write an essay on the topic indicated in the files attached. The essay is to be 5-6 pages (1500-1800 word).

EBSCO Publishing : eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA AN: 315559 ; Michael H. Hunt.; A Vietnam War Reader : A Documentary History From American and Vietnamese Perspectives Account: s5519424 A viETNAm WAR READER hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, i EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use This page intentionally left blank EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use the university of north carolina press chapel hill A viETNAm WAR READER edited by michael h. hunt A Documentary History from American and Vietnamese Perspectives hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, iii EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use © 2010 the university of north carolina press All rights reserved Designed by Kimberly Bryant Set in Arnhem, The Sans, and Coldharbour Gothic types by Rebecca Evans Manufactured in the United States of America The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A Vietnam War reader : a documentary history from American and Vietnamese perspectives / edited by Michael H. Hunt.

— 1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

isbn 978-0-8078-3350-6 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn 978-0-8078-5991-9 (pbk : alk. paper) 1. Vietnam War, 1961–1975 — Sources. I. Hunt, Michael H.

ds557.4.v 626 2010 959.704 ´3 — dc22 2009031224 The map of Vietnam is from The World Trans­ formed: 1945 to the Present by Michael H. Hunt. Copyright © 2004 by Bedford/St. Martin’s. Used with permission.

cloth 14 13 12 11 10 5 4 3 2 1 paper 14 13 12 11 10 5 4 3 2 1 hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, iv EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use To the students in my Vietnam War course at Colgate University, UNC–Chapel Hill, and Williams College (1978–2008), whose enthusiasm for these documents fed my own. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, v EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use This page intentionally left blank EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use Contents Preface xiii Introduction. The Vietnam War: From Myth to History xvii Guide to Abbreviations xxiii Chronology xxv Map of Vietnam xxix 1. The Setting: Colonialism and the Cold War (to 1954) 1 Emergence of a Nationalist Vision 4 1.1 Nguyen Dinh Chieu, funeral oration, 1861 4 1.2 Phan Boi Chau, call for Vietnamese to awaken, 1907 5 1.3 Phan Chu Trinh, open letter to the French governor-general, 1907 6 Ho Chi Minh’s Rise to Prominence, 1919–1945 8 1.4 Recollections of discovering Communist anticolonialism in July 1920 8 1.5 Statement on behalf of the Indochinese Communist Party, 18 February 1930 10 1.6 Proclamation of the Viet Minh–led independence struggle, 6 June 1941 12 1.7 Declaration of independence, 2 September 1945 12 The Popular Appeal of Revolution 14 1.8 Nguyen Thi Dinh on her political awakening in the 1930s 14 1.9 Truong Nhu Tang on his conversion to the nationalist cause in the mid-1940s 17 1.10 Peasants in the Red River Delta on the Viet Minh in the late 1940s 19 Deepening U.S. Engagement in Indochina, 1943–1954 21 1.11 U.S. policy shifts from self-determination to containment, 1943–1950 22 1.12 Ho Chi Minh, denunciation of U.S. intervention, January 1952 24 1.13 The Eisenhower administration on the French collapse, March–April 1954 25 hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, vii EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 2. Drawing the Lines of Conflict, 1954–1963 29 A Country Divided or United? July 1954–December 1960 32 2.1 Ho Chi Minh, report to the Communist Party Central Committee, 15 July 1954 32 2.2 “Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference,” 21 July 1954 33 2.3 The Eisenhower administration on the Geneva accords, July and October 1954 34 2.4 Ngo Dinh Diem, speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, 13 May 1957 36 2.5 Hanoi goes on the offensive, 1959–1960 37 The Perspective of nlf Activists 41 2.6 Le Van Chan, interview on rural organizing during the late 1950s 41 2.7 Regroupees interviewed on returning to the South in the early 1960s 44 Reacting to nlf Success, 1961–1963 46 2.8 The Kennedy administration wrestles with an insurgency, November 1961 47 2.9 Central Intelligence Agency, secret memo on the nlf, 29 November 1963 49 The Diem Regime in Crisis, July–November 1963 50 2.10 John F. Kennedy, press conference, 17 July 1963 50 2.11 Diem, press interview, 26 July 1963 51 2.12 Communist leaders’ appraisals of the U.S. position, summer and fall 1963 52 2.13 The Kennedy administration contemplates a coup, August–November 1963 53 3. From Proxy War to Direct Conflict, 1963–1965 57 The Saigon Government on the Ropes, November 1963–August 1965 59 3.1 A new president faces an old problem, November–December 1963 59 3.2 Communist Party Central Committee, resolution 9, December 1963 61 3.3 pavn officer, interview on the military effort, 1963–1964 64 3.4 James B. Lincoln, letter comparing Vietnamese forces, 14 August 1965 65 hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, viii EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use Johnson Escalates, August 1964–April 1965 66 3.5 Tonkin Gulf resolution approved by Congress, 10 August 1964 67 3.6 McGeorge Bundy to Lyndon Johnson, 7 February 1965 68 3.7 Johnson, speech at Johns Hopkins University, 7 April 1965 69 Hanoi Prepares for War, October 1964–May 1965 71 3.8 Conversations between Vietnamese and Chinese leaders, October 1964 and April 1965 71 3.9 Pham Van Dong, statement on terms for a settlement, 8 April 1965 73 3.10 Le Duan, letter to Nguyen Chi Thanh on U.S. military escalation, May 1965 73 “Going off the Diving Board,” June–July 1965 75 3.11 Johnson, comments to Robert Mc Namara, 21 June 1965 76 3.12 George Ball opposes a major troop commitment, June–July 1965 77 3.13 Mc Namara, memo to Johnson, 20 July 1965 79 3.14 Johnson, meetings with advisers, 21–25 July 1965 80 3.15 Johnson, press conference statement, 28 July 1965 83 4. The Lords of War, 1965–1973 85 Strategies for Victory, September–November 1965 87 4.1 Le Duan, letter to comrades in cosvn, November 1965 88 4.2 William Westmoreland, directive to U.S. commanders, 17 September 1965 89 4.3 Mc Namara’s deepening doubts, November 1965 and May 1967 90 The Tet Offensive Gamble, July 1967–March 1968 93 4.4 Hanoi’s difficult strategic decision, July 1967 and January 196\�8 93 4.5 The impact on the Johnson administration, March 1968 96 4.6 Communist Party assessment, March 1968 98 Getting beyond Stalemate, November 1968–July 1969 100 4.7 drv delegation, meeting with Chinese leaders, 17 November 1968 100 4.8 Richard Nixon plots a way out, March–May 1969 103 4.9 Ninth cosvn conference, resolution, early July 1969 105 hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, ix EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use Talking and Fighting, April 1970–January 1973 106 4.10 Nixon, address on the invasion of Cambodia, 30 April 1970 106 4.11 Le Duan, letter to cosvn leaders, July 1970 107 4.12 Henry Kissinger and Xuan Thuy, exchange of views, 7 September 1970 110 4.13 Nixon and Kissinger, taped Oval Office conversation, 2 June 1971 111 4.14 Nixon and Kissinger, taped Oval Office conversations, April–Ma\�y 1972 112 4.15 Hanoi on striking a compromise settlement, May–October 1972 114 4.16 Nixon on the Saigon government’s survival, October–November 1972 116 4.17 Nguyen Van Thieu, address to the National Assembly, 12 December 1972 118 4.18 Peace agreement signed in Paris, 27 January 1973 120 5. The View from the Ground, 1965–1971 123 To the Rescue, 1965–1967 126 5.1 Jack S. Swender, letter to “Uncle and Aunt,” 20 September 1965 126 5.2 George R. Bassett, letter to “Mom, Dad, and Kids,” 28 March 1966 127 5.3 John Dabonka, letter to “Mom and Dad,” 23 December 1966 127 5.4 Carl Burns describing the dawning doubts about the war effort, 1966–1967 128 5.5 Richard S. Johnson Jr., letters to “Penny,” February–March 1967 129 In the Shadow of the Giant, 1965–1968 130 5.6 Two Saigon loyalists between a rock and a hard place, 1965 131 5.7 Ha Xuan Dai, diary entries, November 1965 136 5.8 Nguyen Van Hoang, interview on going into the army in 1967 137 5.9 Huong Van Ba, oral history of fighting, 1965–1968 138 5.10 Nguyen Van Be, personal papers, 1966 139 5.11 Le Thi Dau, recollections of service in the resistance, late 1950s–late 1960s 142 The War Goes Sour, 1968–1971 143 5.12 Soldiers of Charlie Company on the My Lai massacre of 16 March 1968 143 5.13 David W. Mulldune, letters home, May–October 1968 146 hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, x EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 5.14 Clarence Fitch, interview on discontent in the military in 1968 147 5.15 Rose Sandecki, reflections on caring for casualties, 1968–1969 149 5.16 William Kahane, recalling conditions in support bases, late 1970–early 1971 151 Staggering through an Endless War, 1968–1971 152 5.17 Trinh Cong Son, “A Lullaby of the Cannons for the Night” 152 5.18 “ k-11,” comments on morale building, January 1969 154 5.19 Dang Thuy Tram, diary entries, May–July 1969 155 5.20 Trinh Duc, recollections of his rural work, 1968–1971 157 6. The War Comes Home, 1965–1971 161 Opening Shots, 1965 163 6.1 Paul Potter, antiwar speech in Washington, 17 April 1965 163 6.2 Hans J. Morgenthau, articles critical of intervention, April and July 1965 166 Criticism Goes Mainstream, 1966 –1968 167 6.3 J. William Fulbright on “the arrogance of power,” 1966 168 6.4 Martin Luther King Jr., address on conscience and the war, 4 April 1967 169 6.5 John C. Stennis, speech on a more forceful war strategy, 30 August 1967 170 6.6 Walter Cronkite, editorial comment on the Tet Offensive, 27 February 1968 172 6.7 Marvin Dolgov, recollections of the “dump Johnson” movement 172 Rising Contention and Polarization, 1969–1970 174 6.8 Weathermen manifesto, 18 June 1969 174 6.9 The Nixon administration appeals for public support, November 1969 176 6.10 Kent State and public opinion, May 1970 178 The Vietnam Veterans Movement, 1971 181 6.11 John Kerry, statement before a Senate committee, 23 April 1971 181 6.12 Nixon, address from the White House, 7 April 1971 183 hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, xi EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 7. Outcomes and Verdicts 185 Endgame, 1974–1975 188 7.1 Le Duan, letter to Pham Hung, 10 October 1974 188 7.2 Thieu, resignation speech, 21 April 1975 190 7.3 Gerald Ford, address on the eve of the fall of Saigon, 23 April 1975 190 7.4 Le Duan, victory speech, 15 May 1975 191 South Vietnamese Looking Back on a Lost Cause 192 7.5 Nguyen Cao Ky, interview from 1977 192 7.6 Ly Tong Ba, interview from the late 1980s 194 7.7 Vu Thi Kim Vinh, interview from the late 1980s 195 Living with the Ghosts of a Long War 197 7.8 Micheal Clodfelter, essay from the 1980s 197 7.9 Bao Ninh, novel on the sorrow of war, 1991 199 Political Verdicts 202 7.10 Ronald Reagan, remarks at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 11 November 1988 202 7.11 Vo Nguyen Giap and Nguyen Co Thach clash with Mc Namara, 1995 and 1997 203 Concluding Reflections 206 Sources of Documents 209 Index 217 hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, xii EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use xiii Preface The prolonged and bloody conflict widely known as the Vietnam War touched the lives of many people in many different social and political situations. There is thus not one or two perspectives on it but a great va- riety. Incorporating that variety is an interpretively urgent goal yet one of the most difficult tasks faced by anyone confronting that conflict.

In shaping this volume, I have made some practical editorial deci- sions: • Limiting the documents that appear here to a carefully selected rep- resentative sample from a large and still growing body of evidence.

In the interest of providing diverse points of view, I have done con- siderable excerpting, sometimes cutting sharply.

• Focusing tightly on Americans and Vietnamese at war and thus excluded materials that deal with the allies that Hanoi and Wash- ington recruited, including Soviet, South Korean, Australian, Phil- ippine, and Thai. Also missing are the Cambodians and Laotians, who felt the side effects of the struggle in Vietnam with special in- tensity. So too have I left out the accounts of young people world- wide — in places as far flung as Paris, Tokyo, and Mexico City — who responded to the war with a passion that defines the time.

• Giving Vietnamese and Americans equal time. In what follows, American policy makers and soldiers share the spotlight with the Vietnamese, who were their main antagonist and whose land took the main pounding. Thus the seven chapters here go well beyond the dates normally associated with the U.S. war (1965–1973) and in- clude not just the Communist leaders defying Washington but also early nationalists, ordinary activists and soldiers, peasants, and those on the Saigon side. In the interest of balance, I have included a fair sample of official Vietnamese documents (internal and pub- lic) even though some are available only in rough translations and are couched in what may seem formulaic Marxist terminology. My interest in balance has also led to a decision in treating the societal dimensions of war to give Vietnamese a heavy emphasis in chap- hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, xiii EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use xivpreface ter 1, offset by devoting all of chapter 6 to developments within the United States.

• Devising a format that is meant to be engaging and user-friendly. The overall arrangement of the documents is chronological so that Vietnamese and American views on particular issues and during particular phases of the war are again and again juxtaposed, thus inviting attention to the interplay between the actors and compari- sons among them. I have provided only the background informa- tion essential to moving through materials sprawling across some seven decades and dealing with topics as exotic as Vietnamese na- tionalism and communism and the contested countryside. My in- troduction sketches the misconceptions surrounding the war and the various stages in its evolution. Accompanying that introduction are a guide to abbreviations, a detailed chronology, and a map of Vietnam. Each of the seven documentary chapters opens with a brief overview of the main themes and questions raised by the doc- uments to follow and includes background information for each section and each document within each section. A brief conclud- ing section at the end of the final chapter gives readers a chance to reflect on what they have learned and offers some general questions to facilitate that task. Throughout I have tried to keep my own views on a leash so that readers will feel free to grapple on their own with the important questions still surrounding the Vietnam War.

• Editing of the source texts in a way that follows a consistent set of guidelines and that keeps editorial clarifications and corrections to a minimum. Spellings and italics follow the source texts. In chang- ing capitalization and inserting ellipses, I have followed the “rigor- ous method” of The Chicago Manual of Style .

The main goal of this collection will have been realized if readers find they can critically engage the evidence gathered here and, from that evi- dence, formulate their own, historically grounded sense of what the Viet- nam War was about.

It is a pleasure to acknowledge those who have helped make this volume possible. Once more I owe thanks to the University of North Carolina Press: foremost my editor, Chuck Grench; his assistant, Katy O’Brien; Paul Betz, who brought order to the manuscript and the production process; Vicky Wells, my patient guide on copyright issues; Anna Laura Bennett, who provided thoughtful and meticulous copyediting; and Kim hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, xiv EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use prefacexv Bryant for a design done with flair and care. I received helpful advice in the early stages of this project from Pierre Asselin and Allan M. Winkler.

Christopher Goscha as well as Winkler provided incisive comments on the first full draft. At a pivotal point Rosalie Genova read the manu- script with a keen editorial eye and sharp pedagogical sense, while Peter Agren made sensibly ruthless suggestions on tightening the documents.

Will West did yeoman service checking the accuracy of the documents excerpted here. Finally, my thanks to Jon Huibregtse for permission to draw in the introduction on my “Studying the Vietnam War: Between an Implacable Force and an Immovable Object,” New England Journal of His­ tory 54 (Spring 1998): 45–61. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, xv EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use This page intentionally left blank EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use xvii Introduction The Vietnam War: From Myth to History For most Americans today, the history of the Vietnam War is like a play that unfolds in ways quite different from the audience’s preconcep- tions. Ticket holders take their seats expecting a drama about American soldiers. But once the curtain goes up, there are some surprises — the Vietnamese characters dominate the stage at the outset, the American characters arrive late (soldiers among the last), the play proves far longer than anticipated, and the plotline takes some unfamiliar twists. This col- lection of documents — snippets from a real drama — should also shat- ter some expectations that readers carry in their heads. The materials gathered here suggest that the Vietnam War was not mainly about U.S.

soldiers and that it spanned a good deal more than the decade of direct U.S. combat.

misunderstanding an unpopular war Many Americans feel instinctively that they know the Vietnam conflict in large measure because of popular myths and misconceptions incor- porated and propagated, if not actually created, through the movies and other widely consumed U.S. media. Hollywood, with its trademark ca- pacity for neat packaging and simple messages, tackled the war in the late 1970s, and in a steady output over the following decades, it became the single most important source for public memory. One movie critic commented wryly, “Since 1977, Hollywood has been succeeding where Washington consistently failed: namely, in selling Vietnam to the Ameri- can public.” 1 The Hollywood version of the war — perpetuated in dvds and television reruns — worked its magic above all by draining the war of much of the controversy that would have gotten in the way of entertain- ment. In often powerful, frequently reiterated images, Vietnam became a fantasy world where Americans tested their manliness, underwent youthful rites of passage, embarked on perilous rescues, suffered per- sonal corruption, or replayed frontier dramas with the Vietnamese as the 1. Thomas Doherty, “Full Metal Genre: Stanley Kubrick’s Vietnam Combat Movies,” in Perspectives on Stanley Kubrick, ed. Mario Falsetto (New York: Hall, 1996), 307. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, xvii EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use xviiiintroduction “wild Indians.” Seldom do the serious political issues raised by the war come into view, and the Vietnamese rarely figure as anything more than bit players in an American drama.

What comes across most forcefully in Tinseltown products is the no- tion that Vietnam as a disembodied force somehow made a victim of Americans. Witness the treatment of soldiers in combat films such as Go Tell the Spartans (1978), Apocalypse Now (1979), Platoon (1986), and Hamburger Hill (1987). The theme of victimization is also central to the movies that show veterans returning home twisted in mind and ruined in body. The once normal young Americans made into psychopaths, para- plegics, and enraged muscle men inhabit such films as Taxi Driver (1976), Coming Home (1978), and the Rambo series (1982 and 1985). Some, such as The Deer Hunter (1978) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989), manage to develop both themes — the wounds inflicted on soldiers in the field and in the lives of warriors back home. Forrest Gump (1994), perhaps the most widely viewed of these films, offers a lighthearted version of this conventional story line of the soldier as victim during and after the fight- ing. These stories of victimization have reduced the war to easily grasped terms to reach and hold a broad audience. Their appeal may be rooted in the way soldiers as victims serve as stand-ins for their country whose innocence the war destroyed. Personal victimization becomes an easily understood expression of national victimization.

Public opinion polls conducted in the early 1990s suggest a popular acceptance of Hollywood’s simple but symbolically loaded version of the war. 2 Consistent with the view that Vietnam somehow managed to do bad things to the United States, about 70 percent of those surveyed held that the Vietnam commitment was a mistake (up from around 60 percent in the early 1970s, during the last phase of U.S. troop involvement, and virtually unchanged when the question was asked again in 2000). Nearly as many (68 percent) carried the indictment further and said that Viet- nam was not a “just war.” Also consistent with Hollywood’s portrayal, the public strongly identified with the American soldier. Overwhelmingly (87 percent) the public thought favorably of those who served and sacrificed 2. The polling data in this and the following paragraphs come from George Gal- lup Jr., The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion, 1990 (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1991), 47–50; George Gallup Jr., The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion, 1993 (Wilmington, Del.:

Scholarly Resources, 1994), 228; George Gallup Jr., The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion, 1995 (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1996), 228; and Gallup Poll Monthly, November 2000, 44. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, xviii EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use introductionxix in a conflict that respondents thought was more costly in American lives than any other in the twentieth century. (In point of fact, each of the two world wars resulted in more Americans killed in action than did Viet- nam.) In line with the fixation on victimization, a substantial majority (69 percent) regarded veterans as ill used by their government and unap- preciated by their countrymen. Indeed, 64 percent believed U.S. officials so indifferent that they had abandoned servicemen to permanent captiv- ity in Southeast Asia.

Where Hollywood provided less clear guidance, Americans were more divided in the early 1990s polls. They split evenly on whether any good came out of the war, such as slowing the advance of communism in Southeast Asia or contributing to the decline of communism worldwide.

Respondents also split when asked whether American warriors died in vain. Fifty-one percent said “yes,” while 41 percent answered “no.” Fi- nally, the public divided on how to appraise the protest movement at home. In 1990, 39 percent of respondents had a favorable view, and the exact same percentage had an unfavorable view. Asked three years later about dissent from another angle — whether draft avoidance by all legal means was justified — the public again divided (with the “no’s” outnum- bering “yes’s” 53 to 41 percent).

how history matters What is remarkable about the films and the polls is their omissions.

Popular conceptions of the war have little room for the Vietnamese, even though the war was fought on their soil, resulted in deaths and injuries in the millions, and imposed lasting societal costs. Vietnamese appear at best on the periphery, limited to cameo appearances. The enduring American images of the Vietnamese at war — the shadowy foe darting through the underbrush or lying crumpled on the ground, the prostitute camped outside an American base, the child in frightful flight from na- palm — first appeared in contemporary media. Soldiers’ memoirs and Hollywood films have perpetuated this extraordinarily limited, invariably superficial, and often caricatured treatment. So dim has the public sense of the Vietnamese political context grown that a fifth of those polled in 1990 thought that the United States had fought alongside, not against, North Vietnam.

Because the popular view of the Vietnam War focuses on Americans in combat and thus is concerned only with the period of direct U.S. engage- ment, it is fundamentally ahistorical. The U.S. war was but one phase hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, xix EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use xxintroduction in a string of conflicts in Vietnam that began with the struggle against the French and continued as an insurgency against the U.S.-backed gov- ernment in Saigon, which in turn morphed into the American war that spilled over into Cambodia and ultimately gave way to the ceasefire war of 1973–1975. Within each of these phases, the nature of the conflict var- ied from place to place (for example, large cities versus remote villages; highlands versus river deltas). And because this long-lasting, far-flung struggle incorporated elements of social revolution, national liberation, and civil war, it swept up a wide variety of people, turning their lives up- side down.

As the documents that follow suggest, the Vietnam War was not a sin- gle, neatly played out drama featuring the Americans, and it was never primarily about U.S. soldiers. It was more like a long, loosely unfolding story by a playwright who had lost control of his plot and players. Char- acters wander onto the stage, often barely mindful of the other members of the cast. They deliver their lines, often speaking past each other. And then they exit, sometimes never to reappear. They don’t even agree on the name of their shared drama. What Americans call the Vietnam War their Vietnamese foe thought of as the American war or “the war of resistance against American aggression.” Even the chronology of the play is off-kilter. For Vietnamese the war had its roots in the nineteenth century; it encompassed at least three generations, going back to resistance to the French conquest. By the time the play reached the final act in the 1970s, virtually all segments of Vietnamese society had made an appearance — from nationalist in- tellectuals to political activists, to peasants pulled into the struggle, to ordinary soldiers, to those who hitched their fortunes to the French and then American causes. The Americans walked onto the stage relatively late — in the 1940s — and even then acted only as minor players, largely unaware of previous plot developments. Despite their late appearance, an impressive range of Americans did manage to get into the act. They included, notably, a string of seven U.S. presidents, well over 3 million Americans who saw service in Vietnam, and many ordinary Americans who felt the war’s effect in deepened social ferment and political embit- terment at home during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

overview of coverage The Vietnam War drama as it is arranged here opens with a long prologue (chapter 1) running up to 1954. It is dominated by elite Vietnamese in the hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, xx EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use introductionxxi grip of nationalist fever and by country folk with practical concerns about livelihood and social justice. A liberation movement harnessing these two groups begins to take shape in the 1920s and 1930s. The entrance during the 1940s and early 1950s of U.S. policy makers preoccupied by a world war and then the Cold War conveys the first hints of trouble to come. In the first act (chapter 2), the fate of South Vietnam emerges as a source of deepening discord among the assembled cast of Vietnamese and American characters. Initiatives pursued by Washington and coun- termeasures by Hanoi raise the tensions so that, by the end of 1963 and the beginning of the second act (chapter 3), the two parties are already close to blows. Though facing the prospect of war with the United States, leaders in Hanoi prove relentless in their program to bring the South under control and thus plunge Lyndon Johnson into some strikingly Hamlet-like moments before he decides on a major armed response. The third and fourth acts (chapters 4 and 5) carry us through the thrust and parry of war. Strategists search for a way to prevail, while ordinary Viet- namese and Americans try to come to terms with privation and death.

Chapter 6 introduces a kind of Greek chorus — Americans commenting at a distance on a war that is producing ever greater domestic dissen- sion. With both sides at last exhausted, the play moves to a resolution.

Shakespeare was right in observing that “good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues.” For the Vietnam War, an epilogue (chapter 7) treats the end to the fighting among Vietnamese in 1975 and exam- ines the various ways those touched by the war sought to make sense of it once the guns had gone silent. As the curtain comes down, those who have followed this sprawling drama with its large cast have a chance to decide for themselves what it means rather than accepting uncritically what Hollywood and political pundits have suggested.

questions to confront To some extent, the sources collected here ask us to think about how fearsome war can be for those caught up in it and how unpredictable its effects may turn out for those who presume to command its course. But beyond those points applicable to any war, a set of difficult but funda- mental questions arise from this particular conflict that are worth keep- ing in mind in reading the documents to come: • What brought Americans and Vietnamese to blows? How did hopes and fears on each side contribute to this outcome? hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, xxi EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use xxiiintroduction • What calculations led U.S. leaders to intervene in Vietnam and de- fend their position there despite nagging private doubts and rising public dissent? Were there genuine alternatives to the intervention- ist path they followed?

• What led Vietnamese leaders to confront the Americans, and how did they ultimately overcome their vastly greater power? Can the outcome be explained essentially in terms of what the Vietnamese did, or do we need to focus on what the Americans failed to do?

• How well did the two sides understand each other, and how did their conceptions (or misconceptions) influence their decisions?

• How was the war experienced by ordinary Vietnamese and Ameri- cans? History, like any good play, should leave you thinking — and want- ing to learn more. Good places for further inquiry are the collections from which many of the documents in this reader are drawn (cited in the source notes). Going to the original will provide a sense of context not fully conveyed by the sharply edited items included here. A substan- tial body of scholarship is also available to assist in further exploring the many issues raised by the Vietnam War. 3 3. For general information on the war, see David L. Anderson, The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), which includes an an- notated bibliography of key publications, films and documentaries, and electronic re- sources. A fuller list of readings — scholarly works as well as memoirs and documents — can be found in the up-to-date online guide maintained by Edwin E. Moïse, Vietnam War Bibliography, http://www.clemson.edu/caah/history/FacultyPages/EdMoise/bibliogra- phy.html. Gary R. Hess, Vietnam: Explaining America’s Lost War (Malden, Mass.: Black- well, 2009), helpfully links the enormous literature to the chief points of controversy that have swirled about the war. A good source for maps is the collection of the History Department at the U.S. Military Academy online at http://www.dean.usma.edu/history/ web03/atlases/vietnam/VietnamWarIndex.html. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, xxii EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use xxiii Guide to Abbreviations arvn Army of the Republic of Vietnam (the Saigon government’s regular ground forces fighting with U.S. units and advisers against Communist-led Vietnamese forces) cia Central Intelligence Agency cosvn Central Office for South Vietnam (the Vietnamese Communist Party’s political-military headquarters responsible for directing the struggle in the South) drv Democratic Republic of Vietnam (created in 1945 with its capital in Hanoi; renamed Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1976) gvn Government of Vietnam (in Saigon) jcs Joint Chiefs of Staff (heads of the four U.S. armed forces plus a chair appointed by the president) macv Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (the command center for U.S. forces; created in February 1962) nlf National Liberation Front (the Communist-directed united front; created in December 1960) pavn People’s Army of Vietnam ( drv’s army) sds Students for a Democratic Society seato Southeast Asia Treaty Organization svn South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam with its capital in Saigon) vc Viet Cong (literally Red Vietnamese, a term loosely applied by Americans and their South Vietnamese allies to nlf cadre and troops and/or pavn forces) hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, xxiii EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use This page intentionally left blank EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use xxv Chronology vietnamese subjugation and resistance 1789–1802 Chinese invaders expelled and Vietnam united by Nguyen dynasty after 200 years of division.

1867–1885 France takes control of Cochin China (southern Vietnam), Tonkin (northern Vietnam), and Annam (central Vietnam); resistance movements in defense of the monarchy flare and then subside.

1900s–1910s Vietnamese nationalists begin speaking out.

1925 Ho Chi Minh forms Revolutionary Youth League as Vietnamese politics turn radical.

1930 Indochinese Communist Party formally established in Hong Kong; peasant rebellion backed by party but repressed by French.

1940–1941 Entry of Japanese troops into Indochina and founding of Viet Minh (headed by Ho) as vehicle for united-front resistance.

origins of conflict 1945 Japanese depose French administration (March) before surrendering to Allies (August); Viet Minh seizes Hanoi and declares independence (“August Revolution”) for Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

1946 French forces return to restore control; Ho fails to negotiate deal to avert conflict; Viet Minh resorts to armed struggle.

1950 People’s Republic of China headed by Mao Zedong begins military support to Viet Minh; Truman administration formally backs French struggle.

1954 Viet Minh defeat French at Dien Bien Phu. Geneva conference ends French control, temporarily partitions Vietnam pending elections. drv in control north of seventeenth parallel; U.S.- backed Ngo Dinh Diem sets up new state in South Vietnam.

Nearly 1 million refugees (mostly Catholics) move south.

Vietnamese Workers’ Party (new name for Indochinese Communist Party) opts for political struggle in South while concentrating on socialist construction in drv. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, xxv EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use xxvichronology 1955–1956 Diem consolidates control in South and rejects nationwide elections stipulated by Geneva settlement.

1959 Diem’s repressive policy leads Communist leaders to endorse military as well as political struggle in South and to open supply line (Ho Chi Minh Trail) to sustain it.

1960 National Liberation Front created as anti-Diem united front in South Vietnam; U.S. military advisers rise to 900.

1961 nlf success in countryside forces President Kennedy to increase military support.

1962 Kennedy agrees to neutralization of Laos ( July). China signals support for drv in looming contest with United States.

1963 Buddhist-led protest movement culminates in Diem’s overthrow and assassination by South Vietnamese generals (November).

Military government distracted by infighting.

1964 U.S. destroyers are reportedly attacked twice by North Vietnamese torpedo boats in Gulf of Tonkin, and Congress passes Gulf of Tonkin resolution allowing President Johnson to retaliate against aggression in Southeast Asia (August). First drv combat units move down Ho Chi Minh Trail in late fall; U.S.

military advisers number slightly over 23,000.

escalation 1965 Soviets pledge support to drv. Johnson begins sustained bombing (“Rolling Thunder”) against drv (February) and sends first U.S. combat units to fight in South (March). First major antiwar protest in Washington (April). Johnson announces major increase in U.S. ground forces ( July). U.S. and drv units clash for first time in Ia Drang valley (November). Nguyen Van Thieu and Nguyen Cao Ky stabilize Saigon military government.

1966–1967 U.S. forces (approaching half million mark) follow strategy of attrition, but pavn and nlf forces keep fighting with aid from Soviet Union and China. March on Pentagon (October 1967) with public now evenly split on war.

1968 Tet Offensive (late January–February): nlf forces attack cities all over South, including Saigon, but are beaten back with heavy losses. American media and public opinion register shock.

Johnson calls for peace talks and renounces another term in White House (March). My Lai massacre (March). Protesters and hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, xxvi EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use chronologyxxvii police clash in Chicago during Democratic National Convention (August). war’s end 1969 President Nixon promises to end war, presses Vietnamization, withdraws U.S. troops, and begins campaign of secretly bombing Cambodia. Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho begin secret talks in Paris (August). Major demonstrations against Nixon’s lack of progress toward peace (October–November).

1970 Cambodian neutralist Prince Norodom Sihanouk overthrown by General Lon Nol (March). U.S. forces invade Cambodia (April– June), setting off nationwide campus protests. Senate repeals Gulf of Tonkin resolution and bars U.S. military presence in Cambodia ( June).

1971 Saigon forces defeated in campaign into Laos (February–March).

U.S. veteran discontent evident in Winter Soldier Investigation (February) and Dewey Canyon III protest in Washington (April).

1972 drv forces launch major (Easter) offensive (March) provoking Nixon to heavy bombing of drv (Linebacker I). Preliminary peace terms concluded in Paris (October). Nixon’s insistence on revisions leads to Christmas bombings of drv (Linebacker II).

1973 Paris peace accords ( January): withdrawal of all U.S. troops; return of American prisoners of war; and settlement of South Vietnam’s future by peaceful, political means. Congress cuts off bombing of Cambodia ( June).

1974 Fighting between drv and Saigon forces intensifies. President Ford renews U.S. commitment to South Vietnam (August).

1975 drv launches major offensive (March). Congress rejects emergency military aid, and Saigon falls (April). Flight of Vietnamese abroad begins (numbering more than 1 million over following fifteen years). Pol Pot’s Kampuchean Communist Party (Khmer Rouge) overthrows Lon Nol regime in Phnom Penh (April) and establishes People’s Republic of Kampuchea.

postwar 1976 Vietnam formally reunified as Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

1979 Vietnam overthrows Khmer Rouge and occupies Cambodia; China retaliates with attack across Vietnam’s northern border. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, xxvii EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use xxviiichronology 1980s Vietnam struggles to rebuild economy, with Nguyen Van Linh launching market-oriented reform program (1986).

1989 Vietnamese troops leave Cambodia.

1995 United States and Vietnam establish diplomatic relations. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, xxviii EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, xxix EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use This page intentionally left blank EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use A viETNAm WAR READER hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, xxxi EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use This page intentionally left blank EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 1 The Setting Colonialism and the Cold War (to 1954) 1 The Vietnam War story begins with patriotic ancestors who opened the drama decades before their country had even begun to penetrate Ameri- can consciousness. Three generations of well-educated, politically engaged Vietnamese faced French colonial control as a force that was penetrating and upending their world. They made liberation from that control their prime concern in life.

The French presence loomed ever larger and more ominous between the 1840s and the 1890s. Naval expeditions and diplomats extended a grip over Vietnam as well as Cambodia and Laos (collectively dubbed Indochina by the French). The rich Mekong Delta of southern Vietnam (known as Cochin China) was the first to fall. It came under direct rule during the 1860s. The rest of Vietnam — Annam and Tonkin — was soon reduced to the status of a protectorate in which a humiliated monarchy remained nominally in charge. But in fact a French governor-general held sway over all of Indochina. The influx of some 40,000 to 50,000 French settlers and of French capital added cultural and economic dimensions to Vietnamese political subordination.

At the outset — across the latter half of the nineteenth century — scholar-officials loyal to the ruling dynasty mounted a desperate but in- effectual resistance to French conquest. Their failure to turn the tide put in question the established order, which was dominated by a monarchy modeled after China’s and by Confucian social values. Vietnamese intel- lectuals began to explore the sources of their country’s vulnerability and to consider ways to revitalize and liberate their country.

These concerns led the second generation of patriots to nationalist ideas early in the twentieth century. Under the sway of those ideas, they discovered the importance of building popular unity, creating a strong government to lead the people and resist international pressures, and drawing instruction and support from other countries, such as Japan, whose nationalist programs were proving successful. These pioneer hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 1 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 2thesetting nationalists were products of an educational system geared to create of- ficials to staff the state bureaucracy, and so they instinctively assigned themselves a leading role in finding a substitute for the old, failed mon- archy and in remaking society along lines they considered modern.

In undertaking these tasks, they carried forward a sense of the special obligation of men of talent to play a public, political role. At the same time, their nationalism incorporated a special faith in the capacity of Vietnamese to resist foreign domination. In this they built on widely retailed legends of heroic resistance against Chinese domination and invasion.

The third generation, active in the 1920s and 1930s, faced perplex- ity and frustration. The old monarchical resistance had sputtered out.

French prejudice and self-interest were discrediting moderate national- ists who had embraced the idea of enlightened colonial tutelage. Revo- lutionary plots repeatedly failed in the face of repressive security forces.

Given the formidable obstacles to developing a nationalist conscious- ness and creating nationalist organizations, the educated class began searching farther and farther afield for models and insights. As they con- ceived the task of liberation in ever more expansive terms, they took an ever more critical view of the flaws of Vietnamese society — from gender inequality to class exploitation, to servile subordination to the colonial presence, to official corruption, to popular illiteracy.

Ho Chi Minh is the most famous member of this third generation. By the early 1940s, Ho had scored two major achievements that established his reputation and inspired nationalist hopes. The first, effected in the context of Japanese military expansion into Southeast Asia, was to trans- late broad ideas about revolution and independence into workable poli- cies. In 1941, just as Japanese forces were taking charge in Indochina, Ho returned home at the head of the Viet Minh. This Communist-led organization would win broad popular appeal and spearhead the inde- pendence cause. The Viet Minh at first made its target the Japanese oc- cupation army and the French who had acquiesced to Japanese control. With the unexpectedly early end of fighting in the Pacific in mid-1945, Ho and his colleagues seized power and declared Vietnam independent. The “August Revolution” of that year resulted in the creation of the Demo- cratic Republic of Vietnam ( drv). Ho became president of the new state.

With his close associates Pham Van Dong, Vo Nguyen Giap, and Truong Chinh, he would direct the next phase of the independence struggle against a France determined to reassert its colonial prerogatives. The hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 2 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use thesetting3 resulting conflict would last nearly eight years (late 1946 to mid-1954).

Ho abandoned the cities in favor of a strategy of broad political mobiliza- tion led by the Viet Minh. On the battlefield his forces resorted to a mix of guerrilla and conventional warfare to harass and ultimately exhaust the enemy. Diplomatically Vietnam’s Communists had by 1950 emphati- cally put themselves on the side of the Soviet-led world communist move- ment, and they looked hopefully to the new Communist China for practi- cal support.

Ho’s second major achievement was establishing the Communist Party’s legitimacy as the leading resistance force with an effective appeal to a wide range of ordinary Vietnamese. The key to this accomplishment was melding rural with nationalist concerns. Vietnamese Communists had embarked in the 1930s on finding ways to mobilize peasants, far and away the largest part of the population. Along the way they discovered the importance to villagers of land and livelihood.

The same wartime context in which Ho consolidated party control and advanced the independence cause also turned the attention of American policy makers to French Indochina. In 1940 and 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt started worrying about Indochina along with the other totter- ing European colonial domains in Southeast Asia. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor drew the U.S. military deeply into the Pacific struggle and raised the question of the postwar status of colonial territories now in Japanese hands. In response Roosevelt offered qualified support for decolonization, but his successors — Harry Truman and Dwight Eisen- hower — shifted to full acquiescence to the restoration of French control and then to full-throated support even as the French effort faltered and then collapsed.

This chapter’s documents on the deep roots of the Vietnam War raise some fundamental questions: • What fears, hopes, enmities, and ideals gripped Vietnamese con- fronted with French domination of their country? How did those concerns vary over time and between politically engaged elites and peasants?

• To what extent did Ho Chi Minh’s evolving views emerge from ear- lier nationalist attitudes, and to what extent were they shaped by communism?

• What concerns led Presidents Truman and Eisenhower to a com- mitment in Vietnam? hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 3 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 4thesetting • Why in the final analysis did Vietnamese and American leaders fail to find common ground on the seemingly shared principle of self- determination? emergence of a nationalist vision French domination provoked a class of Vietnamese trained in the Con- fucian classics and oriented toward political service to engage in an ever deeper and more desperate search for a way to end Vietnam’s humiliat- ing condition. Open resistance to the French had failed by the turn of the century and planted grim doubts about the capacity of Vietnamese to liberate themselves or even to survive as a society in a world of rapacious powers. Dealing with this grim realization fell to a new set of national- ist intellectuals and activists who emerged at the start of the twentieth century. Some among them favored revolutionary struggle, while others preferred a nonviolent reformist program as the more realistic course.

1.1 Nguyen Dinh Chieu, funeral oration honoring peasants who fought the French, 1861 This well­known southern writer (1822–1888) represents the proto­national­ ist resistance directed against the French and a collaboration­minded royal court. In the poem that follows, Chieu champions popular armed struggle.

But, however defiant, he and like­minded advocates of resistance failed to create a peasant army strong and durable enough to drive out the French.

The only things you knew were ricefields and water buffaloes. You lived according to the village’s customs.

Digging, plowing, harrowing, replanting were your usual occupations. . . .

You were not professional soldiers . . . experienced in military life and training. You were but inhabitants of villages and hamlets turned partisans to serve the cause of righteousness. . . .

In your hands, a pointed stick; you did not ask for knives or helmets.

The match for your gunpowder was made of straw; but this did not prevent you from successfully burning the missionary house.

For a sword, you used your kitchen knife; yet you were able to behead the enemies’ lieutenant.

Your officers were not compelled to beat the drums in order to urge you hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 4 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use thesetting5 forward. You advanced on your own, clambering onto the barricades.

You looked upon the enemy as if he did not exist.

You were not frightened by the French who shot large and small bullets at you. You forced your way into their camp, risking your life as if you had no material body.

Some of you stabbed, some struck so eagerly that the French soldiers and their mercenaries lost heart.

You screamed in the forefront, you shouted at the rear regardless of the enemies’ gunboats, their ships, or their rifles. . . .

You preferred to die fighting the enemy, and return to our ancestors in glory rather than survive in submission to the Occidentals and share your miserable life with barbarians. . . .

O, the smoke of your battle has already dissipated, but your right conduct shall be recorded for a thousand years. 1.2 Phan Boi Chau, call for Vietnamese to awaken, 1907 Chau (1867–1940) was a leading proponent of revolutionary nationalism.

He was trained in the Confucian classics and passed the qualifying exam to become an official. Instead he became a voice for anticolonial resistance. He held up Japan (where he lived for a time in exile) as a model for Vietnam­ ese modernization and a potential source of support for Vietnamese inde­ pendence. The extract included here comes from The New Vietnam, one of Chau’s many works. The French authorities banned the book and in 1925 arrested, tried, and convicted the defiant Chau of subversion. He spent the rest of his life under confinement.

Our soil is fertile, our mountains and rivers beautiful. Compared with other powers in the five continents, our country is inferior only to a few.

Why, then, do we suffer French protection? Alas, that is simply because of our deep-rooted slave mentality; it is because of our inveterate habit of depending on others for over two thousand years. We gladly accepted the colonization of the Han, the Tang, the Song, the Yuan, the Ming [all pow- erful Chinese dynasties]. As slaves, we served them; we lacked human dignity. Today our enemy the French are very ingenious. They despise us, claiming that we are weak; they lie to us, because they consider us stu- pid. . . . They trample over our people; they hold our fathers and brothers in contempt; they treat us like buffaloes and horses; they suck the sweat and blood from our people; and yet they dare broadcast loudly to the rest hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 5 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 6thesetting of the world that France is here to protect the Indochinese country. Oh!

Compatriots, the country is ours; the people are ours. What interest does France have here for her to come and protect our country?

Ever since France came to protect us, Frenchmen hold every lever of power; they hold the power of life and death over everyone. The life of thousands of Vietnamese people is not worth that of a French dog; the moral prestige of hundreds of our officials does not prevail over that of a French woman. Look at those men with blue eyes and yellow beard. They are not our fathers, nor are they our brothers. How can they squat here, defecating on our heads? Are the men from Vietnam not ashamed of that situation? . . .

After modernization we shall determine the domestic as well as for- eign affairs of our country. The work of civilization will go on, day after day, and our country’s status in the world will be heightened. We shall have three million infantrymen, as fierce as tigers, looking into the four corners of the universe. Five hundred thousand of our navy men, as terrifying as crocodiles, will swim freely in the boundless ocean. We shall send ambassadors into every country of Europe, America, Japan, the United States, Germany, England. These countries will make ours their first ally. Siam [Thailand], India, and other countries of the South Seas will look up to our land as an enlightened example. Even the big countries of Asia, such as China, will be brother countries to ours. The enemy, France, will be afraid of us; she will listen to us, ask us for protec- tion. Our flag will fly over the city of Paris, and our colors will brighten the entire globe. At that time the only fear we shall have is that we won’t have enough time to protect other countries. All the shame and humili- ation we have suffered previously, which resulted from being protected by others, will have become potent medicine to help us build up this feat of modernization. Commemorative monuments will be erected; a thou- sand torches will illuminate the entire world. The wind of freedom will blow fiercely, refreshing in one single sweep the entire five continents.

Such will be the victory of our race. How pleasant that will be!

1.3 Phan Chu Trinh, open letter to French governor-general Paul Beau, 1907 Trinh (1872–1926) was Phan Boi Chau’s equal in fame among the early­ twentieth­century nationalists. He too was trained in the classics, passed hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 6 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use thesetting7 the qualifying exam for royal service, but veered off into nationalist dissent.

But unlike Chau, Trinh was skeptical about seeking outside support, whether from Japan or anywhere else. And rather than promote resistance, he looked to enlightened French tutelage to bring his troubled country into the modern world. His involvement in a peasant uprising in 1908 led to his arrest and left him politically sidelined until his death.

Since Vietnam was placed under their protection, the French have built roads and bridges; they have improved communication through the construction of railroads and steamships; they have established post offices and telegraph lines: all these works are indeed very useful to Vietnam. . . .

. . . [Y]et how is it that [the Vietnamese people] all have reached the lowest level of their subsistence, that they are about to witness the de- struction of their race? What are the causes of this predicament? . . .

. . . The first one, as I see it, resides in the fact that the Protecting Power [France] gave too great a liberty to the Vietnamese mandarins [officials in the bureaucracy]. . . .

Knowing, for some time, that the Protecting Power favors and never punishes them, the Vietnamese mandarins . . . who are greedy become more so, counting on their corruption to climb up the hierarchical lad- der. Those who are lazy become even lazier, counting only on their apathy to remain in their position. . . . They paid no attention whatsoever to the people’s complaints. . . .

The second cause resides in the fact that the Protectorate has always regarded with contempt the people of Vietnam, resulting in a segrega- tion syndrome. . . . Seeing that our mandarins are corrupt, our people un- intelligent, our customs in decay, the French despise our people, who, in their judgment, have no national dignity. Therefore, in their newspapers, books, conversations, or discussions, they usually express the contemp- tuous opinion that the Vietnamese are barbarians and comparatively not much different from pigs. . . .

If France is really interested in changing her policy, she should employ only those mandarins who have talent; give them authority and power; treat them with propriety; show them sincerity; deliberate with them over the best means to promote the good and eradicate the evil; open up new ways for the people to earn their living; provide the scholar-students with the freedom of discussion; widen the freedom of the press so as to know the people’s sentiments; put an end to the abuses of the mandarinate by hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 7 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 8thesetting resorting to just punishments and fair rewards. Furthermore, if, little by little, the legal system is improved, the mandarinal examinations abol- ished, the educational system renovated, libraries built, teachers trained, commercial and industrial knowledge encouraged, the taxes and corvée [required labor] systems ameliorated, then the people will quietly devote their efforts to do their work well. The scholar-students will discharge their duties with joy. At that time people will only fear that France will abandon Vietnam. Who would and could see her as an enemy?

. . . The only way for us to keep our territory and to allow our race to survive on this globe is to have a capable teacher to educate us and re- gard us as his pupils; to find a good mother who would treat us like her own children, raise us and take good care of us, with confidence and with affection.

ho chi minh’s rise to prominence, 1919–1945 The following items trace the rise of the leading figure in the Vietnam- ese liberation struggle from obscurity to national prominence. Ho Chi Minh was born in 1890 in a northern province noted for its anti-French resistance into a distinctly patriotic family. He knew personally the lead- ing nationalists. Educated at first in Vietnam, Ho went abroad in 1911 to learn the secrets of Western power. During his development as a political leader between the late 1910s and the 1940s, he time and again invoked in his writings the proud resistance of earlier generations.

1.4 Recollections of discovering Communist anticolonialism in July 1920 Ho settled in Paris in the late 1910s and hit his political stride, recapitulating as he went the views of an older generation. Under the name Nguyen Ai Quoc (Nguyen the Patriot), he joined other Vietnamese exiles in June 1919 in peti­ tioning the victors in World War I for administrative reforms along the lines advocated by Trinh (document 1.3). Ho and his colleagues were ignored even by that champion of self­determination, U.S. president Woodrow Wilson. The French Socialist Party, to which Ho turned, also proved indifferent to the as­ pirations of the colonized.

In mid­1920 Ho’s views took a revolutionary turn in the spirit of Chau (document 1.2). Here, in a recollection prepared in 1960 for the Soviet review hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 8 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use thesetting9 Problems of the East on the occasion of Vladimir Lenin’s ninetieth birthday, Ho recalls his stunning encounter with an essay by Lenin that threw the sup­ port of the recently established Communist International behind oppressed peoples struggling against colonialism. Ho found attractive the notion that the “working masses” (including peasants) in Vietnam and other colonies were to combine with the proletariat in the developed countries and spear­ head world revolution. According to the conventional Marxist formulation of the time, revolution in the colonies would sweep to power bourgeois national­ ists, who would in turn yield to a socialist tide in their countries.

After World War One, I made my living in Paris, at one time as an em- ployee at a photographer’s, at another as painter of “Chinese antiques” (turned out by a French shop). I often distributed leaflets denouncing the crimes committed by the French colonialists in Viet Nam.

At that time, I supported the October Revolution [the 1917 seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in Russia] only spontaneously. I did not yet grasp all its historic importance. I loved and respected Lenin because he was a great patriot who had liberated his fellow-countrymen; until then, I had read none of his books. . . .

Heated discussions were then taking place in the cells of the Social- ist Party, about whether one should remain in the [Socialist] Second International, found a “Second-and-a-half” International or join Lenin’s Third [Moscow-based Communist] International[.] I attended the meet- ings regularly, two or three times a week, and attentively listened to the speakers. . . .

What I wanted most to know — and what was not debated in the meet- ings — was: which International sided with the peoples of the colonial countries?

I raised this question — the most important for me — at a meeting. Some comrades answered: it was the Third, not the Second Interna- tional. One gave me to read Lenin’s “Theses on the national and colonial questions”. . . .

In those Theses, there were political terms that were difficult to un- derstand. But by reading them again and again finally I was able to grasp the essential part. What emotion, enthusiasm, enlightenment and con- fidence they communicated to me! I wept for joy. Sitting by myself in my room, I would shout as if I were addressing large crowds: “Dear martyr compatriots! This is what we need, this is our path to liberation!” .\� . .

. . . [F]rom then on, I . . . plunged into the debates and participated hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 9 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 10thesetting with fervour in the discussions. Though my French was still too weak to express all my thoughts, I hit hard at the allegations attacking Lenin and the Third International. My only argument was: “If you do not condemn colonialism, if you do not side with the colonial peoples, what kind of revolution are you then waging?” 1.5 Statement on behalf of the new Indochinese Communist Party, 18 February 1930 During the 1920s and 1930s, Ho worked as a full­time revolutionary sup­ ported by the Soviet­backed Communist International. In 1930 he pulled a fragmented Vietnamese communist movement into a single party (known for its first two decades as the Indochinese Communist Party). The following ex­ cerpt was written in Canton, a center of Vietnamese political activity, and appeared under one of Ho’s pseudonyms (Din).

Though Ho was never interested in Marxist theory or in theoretical con­ troversies, he did make conventional Marxist ideas an essential part of his worldview. He saw international affairs in terms of conflict between capital­ ist­dominated countries embarked on an imperialist course abroad and the emerging socialist camp led by the Soviet Union. He accepted the inherent su­ periority of the socialist system. And he took as a given the inevitable collapse of capitalism, the victim of its mounting crisis of overproduction and social unrest at home, warfare generated by rivalry among competing capitalist states for foreign markets, and revolutionary resistance in the colonial world.

What above all else engaged him was Lenin’s notion of a tight, disciplined party organization as a way of speeding the inevitable advance of progress, not to mention marshaling limited resources against a more powerful foe.

Ho devoted his energy and ingenuity to building the party as an essential, effective instrument of liberation and winning broad support for it, includ­ ing among the peasants Chieu had written in praise of (document 1.1). Ho’s devotion to organizing Vietnamese to fight reflected this Marxist’s still deeply nationalist impulses.

Workers, peasants, soldiers, youth and school students!

Oppressed and exploited fellow­countrymen!

Sisters and brothers! Comrades!

Imperialist contradictions were the cause of the 1914–1918 World War. After this horrible slaughter, the world was divided into two camps:

one is the revolutionary camp which includes the oppressed colonial hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 10 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use thesetting11 peoples and the exploited working class throughout the world. Its van- guard is the Soviet Union. The other is the counter-revolutionary camp of international capitalism and imperialism. . . .

That war resulted in untold loss of life and property. . . . French im- perialism was the hardest hit. Therefore, in order to restore the forces of capitalism in France, the French imperialists have resorted to every perfidious scheme to intensify capitalist exploitation in Indochina.

They have built new factories to exploit the workers by paying them starvation wages. They have plundered the peasants’ land to establish plantations and drive them to destitution. They have levied new heavy taxes. They have forced our people to buy government bonds. In short, they have driven our people to utter misery. They have increased their military forces, firstly to strangle the Vietnamese revolution; secondly to prepare for a new imperialist war in the Pacific aimed at conquering new colonies; thirdly to suppress the Chinese revolution; and fourthly to at- tack the Soviet Union because she helps the oppressed nations and the exploited working class to wage revolution. World War Two will break out. When it does the French imperialists will certainly drive our people to an even more horrible slaughter. If we let them prepare for this war, oppose the Chinese revolution and attack the Soviet Union, if we allow them to stifle the Vietnamese revolution, this is tantamount to letting them wipe our race off the surface of the earth and drown our nation in the Pacific.

However, the French imperialists’ barbarous oppression and ruthless exploitation have awakened our compatriots, who have all realized that revolution is the only road to survival and that without it they will die a slow death. This is why the revolutionary movement has grown stronger with each passing day: the workers refuse to work, the peasants demand land, the students go on strike, the traders stop doing business. Every- where the masses have risen to oppose the French imperialists.

The revolution has made the French imperialists tremble with fear.

On the one hand, they use the feudalists and comprador bourgeoisie [a class dependent on foreign capital] to oppress and exploit our people.

On the other, they terrorize, arrest, jail, deport and kill a great number of Vietnamese revolutionaries. If the French imperialists think that they can suppress the Vietnamese revolution by means of terror, they are grossly mistaken. For one thing, the Vietnamese revolution is not iso- lated but enjoys the assistance of the world proletariat in general and that of the French working class in particular. Secondly, it is precisely at hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 11 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 12thesetting the very time when the French imperialists are frenziedly carrying out terrorist acts that the Vietnamese Communists, formerly working sepa- rately, have united into a single party, the Indochinese Communist Party, to lead the revolutionary struggle of our entire people.

1.6 Proclamation of the Viet Minh–led independence struggle, 6 June 1941 Building Vietnam’s Communist Party provided Ho a springboard for launch­ ing the Viet Minh in 1941. It would serve as a vehicle for attracting all types of his compatriots to the independence cause.

Now, the opportunity has come for our liberation. [German-occupied] France itself is unable to help the French colonialists rule over our coun- try. As for the Japanese, on the one hand, bogged down in China, on the other, hampered by the British and American forces, they certainly can- not use all their strength against us. If our entire people are solidly united we can certainly get the better of the best-trained armies of the French and the Japanese. . . .

Dear fellow-countrymen! A few hundred years ago . . . when our coun- try faced the great danger of invasion by Yuan [Mongol-led Chinese] armies the elders ardently called on their sons and daughters through- out the country to stand up as one man to kill the enemy. Finally they saved their people, and their glorious memory will live for ever. Let our elders and patriotic personalities follow the illustrious example set by our forefathers. . . .

Dear fellow­countrymen!

National salvation is the common cause of our entire people. Every Vietnamese must take part in it. He who has money will contribute his money, he who has strength will contribute his strength, he who has tal- ent will contribute his talent. For my part I pledge to follow in your steps and devote all my modest abilities to the service of the country and am ready for the supreme sacrifice.

1.7 Declaration of independence, 2 September 1945 The headway the Viet Minh made during World War II allowed Ho to seize power in Hanoi in August 1945. Early the next month, he stood before a cheer­ hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 12 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use thesetting13 ing crowd in central Hanoi and declared the colonial era at an end. His name was now a household word among patriotic Vietnamese. The striking invo­ cation of the lines from the U.S. independence declaration was part of a cal­ culated attempt to get Washington to deliver on its wartime embrace of the principle of self­determination. Ho also nominally disbanded the Commu­ nist Party (which would not be formally revived until 1951, as the Vietnamese Workers’ Party), created a broad coalition government to run the drv, and appealed directly to the Truman administration for support. With the United States in a globally dominant position, with no prospect of Soviet backing, and with the French bent on restoring control throughout Indochina, this con­ ciliatory approach made good sense.

“All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Hap- piness.” . . .

Those are undeniable truths.

Nevertheless, for more than eighty years, the French imperialists, abusing the standard of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, have violated our Fatherland and oppressed our fellow-citizens. They have acted con- trary to the ideals of humanity and justice.

Politically, they have deprived our people of every democratic liberty.

They have enforced inhuman laws; they have set up three different political regimes in the North, the Centre and the South of Viet Nam in order to wreck our country’s oneness and prevent our people from being united.

They have built more prisons than schools. They have mercilessly mas- sacred our patriots. They have drowned our uprisings in seas of blood.

They have fettered public opinion and practised obscurantism [hin- dering the spread of knowledge].

They have weakened our race with opium and alcohol.

In the field of economics, they have sucked us dry, driven our people to destitution and devastated our land. . . .

We, the Provisional Government of the new Viet Nam, representing the entire Vietnamese people, hereby declare that from now on we break off all relations of a colonial character with France; cancel all treaties signed by France on Viet Nam, and abolish all privileges held by France in our country.

The entire Vietnamese people are of one mind in their determination to oppose all wicked schemes by the French colonialists. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 13 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 14thesetting We are convinced that the Allies . . . cannot fail to recognize the right of the Vietnamese people to independence.

A people who have courageously opposed French enslavement for more than eighty years, a people who have resolutely sided with the Allies against the Fascists during these last years, such a people must be free, such a people must be independent.

the popular appeal of revolution Revolutionary sentiment spread through Vietnamese society in the early twentieth century, not only gripping the imagination of educated city dwellers but also reaching into the countryside. In these excerpts we get insight into the diverse ways ordinary Vietnamese became converts to the cause of liberation.

1.8 Nguyen Thi Dinh on her political awakening in the 1930s Born in 1920, Dinh grew up in a poor family in Ben Tre province, a fertile part of the Mekong Delta known for its revolutionary tradition going back to uprisings in the 1860s. The Communist Party maintained a presence there from the 1930s despite repeated rounds of French repression. Dinh followed her activist brother into party work while still in her teens and married an­ other activist, who died in prison. Dinh herself was subsequently jailed by the French during the early 1940s. She participated in the Viet Minh seizure of power in her province in 1945 and assumed in the 1960s a prominent role in the southern resistance as the deputy commander of the National Liberation Front (nlf) armed forces ( formally known as the People’s Liberation Armed Forces). In late 1965, just after the start of the Vietnam­U.S. war, Tan Huong Nam recorded Dinh’s story, which was published in Hanoi in 1968. This ac­ count of a political coming­of­age is especially revealing of the opportunities the revolutionary cause opened to women.

The family reading noted in the first paragraph is the classic novel Luc Van Tien by Nguyen Dinh Chieu, the prominent nineteenth­century south­ ern scholar and foe of the French whose poem in praise of peasant resistance (document 1.1) was probably written in Ben Tre. This novel in verse, which tells of the triumph of a young couple over wicked people, affirms both Confu­ cian ideas of virtue and the Buddhist faith in the ultimate victory of good over evil. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 14 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use thesetting15 Whenever we had nothing to do at night, we would gather around the oil lamp . . . and listened to my brother read [Chieu’s novel]. . . . Sometimes . . . I wept and the neighbors also wept. Once in a while, my father nodded his head in approval and commented:

— This story teaches people all the virtues they must have in life: hu- manity, kindness, filial piety, courage, determination and loyalty. . . .

. . . I hated those in the old days who abused their power, position and wealth to harm honest people. . . . On one occasion, the landlord in the village came to my house and demanded paddy [unmilled rice] in a threatening manner. My parents had to hastily prepare food and wine to regale him. We were out of chickens then, so they had to catch the hen about to lay eggs which I had been raising, and slaughter it for him to eat. When he finally left, his face crimson with all the drinking, I broke down and cried in anger, and demanded that my mother compensate me for the hen. In that period (1930) I noticed that my brother Ba Chan came and went at odd hours. Sometimes men came to the house, sat and whispered for a while and then disappeared. One day, I heard whispers in the room, I looked in and saw my brother hand to my father a piece of red cloth embroidered with something yellow inside [a hammer and sickle flag of the Communists]. . . .

. . . [M]y older brother Ba Chan was suddenly arrested by the puppet village officials who took him and jailed him. . . . It was Muon, the same Canton Chief — the tyrannical landlord who had come to my house to collect rent, drink and swallow my hen which was about to lay eggs — who now angrily hit the prisoners with a walking stick while drinking and shouting. . . .

. . . My brother was not the only one who was tortured, many other old and young people were also tortured. Many men were beaten until they passed out, blood trickling from their mouths, heads and feet, and dye- ing the cement floor a greyish and purplish color. . . . I just stood there, frozen, and wept in anger. . . .

. . . My brother was not released until half a year later. We wept with joy. He loved me even more than before because I was the only one in the family who had taken care of him during his imprisonment. I asked him:

— You didn’t do anything to them, then why did they beat you up so brutally?

He smiled and said:

— Of course I did something, why not? hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 15 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 16thesetting — You mean you were a subversive?

— Don’t be silly! I make revolution to overthrow the landlords who are oppressing and exploiting us, like Canton Chief Muon, and also to overthrow the French who have stolen our country from us.

He explained to me at great length, but I did not understand anything more than that the Communists loved the poor and opposed the officials in the village. My love for my brother and the men who had been jailed blossomed and deepened with such new and significant events. . . .

. . . [In 1936] the movement was on the rise. People from many areas frequently came to hold meetings in my house. My brother Ba Chan per- suaded me to help and cook for them. I agreed at once. They all treated me with affection like my brother Ba. They were all good people and my parents were very fond of them. . . .

. . . [B]esides cooking when they came to hold meetings I was given the job of delivering letters, propagandizing people in the hamlets and village to join mutual aid associations and rice transplanting and hoeing teams, encouraging people to buy the “Dan Chung” (People) newspaper, and mobilizing women. . . . Whatever task I was given I performed with a lot of zeal. . . .

. . . After succeeding in a few tasks, I became very eager to operate and wanted to leave because if I stayed home a lot of chores, such as cooking, working in the ricefields and tending the vegetable garden, would get in the way of my work. I began to move around more [on party business].

Some nights I stayed out and came home very late. My parents were afraid I would become “bad” and said, “State affairs are not for girls to take care of. And even if women can do it, they must be very capable. What can our daughter Dinh do? If she’s caught, she’ll confess everything and harm others.” At that time, I had reached the puberty period and caught the attention of many youths in the village. Several sent matchmakers to my house to ask for my hand. My parents wanted to accept and give me away in marriage to put an end to their worries, but I absolutely refused to go along. I often confided to my brother Ba:

— I only want to work for the revolution, I don’t want to get married yet. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 16 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use thesetting17 1.9 Truong Nhu Tang on his conversion to the nationalist cause in the mid-1940s This offspring of a well­to­do Saigon family was an unlikely nationalist re­ cruit. His grandfather, a Confucian scholar, had worked for the French admin­ istration. His father was determined to see his son well educated, gainfully employed, and thus able to add to the family’s already substantial wealth.

To that end Tang attended the best French schools open to Vietnamese and then moved to France for pharmacy studies. His nationalist awakening there offers more testimony to the power of the ideas Ho promoted and the striking personal appeal that Ho himself exercised. Many other youths embraced the revolution as Tang did, without ever joining the Communist Party or fully ac­ cepting its principles and policies. Disowned by his family, Tang eventually returned to Vietnam to teach school while actively supporting the Viet Minh in the anti­French struggle. He later served as an nlf organizer in Saigon and as a top­ranking member of the nlf leadership. He and other southern activists became increasingly restive under Hanoi’s control of the nlf in the latter stages of the anti­American war. Tang fled abroad in 1975, dismayed by the realization that the North was going to dominate the South. His ulti­ mate disillusionment with the revolution makes all the more poignant and convincing his recollections here of how he became a convert to the liberation cause.

Each Sunday we would gather at my grandfather’s house to visit and also to listen as he taught us the precepts of Confucian ethics. He would re- mind us of our duty to live virtuous lives, lives of personal rectitude and filial piety. And he would talk about the five cardinal ethical principles:

nhon, nghia, le, tri, tin (“benevolence, duty, propriety, conscience, and faithfulness”). There was nothing abstract or dry about his exposition.

Instead he would weave his story around the adventures and exploits of ancient Chinese heroes and sages, whose lives illustrated one or another of these virtues. For boys especially, he would tell us, there are two un- shakable necessities: protection of the family’s honor and loyalty to the nation. . . .

At the Chasseloup Laubat [an exclusive Saigon school for children of the French colonial administrators and select Vietnamese] we spoke and wrote exclusively French, and we learned, along with mathematics, sci- ence, and literature, all about the history and culture of nos ancêtres les Gaulois. . . . About our own country we remained profoundly ignorant, ex- cept for what we read in the final chapters of our history books, the ones hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 17 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 18thesetting on France’s colonial empire, France outre­mer. . . . It wasn’t until after I had begun secondary school that I began to realize that I was — in some ways at least — different.

The scene of my initiation into the mysteries of colonialism was the lycée schoolyard during recess. As the games we played became rougher and more competitive, my Vietnamese friends and I learned that we, in contrast to our French schoolmates, were part of a racial entity some- times called nhaques (peasants), sometimes mites (a derogatory abbrevia- tion of Annamite, the French term for Vietnamese). . . . Soon shock gave way to anger, and recesses were occasionally punctuated with brawls, which mirrored the hatreds felt by many of our elders. . . .

[In 1946 Tang moved to Paris to pursue pharmaceutical studies.

There he and other students met with Ho, who was then in France seek- ing recognition of the drv’s independence.] I was immediately struck by Ho Chi Minh’s appearance. Unlike the others, who were dressed in Western-style clothes, Ho wore a frayed, high-collared Chinese jacket. On his feet he had rubber sandals. . . . [H]e gave off an air of fragility, almost sickliness. But these impressions only contributed to the imperturbable dignity that enveloped him as though it were something tangible. . . . Ho exuded a combination of inner strength and personal generosity that struck me with something like a physical blow. He looked directly at me, and at the others, with a magnetic expression of intensity and warmth.

Almost reflexively I found myself thinking of my grandfather. There was that same effortless communication of wisdom and caring with which my grandfather had personified for us the values of Confucian life.

I was momentarily startled when Ho reached his arm out in a sweeping gesture, as if he were gathering us in. “Come, my children,” he said and sat down on the steps. We settled around him, as if it were the most natu- ral thing in the world. . . . He told us to call him Bac Ho — Uncle Ho — in- stead of Mr. President. Then he began asking each of us in turn about our families, our names, our studies, where we were from, how old we were.

He wanted to know too about our feelings toward Vietnam’s indepen- dence, a subject on which most of us had only the vaguest thoughts. . . .

When Ho realized that among our group there were students from the North, South, and Center of the country, he said gently, but with great intensity, “Voila! the youth of our great family of Vietnam. Our Vietnam is one, our nation is one. You must remember, though the rivers may run dry and the mountains erode, the nation will always be one.” . . . Ho went on to say that, when he was born, Vietnam was a nation of slaves. . . . hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 18 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use thesetting19 Eighty years of slavery had diminished the nation; now it was time to re- establish the heritage given to us by our ancestors and recover from our backwardness. If our people were to gain an honorable place among the peoples of the world, it would depend largely on us, on our efforts to study and learn and to contribute to the national family.

It was a message that combined ardent and idealistic nationalism with a moving personal simplicity. Ho had created for us an atmosphere of family and country and had pointed to our own role in the great pa- triotic endeavor. Before an hour had passed, he had gained the heart of each one of us sitting around him on those steps. . . .

. . . Against what I knew to be my father’s deepest wishes — not to men- tion his explicit orders — I was now on my way to becoming a rebel. . . .

In my mind’s eye, I began to envision a radical westernization of Viet- nam along the lines of Japan’s miraculous industrialization of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There seemed to me no reason that Vietnam, newborn to independence but full of hard-working, intel- ligent citizens, could not adopt the best from the world’s political and economic cultures: the American approach to economics, the German scientific spirit, the French fervor for democracy.

1.10 Peasants in the Red River Delta on their reaction to the Viet Minh in the late 1940s The testimonies collected by French scholar Gérard Chaliand in October– November 1967 offer insight on the revolutionary appeal in the northern countryside. We hear from peasants in Hung Yen province in the Red River Delta, a region longer and more densely settled than Nguyen Thi Dinh’s Me­ kong region and distinctly poorer. They recall the anti­French sentiment, the poverty, and the injustice that made the countryside a Viet Minh stronghold.

a. Tuan Doanh (a member of the Hung Yen provincial committee of the Communist Party) Historically, our province has been a battlefield ever since . . . the second and third centuries. The marshes and reeds provided an excellent terrain for guerrilla warfare in the lowlands, and the dense vegetation stopped the enemy from advancing. There were also major battles against the Mongols in the thirteenth century. It is fair to say that the peasants of Hung Yen have had to withstand continual attempts at invasion through- hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 19 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 20thesetting out their history, in addition to long periods of drought and flooding.

They’ve had the French to contend with, too! . . .

The first [Communist] Party cell in the province was set up in 1930. . . .

By 1940, repression or no repression, we were able to get on with our propaganda work and agitation. Each militant was required to estab- lish contact with several villages . . . and do his best to establish nests of sympathizers. This went on from 1940 until 1944. There were very few professional revolutionaries in the area — no more than four or five in the entire province; the rest did ordinary jobs as well as working for the Party. And then, round about 1943 or 44, we started making military prep- arations. On a very small scale, mind: we had no arms and ammunition as yet. . . .

On 9 March 1945 came the Japanese coup toppling the colonial ad- ministration. . . . The French were in such disarray that they could do nothing to stop us. Side by side with the armed conflict, the masses were incited to lay hands on the stocks of rice held by the Japanese. . . . The communal rice-stocks in the possession of the village elders . . . were shared out, together with the supplies appropriated by the Japanese. In addition, all taxes were withheld. As a result of these steps, starvation was averted in the province. . . . This seizure of rice for public use finally removed the peasants’ uncertainties about the revolution. . . .

In August 1945, we took over every district in the land. . . . Suddenly we found ourselves enjoying independence and freedom. The mood of the country was unbelievable: people were burning with enthusiasm. I shall never forget those times.

And then, in December, the French invaded us again. . . .

After 1949 the people living in the delta became [the target of French forces]. . . . [O]ur army and cadres could not be dislodged; the peasants continued to hide them. A complete network of underground shelters and communication trenches was established, stretching for tens of miles, with exits in or on the outskirts of villages. As the war dragged on, it became possible to conceal and accommodate whole regiments and, eventually, whole divisions.

b. Phan Van Ha (a thirty-six-year-old commune party secretary) My own family were landless peasants: all they had was a house and a small yard. They were hired labourers, working for landowners. . . .

I was eleven when my father died, after an illness, at the age of fifty- four. My mother died of starvation during the great famine of 1945. I was hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 20 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use thesetting21 fourteen at the time. We were a family of six. . . . My little sister and I took jobs, looking after landowners’ children. . . . At that time, I ate one meal a day: rice with fig-leaves, and usually a soup made from rice and bran.

There were no vegetables: all we had was rice and salt. One of my sisters died of starvation in 1945; another was killed during a bombardment in 1948. And one of my brothers was killed in the army in 1953. That leaves the three of us. . . .

. . . The landowners used to hold huge feasts and make the villagers contribute. Some of them had three wives. They ate meat or chicken every day. When you were working for them, you got a few sweet potatoes in the morning and some rice at midday. That was for heavy labour. . . . If they wanted to grab a peasant’s land, they would plant some liquor in his home (the colonial administration had exclusive rights to liquor) and tip off the authorities. The peasant was duly prosecuted and had to sell his plot. That is how my uncle was dispossessed. And another thing: peas- ants would run into debt whenever the taxes fell due. The interest rate was 50 per cent for a period of six months. They would just manage to pay off the interest. The debt itself was never disposed of. . . . The poorer a family was, the greater the attempts to make it sell its land, fall into debt and move to another part of the country. . . . In 1943 the village notables [individuals with influence based on their wealth or education] decided to put pressure on my family. At their bidding a man came to my uncle’s house, feigned insanity and set fire to the place. . . . [M]y two uncles were arrested for laying hands on the notables. There was pandemonium at the district court. In the end, my uncles had to sell all they owned to pay for the trial and were sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. We had already lost three saos [about a third of an acre] as a result of the liquor incident, and now the last four saos had to be sold. We had nothing left.

In 1945, the young uncle to whom all this had happened was the first person in Quoc Tri to join the self-defence forces; afterwards, the whole family served in the Resistance.

deepening u.s. engagement in indochina, 1943–1954 Within one decade, under three presidents — Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower — U.S. policy toward French Indochina moved from qualified verbal support for independence to heavy material support for an embattled colonial army. Accordingly Ho Chi Minh and hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 21 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 22thesetting other Vietnamese Communists came to view the United States not as a likely patron but as an increasingly formidable obstacle to their revolu- tion.

1.11 U.S. policy shifts from self-determination to Cold War containment, 1943–1950 Roosevelt, like his successors in the White House, viewed Indochina through the prism of global concerns. The World War II crusade against expansionist powers — Germany, Italy, and Japan — had dominated Roosevelt’s atten­ tion, with priority given to putting together a coalition to secure victory. To rally support, Roosevelt made self­ determination one of the main war aims.

While decolonization was high on his agenda, the president still thought of independence for young, emerging nations such as Vietnam as something for the distant future. The onset of the Cold War early in the Truman presidency changed the global context and made self­determination less important than good postwar relations with France and containment of Soviet influence.

Some of the most vulnerable points in the Cold War struggle were colonies moving toward independence and seemingly at risk of disorder or a Commu­ nist takeover. The return of French forces to Indochina in late 1945 and the onset of fighting between them and a Communist­led Vietnamese resistance put the Truman administration on a path toward intervention even as it called attention to the legitimate claims of Vietnamese nationalists. In early 1950 the Truman administration made a highly consequential commitment to back the French. Truman gave his formal approval. The outbreak of the Korean War in June made urgent the new program of support for the French.

The U.S. treasury was soon covering the bulk of France’s war costs, and the U.S. military dispatched its first advisers to the war zone.

a. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Premier Joseph Stalin, discussion at the Tehran conference, 28 November 1943 the president said that . . . he felt that many years of honest labor would be necessary before France would be re-established. He said the first necessity for the French, not only for the Government but the people as well, was to become honest citizens.

[Stalin] agreed and went on to say that he did not propose to have the Allies shed blood to restore Indochina, for example, to the old French colonial rule. . . . hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 22 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use thesetting23 the president said he was 100% in agreement with Marshal Sta- lin and remarked that after 100 years of French rule in Indochina, the inhabitants were worse off than they had been before. . . . He added that he had discussed with [Chinese leader and U.S. ally] Chiang Kai-shek the possibility of a system of trusteeship for Indochina which would have the task of preparing the people for independence within a definite period of time, perhaps 20 to 30 years.

b. State Department policy paper on postwar Asia, 22 June 1945 At the end of the war, political conditions in Indochina, and especially in the north, will probably be particularly unstable. The Indochinese inde- pendence groups, which may have been working against the Japanese, will quite possibly oppose the restoration of French control. Indepen- dence sentiment in the area is believed to be increasingly strong. . . .

French policy toward Indochina will be dominated by the desire to reestablish control in order to reassert her prestige in the world as a great power. This purpose will be augmented by the potent influence of the Banque de l’Indochine and other economic interests. Many French appear to recognize that it may be necessary for them to make further concessions to Indochinese self-government and autonomy primar- ily to assure native support but also to avoid unfriendly United States opinion. . . .

The United States recognizes French sovereignty over Indochina. It is, however, the general policy of the United States to favor a policy which would allow colonial peoples an opportunity to prepare themselves for increased participation in their own government with eventual self- government as the goal.

c. National Security Council report 64, “The Position of the United States with Respect to Indochina,” 27 February 1950 [T]he threat of communist aggression against Indochina is only one phase of anticipated communist plans to seize all of Southeast Asia. . . .

A large segment of the Indochinese nationalist movement was seized in 1945 by Ho Chi Minh, a Vietnamese who under various aliases has served as a communist agent for thirty years. . . . In 1946, he attempted, but failed to secure French agreement to his recognition as the head of a government of Vietnam. Since then he has directed a guerrilla army in raids against French installations and lines of communication. French forces which have been attempting to restore law and order found them- hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 23 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 24thesetting selves pitted against a determined adversary who manufactures effective arms locally, who received supplies of arms from outside sources, who maintained no capital or permanent headquarters and who was, and is able, to disrupt and harass almost any area within Vietnam (Tonkin, Annam and Cochinchina) at will.

The United States has, since the Japanese surrender, pointed out to the French Government that the legitimate nationalist aspirations of the people of Indochina must be satisfied, and that a return to the prewar co- lonial rule is not possible. The Department of State has pointed out to the French Government that it was and is necessary to establish and support governments in Indochina particularly in Vietnam, under leaders who are capable of attracting to their causes the non-communist nationalist followers who had drifted to the Ho Chi Minh communist movement in the absence of any non-communist nationalist movement around which to plan their aspirations. . . .

[Conclusions:] It is important to United States security interests that all practicable measures be taken to prevent further communist expan- sion in Southeast Asia. Indochina is a key area of Southeast Asia and is under immediate threat. . . .

Accordingly, the Departments of State and Defense should prepare as a matter of priority a program of all practicable measures designed to protect United States security interests in Indochina.

1.12 Ho Chi Minh, denunciation of deepening U.S intervention, January 1952 Ho took note of rising U.S. support for the French, which he interpreted in terms of his assumptions about intense economic competition among capi­ talist states. He concluded that Americans were bent on elbowing the French out. For support against this powerful new foe, Ho looked to his Communist neighbor to the north. China’s recently victorious Communists quickly lined up behind the Viet Minh, providing from 1950 onward strategic guidance, troop training, and substantial matériel.

At the very beginning of the war, the Americans supplied France with money and armaments. To take an example, 85 per cent of weapons, war materials and even canned food captured by our troops were labelled “made in U.S.A.”. This aid had been stepped up all the more rapidly since June 1950 when the U.S.A. began interfering in Korea. American aid to hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 24 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use thesetting25 the French invaders consisted in airplanes, boats, trucks, military outfits, napalm bombs, etc.

Meanwhile, the Americans compelled the French colonialists to step up the organisation of four divisions of puppet [Vietnamese] troops with each party footing half the bill. . . .

The French colonialists are now landed in a dilemma: either they re- ceive U.S. aid and be then replaced by their American “allies”, or they receive nothing, and be then defeated by the Vietnamese people. To organise the puppet army by means of pressganging the youth in areas under their control would be tantamount to swallowing a bomb when one is hungry: a day will come when at last the bomb bursts inside. How- ever not to organise the army on this basis would mean instantaneous death for the enemy because even the French strategists have to admit that the French Expeditionary Corps grows thinner and thinner and is on the verge of collapse.

Furthermore, U.S. aid is paid for at a very high price. In the enemy held areas, French capitalism is swept aside by American capitalism. Ameri- can concerns like the Petroleum Oil Corporation, the Caltex Oil Corpora- tion, the Bethle[he]m Steel Corporation, the Florid[a] Phosphate Corpo- ration and others, monopolise rubber, ores, and other natural resources of our country. U.S. goods swamp the market. The French reactionary press . . . is compelled to acknowledge sadly that French capitalism is now giving way to U.S. capitalism.

The U.S. interventionists have nurtured the French aggressors and the Vietnamese puppets, but the Vietnamese people do not let anybody de- lude and enslave them.

People’s China is our close neighbour. Her brilliant example gives us a great impetus. . . . Can the U.S. interventionists, who were drummed out of China and are now suffering heavy defeats in Korea, conquer Viet Nam? Of course, not!

1.13 The Eisenhower administration response to the collapsing French position in Indochina, March–April 1954 When Dwight Eisenhower took over from Truman in early 1953, he held to the established Indochina policy even as the French faltered and struggled to break a Viet Minh siege of their garrison at Dien Bien Phu. The new presi­ dent and his secretary of state described the U.S. commitment in broad terms hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 25 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 26thesetting that were to become staples in U.S. officials’ discussions of Vietnam: Ho was a threat to the genuine independence of Vietnam, Indochina was a domino whose fall would have far­reaching repercussions, and U.S. policy could not afford to repeat the appeasement that had brought on World War II.

a. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, address to the Overseas Press Club in New York, 29 March 1954 The Communists are attempting to prevent the orderly development of independence [of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia]. . . .

The scheme is to whip up the spirit of nationalism so that it becomes violent. That is done by professional agitators. Then the violence is en- larged by Communist military and technical leadership and the provi- sion of military supplies. In these ways, international Communism gets a strangle-hold on the people and it uses that power to “amalgamate” the peoples into the Soviet orbit. . . .

“Amalgamation” is now being attempted in Indochina under the os- tensible leadership of Ho Chi Minh. He was indoctrinated in Moscow. . . .

[He worked with a Soviet agent] to bring China into the Soviet orbit. Then Ho transferred his activities to Indochina.

Those fighting under the banner of Ho Chi Minh have largely been trained and equipped in Communist China. They are supplied with artil- lery and ammunition through the Soviet-Chinese Communist bloc. . . .

Military supplies for the Communist armies have been pouring into Viet- Nam at a steadily increasing rate.

Military and technical guidance is supplied by an estimated 2,000 Communist Chinese. They function with the forces of Ho Chi Minh in key positions — in staff sections of the High Command, at the divi- sion level and in specialized units such as signal, engineer, artillery and transportation.

In the present stage, the Communists in Indochina use nationalistic anti-French slogans to win local support. But if they achieved military or political success, it is certain that they would subject the People to a cruel Communist dictatorship taking its orders from Peiping and Moscow.

The tragedy would not stop there. If the Communist forces won un- contested control over Indochina or any substantial part thereof, they would surely resume the same pattern of aggression against other free peoples in the area. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 26 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use thesetting27 b. President Dwight Eisenhower to British prime minister Winston Churchill, 4 April 1954 I am sure that like me you are following with the deepest interest and anxiety the daily reports of the gallant fight being put up by the French at Dien Bien Phu. . . .

But regardless of the outcome of this particular battle, I fear that the French cannot alone see the thing through, this despite the very substan- tial assistance in money and matériel that we are giving them. . . . [A]nd if they do not see it through, and Indochina passes into the hands of the Communists, the ultimate effect on our and your global strategic posi- tion with the consequent shift in the power ratio throughout Asia and the Pacific could be disastrous. . . . It is difficult to see how Thailand, Burma and Indonesia could be kept out of Communist hands. This we cannot afford. The threat to Malaya, Australia and New Zealand would be direct. The offshore island chain would be broken. The economic pres- sure on Japan which would be deprived of non-Communist markets and sources of food and raw materials would be such, over a period of time, that it is difficult to see how Japan could be prevented from reaching an accommodation with the Communist world which would combine the manpower and natural resources of Asia with the industrial potential of Japan. . . .

. . . [W]e failed to halt Hirohito, Mussolini and Hitler by not acting in unity and in time. That marked the beginning of many years of stark tragedy and desperate peril. May it not be that our nations have learned something from that lesson? hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 27 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use This page intentionally left blank EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 29 Drawing the Lines of Conflict, 1954–1963 In mid-1954 the future of South Vietnam began to emerge as a major bone of contention between U.S. cold warriors and Vietnam’s Commu- nist leaders. The defining event was the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in the spring. A Viet Minh army, built up by former history teacher Vo Nguyen Giap with help from the newly installed Communist regime in China, won a decisive victory. French domestic support for the distant colonial struggle had evaporated and with it the last hopes of France’s holding on to Indochina. President Dwight Eisenhower had considered last-minute military measures to rescue the beleaguered French garrison but encountered congressional reluctance and finally bowed to interna- tional pressure for a diplomatic solution.

The result was a major international agreement reached at Geneva.

In July representatives from both sides of the Cold War divide (the So- viet Union, China, the United States, Britain, and France), along with the states emerging from the dissolution of the Indochina colony (Ho Chi Minh’s drv and the French-created government in Saigon, as well as Cambodia and Laos), came to terms ending the French era. Vietnam, as well as Laos and Cambodia, gained independence. But rather than handing the Vietnamese Communist Party an unambiguous victory, the conference limited immediate drv control to the territory north of the seventeenth parallel, with roughly half of Vietnam’s 27 million people.

The conference also called for a cooling-off period before any attempt at unification. The contending forces were first to be separated into North and South, and then in 1956, national elections were to bring together the two parts of the temporarily divided country.

For the Eisenhower administration, the Geneva agreement was a seri- ous setback to the fundamental Cold War goal of containing the Soviet bloc. But the Geneva provision for a delayed resolution of the status of the South created an opening that was quickly exploited by the president and his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles. They sponsored Ngo Dinh Diem 2 hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 29 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 30drawing thelinesofconflict as the leader of the South Vietnamese state created earlier by the French.

To shore up this bulwark against further communist expansion, they also hastily constructed the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (seato) to line up Britain, France, Pakistan, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines behind the United States. seato proved nothing more than a talk shop, but the Eisenhower administration’s backing for Diem did succeed in making Geneva’s temporary division into something that looked permanent. Diem gradually consolidated his political control, rejected the national elections stipulated by the Geneva agreement, cre- ated the Republic of Vietnam to control the South, and set about elimi- nating potential rivals, including the former emperor, Bao Dai, and those recently associated with the Viet Minh during the anti-French war.

The emergence of a U.S.-sponsored South Vietnamese state in turn challenged Hanoi’s commitment to national unity as part of the long- term liberation struggle. Ho had initially reacted to the half a loaf Geneva had given him with stoic acceptance. Hanoi’s allies in Moscow and Bei- jing were not interested in a confrontation with Washington over Viet- nam, so Ho agreed to put the southern question on hold for the moment, focusing instead on building a socialist state in the North. However, Diem rejected any national election to end the Geneva-imposed division and persisted in his repressive campaign against Hanoi’s remaining or- ganizational assets in the South.

Ho and his colleagues began to reassess their policy. In 1959 they shifted toward a more aggressive southern strategy, which involved open- ing a supply and communications line to the South (the Ho Chi Minh Trail). To safeguard the portion of the trail that ran through Laos, the drv threw its support to Laotian Communist forces locked in conflict with the U.S.-backed royal army. The new southern strategy also involved the creation in 1960 of the nlf, a new version of the Viet Minh. Its main task was to mobilize a wide spectrum of southern society against the Diem regime. Finally, Hanoi sought the support of Moscow and Beijing, a goal complicated by the rising discord between the two Communist pow- ers. Nikita Khrushchev’s Soviet Union held back, restrained by its com- mitment to peaceful coexistence with the United States. Mao Zedong’s China offered considerably more help. Post-Geneva aid to the drv sub- stantially exceeded Soviet grants, and by 1962 it included a major trans- fer of weapons. In 1963, with Hanoi tilting ideologically toward Beijing, military staffs began discussing a coordinated response to a possible U.S.

invasion. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 30 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use drawingthelinesofconflict 31 In the course of these developments, Le Duan emerged as an influen- tial voice and Ho’s successor as party leader. A native of central Vietnam, he had a genuine working-class background. Both he and his father had been railway workers. Le Duan had participated in the founding of the Indochinese Communist Party and spent a good part of the 1930s and early 1940s in French prisons. During the French war he served in the South, heading up the party’s Central Office for South Vietnam (cosvn).

Directing the struggle in the South gave him unusual insight on, as well as an emotional investment in, that contested region.

By the early 1960s, as the struggle for the South began to heat up, four sorts of Vietnamese (all southerners) played prominent roles. The first were the Viet Minh activists in the South who had gone north in 1954 as part of the disentangling of hostile forces (and thus were known as regroupees). They now returned home, marching along the newly inau- gurated and still quite rudimentary Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos and Cambodia. They reinforced a second group — the stay-behind members of the Viet Minh who had survived the Diem repression and who had been desperately calling for support from the North. Easily lost to sight was a third group, peasants on whom activists depended as they built the nlf’s village network. Peasant political engagement, important in frustrating the French, would help undermine the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem just as it would in time make the war difficult for the Americans.

Finally, on the other side of the conflict was an assortment of anti-Com- munist southerners who had aligned with Diem. They included, notably, Catholics who had fled Communist rule in 1954, officers and administra- tors who had thrown in their lot with the French, and landlords who were wedded to the rural status quo.

By 1963 the struggle among these groups of South Vietnamese backed by either Hanoi or Washington had become intense and posed choices for the patrons that carried major long-term consequences. President John Kennedy had continued his predecessor’s support for the Diem re- gime. But the U.S. nation-building project was in serious trouble. Diem was threatened not only by the nlf but also by other southerners antago- nized by his autocratic style. Kennedy could not stomach an nlf victory and thus an embarrassing defeat for his policy, and so he decided that Diem should go. The drv’s leaders watched the crisis in the South for hints of U.S. intentions; Diem’s overthrow confirmed that U.S. leaders were sticking to the same interventionist script even if they varied the way they delivered their lines. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 31 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 32drawing thelinesofconflict The following materials on the deepening Vietnamese-American an- tagonism push to the fore classic questions about how countries maneu- ver themselves into unwanted conflicts:

• What made the fate of South Vietnam such a difficult issue in rela- tions between Vietnamese and American leaders? • By what stages did leaders in Hanoi and Washington advance to- ward a showdown? Who made the key decisions at each stage?

• How did the emerging struggle for South Vietnam look from the perspective of ordinary Vietnamese? a c o u n t r y d i v i d e d o r u n i t e d ? july 1954–december 1960 Both the Vietnamese Communist Party and the Eisenhower administra- tion bowed to the Geneva conference arrangements, but neither did so gladly. Geneva thus represented a truce, not an end to conflict.

2.1 Ho Chi Minh, report to the Communist Party Central Committee, 15 July 1954 With a compromise agreement taking shape at the Geneva conference, Ho sought to dispel the discontent within the party about settling short of vic­ tory. He called for a conciliatory postwar policy while pointing to the danger posed by U.S. policy and maintaining the ultimate goal of a united Vietnam.

[N]ow the French are having talks with us while the American imperial- ists are becoming our main and direct enemy; so our spearhead must be directed at the latter. . . . US policy is to expand and internationalize the Indochina war. Ours is to struggle for peace and oppose the US war policy. . . .

. . . We must take firm hold of the banner of peace to oppose the US im- perialists’ policy of direct interference in, and prolongation and expan- sion of, the war in Indochina. Our policy must change in consequence: formerly we confiscated the French imperialists’ properties; now, as negotiations are going on, we may, in accordance with the principle of equality and mutual benefit, allow French economic and cultural inter- ests to be preserved in Indochina. . . . In the past, our aim was to wipe out the puppet administration and army with a view to national reunifica- hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 32 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use drawingthelinesofconflict 33 tion; now we practice a policy of leniency and seek reunification of the country through nation-wide elections.

Peace calls for an end to the war; and to end the war one must agree on a cease-fire. A cease-fire requires regrouping zones, that is, enemy troops should be regrouped in a zone with a view to their gradual withdrawal, and ours in another. We must secure a vast area where we would have ample means for building, consolidating and developing our forces so as to exert influence over other regions and thereby advance towards reunification. The setting up of regrouping zones does not mean parti- tion of the country; it is a temporary measure leading to reunification.

Owing to the delimitation and exchange of zones, some previously free areas will be temporarily occupied by the enemy; their inhabitants will be dissatisfied; some people might fall prey to discouragement and to enemy deception. We should make it clear to our compatriots that the trials they are going to endure for the sake of the interests of the whole country, for the sake of our long-range interests, will be a cause for glory and will earn them the gratitude of the whole nation. We should keep everyone free from pessimism and negativism and urge all to continue a vigorous struggle for the complete withdrawal of French forces and for independence.

2.2 “Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference on the Problem of Restoring Peace in Indo-China,” 21 July 1954 The Geneva settlement brought an end to the fighting between the French and the Viet Minh and secured the independence of Vietnam as well as Cambo­ dia and Laos. No less important, it became a prime point of reference for all parties in the coming struggle over South Vietnam. It represented variously a set of restrictions to circumvent, a precedent or model for a new peace agree­ ment, and a source of lessons for any future diplomacy. The most pertinent provisions — five in all — thus deserve reproducing exactly as they emerged from the conference proceedings.

4. The Conference takes note of the clauses . . . prohibiting the intro- duction into Viet-Nam of foreign troops and military personnel as well as of all kinds of arms and munitions. . . .

5. The Conference takes note of the clauses . . . to the effect that no mil- itary base under the control of a foreign State may be established [in Viet- nam] in the regrouping zones of the two parties [Hanoi and Saigon]. . . . hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 33 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 34drawing thelinesofconflict 6. The Conference recognizes . . . that the military demarcation line is provisional and should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary. . . .

7. The Conference declares that, so far as Viet-Nam is concerned, the settlement of political problems, effected on the basis of respect for the principles of independence, unity and territorial integrity, shall permit the Viet-Namese people to enjoy the fundamental freedoms, guaranteed by democratic institutions established as a result of free general elec- tions by secret ballot. . . . [G]eneral elections shall be held in July 1956, under the supervision of an international commission. . . .

12. In their relations with Cambodia, Laos and Viet-Nam, each mem- ber of the Geneva Conference undertakes to respect the sovereignty, the independence, the unity and the territorial integrity of the above- mentioned states, and to refrain from any interference in their internal affairs.

2.3 The Eisenhower administration’s reaction to the Geneva accords, July and October 1954 With the ink on the Geneva accords hardly dry, the U.S. president and his se­ nior advisers sought new ways to contain communism in Vietnam. This de­ termination became immediately clear in public and private reactions to the Geneva settlement and resulted by the fall in a commitment to build a client state in southern Vietnam under the leadership of Ngo Dinh Diem with an army reshaped along American lines.

a. President Dwight Eisenhower, press conference statement, 21 July 1954 [T]he United States has not itself been party to or bound by the decisions taken by the [Geneva] Conference, but it is our hope that it will lead to the establishment of peace consistent with the rights and the needs of the countries concerned. The agreement contains features which we do not like, but a great deal depends on how they work in practice.

The United States is issuing at Geneva a statement to the effect that it is not prepared to join in the Conference declaration but, as loyal mem- bers of the United Nations, we also say that . . . the United States will not use force to disturb the settlement. We also say that any renewal of Com- munist aggression would be viewed by us as a matter of grave concern. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 34 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use drawingthelinesofconflict 35 [Response to a reporter’s question:] I think that when the freedom of a man in Viet-Nam or in China is taken away from him, I think our freedom has lost a little. I just don’t believe that we can continue to exist in the world, geographically isolated as we are, if we just don’t find a concerted, positive plan of keeping these free nations so tightly bound together that none of them will give up; and if they are not weakened internally by these other methods [communist propaganda, deceit, subversion, and coups], I just don’t believe they will give up. I believe we can hold\� them.

b. National Security Council discussion of the Geneva settlement, 22 July 1954 [Secretary of State John Foster Dulles noted that] [t]he great problem from now on out was whether we could salvage what the Communists had ostensibly left out of their grasp in Indochina. . . . Secretary Dulles thought that the real danger to be anticipated came not primarily from overt Communist military aggression but from subversion and disinte- gration. In view of this, he said that he would almost rather see the French get completely out of the rest of Indochina and thus permit the United States to work directly with the native leadership in these states. . . .

. . . Of course, continued Secretary Dulles, it was not possible to say at this moment precisely how much money should be spent in any one of the free countries of Southeast Asia, but all of them in general must be built up if the dike against Communism is to be held. Accordingly, Sec- retary Dulles appealed to all the members of the Council to stand fast on this position. The President in turn called on all those present to support the views expressed by Secretary Dulles on these funds.

c. National Security Council discussion of support for Diem, 22 October 1954 Speaking with conviction, the President observed that in the lands of the blind, one-eyed men are kings. What we wanted, continued the Presi- dent, was a Vietnamese force which would support Diem. Therefore let’s get busy and get one, but certainly not at a cost of $400 million a year. The President said that he knew something from personal experience about doing this kind of job in this kind of area. He therefore was sure that something could be done and done quickly if we could simply decide on what to tell General [John] O’Daniel [head of the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group] to do.

Admiral Radford replied that there were 342 U.S. military personnel hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 35 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 36drawing thelinesofconflict now in Vietnam for the purpose of training the native forces. This was much too small a number for carrying out a large-scale training program.

Perhaps, therefore, the smart thing was to tell O’Daniel to go to Diem and tell him that the maag would try to organize an effective constabulary that would take its orders from Diem rather than from the Army. Admiral Radford also added his belief that the French were not really supporting Diem. . . .

The President then asked why we did not “get rough with the French”.

If we didn’t do something very quickly, Diem would be down the drain with no replacement in sight. Accordingly, we ought to lay down the law to the French. It is true that we have to cajole the French with regard to the European area, but we certainly didn’t have to in Indochina. . . .

The President then said that the obvious thing to do was simply to authorize General O’Daniel to use up to X millions of dollars — say, five, six or seven — to produce the maximum number of Vietnamese military units on which Prime Minister Diem could depend to sustain himself in power. . . .

[The president authorized] an urgent program to improve the loyalty and effectiveness of the Free Vietnamese forces.

2.4 President Ngo Dinh Diem, speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, 13 May 1957, reflecting on the success of state building in South Vietnam By 1957 Diem had consolidated his position in South Vietnam. His idiosyn­ cratic brand of politics — shaped by his elite family’s Confucian and Cath­ olic outlook, by his own nationalism sharpened by his earlier work for the French, and by the advice and support of his influential siblings — seemed to be working. In May Diem took a victory lap in the United States, meeting with the president and appearing before Congress and influential foreign affairs groups. His public addresses reflected his newfound confidence while pro­ moting his reputation as a firm anticommunist and dependable U.S. ally.

Our country inherited a bankrupt political system, a disorganized ad- ministration, a crumbling economy, an empty treasury. The country was plagued with politico-religious armed sects. . . . Our army was shapeless and under the command of foreigners. Nearly one million refugees — a tenth of the population — had to be received [from the North] and reset- hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 36 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use drawingthelinesofconflict 37 tled. Moreover, Viet-Nam had to wrest back her sovereignty from France, who maintained over 150,000 troops in our country. We had to make of Viet-Nam, partitioned by the Geneva diktat, an independent and mod- ern state, capable of governing and defending itself against colonialism, political and economic feudalism and, above all, against absorption by Communism, implanted in North Viet-Nam by the Geneva Accords. The task seemed almost hopeless and beyond our means. . . .

Events have belied those apprehensions. We have achieved indepen- dence without being engulfed by anarchy. We have preserved the peace without sacrificing our reconquered independence. We are now build- ing a free economy. . . . In the same fashion, we shall achieve unification without abandoning freedom.

We have restored political stability, internal and external security, thanks to the sense of unity, the sound judgment and the energy of our people, as well as to the moral and material support of the American people. . . .

. . . American aid has met a complete success in Viet-Nam. . . .

The importation into China of a doctrine and of methods alien to Asia is a danger for its neighbours and especially for Viet-Nam. For Commu- nism is organically interventionist.

It is only natural that Viet-Nam, which is the country most threat- ened by this new form of Colonialism, should seek to defend herself. For this reason we can only congratulate ourselves for our alliance with the United States, which is for us, like for other countries, a fundamental element of our legitimate defense.

2.5 Hanoi goes on the offensive, 1959–1960 Le Duan took the lead in making the case for stepping up action against the Diem government. After a quick inspection tour of the South in late 1958, he returned to Hanoi to make the case for answering the Diem repression with military as well as political action. He persuaded the Communist Party’s gov­ erning Politburo, and its Central Committee agreed in principle at its Janu­ ary 1959 meeting. The following May, the party sent out formal instructions to implement this new, more forceful approach. In a September 1960 meet­ ing, party leaders raised the stakes in South Vietnam and also made Le Duan the permanent party leader. That meeting called for the creation of a united­ front organization, modeled on the Viet Minh, with the task not simply of hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 37 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 38drawing thelinesofconflict preserving the party’s position in the South but of creating a broad popular movement to overthrow the U.S.­backed southern regime. In December the new organization, the nlf, dutifully sprang to life.

a. Politburo report to the Communist Party Central Committee, “On the Situation in South Vietnam,” January 1959 The process of the establishment of the U.S.-Diem government clearly reveals that it is not a government that was born out of any national anti- communist struggle, but instead it is just a government that has accepted another master. The American imperialists and the Ngo family feudalists have replaced the French imperialists and the Bao Dai feudalists. This government is the result of the military and political failure of the French in their war of aggression against our nation, and it is also the result of the French imperialists’ surrender to the American imperialists. It is a concrete representation on our nation of American aggression and neo- colonialist policy. It is also the result of the desperate struggle between the side representing socialism, national independence, peace, and de- mocracy, and the side representing the colonial imperialist warmongers in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. . . .

In order to sustain this government, the U.S. and Diem have had to use armed force to terrorize and repress the mass movement demand- ing independence, democracy, peace, and reunification. During the past four years, the enemy’s basic policy has been “denouncing communists” [to cong]. They have launched a series of “denounce communists” cam- paigns, using armed forces to conduct sweeps, arrest, murder, and tor- ture the people and trying to pursue and destroy mass revolutionary or- ganizations and the Party’s organizational infrastructure. For this reason the situation in the rural countryside has remained constantly tense and unstable. At some times and in some places the situation is almost the same as it was during the war [against France]. The enemy’s henchmen exploit their power by taking vengeance, by stealing property, by extort- ing money, and by shooting and murdering people without trial, ignor- ing the law. . . .

. . . [T]he U.S.-Diem regime in South Vietnam is fundamentally weak politically. But then why has it managed to survive over the past several years? It has survived because, following the ceasefire, we regrouped our armed forces, moving them up to North Vietnam. This meant that in the balance of forces between our side and the enemy, in South Vietnam the enemy is stronger than us. At the same time, we have a completely liber- hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 38 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use drawingthelinesofconflict 39 ated North Vietnam that we can build into a large, solid revolutionary base area to continue pursuit of the revolutionary cause of our entire nation.

The U.S.-Diem forces rely on the military. They use military force to at- tack us and to strive to suppress and destroy our movement in South Viet- nam. As for our side, we moved from armed struggle to political struggle.

That means that we lowered our form of struggle, retreating from an of- fensive to a defensive posture.

b. Communist Party Central Committee resolution 15, January 1959 Because the South Vietnamese regime is an extremely reactionary and brutal colonialist and semi-feudal regime and because the South Viet- namese government is a dictatorial, warmongering imperialist and feu- dalist government, the people have no recourse other than revolution to liberate themselves from the shackles of slavery. Only the victory of the revolution can end the suffering of the South Vietnamese people and completely eliminate the [harmful] policies of the American imperial- ists and their lackeys in South Vietnam. . . . [The path of the Vietnamese revolution in South Vietnam] is to use the power of the [civilian] masses, re­ lying primarily on the political forces of the masses and supported by armed forces, to overthrow the imperialist and feudalist ruling authority and set up a people’s revolutionary government. That is the current goal of the people of South Vietnam. Because the U.S.-Diem ruling regime relies on armed force for its survival while we must rely on [civilian] mass forces and must use the masses to overthrow the enemy, if we want to achieve this goal, only through a protracted and difficult process of struggle in which we ac­ tively build, consolidate, and develop revolutionary forces will we be able to create the necessary conditions for us to be able to seize favorable opportuni­ ties and secure final victory . . . .

The process of carrying out a popular national democratic revolu- tion in South Vietnam at the present time will be a process of building, consolidating, and developing mass struggle movements in the politi- cal, economic, and cultural arenas and ensuring that these movements follow the Party line. The process will advance from using lower struggle forms, pushing the enemy government back a step at a time, to the use of higher forms involving transformational changes that shake the govern- ment to its very foundations. Finally, the process will involve mobilizing the masses to rise up in insurrection to overthrow the US-Diem [regime] when the opportunity and timing, both domestically and internationally, hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 39 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 40drawing thelinesofconflict is favorable. The amount of bloodshed that will result from this uprising will depend on the level of enemy resistance to the revolution and on the balance of forces between our side and the enemy. . . . During the course of this process, we must combine and coordinate the use of legal, semi- legal, and illegal forms of struggle. We must closely coordinate the ac- tivities of our urban movement with those of our movement in the rural countryside and in our base areas.

During this protracted, bitter, arduous, and complex . . . process, po- litical struggle will play the primary role. . . . [I]n certain, limited areas armed self-defense forces and armed propaganda forces have grown up to support the political struggle. This has been a necessary development.

However, when we use armed self-defense forces and armed propaganda forces, we must fully understand the principle that these forces are only to be used to support the political struggle and to support the interests of the political struggle. We must ensure that our cadre and our people . . .

clearly understand that proselyting operations and organizing political forces from among the civilian masses is our basic and fundamental prin- ciple. Elimination of enemy thugs and officials [by assassination] must serve the interests of the political struggle and it must serve the interests of the movement. It must be conducted in a focused and extremely care- ful manner, and we must take the greatest precautions to conceal our forces and to preserve our organizations and agents. We must resolutely overcome the tendency to use terrorism against individuals instead of conducting a mass struggle.

c. National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, manifesto, December 1960 [T]he American imperialists, who had in the past helped the French co- lonialists to massacre our people, have now replaced the French in en- slaving the southern part of our country through a disguised colonial regime. They have been using their stooge — the Ngo Dinh Diem admin- istration — in their downright repression and exploitation of our compa- triots, in their manoeuvres to permanently divide our country and to turn its southern part into a military base in preparation for war in Southeast Asia.

The aggressors and traitors, working hand in glove with each other, have set up an extremely cruel dictatorial rule. They persecute and mas- sacre democratic and patriotic people, and abolish all human liber- ties. They ruthlessly exploit the workers, peasants and other labouring hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 40 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use drawingthelinesofconflict 41 people, strangle the local industry and trade, poison the minds of our people with a depraved foreign culture, thus degrading our national cul- ture, traditions and ethics. They feverishly increase their military forces, build military bases, use the army as an instrument for repressing the people and serving the US imperialists’ scheme to prepare an aggressive war. . . .

At present, our people are urgently demanding an end to the cruel dic- tatorial rule; they are demanding independence and democracy, enough food and clothing, and peaceful reunification of the country.

To meet the aspirations of our compatriots, the South Viet Nam Na­ tional Front for Liberation came into being, pledging itself to shoulder the historic task of liberating our people from the present yoke of slavery.

The South Viet Nam National Front for Liberation undertakes to unite all sections of the people, all social classes, nationalities, political par- ties, organizations, religious communities and patriotic personalities, without distinction of their political tendencies, in order to struggle for the overthrow of the rule of the US imperialists and their stooges — the Ngo Dinh Diem clique — and for the realization of independence, de- mocracy, peace and neutrality pending the peaceful reunification of the fatherland.

the perspective of nlf activists Hanoi’s decision in favor of a more active southern policy had a profound and immediate impact on two types of revolutionary activists who were to play a critical part in the rise of the nlf as a political and military force in South Vietnam. One group consisted of the “stay behinds” who had sur- vived the Diem repression. The other was made up of veteran Viet Minh who had regrouped in the drv after the Geneva division.

2.6 Le Van Chan (former Communist cadre), interview on rural organizing during the late 1950s Le Van Chan (a pseudonym) provides a sense of the experience of Viet Minh activists who stayed behind and endured the Diem repression. This account reveals the appeal of the nlf to ordinary peasants with a sense of grievance.

Chan had been a party member since 1947 and had climbed into the upper echelon of the southern branch of the party organization. He was captured in hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 41 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 42drawing thelinesofconflict 1962 and subsequently interviewed by Jeffrey Race, a discerning student of the southern insurgency.

[On Communist forces put on the defensive by Diem:] [T]he years 1954– 1956 were a period of faith in the general elections, but toward the end of 1956 the communists were most pessimistic. . . .

During 1957 and 1958 the Party was able to recover its apparatus and its mass organizations, and it counted on contradictions within the government to produce a coup. Thus it emphasized troop proselytizing activities with the hope that in the event of a coup it could seize power.

Because the Party judged that it had a sufficient chance to seize power in a coup through its mass organizations and its apparatus, it did not allow the armed forces it was still maintaining in the South to appear.

However, by 1959 the situation in the South had passed into a stage the communists considered the darkest in their lives: almost all their ap- paratus had been smashed [by the Diem government], the population no longer dared to provide support, families no longer dared to commu- nicate with their relatives in the movement, and village chapters which previously had had one or two hundred members were now reduced to five or ten who had to flee into the jungle. Because of this situation Party members were angry at the Central Committee, and demanded armed action. The southern branch of the Party demanded of the Central Com- mittee a reasonable policy in dealing with the southern regime, in order to preserve its own existence. If not, it would be completely destroyed.

In the face of this situation the Central Committee saw that it was no longer possible to seize power in the South by means of a peaceful struggle line, since the southern regime, with American assistance, was becoming stronger and not collapsing as had been predicted. Not only had the southern regime not been destroyed, it was instead destroying the Party. . . . As a result, the Fifteenth Conference of the Central Com- mittee developed a decision [in January 1959] permitting the southern organization . . . to develop armed forces with the mission of supporting the political struggle line. These forces were not to fight a conventional war, nor were they intended merely for a guerrilla conflict. Their mission was to sap the strength of the government’s village and hamlet forces, or what they called the “tyrannical elements.” They were only to attack such units as entered their own base areas, in order to preserve the ex- istence of the apparatus and to develop forces for a new line which the Central Committee would develop. Only in November of 1959 did this hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 42 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use drawingthelinesofconflict 43 policy reach the village level, and it was from this decision that the guer- rilla movement and the current armed forces in the South sprang into existence.

[On peasant reaction to Diem’s policy of restoring to landlords parcels previously redistributed by the Viet Minh:] The peasants felt that they had spilled their blood to drive the French from the country, while the landlords sided with the French and fought against the peasants. Thus at the very least the peasants’ rights to the land should have been con- firmed. Instead, they were forced to buy the land, and thus they felt they were being victimized by the government. At the same time the Party ap- paratus took advantage of this situation to propagandize on how bad the government was, how it was the government of the landlords, stealing the land from the peasants. Added to this were the issues of corruption and abuses by officials. These things all made the people agree with the Party’s propaganda on the land issue. After all, the peasants are 90 per- cent of the population of Vietnam, and land is their life-blood. If Diem took their land away, how could they be free, no matter how else he helped them? . . .

The peasants in the rural areas have a very limited outlook. Some have never in their lives left their village to visit Saigon or even their own pro- vincial capital. They live close to the land and are concerned with noth- ing else. . . . Their concern is to see that their immediate interests are protected, and that they are treated reasonably and fairly.

In this situation, the communists are extremely clever. They never propagandize communism, which teaches that the land must be collec- tivized. If they did, how would the peasantry ever listen to them? Instead, they say: the peasants are the main force of the revolution; if they fol- low the Party, they will become masters of the countryside and owners of their land, and that scratches the peasants right where they itch. . . .

. . . Previously the peasantry felt that it was the most despised class, with no standing at all, particularly the landless and the poor peasants.

For example, at a celebration they could just stand in a corner and look, not sit at the table like the village notables. Now the communists have returned and the peasants have power. The land has been taken from the landlords and turned over to the peasants, just as have all the local offices. Now the peasants can open their eyes and look up to the sky:

they have prestige and social position. The landlords and other classes must fear them because they have power: most of the cadres are peas- hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 43 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 44drawing thelinesofconflict ants, most of the Party members are peasants, most of the military com- manders are peasants. Only now do the peasants feel that they have proper rights: materially they have land and are no longer oppressed by the landlords; spiritually they have a position in society, ruling the land- lords instead of being ruled by them. This the peasants like. But if the communists were to go and the government to come back, the peasants would return to their former status as slaves. Consequently they must fight to preserve their interests and their lives, as well as their political power.

2.7 Regroupees interviewed on returning to the South in the early 1960s Between August 1964 and September 1965, Joseph Zasloff, working for the Rand Corporation (a think tank that did work for the Defense Department), conducted interviews with a large sample of regroupees who had either been captured or had defected to the Saigon side. The three whose views are ex­ cerpted below were from northern provinces of South Vietnam (Quang Nam and Quang Ngai). Typical of regroupees, they were Communist Party members who had earned their stripes fighting with the Viet Minh against the French.

Hanoi regarded them as invaluable assets. The regroupees’ comments reveal their frustration following the failure of elections in 1956 and the party’s dilatory response to the Diem repression. (One regroupee described the per­ vasive homesickness of the late 1950s as “Northern days, Southern nights.”) 1 They greeted with joy their orders in the early 1960s to return home. But they soon faced the challenges of traversing the still rudimentary Ho Chi Minh Trail and then rebuilding the devastated revolutionary organization in the South in the face of U.S.­inspired opposition.

a. nlf political cadre from a poor peasant family who joined the Viet Minh in 1945 (at age twenty-five), infiltrated the South in June 1961, and was captured in June 1964 (in his mid-forties) [On dogged devotion to the revolutionary cause:] After the revolution of August ’45, I thought we were getting very near our objective. But no, we had to fight in those nine years of Resistance [against the French] to get half the country. It was such a long struggle. Then I thought I was just 1. Quoted in J. J. Zasloff, Political Motivation of the Viet Cong: The Vietminh Regroupees (Rand memorandum rm-4703/2-isa/arpa, May 1968), 61. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 44 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use drawingthelinesofconflict 45 going to regroup to the North to stay there two years [until the election], but I had to remain in the North seven years and then join the Liberation Front for three more years, and we still haven’t got what we have been fighting and struggling for. But if I have to struggle all my life for these objectives, I will do it. If I cannot attain them in my lifetime, my children will continue my struggle; and if my children still do not achieve these goals, then my grandchildren will. There is a great solidarity among us. I cannot get discouraged.

[On eagerness to return south:] In 1957, when the unrest among the re- groupees was strong, the [drv] authorities had to do something about them. Diem was heard to be quite barbaric in oppressing the people in the South, especially the former Resistants. The regroupees could not stand to let people in their native villages suffer under Diem’s rule. Some- one had to talk to them during a whole night to try to calm them down, and he did not succeed at all — or accomplished little. The regroupees wanted to go very desperately. . . . When they were finally allowed to go south, they were exuberant. . . . They wanted to go home to their district, to their villages very much. Some died on the way south. Some who were so sick that they could not be sent south were extremely disappointed.

Sometimes the latter insisted on a trip south and gave up their lives in the mountains.

b. nlf senior captain, political cadre, and party member from a poor peasant family who joined the Viet Minh in 1945 (at age eighteen), infiltrated the South in 1960, and defected in June 1964 (in his mid-thirties) [On hardship facing early nlf units:] We lacked many things. From 1960 to 1962, we were completely self-sufficient. In 1963, the organiza- tions among the people developed and the people supplied us food; this lessened our hardships. [In mid-1964] the situation, relatively speaking, had improved, because our forces had grown considerably. However, the troops’ morale was tense, because they never had a moment to rest: study sessions, production of food, and fighting all day long. We did not have enough medicine to care for the sick, nor blankets to warm ourselves when the weather was cold. Everybody was weary, but thanks to the ideo- logical guidance, they still liked the Front. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 45 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 46 drawing thelinesofconflict c . nlf lieutenant in military intelligence and party member from a middle peasant family who joined the Viet Minh in 1947 (at age sixteen), infiltrated the South in February 1962, and was captured in September 1964 (in his mid-thirties) [On confidence in popular support:] If this revolution did not originate from the people, how could it have survived until now? If it had no sup- port from the people, how could it have been so widely known and prog- ress to this point? The revolution started out very poorly armed in many areas; it was the people who armed their soldiers. We have the people’s support, but the revolution has not yet come to its successful ending.

Why? Because there are still mighty weapons and lots of prisons on [the Saigon government (gvn)] side. If it were the gvn that had the support of the people, you would not have to fear defeat, because you would possess every means to bring the revolution to an end. . . .

At the beginning, we had only guerrillas at the village level who carried troubles to the gvn; now we have regiment-sized forces. A few years ago we lived in the mountain areas. Now we come down to the delta.

The gvn had its officials at the village level to conduct its busi- ness; now they are no more. The government’s machinery has broken down completely at the village level. There is no one to carry out its pro- grams. . . . The areas under Front control expand every year.

[On the U.S. role:] [T]he United States Government wants to turn South Vietnam into its colony, a market or a military base. But this is only their immediate aim. What they want most is to use South Vietnam as the gate to enter Southeast Asia. South Vietnam is already an American colony.

reacting to nlf success, 1961–1963 Following its creation in late 1960, the nlf managed to extend its con- trol across a substantial part of the countryside and to best the Saigon army in a series of sharp encounters. The nlf threat to the survival of a U.S. client increasingly worried the Kennedy administration. As much as earlier, Cold War orthodoxy made Vietnam an important battleground.

But at the same time, a variety of sources — from presidential advisers to intelligence analysts to foreign leaders — warned against deepening U.S.

intervention. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 46 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use drawingthelinesofconflict 47 2.8 The Kennedy administration wrestles with an insurgency, November 1961 Washington’s worries about the nlf culminated late in Kennedy’s first year in office when a report from his secretaries of defense and state landed on his desk. They recommended a much expanded U.S. commitment. This included, if necessary, the dispatch of U.S. troops. Though Kennedy had doubts about sending troops, he did agree to planning for the possible use of American forces and to greater advisory and material support to ensure Diem’s survival. Along with more economic and military aid went helicopters and armored vehicles for the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (arvn), a steadily increasing number of U.S. military advisers ( from 800 in 1961 to over 16,000 by late 1963), and an upgrade of the U.S. military headquarters in Saigon (renamed in February 1962 the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam [macv]).

a. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Secretary of State Dean Rusk, recommendations to President John F. Kennedy, 11 November 1961 It seems, on the face of it, absurd to think that a nation of 20 million people can be subverted by 15–20 thousand active guerrillas if the Gov- ernment and people of that country do not wish to be subverted. South Viet-Nam is not, however, a highly organized society with an effective governing apparatus and a population accustomed to carrying civic re- sponsibility. Public apathy is encouraged by the inability of most citizens to act directly as well as by the tactics of terror employed by the guerrillas throughout the countryside. . . .

The United States should commit itself to the clear objective of prevent­ ing the fall of South Viet­Nam to Communism. The basic means for accom- plishing this objective must be to put the Government of South Viet-Nam into a position to win its own war against the guerrillas. We must insist that that Government itself take the measures necessary for that purpose in exchange for large-scale United States assistance in the military, eco- nomic and political fields. At the same time we must recognize that it will probably not be possible for the gvn to win this war as long as the flow of men and supplies from North Viet-Nam continues unchecked and the guerrillas enjoy a safe sanctuary in neighboring territory.

We should be prepared to introduce United States combat forces if that should become necessary for success. Dependent upon the circum- stances, it may also be necessary for United States forces to strike at the source of the aggression in North Viet-Nam. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 47 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 48drawing thelinesofconflict b. Kennedy comments to senior advisers (including McNamara, Rusk, incoming Central Intelligence Agency head John McCone, national security adviser McGeorge Bundy, and military adviser Maxwell Taylor), 15 November 1961 The President expressed the fear of becoming involved simultaneously on two fronts on opposite sides of the world [Europe and Southeast Asia].

He questioned the wisdom of involvement in Viet Nam since the basis thereof is not completely clear. By comparison he noted that Korea was a case of clear aggression which was opposed by the United States and other members of the U.N. The conflict in Viet Nam is more obscure and less flagrant. The President then expressed his strong feeling that in such a situation the United States needs even more the support of allies in such an endeavor as Viet Nam in order to avoid sharp domestic partisan criticism as well as strong objections from other nations of the world.

The President said that he could even make a rather strong case against intervening in an area 10,000 miles away against 16,000 guerrillas with a native army of 200,000, where millions have been spent for years with no success. The President repeated his apprehension concerning support, adding that none could be expected from the French. . . .

. . . He cautioned that the technique of U.S. actions should not have the effect of unilaterally violating Geneva accords. He felt that a tech- nique and timing must be devised which will place the onus of breaking the accords on the other side and require them to defend their actions. Even so, he realized that it would take some time to achieve this condi- tion and even more to build up world opinion against Viet Cong. . . .

The President asked what nations would possibly support the U.S.

intervention in Viet Nam, listing Pakistan, Thailand, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand (?). . . . He described [the conflict in Vietnam] as being more a political issue, of different magnitude and (again) less de- fined than the Korean War. . . .

The President stated the time had come for neutral nations as well as others to be in support of U.S. policy publicly. . . . The President . . .

expressed apprehension on support of the proposed action by the Con- gress as well as by the American people. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 48 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use drawingthelinesofconflict 49 2.9 Central Intelligence Agency, secret memo on nlf methods for winning peasant support, 29 November 1963 The president’s own intelligence agency was well aware of the nlf’s rural appeal. cia director John McCone sent this memo to the attention of Secre­ tary of State Rusk. It correctly grasped the nlf’s methods of winning support through patient organizing within villages, especially among poor peasants, young people, and women. But insightful analysts seemed to live in a world apart from policy makers, so their warning that the looming battle for hearts and minds in the countryside would not be easily won had little effect. Pol­ icy makers clung to sweeping Cold War propositions and simple images of villagers rendered inert by communist terror.

[The Communist-led resistance forces] seek to win the voluntary support of the population by various activities of a welfare or civic-action nature.

By example they try to show that they are more efficient, honest, and hu- mane as administrators than the enemy regime. At the same time, they are concerned with exercising control and extracting support in the form of manpower, food and labor. . . .

In areas still not “secure” or not under strong Viet Cong influence, the guerrilla forces must live a hit-and-run existence and have little opportu- nity to act as the effective local administration. In these areas they must nonetheless rely upon support, shelter, and supply from the civilian pop- ulace, which is obtained not only by force but by positive steps to con- vince the population that its aspirations are those of the Viet Cong. . . .

. . . While force and terrorism remain a major Viet Cong instrument against local officials of the South Vietnamese Government and recalci- trant villagers, recently captured Viet Cong documents clearly show that Viet Cong troops and agents are ordered to provide assistance to peas- ants and to avoid antagonisms and abuses, such as looting or violation of churches and pagodas.

A Communist land reform program in South Vietnam, begun by the Viet Minh, is still being carried out under the Viet Cong. . . .

Current reports also indicate that the Viet Cong provide assistance to peasants in land clearance, seed distribution, and harvesting, and in turn persuade or force peasants to store rice in excess of their own needs for the use of guerrilla troops. Controls are apparently imposed in Viet Cong zones to prevent shipments for commercial marketing in Saigon, or to collect taxes on such shipments. The Viet Cong themselves often pay cash or give promissory notes for the food they acquire. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 49 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 50 drawing thelinesofconflict . . . Captured Viet Cong doctors or medical personnel indicate that dispensaries for treatment of Viet Cong wounded often are scattered in- conspicuously among several peasant homes in a village, and that civil- ians are treated as facilities and supplies permit. . . .

There are also references to primary and adult education, much of it in the form of indoctrination, and to Viet Cong–run schools operating almost side by side with government schools. . . .

The Viet Cong also promote cultural activities — heavily flavored with propaganda — through press, radio and film media, as well as live drama and festivals. . . .

A Viet Cong document discussing the successful construction of a “combat hamlet” indicates that primary stress is laid on determining the basic wants and needs of the inhabitants — frequently their concern for their own land. Propaganda is directed at convincing them that the government is threatening their interests, that defensive measures must be taken, and finally that offensive actions against government officials and troops are needed. The peasants presumably come to regard the Viet Cong as their protectors and to cooperate voluntarily with the Viet Cong military effort.

the diem regime in crisis, july– november 1963 By mid-1963 Diem was in deep difficulty. In the countryside he had lost significant ground to the nlf, while in his urban strongholds he faced a rising tide of protest. Hanoi’s task was to exploit this opportunity but also to imagine how the United States might respond to the prospective fail- ure of its strategy of “special war” (meaning military operations by arvn units backed with U.S. money and arms but U.S. combat involvement limited to advisers). What Hanoi sought to avoid was a “limited war” or “local war,” a term used to describe a substantial direct involvement of U.S. units in the fighting.

2.10 John F. Kennedy, press conference comments, 17 July 1963 The Buddhist­led opposition to Diem in Saigon and other major cities deeply unsettled the Kennedy administration. Kennedy’s public remarks suggest how his own sense of caution collided with the demands of the policy of con­ tainment and probably his fear of the domestic political costs of retrea\�t. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 50 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use drawingthelinesofconflict 51 [reporter:] [T]here has been a good deal of public concern about the political situation in South Viet-Nam, and I would like to ask you whether the difficulties between the Buddhist population there and the South Vietnamese Government [have] been an impediment to the effectiveness of American aid in the war against the Viet Cong?

[kennedy:] Yes, I think it has. . . . . . . Viet-Nam has been in war for 20 years. The Japanese came in, the war with the French, the civil war which has gone on for 10 years, and this is very difficult for any society to stand. It is a country which has got a good many problems and it is divided, and there is guerrilla activity and murder and all of the rest. Compounding this, however, now is a religious dispute. I would hope this would be settled, because we want to see a stable government there, carrying on a struggle to maintain its national independence.

We believe strongly in that. We are not going to withdraw from that effort. In my opinion, for us to withdraw from that effort would mean a collapse not only of South Viet-Nam, but Southeast Asia. So we are going to stay there. 2.11 Diem, press interview comments, 26 July 1963 Diem responded publicly to his American critics. He underlined his firm com­ mitment to national independence against outside (meaning U.S.) interfer­ ence and also his sterling credentials as an anticommunist ally.

One of the key factors for [a] good relationship between the governments and troops of friendly countries [alluding to the United States] and a newly independent country [Diem’s Vietnam] . . . is first the diligent re- spect for the spirit as well as the letter of the independence of this newly independent country — The newer is the independence, the dearer is the price at which it has been acquired, the more passionately are the people attached to it. . . . If ever there were Vietnamese politicians who would propose a kind of protectorate of the United States over Vietnam in exchange for a support to their intrigues, such actions would not fail to harm the friendship between our two peoples.

The second key factor is a penetrating knowledge of the Communist subversive war, a total and [multifaceted] war, war which refuses actual combat but seeks instead the moral attrition of the opponent, a war hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 51 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 52drawing thelinesofconflict which is fought on all fronts, political, economic, social, cultural, dip- lomatic and military, a war which is waged on a world scale although the spear’s head is aimed at a few specific points of the globe only. . . .

[Americans and Vietnamese] are forging together in Vietnam the weapon capable of victoriously countering this Communist subversive war, not only for the sake of Vietnam but also for any other place where it may be waged. . . . [W]e have to deal with the best Communist guerrilla army which can exist in the present world, in terms of cleverness, experience and toughness.

2.12 Communist leaders gauge the vulnerability of the U.S. position in South Vietnam, summer and fall 1963 With Diem on the ropes, the party leaders sought to anticipate the U.S. gov­ ernment’s reaction. Nguyen Chi Thanh, a member of the powerful Politburo close to Le Duan, saw a frustrated and divided United States that was vulner­ able to defeat. From a poor peasant family in central Vietnam, Thanh had risen to prominence in Viet Minh forces during the French war and would, as head of cosvn, become his party’s senior leader in the South in 1965. Ho Chi Minh’s crystal ball offered an equally hopeful if quite different picture.

His Marxist reading of the American ruling class suggested the possibility of a U.S. retreat. Ho’s appraisal may have been wishful thinking; as events would demonstrate, it was considerably wide of the mark.

a. Nguyen Chi Thanh, published assessment, July 1963 Having full confidence in their weapons, their dollars, and their politi- cal and military experience, and being served by a zealous flunkey — Ngo Dinh Diem — , the U.S. imperialists thought that everything would be smooth sailing. But their hopes did not materialize.

Nine years have passed without the U.S. imperialists being able to bring their schemes of aggression to any bright conclusions.

U.S. opinion is at present quite divided. The politicians and the mili- tary, at one in their aggressive aims, are however at variance on the meth- ods to be used. For instance, some are for liquidating Ngo Dinh Diem immediately so as to prevent him from polluting “fine American democ- racy”; others are against “[swapping] horses while crossing the stream”.

In the military field, U.S. generals are still far from concurring with each other in strategy and tactics. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 52 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use drawingthelinesofconflict 53 b. Ho Chi Minh, remarks to a Polish diplomat, fall 1963 Neither you nor I . . . know the Americans well, but what we do know of them . . . suggests that they are more practical and clear-sighted than other capitalist nations. They will not pour their resources into Vietnam endlessly. One day they will take pencil in hand and begin figuring. Once they really begin to analyze our ideas seriously, they will come to the con- clusion that it is possible and even worthwhile to live in peace with us.

Weariness, disappointment, the knowledge that they cannot achieve the goal which the French pursued to their own discredit will lead to a new sobriety, new feelings and emotions.

2.13 The Kennedy administration contemplates a coup, August–November 1963 With Diem faltering, the advisers surrounding Kennedy divided over whether to back a military coup or to press Diem harder for reform and for the ouster of his politically influential brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu. In August the president began flirting privately with the idea of a coup. Under Secretary of State George Ball, working with other second­level officials in the State Depart­ ment, got casual approval to send a cable to set the coup in motion from Ken­ nedy while the president was on vacation at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

On the receiving end of the cable was Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., a prominent Massachusetts Republican and sometimes contender for his party’s presiden­ tial nomination, who had just taken charge of the Saigon embassy. After the White House got cold feet, coup plans drifted while a cia operative in Saigon stayed in touch with dissident Vietnamese generals. On 1 November, just as the coup finally began to unfold, Lodge spoke over the phone to Diem one last time. By the next day, Diem, as well as his brother, would be dead. The follow­ ing documents provide a rare, intimate glimpse into how Washington went about overthrowing a client. The consequences — continued political insta­ bility and the increasing need for U.S. combat troops to save the day — make this record all the more important.

a. Under Secretary of State George W. Ball, cable to Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., 24 August 1963 US Government cannot tolerate situation in which power lies in [Ngo Dinh] Nhu’s hands. Diem must be given chance to rid himself of Nhu hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 53 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 54drawing thelinesofconflict and his coterie and replace them with best military and political person- alities available.

If, in spite of all your efforts, Diem remains obdurate and refuses, then we must face the possibility that Diem himself cannot be preserved.

b. Kennedy comments (recorded by National Security Council staffer Bromley Smith) at a White House meeting with advisers, 28 August 1963 The President noted that both Ambassador Lodge and General [Paul] Harkins [head of the U.S. military mission in Saigon] had recommended that we go ahead. He did not believe we should take the position that we have to go ahead because we have gone so far already. If a coup is not in the cards, we could unload. The [arvn] generals talking about a coup did not appear to be very enthusiastic. . . .

The President said we should decide what we can do here [in Wash- ington] or suggest things that can be done in the field [Saigon] which would maximize the chances of the rebel generals. We should ask Am- bassador Lodge and General Harkins how we can build up military forces which would carry out a coup. At present, it does not look as if the coup forces could defeat Diem. . . .

The President asked the Defense Department to come away with ways of building up the anti-Diem forces in Saigon.

c. Ambassador Lodge, cable to Secretary of State Rusk, 29 August 1963 We are launched on a course from which there is no respectable turning back: The overthrow of the Diem government. There is no turning back in part because U.S. prestige is already publicly committed to this end in large measure and will become more so as facts leak out. In a more fun- damental sense, there is no turning back because there is no possibility, in my view, that the war can be won under a Diem administration, still less that Diem or any member of the family can govern the country in a way to gain the support of the people who count, i.e., the educated class in and out of government service, civil and military — not to mention the American people. In the last few months (and especially days), they have in fact positively alienated these people to an incalculable degree. . . .

I realize that this course involves a very substantial risk of losing Viet- nam. It also involves some additional risk to American lives. I would never propose it if I felt there was a reasonable chance of holding Viet- nam with Diem. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 54 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use drawingthelinesofconflict 55 d. White House cable sent via the State Department to Lodge, 29 August 1963 The usg [U.S. government] will support a coup which has good chance of succeeding but plans no direct involvement of U.S. Armed Forces. Har- kins should state that he is prepared to establish liaison with the coup planners and to review plans, but will not engage directly in joint coup planning. . . .

You are hereby authorized to announce suspension of aid through Diem Government at a time and under conditions of your choice.

e. White House cable drafted by McGeorge Bundy (Kennedy’s special assistant for national security affairs) and sent via the State Department to Lodge, 17 September 1963 We see no good opportunity for action to remove present government in immediate future. Therefore . . . we must for the present apply such pressures as are available to secure whatever modest improvements on the scene may be possible.

f. Bundy, cable sent via the cia to Lodge, 5 October 1963 President today approved recommendation that no initiative should now be taken to give any active covert encouragement to a coup. There should, however, be urgent covert effort with closest security under broad guid- ance of Ambassador to identify and build contacts with possible alterna- tive leadership as and when it appears.

g. White House cable sent via the cia to Lodge, 9 October 1963 We have following additional general thoughts which have been dis- cussed with President. While we do not wish to stimulate coup, we also do not wish to leave impression that U.S. would thwart a change of gov- ernment or deny economic and military assistance to a new regime if it appeared capable of increasing effectiveness of military effort, ensuring popular support to win war and improving working relations with U.S.

h. Lodge, telephone conversation with Diem (record prepared by John M. Dunn, Lodge’s personal assistant), 1 November 1963 president diem: Some military units have begun a rebellion, and I want to know what the attitude of the U.S. is?

ambassador: . . . I do not feel well enough informed at this time to be able to tell you. . . . hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 55 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 56 drawing thelinesofconflict president diem: You must have some idea. I am, after all, the Chief of State. . . .

ambassador: . . . Now I am very worried about your physical safety. It has been reported to me that those in charge of the current activity against you offer both you and your brother safe conduct out of the country if you resign. Had you heard this?

president diem: No. (And then after a pause.) You have my telephone number.

ambassador: Yes, and you have mine. If I can do anything at all to in- sure your personal safety, please call me at once. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 56 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 57 From Proxy War to Direct Conflict, 1963–1965 As 1963 came to a close, the players in the battle for the South took stock and reached conclusions that would entrench them more deeply in their mutually irreconcilable positions. Saigon was in political turmoil follow- ing Diem’s death at the hands of U.S.-backed generals. The nlf seized the chance to expand its influence. Leaders in Hanoi, thinking victory was within their grasp, committed in December to increased support for the insurgency. Kennedy’s assassination just weeks after Diem’s put Lyndon Johnson in the hot seat. He immediately signaled that he would follow an unyielding policy.

Johnson would gradually ratchet up U.S. military involvement. In Au- gust 1964, after what appeared to be a pair of attacks on U.S. Navy destroy- ers operating in the Gulf of Tonkin off the drv coast, he ordered U.S.

aircraft to hit facilities along that coast. He also secured open-ended con- gressional backing for the use of force. With his presidential reelection secured in a landslide victory in November, the president grew bolder.

In February and March 1965, he began bombing the North on a broader, sustained basis and dispatched the first U.S. combat unit to South Viet- nam. American patrols were soon moving aggressively into the surround- ing countryside. Finally in June, the macv commander, William West- moreland, called for a major troop commitment. Close advisers both in the government and in the Democratic Party leadership warned the president of dangers. However doubtful Johnson himself may have been, he finally decided in late July on a major buildup (to climb within several years to half a million men). Americans would now fight the war that the Saigon government was losing.

Under the spur of a growing U.S. commitment, the Communist Party intensified preparations for the looming confrontation. At home the party moved to a war footing, expanding the army and diverting re- sources from domestic economic development to the military. To bol- ster nlf forces, Hanoi dispatched additional regroupees and the first 3 hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 57 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 58fromproxy wartodirectconflict People’s Army of Vietnam (pavn ) combat units. In early 1965 the first pavn regiments reached the Central Highlands, the sparsely populated mountainous region in the central interior of South Vietnam.

Internationally, Le Duan and his colleagues looked for backing from the two major Communist powers. But their task was complicated by the increasingly virulent dispute between Moscow and Beijing over ideology and ultimately over the leadership of the socialist bloc. The Vietnamese party had already in late 1963 sided in principle with the Chinese, who were calling for confrontation with imperialism and criticizing the “re- visionist” Soviet policy of peaceful coexistence. But at the same time, Hanoi had argued that ideological disputes should not disrupt common action by the bloc or diminish support for Vietnam as a major front in the international socialist struggle.

This measured stance secured from Chinese leaders renewed pledges of support and finally induced the Soviets to make their own aid commit- ment. This Soviet commitment, made by the Leonid Brezhnev–led group that had removed Nikita Khrushchev from power in October 1964, was prompted by a determination to defend Moscow’s claim to bloc leader- ship against Beijing’s challenge. By April 1965 Moscow had formally com- mitted to supply advanced weaponry not in the Chinese arsenal (notably fighter aircraft and surface-to-air missiles) and to send advisers and sup- port personnel to help with the new high-tech hardware. The allies that Hanoi had recruited even as Johnson was increasing the military pres- sure would serve to deter an all-out American attack on the North, raise the costs of any U.S. aerial campaign, and provide the resources Hanoi would need to sustain nlf and pavn units fighting a protracted war in the South.

Over a year and a half, Vietnamese and American leaders made deci- sions that led to war. The question for historians is how they went about making their fateful commitments. • When did Johnson effectively opt for war — as early as November 1963 or as late as July 1965?

• How did Communist Party leaders respond to the growing U.S. commitment to South Vietnam? How did they understand U.S. goals and staying power?

• At what point had Washington’s and Hanoi’s deliberations gone so far that they could not turn back from a direct military collision? What kept tipping the balance to the side of war? hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 58 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use fromproxywartodirectconflict 59 t h e s a i g o n g o v e r n m e n t o n t h e r o p e s , november 1963–august 1965 The overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem failed to create an effective instrument that the United States could wield against the nlf. Instead the coup in- troduced a year and a half of instability in Saigon politics. The generals who had toppled Diem vied for power while neglecting the nlf military challenge. These trends cheered Hanoi.

3.1 A new president faces an old problem, November–December 1963 In his first days in office, Johnson confronted the unhappy consequences of the Diem coup and the broader challenges of stabilizing and preserving the Saigon government. He met with U.S. ambassador to Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., cia head John McCone, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and Under Secretary of State George Ball. The new president demanded that his “country team” in Vietnam begin to turn the situation around. But Robert Mc Namara, the official who was most deeply involved in Vietnam policy and a man whose judgment Johnson trusted, began warning of looming perils soon after a two­ day visit to South Vietnam.

a. President Lyndon Johnson, meeting with advisers, 24 November 1963 Ambassador Lodge reported that the change in government [Diem’s overthrow] had been an improvement. . . . Lodge said that we were in no way responsible for the death of Diem and Nhu, that had they followed his advice, they would be alive today. . . . The tone of Ambassador Lodge’s statements were optimistic, hopeful, and left the President with the im- pression that we are on the road to victory.

At this point McCone stated that our [cia] estimate of the situation was somewhat more serious. We had noted a continuing increase in Viet Cong activity since the first of November as evidenced by a larger number of Viet Cong attacks. . . . Furthermore I [McCone] stated that the military [who had seized power from Diem] were having considerable trouble in completing the political organization of the government. . . .

The President then stated that he approached the situation with some misgivings. He noted that a great many people throughout the country questioned our course of action in supporting the overthrow of the Diem regime. He also noted that strong voices in the Congress felt we should hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 59 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 60fromproxy wartodirectconflict get out of Vietnam. Both of these facts give the President considerable concern. He stated that he was not at all sure we took the right course in upsetting the Diem regime. . . .

The President then stated he has never been happy with our opera- tions in Vietnam. He said there had been serious dissension and divisions within the American community [U.S. agencies in Saigon] and he told the Ambassador that he was in total charge and he wanted the situation cleaned up. He wanted no more divisions of opinion, no more bickering and any person that did not conform to policy should be removed. . . .

The President then said that . . . he wanted to make it abundantly clear that he did not think we had to reform every Asian into our own image. He said that he felt all too often when we engaged in the affairs of a foreign country we wanted to immediately transform that country into our image and this, in his opinion, was a mistake. He was anxious to get along, win the war — he didn’t want as much effort placed on so-called social reforms.

b. Secretary of Defense McNamara, memo to President Johnson, 21 December 1963 The situation is very disturbing. Current trends, unless reversed in the next 2–3 months, will lead to neutralization at best and more likely to a Communist-controlled state.

The new government is the greatest source of concern. It is indecisive and drifting. . . .

The [U.S.] Country Team is the second major weakness. It lacks leader- ship, has been poorly informed, and is not working to a common plan. . . .

Lodge simply does not know how to conduct a coordinated administra- tion. . . . [H]e has just operated as a loner all his life and cannot readily change now. . . .

Viet Cong progress has been great during the period since the coup, with my best guess being that the situation has in fact been deteriorat- ing in the countryside since July to a far greater extent than we realized because of our undue dependence on distorted Vietnamese reporting.

The Viet Cong now control very high proportions of the people in certain key provinces, particularly those directly south and west of Saigon. . . .

Infiltration of men and equipment from North Vietnam continues using (a) land corridors through Laos and Cambodia; (b) the Mekong River waterways from Cambodia; (c) some possible entry from the sea and the tip of the [Mekong] Delta. The best guess is that 1000–1500 Viet hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 60 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use fromproxywartodirectconflict 61 Cong cadres entered South Vietnam from Laos in the first nine months of 1963. The Mekong route (and also the possible sea entry) is apparently used for heavier weapons and ammunition and raw materials. . . .

Plans for Covert Action into North Vietnam were prepared as we had re- quested and were an excellent job. . . .

. . . We should watch the situation very carefully, running scared, hop- ing for the best, but preparing for more forceful moves if the situation does not show early signs of improvement.

3.2 Communist Party Central Committee, resolution 9, on strategy toward the South, December 1963 What was worrisome to Washington was a great opportunity for the Hanoi­ backed nlf. It had gained wide rural influence and created an effective armed force, and it could now better than ever exploit the confusion in Saigon. In a major meeting in December 1963, the party leadership engaged in a spirited debate that ended with a secret statement expressing optimism about victory and eagerness to press ahead militarily, even in the face of the troubling prospect of a direct U.S. combat role.

We have sufficient conditions to quickly change the balance of forces in our favor. And whether the U.S. maintains its combat strength at the pres- ent level or increases it, she must still use her henchmen’s army [arvn] as a main force. However, this army becomes weaker day by day due to the serious decline of its quality, the demoralization of its troops and the disgust of the latter for the Americans and their lackeys. . . .

As for us, we become more confident in the victory of our armed forces. . . .

If the U.S. imperialists send more troops to Viet-Nam to save the situa- tion after suffering a series of failures, the Revolution in Viet­Nam will meet more difficulties, the struggle will be stronger and harder but it will certainly succeed in attaining the final victory. . . . [T]he U.S. imperialists cannot win over 14 million Vietnamese people in the South who have taken arms to fight the imperialists for almost 20 years, and who, with all the compa- triots throughout the country, have defeated the hundreds of thousands [of] troops of the French expeditionary force. . . .

Our people’s revolutionary war in svn [South Vietnam] is still a war in which our people use a small force to counter a large force. Our people must destroy and wear down the enemy’s force while developing our hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 61 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 62fromproxy wartodirectconflict force. We must fight the enemy in all fields in order to weaken his forces and demoralize his troops. . . .

The general guideline for our people’s revolutionary war in svn is to con­ duct a protracted war, relying mainly on our own forces, and to combine polit­ ical struggle and armed struggle in accordance with each area and time. . . .

. . . [W]e are preparing for the General Offensive and Uprising by using military and political forces to disintegrate the pro-U.S. government’s troops and provoke uprisings in the rural area and cities still under enemy occupation. . . .

Mountainous area: South Viet-Nam’s mountainous area occupies an important strategic position. It offers many favorable conditions for us to conduct a protracted struggle even in the most difficult situations. This is the area where we can build up a large armed force and annihilate many enemy troops in large-scale attacks. We can also use the mountainous area as a stepping stone to expand our activities to the lowlands and, when the situation allows, to attack the key positions of the enemy. In case the enemy expands the war to a larger scale, the mountainous area together with the lowland will enable us to fight a protracted war against him. We should make every effort to control the mountainous areas and have the determination to build these areas into a solid base. . . .

The lowland and the rural area: These are rich and heavily populated areas. There, our revolutionary movement is active and our revolutionary base-level organizations are relatively widespread. . . . If we succeed in gaining control over the lowlands and rural areas, we will save the moun- tainous area from isolation. In doing so, we can also develop our forces in these areas and create an advantageous position for our troops to attack enemy key positions. . . .

Urban area: This is the area where leading agencies of the enemy, in- cluding organs of his central government, are located, where the enemy is concentrating his strong repressive forces and facilities. But this is also the area where the people live in great number and they have a high po- litical enlightenment; they have risen up several times to struggle against the enemy. When the situation is favorable for us to conduct a General Offensive and Uprising, there is the possibility that the people in urban areas will also rise up and coordinate with the revolutionary troops com- ing from outside to overthrow the enemy’s central government. Our prin- cipal guideline for operations in the urban areas consists of conducting political struggle, setting up a reserve force, and waiting for favorable hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 62 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use fromproxywartodirectconflict 63 conditions. . . . [I]f the situation develops to a point where the balance of forces between us and the enemy changes to our advantage, we can deal the enemy decisive blows right in the urban area. . . .

Though our armed forces are maturing and our regular forces are de- veloping day after day, the type of war waged by our three forces [main, regional, and local] remains one of guerrilla warfare for a long time to come. The main purpose of our campaigns and combat activities is to de­ stroy the enemy’s forces. It is necessary for us to attack where the enemy is most vulnerable. Therefore, at present, we must attack the enemy troops while they are out of their fortifications, or moving on roads, waterways, or in the air. Our major combat tactics to be adopted are to lay ambushes, con­ duct raids, or gradually advance toward mobile warfare, when conditions permit. . . .

We must strive to consolidate and broaden the Liberation Front of South Viet­Nam based on the workers­peasants alliance and led by the Party, so as to give it the ability to motivate the people on a wider scale, to accom- plish its new political missions prescribed by the Party, and to assume part of the responsibilities as a revolutionary administration in the liberated areas. . . .

The Mission of North Viet­Nam :

. . . [I]t is time for the North to increase aid to the South, the North must bring into fuller play its role as the revolutionary base for the whole nation. . . .

We should plan to aid the South to meet the requirements of the Revolution, and because of this aid, we must revise properly our plan for building North Viet-Nam.

. . . [W]e must increase our economic and defensive strength in North Viet-Nam. We should increase our vigilance at all times and be ready to face the enemy[’s] new schemes. At the same time, we should be pre- pared to cope with the eventuality of the expansion of the war into North Viet-Nam. . . .

. . . [W]e will certainly win the final victory. The most important thing at the present time is that the entire Party, the entire people from North to South must have full determination and make outstanding efforts to bring success to the revolution of our Southern compatriots and achieve peace and unification of the country, to win total victory, to build a peaceful, unified, independent, democratic, prosperous and strong Viet- Nam. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 63 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 64fromproxy wartodirectconflict 3.3 pavn officer, interview on the intensified military effort, 1963–1964 This pavn officer, a veteran of the French war and a party member, provides insight on the role of the first purely North Vietnamese units to go south. He had been wounded in action in mid­1964, captured by arvn forces, and in­ terviewed by employees of the Rand Corporation. The resulting transcript, in which the prisoner is not identified by name, has been reordered along chronological lines to make it easier to follow.

The aim of my unit was to form, together with already existing units in Central Vietnam, a Main Force Regional unit to liberate the plains region, and to enlarge the liberated area, so that the rear could supply manpower and materiel. If this could be achieved, it would end to a large extent the reliance of Front units in the area on supplies from the North . . . each company received 30,000 piasters to buy rice from the people in case we were ambushed or got lost on our way South. . . .

My first combat experience in the South was an ambush near the route leading from Tam Ky to Duc Phu. We destroyed two arvn companies; we captured 24 arvn soldiers; the rest fled in the mountains or were killed in the fighting. After this attack we rested and consolidated our ranks. . . .

We were told that we would have to behave nicely toward the people, that we would have to observe the “three togetherness rules”: help the people, educate, and indoctrinate them, and that we should not threaten them. . . . Through my experiences I observed that the morale of the arvn was rather low and that their fighting capability was not good. . . . When we captured 24 arvn, we tied them and brought them back to our area to interrogate them. . . . When we were through with our interrogation we gathered the people for a meeting and then released them. . . . We didn’t mistreat them. They ate the same food as we. We tore our hammocks in half to give to them. . . .

The people were very happy over our victory, because from then on they could work in peace. After the attack they gave us eggs, and chick- ens, and milk to the wounded. . . . Six fighters were killed and eleven were wounded. . . . Since our first combat experience was a success, we were all very enthusiastic. . . .

. . . To replace the losses we recruit the youths in the areas which we liberate. . . . We only recruit the people who volunteer to join our ranks.

After we liberate an area, we explain to the people the aim of our struggle.

Those who want to join are accepted into our ranks. . . . hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 64 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use fromproxywartodirectconflict 65 At first the people in the countryside didn’t understand our policy and they were very afraid of us. But as we stayed in their villages they got to un- derstand us more through our daily activities, and their fear disappeared.

They became closer to us, and confided in us. . . . Even if Hanoi stopped sending arms, supplies, and men to the Front, the Front would still be able to win because the Front responds to the aspirations of the people.

I admit that the gvn is stronger than the Front militarily, but the gvn doesn’t have the support of the people. . . .

. . . We are confident that we will win. No matter how rich and powerful the Americans are, they will not be able to defeat the Revolution because we will drag out this war. We are not going to fall in their trap and conduct a big and swift offensive.

3.4 James B. Lincoln (army captain advising the arvn ), letter to Clark Lincoln, 14 August 1965, comparing nlf and Saigon forces The military advisory mission of which James Lincoln was an important part had taken shape in the late 1950s with the objective of creating a South Viet­ namese army that could contain the drv. Despite a dramatic increase in the advisory effort during the Kennedy years, the arvn had not become an effec­ tive fighting force. Here Captain Lincoln sums up his impressions based on six months of on­the­job experience. He remained an adviser until October 1966.

The large [arvn] combat operation . . . is a very common occurrence. I would say that less than 1/3 of all planned operations made any contact with the vc [Viet Cong]. There are various reasons — first, the vc have their own very efficient intelligence nets. There are probably vc sympa- thizers in every major Hq. of the Vietnam Army. . . . Next, the vc are ex- tremely good at slipping out of an area, or hiding in an area where there is an operation. An example — near my area four Battalions entered an area to look for a vc company that was reported in the area. There was not a shot fired, and nobody could figure out how the vc slipped out of the area, all escape routes were covered with blocking positions. About a week later they went back into the same area and found out why. The vc had a fantastic underground network of caves to hit [hide] the en- tire Company, and all the entrances were next to impossible to find. . . .

Every where is vulnerable — if the vc want to make an attack, they have the upper hand. We can only fight them as best we can and wait for help hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 65 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 66fromproxy wartodirectconflict to arrive. However, they always plan and execute very carefully. There is usually only one or two roads or entrances into an area they plan to at- tack. Quite often they will drop a few mortar rounds into a location, with no intention of making a ground attack. They realize, however, that the camp under attack will call for reinforcements, and they will come by truck since it will be nighttime. The main vc force simply waits along the road into the area and ambushes the relief force — it’s all very sim- ple. As soon as you think you have them figured out, they will make a ground attack, but so sorry you told the relief forces not to come be- cause of suspected ambush. Another thing that has amazed me is the accuracy of the mortar. It is very difficult for them to carry the ammo., so it is precious and every round [must count]. In almost all cases where they have mortared a location, all rounds hit right on target, including the first round. I guess they have one of their boys pace off the distance beforehand. . . .

. . . The [arvn] soldiers themselves are good fighters, but they are very underpaid, and poorly led. . . . Their morale is poor, and this brings about the biggest problem in the Army — awol s [soldiers absent with- out leave] and deserters. . . . The Gov. just doesn’t look after their soldiers well enough to keep them happy. All soldiers’ housing is terrible, depen- dents are not thought of in the least — they have no provisions for getting pay home when the husband is off on a big operation, maybe for over a month. . . . Next — poor leadership. The commanders of the Army units are usually inexperienced, and only worried about staying alive, and get- ting a soft job back in Saigon somewhere. The high level commanders are more worried about political things than military considerations.

District chiefs are the same way — they usually plan and go out on as few operations as possible, mostly worried about keeping the province chief happy from a political viewpoint. . . . Nobody is really sure who to support — maybe tomorrow there will be another coup and the guy they supported will be thrown out. It’s all highly confusing, but one thing is sure — it really hurts the military effort.

johnson escalates, august 1964–april 1965 The steady erosion of Saigon’s political authority and military effective- ness presented the Johnson administration with a choice between accept- ing defeat and raising the U.S. commitment. Johnson’s own can-do spirit and the preferences of his advisers (all Kennedy holdovers) prevailed. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 66 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use fromproxywartodirectconflict 67 3.5 Gulf of Tonkin resolution approved by Congress, 10 August 1964 Johnson sought to delay any major decision on Vietnam until after the No­ vember 1964 presidential election, which would make him president in his own right. But reports of attacks on U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin dis­ rupted that plan. Considerable confusion long surrounded this incident. As it turns out, the first attack (on 2 August) did occur, apparently on the deci­ sion of a local commander alarmed by a U.S.­supported coastal raid by South Vietnamese forces. The second attack appears to have been the figment of overanxious U.S. sonar operators during poor weather. Johnson in any case ordered retaliatory air strikes against drv coastal facilities and then asked Congress for support in the form of a resolution drafted in the White House giving the president broad powers to act in Southeast Asia. This measure, which in effect substituted for the constitutionally mandated declaration of war, passed the Senate by a vote of 98–2 and the House unanimously.

Whereas naval units of the Communist regime in Vietnam, in viola- tion of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and of international law, have deliberately and repeatedly attacked United States naval vessels lawfully present in international waters, and have thereby created a serious threat to international peace; and Whereas these attacks are part of a deliberate and systematic campaign of aggression that the Communist regime in North Vietnam has been waging against its neighbors and the nations joined with them in the collective defense of their freedom; and Whereas the United States is assisting the peoples of southeast Asia to protect their freedom and has no territorial, military or political am- bitions in that area, but desires only that these people should be left in peace to work out their own destinies in their own way: Now, there- fore, be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Congress approves and sup- ports the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 67 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 68fromproxy wartodirectconflict 3.6 McGeorge Bundy to Lyndon Johnson, arguing for a bombing campaign, 7 February 1965 With the election over and Congress formally behind him, Johnson seemed disposed to raise the pressure on Hanoi. An attack on U.S. bases in the South in early 1965 prompted McGeorge Bundy, then in Vietnam, to call for retalia­ tion in the form of a bombing campaign against the drv. One of the influen­ tial Kennedy holdovers, Bundy argued on his return to Washington that grad­ ual escalation could intimidate Hanoi and buoy flagging spirits in Sai\�gon.

[T]he best available way of increasing our chance of success in Vietnam is the development and execution of a policy of sustained reprisal against North Vietnam — a policy in which air and naval action against the North is justified by and related to the whole Viet Cong campaign of violence and terror in the South.

While we believe that the risks of such a policy are acceptable, we em- phasize that its costs are real. It implies significant U.S. air losses even if no full air war is joined, and it seems likely that it would eventually require an extensive and costly effort against the whole air defense sys- tem of North Vietnam. U.S. casualties would be higher — and more vis- ible to American feelings — than those sustained in the struggle in South Vietnam. . . .

. . . We must keep it clear at every stage both to Hanoi and to the world, that our reprisals will be reduced or stopped when outrages in the South are reduced or stopped — and that we are not attempting to destroy or conquer North Vietnam. . . .

We emphasize that our primary target in advocating a reprisal policy is the improvement of the situation in South Vietnam. . . .

The [anti-Communist] Vietnamese increase in hope could well in- crease the readiness of Vietnamese factions themselves to join together in forming a more effective government.

We think it plausible that effective and sustained reprisals, even in a low key, would have a substantial depressing effect upon the morale of Viet Cong cadres in South Vietnam. . . .

. . . [I]t is of great importance that the level of reprisal be adjusted rap- idly and visibly to both upward and downward shifts in the level of Viet Cong offenses. We want to keep before Hanoi the carrot of our desist- ing as well as the stick of continued pressure. We also need to conduct the application of the force so that there is always a prospect of worse to come. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 68 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use fromproxywartodirectconflict 69 . . . At a minimum [a policy of sustained reprisal] will damp down the charge that we did not do all that we could have done, and this charge will be important in many countries, including our own. Beyond that, a reprisal policy — to the extent that it demonstrates U.S. willingness to employ this new norm in counter-insurgency — will set a higher price for the future upon all adventures of guerrilla warfare, and it should there- fore somewhat increase our ability to deter such adventures. We must recognize, however, that that ability will be gravely weakened if there is failure for any reason in Vietnam.

3.7 Johnson, speech at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 7 April 1965 The president agreed to the bombing campaign (which would become known as Rolling Thunder) and quickly followed by dispatching the first U.S. combat units to secure the Da Nang air base from which the bombing was conducted.

In a major speech in April, which Johnson had helped to write, he sought to explain decisions that left the United States and the drv just short of war.

Why must this Nation hazard its ease, and its interest, and its power for the sake of a people so far away?

We fight because we must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny. And only in such a world will our own freedom be finally secure. . . .

. . . North Viet-Nam has attacked the independent nation of South Viet-Nam. Its object is total conquest.

Of course, some of the people of South Viet-Nam are participating in [an] attack on their own government. But trained men and supplies, or- ders and arms, flow in a constant stream from north to south.

This support is the heartbeat of the war.

And it is a war of unparalleled brutality. Simple farmers are the targets of assassination and kidnapping. Women and children are strangled in the night because their men are loyal to their government. And helpless villages are ravaged by sneak attacks. Large-scale raids are conducted on towns, and terror strikes in the heart of cities. . . .

Over this war — and all Asia — is another reality: the deepening shadow of Communist China. The rulers in Hanoi are urged on by Peking. This is a regime which has destroyed freedom in Tibet, which has attacked India, and has been condemned by the United Nations for aggression hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 69 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 70 fromproxy wartodirectconflict in Korea. It is a nation which is helping the forces of violence in almost every continent. The contest in Viet-Nam is part of a wider pattern of ag- gressive purposes.

Why are these realities our concern? Why are we in South Viet-Nam?

We are there because we have a promise to keep . Since 1954 every Ameri- can President has offered support to the people of South Viet-Nam. . . .

We are also there to strengthen world order. Around the globe, from Ber- lin to Thailand, are people whose well-being rests, in part, on the belief that they can count on us if they are attacked. To leave Viet-Nam to its fate would shake the confidence of all these people in the value of an Ameri- can commitment and in the value of America’s word. The result would be increased unrest and instability, and even wider war.

We are also there because there are great stakes in the balance. Let no one think for a moment that retreat from Viet-Nam would bring an end to conflict. The battle would be renewed in one country and then another.

The central lesson of our time is that the appetite of aggression is never satisfied. To withdraw from one battlefield means only to prepare for the next. . . .

In recent months attacks on South Viet-Nam were stepped up. Thus, it became necessary for us to increase our response and to make attacks by air. This is not a change of purpose. It is a change in what we believe that purpose requires.

We do this in order to slow down aggression.

We do this to increase the confidence of the brave people of South Viet-Nam who have bravely borne this brutal battle for so many years with so many casualties.

And we do this to convince the leaders of North Viet-Nam — and all who seek to share their conquest — of a very simple fact:

We will not be defeated. [applause] We will not grow tired.

We will not withdraw, either openly or under the cloak of a meaning- less agreement. . . .

. . . We have no desire to see thousands die in battle — Asians or Amer- icans. We have no desire to devastate that which the people of North Viet-Nam have built with toil and sacrifice. We will use our power with restraint and with all the wisdom that we can command.

But we will use it. . . .

. . . [O]ur generation has a dream. It is a very old dream. But we have the power and now we have the opportunity to make that dream come true. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 70 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use fromproxywartodirectconflict 71 For centuries nations have struggled among each other. But we dream of a world where disputes are settled by law and reason. And we will try to make it so. [applause] For most of history men have hated and killed one another in battle.

But we dream of an end to war. And we will try to make it so.

For all existence most men have lived in poverty, threatened by hun- ger. But we dream of a world where all are fed and charged with hope.

And we will help to make it so. [applause] . . .

This generation of the world must choose: destroy or build, kill or aid, hate or understand.

We can do all these things on a scale that’s never [been] dreamed of before.

Well, we will choose life. And so doing we will prevail over the enemies within man, and over the natural enemies of all mankind.

hanoi prepares for war, october 1964–may 1965 Party leaders met in August and September — in the immediate wake of the Gulf of Tonkin incident — to decide on countermeasures to what seemed a U.S. escalation of the conflict. Le Duan, as Communist Party head and the leading voice on policy toward the South, presided over this effort. Aiding him was Pham Van Dong. From a gentry family in central Vietnam, Dong had embraced communism in the mid-1920s and had, for his party activities, done time in a French prison (1931–1937). He helped Ho organize the Viet Minh and went on to become a mainstay in the government of the drv, serving as premier from 1955 to 1986.

3.8 Conversations between Vietnamese and Chinese leaders, October 1964 and April 1965 On one key front, the party leadership proceeded confident of continued Chi­ nese support. The Tonkin Gulf incident had caused Mao Zedong, the chair of China’s Communist Party, to reiterate his commitment to resist a U.S. inva­ sion and convinced him to beef up air defenses along the drv border and base some aircraft in the drv itself. By December China had agreed to a major troop commitment, mainly engineer and antiaircraft units to be stationed in the northern provinces of the drv to free pavn forces to go south. The first of these Chinese deployments arrived in June 1965. Together senior Viet­ hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 71 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 72fromproxy wartodirectconflict namese and Chinese representatives worked out this program of assistance while also trying to gauge the Johnson administration’s likely course. In this Chinese record of two meetings, Pham Van Dong and Le Duan spoke for the Vietnamese side. They addressed Mao and Liu Shaoqi, the number two figure in the party.

a. Pham Van Dong and Mao Zedong, conversation in Beijing, 5 October 1964 [mao zedong:] Whether or not the United States will attack the North, it has not yet made the decision. Now, it [the United States] is not even in a position to resolve the problem in South Vietnam. If it attacks the North, [it may need to] fight for one hundred years, and its legs will be trapped there. Therefore, it needs to consider carefully. The Ameri- cans have made all kinds of scary statements. . . .

pham van dong: This is also our thinking. The United States is facing many difficulties, and it is not easy for it to expand the war. Therefore, our consideration is that we should try to restrict the war in South Vietnam to the sphere of special war [directed against the U.S.-backed arvn], and should try to defeat the enemy within the sphere of special war. We should try our best not to let the U.S. imperialists turn the war in South Vietnam into a limited war [involving a substantial and direct U.S. role in the fighting], and try our best not to let the war be expanded to North Vietnam. We must adopt a very skillful strategy, and should not provoke it [the United States]. Our Politburo has made a decision on this matter, and today I am reporting it to Chairman Mao. We believe that this is workable.

mao zedong: Yes. pham van dong: If the United States dares to start a limited war, we will fight it, and will win it.

mao zedong: Yes, you can win it.

b. Le Duan and Liu Shaoqi, conversation in Beijing, 8 April 1965 le duan: We want some volunteer pilots, volunteer soldiers . . . and other volunteers, including road and bridge engineering units. liu shaoqi: It is our policy that we will do our best to support you. We will offer whatever you are in need of and we are in a position to offer. . . . If you do not invite us, we will not come; and if you invite one unit of our troops, we will send that unit to you. The initiative will be completely yours. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 72 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use fromproxywartodirectconflict 73 3.9 Premier Pham Van Dong, statement on terms for a settlement, 8 April 1965 Hanoi’s second front was public diplomacy, offering to reactivate the 1954 Geneva accords, including notably its provision for a nonaligned South Viet­ nam (document 2.2). This carefully constructed offer, made publicly by the drv’s premier, was meant to give the Americans a way out with a minimum loss of face while also impressing on the international community the reason­ ableness of Hanoi’s position.

1. Recognition of the basic national rights of the Vietnamese people:

peace, independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity. Accord- ing to the Geneva Agreements, the U.S. government must withdraw from South Vietnam all U.S. troops, military personnel and weapons of all kinds, dismantle all U.S. military bases there, [and] cancel its “military alliance” with South Vietnam. It must end its policy of intervention and aggression in South Vietnam. According to the Geneva Agreements, the U.S. government must stop its acts of war against North Vietnam, [and] completely cease all encroachments on the territory and sovereignty of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

2. Pending the peaceful reunification of Vietnam, while Vietnam is still temporarily divided into two zones[,] the military provisions of the 1954 Geneva Agreements on Vietnam must be strictly respected: the two zones must refrain from joining any military alliance with foreign coun- tries, there must be no foreign military bases, troops and military person- nel in their respective territory.

3. The internal affairs of South Vietnam must be settled by the South Vietnamese people themselves, in accordance with the programme of the South Vietnam National Front for Liberation without any foreign interference.

4. The peaceful reunification of Vietnam is to be settled by the Viet- namese people in both zones, without any foreign interference.

3.10 Le Duan, letter to Nguyen Chi Thanh and other comrades, May 1965, reacting to the U.S. military escalation Hanoi’s third front was military, as rising U.S. troop levels threatened to turn special war in the South into a local or limited war. Here Le Duan urged his cosvn colleagues to try to head off deeper American involvement. But even hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 73 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 74 fromproxy wartodirectconflict in the worst case, southern forces could, he argued, directly confront and ul­ timately overcome the world’s most potent military power by exploiting its many vulnerabilities.

To prevent the US from turning the “special war” into a “local war” in the South or carrying the land war to the North, the best counter-measure is for us to strike harder and more accurately in the South, causing the rapid disintegration of the puppet army, the US mainstay. We must step up military and political struggles and rapidly create the opportunity to move toward generalized attacks and general insurrection, catching the Americans napping, and preventing them from plunging into new mili- tary adventures. . . .

. . . From 1,000 armed people [before 1959], today we have tens of thou- sands of troops capable of mounting attacks to destroy enemy troops by the thousands. If the Americans switch over to “local war” in the South with from 250,000 to 300,000 troops, they will be confronted with our protracted war of resistance. To have to fight a long-drawn-out war is the US Achilles’ heel. . . .

. . . [S]ince the US was bogged down in the Vietnam war, its economy has been in a critical state with its gold reserve diminishing rapidly.

Taking this opportunity, the Japanese, West German, British and French capitalists began to scramble for lucrative US-controlled markets in the world. Thus judging from its economic interests, the US is also afraid of fighting a prolonged war.

In contrast, our economy basically remains an agricultural economy, with major industrial centres still non-existent and with 80% of consumer goods being supplied by handicrafts. Therefore, with sufficient rice and sweet potatoes to eat, we can fight the Americans five, ten years or lon- ger. . . . Moreover, we enjoy the assistance of fraternal socialist countries and thus are more confident in waging a long war of resistance. . . .

Within the US ruling circles, the “doves” and the “hawks” are at log- gerheads with one another. . . . Contradictions between the US and its client regimes and those among the different groups of US lackeys . . .

also are growing acute. The enemy is being divided. Thus, militarily, we are not yet in a position to prevail over the enemy, but politically we can get the upper hand and capitalize on the enemy’s inner contradictions to split his ranks and weaken him to the point of disintegration.

. . . We believe in our final victory because we firmly hold the following points in our favour: hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 74 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use fromproxywartodirectconflict 75 a) The will to fight and to win of our entire people from South to North, from Party members to the popular masses. This will stems from our nation’s tradition of dauntlessness in its history of protracted struggle against foreign aggression [from defeating the Mongol invaders to driv- ing out the French]. . . .

b) The leadership of our Party, a party experienced in revolutionary strug­ gle and firmly grasping the laws governing people’s war. . . .

c) The approval, support and assistance of brothers and friends all over the world. . . .

Although in our camp there are [Sino-Soviet] divergencies over many issues, yet in our people’s struggle against US aggression, for national salvation, the fraternal countries in the main approve our line and give us whole-hearted assistance. The national liberation movement and the international communist and workers’ movement are on our side. Peace- and justice-loving people in the world support our just cause. . . .

. . . [I]f the US is still rash enough to make a test of strength with the Vietnamese nation in a protracted war, then it will find us combat-ready and determined to fight and defeat the US aggressors in whatever type of war.

Here, in the North, we already are prepared for the worst, the fraternal countries are ready to give us aid. If the US is foolish enough to move land forces to the North, here we will also fight and win. Even if we have to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives, even if Hanoi is reduced to rubble, the North will always join the South in its determination to figh[t] and defeat the US aggressors, to save the nation and reunify the country.

“going off the diving board,” june– july 1965 Johnson finally had to face the choice that he and his predecessors had sought to avoid. In early June General William Westmoreland reported that only a major U.S. combat commitment could save the arvn from defeat, “successfully take the fight to the vc,” and convince the enemy that “they cannot win.” 1 The president now had to act decisively or face the loss of South Vietnam. 1. William Westmoreland, telegram to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 7 June 1965, in U.S.

Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, vol. 2 (Washing- ton, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1996), 735. hunt, A Vietnam War Reader final pages, 75 EBSCOhost - printed on 2/20/2021 1:44 PM via UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 76fromproxy wartodirectconflict 3.11 Johnson, comments to Robert McNamara, 21 June 1965 Remark