemy was, or where it would strike. Johnson, the CIA, and the State Department also involved themselves in the command of the war, actually choosing many of the bombing targets. Most military targets in North Vietnam were off limits to bombs. The U.S. never had any clear objective. The U.S. won nearly all battles, but the VC and NVA (North Vietnamese Army) showed they could lose forever, and won all of the propaganda victories. The fighting was mainly "search and destroy missions" by the U.S., and ambushes by the Communists.
In 1968, the Communists launched the Tet Offensive, a major escallation of the war. They attacked simultaneously over much of South Vietnam. The Communists occupied Hue for almost a month, murdering thousands of civilians. Fifteen Communists entered the U.S. embassy in Saigon, and killed five people, before they were killed. The Communists were heavily defeated in all of these battles. The U.S. press considered Tet a major defeat for the U.S. The U.S. government began to look for a way out, "peace with honor." U.S. forces in Vietnam reached a peak of 543,000 men and women. The U.S. began pulling out its troops. In 1969, more than 300 civilians were massacred by American soldiers, at My Lai.
The American people insisted that we get out of Vietnam. There were protests and violence in the U.S. In 1970, four students were killed by National Guardsmen, at Kent State.
In 1972, there were only 95,000 Americans in Vietnam. The NVA launched the Easter offensive. The U.S. bombed Hanoi and mined Haiphong harbor. The Paris peace talks began. Kissinger and Le Duc Tho came to a peace agreement, but South Vietnam refused. The Communists walked out. More bombing brought them back to the peace talks.
In 1973, the war ended. The U.S. had lost 58,000 dead. 2000 are still missing. The U.S. left Vietnam. And South Vietnam was doomed.
In 1975, North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam, breaking the treaty, and the U.S. refused to intervene (as everyone knew we would). In three months, South Vietnam surrendered.