The Vietnam War

Mitchell Hall

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781134869497
• Edition: 3
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Vietnam War
• Index: History

The Vietnam War examines this conflict from its origins up until North Vietnam's victory in 1975. Historian Mitchell K. Hall's lucid account is an ideal introduction to the key debates surrounding a war that remains controversial and disputed in American scholarship and collective memory.

The new edition has been fully updated and expanded to include additional material on the preceding French Indochina War, the American antiwar movement, North Vietnamese perspectives and motivations, and the postwar scholarly debate. The text is supported by a documents section and a wide range of study tools, including a timeline of events, glossaries of key figures and terms, and a rich "further reading" section accompanied by a new bibliographical essay. Concise yet comprehensive, The Vietnam War remains the most accessible and stimulating introduction to this crucial 20th-century conflict.

Part 1
The Background

1 Roots of the Vietnam War

It is ironic that Vietnam and the United States engaged in such a long and bitter war. They had collaborated during World War II, and US officials listened as Ho Chi Minh quoted Thomas Jefferson in the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence. Vietnam looked to the United States for moral and material aid as it sought liberation from French colonialism. In the end, however, the growing Cold War made it virtually impossible for American policy-makers to see beyond the communist doctrine espoused by the Vietnamese nationalists’ most influential leaders. Americans viewed the struggle in Vietnam as part of a new global conflict against communism, while the Vietnamese saw the war against the United States as the latest phase of a long fight for independence.

The Rise of Vietnamese Nationalism

Vietnam’s intense nationalism developed through centuries of resisting foreign intrusion. As a kingdom in Southeast Asia’s Red River Valley, Vietnam was conquered by the Chinese in 111 BC. Although they borrowed important aspects of Chinese culture, the Vietnamese retained a fierce sense of their own identity. After numerous unsuccessful rebellions, the Vietnamese finally ended 1,000 years of Chinese domination in 939 AD. Except for a brief return to Chinese rule from 1407 to 1428, they successfully resisted invasions from the Chinese and Mongol empires in the north and from Champa and Cambodia in the south. The Vietnamese themselves expanded southward, conquering Champa by 1471 and finally taking the Mekong River delta from the crumbling Cambodian empire during the early 1700s. Although divided by the competing Trinh and Nguyen families in 1620, Vietnam was reunified within its modern boundaries in 1802.

European expansion provided the next threat to Vietnamese independence. Portuguese contact with Vietnam dates from 1516, and the French followed in 1615. Establishing a military presence in 1858 to support economic exploitation and missionary activity, France ultimately gained control of the entire country by 1883, dividing it into three regions: Cochin China (south), Annam (central), and Tonkin (north). Annexing neighboring Cambodia and Laos as well, by 1893 France established the Indochinese Union governed from Hanoi. Although a minority of Vietnam’s traditional mandarin ruling class allied its interests to the French presence, the majority of the population suffered economically and politically under French rule.

Resistance to French colonialism began almost immediately. French political and economic policies prevented the emergence of a strong middle class or liberal political parties, which drove most nationalist movements toward revolutionary activity. While the earliest revolts planned to return power to the mandarin class, twentieth-century rebellions shifted their ideology toward modern western institutions and technology. The most influential of these early nationalists was Phan Boi Chau, whose Modernization Society fought the French with propaganda, demonstrations, and violence, but declined after World War I. The Constitutionalist Party of the 1920s pursued reforms through collaboration, but its failures encouraged further clandestine efforts. The Vietnamese Nationalist Party (VNQDD) formed in 1927 around upper- and middle-class intellectuals. Although they infiltrated native garrisons, a planned military revolt in February 1930 was quickly suppressed. The resulting French reprisals decimated the VNQDD’s leadership and drove its remnants into China.

Ultimately the Indochinese Communist Party developed into the most successful nationalist organization. Ho Chi Minh, born Nguyen Tat Thanh and previously known as Nguyen Ai Quoc, emerged as the most revered leader in Vietnam. As a seaman, Ho left Vietnam in 1911 and would not return until 30 years later. He traveled the world, including to the United States, before moving to Paris at the end of World War I, where he became active in the sizeable Vietnamese community. His appeal to the postwar Versailles peace conference for national self-determination was ignored by the major powers, but earned him a leading role in the Vietnamese nationalist movement. Disappointed at the West’s response and influenced by the writings of Vladimir Lenin, Ho joined the French Communist Party as a means of working toward Vietnam’s eventual independence. He moved to Moscow in 1923 for study, then proceeded to China the following year to build a revolutionary movement for Indochina. In February 1930, Ho was among the founders of the Vietnamese Communist Party, later renamed the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP). The party supported peasant revolts in the fall of 1930, but the French again suppressed the rebellion by the following spring. The ICP suffered serious losses and its surviving leaders scattered beyond Vietnam’s borders. By the mid-1930s, however, the ICP regained its position as an important nationalist organization, and attempted to participate in a broad national front against the French.

The events of World War II had a dramatic impact on the course of Vietnamese history. France, having already surrendered to Germany in June 1940, conceded control over Indochina to Japanese expansion later that year, though Japan permitted the French political administration to remain in place. Communist efforts to exploit the situation through an uprising in southern Vietnam failed, and the French executed several key leaders. ICP leaders in the north withdrew to the mountains in the face of Japanese advances. From southern China, Ho Chi Minh helped establish a united front organization in which the ICP played the dominant, though secret, role. The Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh, more commonly called the Viet Minh, formed in May 1941 and appealed to both moderates and radicals through its emphasis on both national independence and social reform.

Fearing that France, now liberated from German control, might undermine their position, the Japanese overthrew the French colonial structure in March 1945 and established a collaborative Vietnamese government under Emperor Bao Dai. The collapse of the French system resulted in a vacuum of authority, especially in rural areas, which allowed the Viet Minh to establish control of six northern provinces. A devastating famine further eroded government authority, and when the Japanese suddenly surrendered in August, the Viet Minh called for a general uprising to create an independent state. During this August Revolution, the Viet Minh met with little opposition in taking power throughout much of the northern and central provinces, and forced Bao Dai to abdicate from his palace in Hue. Having prevailed in much of the country, on 2 September before a Hanoi crowd of a half-million people, Ho Chi Minh called for allied recognition of the newly proclaimed Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) [Doc. 5].

Although the Viet Minh had made impressive gains, it faced challenges to the organization’s legitimacy. Effective competition from other nationalist organizations and the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao religious sects limited their influence in Cochin China. Just as importantly, the allies designated China and Great Britain to accept the Japanese surrender in northern and southern Indochina respectively, and to occupy the region until stable government had been restored. Their arrival, combined with their governments’ recognition of French claims, undermined Viet Minh authority. When British troops arrived in Saigon that September, they joined with French forces to drive armed Vietnamese out of the city. Military attacks and reprisals took place from both sides. As the broadly based Committee of the South opened a guerrilla war against the French in the South, France prepared to reassert its authority in the North as well.

The United States responded to Vietnamese efforts inconsistently. President Franklin Roosevelt initially opposed France’s reassertion of control after the war, preferring a trusteeship followed by independence [Doc. 4]. During 1945, the Viet Minh provided intelligence to the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and received both weapons and training in return. Ho sought US support for his political goals, but Washington ignored his appeals. By the end of the war President Harry Truman and other American officials were more concerned with restoring French power as an ally against the Soviet Union and opposed Ho’s communist beliefs.

The First Indochina War

Faced with a rising tide of Vietnamese nationalism, France appointed as its high commissioner for Indochina Admiral Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu, who initiated a military campaign against the Viet Minh in October 1945. By February 1946 he had re-established control of southern Vietnam, while at the same time negotiating political differences with the Vietnamese.

In the face of French military actions, Ho Chi Minh recognized the need to bargain for Vietnam’s future, but remained flexible in pursuing his political goals. The Viet Minh was especially concerned with China’s occupation of the North because of Chiang Kai-shek ’s support for their political rivals and, as future South Vietnamese ambassador to the United States, Bui Diem, remarked, “The Chinese looked as if they would steal anything not tied down” (Bui Diem, 1987: 39). Though criticized by Viet Minh militants, in November 1945 Ho dissolved the ICP and integrated smaller nationalist parties into a National Assembly governing the North to build a more broadly based united front that could attract foreign aid. He also opened negotiations in Hanoi with French diplomat Jean Sainteny in October 1945, but lost significant leverage in February when a Chinese agreement to withdraw its troops signified a quick return of French military forces to the North. They reached a preliminary deal on 6 March 1946. The Ho–Sainteny agreement recognized the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) as a free state within the French Union, and called for referendums in Cochin China, Annam, and Tonkin to resolve their permanent political status. In return, the Vietnamese agreed to accept a substantial French military force for five years to replace the Chinese.

Viet Minh nationalists viewed this as a step toward unification rather than a permanent solution and negotiations continued. While Ho traveled to Paris to discuss implementing the March agreement, however, on 1 June d’Argenlieu undermined the talks by unilaterally recognizing Cochin China as an autonomous republic. Events in Vietnam moved forward without official sanction from Paris. With the new French government uninterested in compromise, Ho’s two months of negotiations ended with political issues left unresolved. He struck a last-minute modus vivendi in mid-September 1946 that offered little except a ceasefire and future talks. Ho returned to Hanoi in October where, despite continued criticism from militants, the National Assembly elected him president of the DRV.

Without strong direction from Paris, France’s Indochina policy fell largely to officials in Vietnam and drifted toward war. Both sides competed throughout the country for the authority to govern, but a tenuous cease-fire fell apart late in the year. Skirmishing in the North erupted into war when a French ship bombarded Haiphong in late November. Days later French military forces attacked throughout the city and thousands of Vietnamese died under naval, air, and artillery fire. Fighting spread, and by the end of the year French forces controlled Hanoi and were driving the Viet Minh into the countryside. The United States offered mediation, but viewed the communist-dominated Viet Minh as an unacceptable replacement for French colonialism. The State Department’s inability to see beyond the Cold War was evident in a 1948 report that concluded “we cannot afford to assume that Ho is anything but Moscow-directed” (Hess, 1987: 317).

General Vo Nguyen Giap, the Viet Minh’s leading military strategist, frustrated French hopes for a swift victory by avoiding major battles when possible. Recognizing his technological disadvantages, he relied on a protracted war strategy to wear the enemy down. Early French gains in 1947 bogged down during the summer monsoon season, when the rudimentary road system in Vietnam made mechanized warfare extremely difficult. French military operations later that year failed to achieve their goals of capturing the Viet Minh leaders and crippling their military forces. The Viet Minh absorbed heavy blows, but slipped away and returned to their bases once the French had pulled back into the Red River delta. The stalemate remained.

Concerns about the costs and length of an Indochina war led France to search for an alternative solution. Although the French controlled the major cities, the Viet Minh held much of rural northern and central Vietnam, and their influence was increasing. The departure of Chinese forces had weakened noncommunist Vietnamese nationalist groups that had enjoyed their support. The Viet Minh suppressed their nationalist rivals and engaged in political indoctrination, supplemented when deemed necessary by terrorism and targeted assassinations (Logevall, 2012: 172).

France hoped to end the war and undermine Viet Minh legitimacy by establishing a rival anticommunist government. French officials tried to entice Bao Dai to return as head of a nationalist government that could allow continued French control. Initially, Bao Dai negotiated for complete independence from France, but ultimately accepted the Elysée Agreements on 8 March 1949. These established the former emperor as head of the State of Vietnam and granted limited independence within the French Union, but left France in control of Vietnam’s finances, diplomacy, and military affairs. This “Bao Dai Solution” offered the necessary veneer to disguise French domination. By accepting what was essentially the French position, however, Bao Dai generated little enthusiasm among Vietnamese and drew criticism from the Viet Minh and other nationalists.

American interest in Vietnam increased as the Cold War intensified. The United States’ traditional stance against colonialism initially tempered its support for France in Indochina. At first, this appeared to be a reasonable response, since the Viet Minh received little external support from either the Soviet Union or the West through 1947. The United States ignored Ho Chi Minh’s appeals for mediation, aid, or trade, and the long-term survival of the Viet Minh depended on its ability to persuade both the Vietnamese people and foreign powers that it represented the only legitimate government in Vietnam. By 1947, however, US leaders perceived that the Soviets presented a global threat to national security. Their response was the containment policy, initially applied to Europe, but later expanded to other parts of the world. The growing conflict in Vietnam, with its communist component, made it part of the Cold War struggle. Although publicly supporting France’s war to block the Viet Minh and communist expansion, knowledgeable Americans privately remained doubtful about the chances of France or Bao Dai to undermine support for Ho Chi Minh’s government.

The United States nevertheless escalated its commitment to the French in Vietnam in the wake of new circumstances. The United States lost its nuclear monopoly in August 1949 when the Soviet Union successfully exploded an atomic bomb. Only a month later, Mao Zedong ’s communist forces defeated Chiang Kai-shek to end the lengthy Chinese civil war. American fears that these events would affect Indochina appeared confirmed when China recognized Ho Chi Minh’s government on 18 January 1950, and the Soviet Union followed by the end of the month. French officials shrewdly recast the French–Indochina War from a localized war for empire to an effort to defeat global communism. The United States applied less pressure to the French for Vietnamese independence and formally recognized Bao Dai’s government in February 1950 as the only alternative to Ho Chi Minh. The outbreak of the Korean War in August further hardened America’s Cold War position. These events led to a significant US commitment to military spending for Indochina and provided greater urgency for military involvement in Vietnam. They also solidified American policy-makers’ perceptions of the French–Viet Minh war as part of a communist effort to grab the entire region. Some officials applied the term domino theory to the view that Vietnam’s fall would quickly lead to communist domination of all Southeast Asia. The possibility of that outcome in Vietnam outweighed US concerns about supporting French colonialism.

During 1950 the fighting in Vietnam intensified. Despite French dominance in air and sea power, by that fall Chinese military advisors, supplies, and equipment allowed Giap’s ground troops to reach a rough parity. During the first half of 1950, French military efforts inflicted heavy losses on the Viet Minh in Cochin China, and thereafter the war played out primarily in the North. French efforts to pacify the Red River delta achieved initial success as well. In the fall, however, French forces suffered a major setback and abandoned a number of isolated posts close to the Chinese border. Although the Viet Minh also took heavy casualties, French control in Tonkin was now effectively limited to the Red River delta. French losses necessitated creation of a Vietnamese National Army to provide both needed manpower and an indigenous force to add legitimacy to Bao Dai’s government.

The following year French prospects improved. Much needed American aid increased after the Korean War began, and the United States established the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) to facilitate the arrival of supplies and equipment. In December 1950, the Paris government appointed military hero Jean de Lattre de Tassigny as commander-in-chief of the Expeditionary Corps and high commissioner for Indochina. De Lattre’s arrival boosted French morale. When General Giap launched a series of offensives in the early months of 1951 to penetrate the Red River delta, the French prevailed at each point of attack, inflicting heavy losses and forcing the Viet Minh to abandon large unit assaults and return to guerilla warfare...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Chronology
• Who's Who
• Glossary
• Maps
• PART 1 The Background
• PART 2 The Vietnam War
• PART 3 Documents
• Further Reading
• References
• Index