...parallel fought for control of the country. In the context of the Vietnamese society, the wars in Vietnam are better understood by taking a look at the leaders of North and South Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh and Ngo Dinh Diem. Learning more about the two different styles of leadership will help to understand how they gained support from the Vietnamese people and other nations for their cause. The Democratic Republic of North Vietnam consisted of the land in Southeast Asia located north of the 17th parallel, as defined by the 1954 Geneva Agreements. The Soviet Union and China supported the DRV in its fight against the Republic of Vietnam in the south, which was supported by the United States. Ho Chi Minh was the leader of the Vietnamese nationalist movement that opposed French colonial rule, and president of the DRV from 1945 until he died in 1969. Ngo Dinh Diem served as prime minister and then was the first president of the RVN from 1945-1963. The DRV was based on the communist model and the RVN was based on a democratically elected government modeled after the U.S. Ho Chi Minh and Ngo Dinh Diem both gained support for their initiative, but with a very different approach. The details of Ho Chi Minh’s life are vague causing much speculation about how his worldview was shaped. It is believed that Ho’s father was a strong Vietnamese nationalist who passed along to him the belief that Vietnam belonged to the Vietnamese (Frankum, 2011). Ho left the Lycee Huoc-Hoc before graduation...
Words: 1022 - Pages: 5
...the divided country of Vietnam. The North Vietnamese sought out to reunify the country of Vietnam, while the Americans wanted to controlled the communist expansion by providing aid and soldier to the South Vietnamese. The pentagon spent 77.8 billion in the duration of this war(Bell). In 1961 the south vietnam signed a military economic aid treaty with US. In 1965 the us began air raids on the north vietnamese. By the late 1972 the US had neither the military capability nor political supports to continue the war. The true belief of the mission and goal in the conflict was never entirely clear. The Americans justification of helping the South Vietnamese was never fully understood...
Words: 987 - Pages: 4
...Vietnam War By Jennifer Rosenberg The Vietnam War was the prolonged struggle between nationalist forces attempting to unify the country of Vietnam under a communist government and the United States (with the aid of the South Vietnamese) attempting to prevent the spread of communism. Engaged in a war that many viewed as having no way to win, U.S. leaders lost the American public's support for the war. Since the end of the war, the Vietnam War has become a benchmark for what not to do in all future U.S. foreign conflicts. Dates of the Vietnam War: 1959 -- April 30, 1975 Also Known As: American War in Vietnam, Vietnam Conflict, Second Indochina War, War Against the Americans to Save the Nation Overview of the Vietnam War: Ho Chi Minh Comes Home There had been fighting in Vietnam for decades before the Vietnam War began. The Vietnamese had suffered under French colonial rule for nearly six decades when Japan invaded portions of Vietnam in 1940. It was in 1941, when Vietnam had two foreign powers occupying them, that communist Vietnamese revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh arrived back in Vietnam after spending thirty years traveling the world. Once Ho was back in Vietnam, he established a headquarters in a cave in northern Vietnam and established the Viet Minh, whose goal was to rid Vietnam of the French and Japanese occupiers. Having gained support for their cause in northern Vietnam, the Viet Minh announced the establishment of an independent Vietnam with a new...
Words: 1005 - Pages: 5
...Just as Americans have the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln as symbols for their transformation, so the Vietnamese are proud of the Vietnam War and Ho Chi Minh for their freedom. The “only war that Americans lost” lasted from 1945 to 1975, and included the people from the South and the North of Vietnam, especially, the major figure of the war. The Vietnamese politician, a Communist leader and Confucian Humanist who led the people of North Vietnam to escape the domination of the French, was a steady, militarily brilliant person who was motivated by the love for his country (“Ho Chi Minh essays,” n.d). The Vietnamese who are inside the country and all around the world hold a strong opinion that Ho Chi Minh is a great commander in Vietnam, though with a wrong belief in the type of Government:...
Words: 1270 - Pages: 6
...of containment and the domino theory set the stage for the eventual escalation of the Vietnam Conflict into a war which would claim the lives of thousands of Americans. United States' involvement in Vietnam began as early as World War II, when American forces of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor of the CIA, parachuted into the mountains in the northern region of Vietnam. Led by Major Allison Thomas, their mission, "Deer," was to rendezvous with and train a small group of Vietnamese soldiers that were fighting Japanese occupation troops, and were rescuing downed pilots, this group of Vietnamese were known as the Vietminh. This group of Vietnamese soldiers would soon be the communist leaders of North Vietnam, however, at the time American forces were not concerned that Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap were communists because America was still allied with the Soviet Union, a communist state, at that point during World War II (Westheider 2). The Vietminh under leadership of Ho Chi Minh and with training from American OSS forces were simultaneously fighting the Japanese, while at the same time gaining more political control over the greater area of northern Vietnam. Minh and Giap believed that the power vacuum created by the expulsion of the Japanese would give the Vietminh opportunity to seize control before the return of a French colonial presence in Vietnam. After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the subsequent Japanese surrender, the Vietminh saw...
Words: 2511 - Pages: 11
...independence from the Chinese in 938 AD, successive Vietnamese dynasties ruled the nation while expanding geographically and politically into Southeast Asia, until the French colonized the nation into of a federation of states called Indochina, which consisted of North, Central and South Vietnam, along with Cambodia in the 19th century. During such turmoil, Ho Chi Minh was born in Hoang Tru village of French Indochina on May 19, 1890. His birth name was Nguyen Sinh Cung, but he was more popular with other names. After completing his primary education, Ho travelled to the city of Hue and attended the Franco – Vietnamese academy. Post-graduation, at the age of 21, Ho obtained a job as a cook aboard a French steam ship, and travelled to France. He later travelled through various parts of Europe, US and other countries. While in France, he was introduced to Communism, and became involved in leftist and anticolonial activism. Influenced by the communism ideas, he started the Association for Annamite Patriots, an organization composed of Vietnamese nationals living in France who opposed the French colonial occupation, and later became part of the French Communist party in 1920. He also started a journal to serve as a platform for anti-colonial activists to express and disseminate their views about the French colonial regime. Later on, Ho moved to Soviet Union and China and worked under various leaders in these communist countries. He studied the thought of Marx and Lenin...
Words: 1052 - Pages: 5
...The rebellion began in Yen Bai, formatted by the nationalist party, peasant armed uprising and work stoppages of industrial workers resulted in the formation of the local soviet governments under the leadership of the Indochinese communist party shook Vietnamese colony. In 1858, French attacked Da Nang and ended with the appointment of Paul Doumer in 1897. First colonial possession of France in Southeast Asia took its definite shape in 1897 when Doumer implemented an old decree to institute French Indochina union. For nearly 45 years of the twentieth century, it constituted the phase of Vietnam’s colonial history when France established foreign policies and international relations over Indochina and failed that empire; an empire which subsequently became part of a supposedly indissoluble...
Words: 1471 - Pages: 6
...major player in the world economy. The nation of Vietnam, officially called the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is located on the eastern side of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. Vietnam is bordered to the north by People’s Republic of China, to the northwest by Laos, to the southwest by Cambodia and to the east by the South China Sea. Vietnam’s long coastline with the South China Sea is of strategic importance as this allows for significant control of this body of water (Burke, 2011). The location of Vietnam was also considered of vital importance during the Cold War. Many politicians and military officials believed that if Vietnam fell to the communists that a domino effect would begin and several other East Asian countries would become communist as well (Moise, 2011). This theory led to the Vietnam War which greatly impacted the history of Vietnam. This war, however, was but one chapter in the Vietnamese struggle for a unified and independent nation. At the beginning of the 20th century Vietnam was a French colony and been a part of French Indochina since 1887 (CIA, 2005). The French established a plantation economy setting up an export colony producing commodities such as coffee and tobacco. Many aspects of French culture were introduced to the Vietnamese people including a western style school system and Catholicism. French influence was particularly strong in the southern half of the nation as that is where the French settled...
Words: 1577 - Pages: 7
...| | |Vietnam War | | | | | |Samantha Crofford | |Steven Harn | |10/31/2010 | | | The Vietnam War is considered by some scholars to be a black spot on the United States’ white shirt. There is no doubt that it raised countless controversial issues. There were people who supported the War; there were people who protested the War. A specific group of people who protested the War was college students...
Words: 1074 - Pages: 5
...“Vietnamisation” The history of Vietnam in the post-war era is a dark, violent one, and often expressed the very worst in mankind. The 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s evolved from Communist uprisings against their former French Colonial masters, through to conflict between North and South, and finally, total warfare which absorbed the Americans and other Nations, and put the conflict at the forefront of Global politics. One can argue that as Britain and France were facing the humiliation of Suez in late 1956 (and the realisation that they were no longer the Great Powers that they once were), America and Russia were staring carefully at their maps in Washington and Moscow and working out ways of dividing up the former Colonies according to pro Capitalist and pro Communist principles. Much like Egypt which was swayed by Russian money for the Aswan Dam, so the Americans and Russians now looked to Vietnam to determine which side of the fence it would commit to. Neither Superpower dared consider the possibility that the nation could ‘fall’ to the other. As the 1960’s and 70’s saw the carving up of the Middle East, Africa and even South America, according to ideologies (many of whom chose the Soviet model) decided to join the Vietnam hostilities as a means of stemming the ‘domino effect’. One might also argue that they felt that a Communist Vietnam would be a considerable threat to its neighbour Japan – a nation with considerable US interests, especially economic ones. The Vietnam War, often referred...
Words: 2279 - Pages: 10
...immediately backed South Vietnam in the fight against the communist North Vietnam, which became the longest war in U.S. history until the Afghan War...
Words: 1834 - Pages: 8
...teach other nation American values. They thought that they had to take responsibility of world’s leadership and to spread democracy to place that did not have this system to “foster international environment of free trade” and peace through the world. Now think about it this idea now seems a bit egoistical to think that United States had to take responsibility for the world leadership. In the later years after the world war in President Truman reign the president had passed a doctrine called the Truman Doctrine in March 1947 which allow to contain the thing that would stand in American way of it image of peace. There was one thing that was standing in the wary of the United States image of the world peace which happen to be the Soviet Union and their communist way as they control part of Europe after World War two. In 1945 Viet Minh led by Ho Chi Minh who was a communist to take Hanoi and declare independence from France for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. This would eventually led American to Vietnam as it was under threat of falling into Communist hands and help France reclaim their colonies in south Asia. In 1954 help set up new state of South Vietnam with Ngo Dinh Diem. This began fight for control of South Vietnam as Ho and American with South Vietnamese people would fight for the land. It was not until 1964 when U.S Destroyers was attack twice by North Vietnamese that America really got involve and sent over 23,000 troop deal with the problem and four year...
Words: 1372 - Pages: 6
...Impact of US Foreign Policy on the Vietnam War The Vietnam War is one of the most talked about wars in history. It began in 1959 and did not end until 1975. These years saw protests, conflicts, casualties, and confusion for the United States, as well as the terms of three presidents: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon. When U.S. involvement in the war began under Kennedy, it was originally put out as a plan for the United States to only aid the South Vietnamese, but, after his assassination, Johnson was put in charge. The path that the war took under Johnson was filled with controversy and large numbers of casualties. When Johnson did not run for a second term, Nixon was left in charge to ultimately turn things around. Soon, all of the American troops were removed from Vietnam, and the war slowly began to come to a close. But what was it about Nixon’s foreign policy that was so much more successful than Johnson’s? Was Nixon’s policy more closely related to Kennedy’s successful strategy than Johnson’s was, and, if so, why didn’t Johnson do a better job modeling his policy after Kennedy? These are all questions that political scientists still look at today as a way to solve the many questions that are still being posed about the war. I have looked deeply into these questions, and found answers through researching the history of Vietnam as well as the three presidents. As I read about each event that unfolded, it became clear to me why there were such...
Words: 3614 - Pages: 15
...After the French left, the country was split into two sides, North and South Vietnam. With the worry of the power of a primarily communist North Vietnam spreading throughout the region, the United States decided to step in. In the words of former US president Dwight Eisenhower, the president when the Vietnam War first began, “the loss of all...
Words: 1776 - Pages: 8
...Involvement in the Vietnam War It is the contention of this paper that the Vietnam War was agreeable or unavoidable for exactly the rationales that U.S. leaders during that time claimed it was, that is, to sustain the trustworthiness and integrity of the pledge of Washington to restrain the evil menace, communism, across the globe. In 1950s, the communist regime expanded into North Vietnam under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh. The U.S leaders at the time believed that Ho Chi Minh could barely crushed the armed forces of France in the 1950s (Moyar 2006) or provoked the United States ten years after without firepower support from Beijing and Moscow, the two major communism headquarters. Fearing of a communist takeover in Southeast Asia, the U.S leaders, particularly Lyndon B.Johnson, declared the war on North Vietnam, fully aware of the courses of action they were taking. The ideologies of Marxism-Leninism provided Mao Zedong, Leonid Brezhnev, Nikita Khrushchev, Joseph Stalin, and Ho Chi Minh a shared goal in pursuing revolutionary changes all over the world. The fame of Ho as a fervent supporter of national independence and Vietnamese unification, alongside the Soviet’s willingness to support him, established Vietnam as an especially advantageous chance (Moore & Turner 2002). With the cold war at its peak, “a world war… in which the future governance of the international system was at stake, and in which the great powers opposing the United States and its allies were the moral...
Words: 1675 - Pages: 7
