The Vietnam Conflict and Its effects
Uploaded by Admin on May 18, 1999
The Vietnam conflict began in the
late nineteenth century. The French conquered Vietnam and made it a protectorate. For nearly forty years, Vietnam had not experienced settled peace. The League for the Independence of Vietnam ( Viet Minh ) was formed in 1941, seeking independence from the French. On September 2nd,1945, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed it independent of France. The French opposed their independence from 1945 to 1954. The first representatives of de Gualle's government landed by parachute in Saigon and Hanoi on August 23rd, 1945. The French wanted to reestablish their rule in Vietnam but were beaten at the battle of Dien Bien Phu on May 7th, 1954. The French Expeditionary Force tried to prevent the Viet Minh from entering Laos and Dien Bien Phu was the place chosen to do so. The French were not very careful and this allowed the Viet Minh to cut off their airway to Hanoi. After a siege that had lasted for fifty - five days, the French surrendered. Ho Chi Minh led the war against France and won.
After the war there was a conference in Geneva where Vietnam was divided into two parts along the seventeenth parallel. North Vietnam was mainly Communist and supported Ho Chi Minh, while the south was supported by the United States and the French were based there. There was still some Communist rebels within South Vietnam. These were the Viet Cong. The South Vietnam ruler was Ngo Dinh Diem who was anti - Communist. At the conference, Laos and Cambodia became independent states.
North Vietnam wished to unify North and South Vietnam through military force. Since the United States feared the spread of communism in Asia, John F. Kennedy provided economic and military aid to South Vietman to prevent the takeover by North Vietnam. At this time, this was still a civil war. The United States were not yet officially involved.
The North Vietnamese resented the little intervention by the United Sates and so, three Vietnamese torpedo boats fired on the U.S. destroyer, " Maddox " on August 2nd, 1964. The " Maddox " had
been in the Gulf of Tonkin ( international waters ), thirty miles off the coast of Vietnam. On August 3rd, 1964, Johnson gave the right " to attack with the objective of destroying attacking forces " ( Pimlott 1982, 36 ). Retaliation air attacks began on August 3rd. Their aim was to destroy North...