Divided Vietnam and American nation-building

In the period between the 1954 Geneva Conference and the 1963 coup against Ngo Dinh Diem, the conflict in Vietnam gradually intensified. Already in 1956, as Diem refused to accept nationwide elections that would almost certainly have given the edge to Ho Chi Minh, the DRV in the North and Diem’s regime in the South were poised to begin an all-out war.

Yet, both the North and the South faced internal difficulties in the late 1950s. While Diem moved against real and suspected Viet Minh supporters in the South, the DRV launched a disastrous effort to move towards collectivization in the North. Both Diem and Ho Chi Minh had to crush internal opposition movements, although the southerners faced a far wider array of ‘enemies’ (in addition to Viet Minh supporters, there were several organized military groups that refused to accept Diem’s rule). Despite continued Soviet and Chinese aid to Hanoi, the DRV found it much easier to present itself as the standard-bearer of Vietnamese nationalism than Diem, a French-speaking former colonial administrator, who came from the minority Catholic population. Diem made his position worse by his blatant nepotism, for by appointing a number of his family members to prominent positions of power he further antagonized a number of potential allies in the South, including senior officers in the new Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). Furthermore, Diem, while ready to accept annual American aid of approximately $300 million, was supremely reluctant to listen to Washington’s advice about the need for political and economic reforms.

By the late 1950s Diem’s policies were clearly working to the advantage of the DRV and their southern supporters. In 1959 the northerners, having managed to solidify their own internal situation, began sending aid to southern rebels. In December I960 a number of anti-Diem organizations joined forces to form the National Liberation Front (NLF), a communist-dominated political group that became the major southern force fighting against the Saigon regime and for the unification of Vietnam.

Using guerrilla tactics and taking advantage of growing rural discontent, the NLF quickly grew into a major force throughout South Vietnam.

In 1960—61, however, the major trouble spot in Indochina appeared to be Laos rather than Vietnam. Granted independence in Geneva in 1954, the Laotians had tried to isolate themselves from the effects of the Cold War. In 1957 the nationalist leader Souvanna Phouma chose neutralism and formed a coalition government with the local communists, the Pathet Lao. However, in 1958 a CIA-backed coup replaced Souvanna and the Pathet Lao with a pro-American regime that soon received help from American military advisers. In 1960, Souvanna managed to return to power and turned towards the Soviet Union and North Vietnam for help. After only four months, however, he was forced to flee amid an escalating civil war. Finally, when it was clear that not even American aid could help their clients in Laos to crush the Soviet-supported Pathet Lao, another Geneva Conference, focusing on the Laotian conflict, commenced in May 1961. In June 1962 the conferees finally agreed to a compromise solution of sorts: Laos was banned from entering military alliances or having foreign troops on its soil, while it would be ruled by a coalition government headed by Souvanna Phouma (and including four Pathet Lao cabinet members, as opposed to two in 1957). However, despite this agreement on the neutralization of Laos, the civil war soon resumed, but this time with covert outside intervention. Over the next few years the Americans moved to supply Souvanna with military aid via CIA channels, while North Vietnam and the USSR armed the Pathet Lao. Moreover, by 1964 American bombing raids regularly hit the Pathet Lao, while the North Vietnamese expanded their use of Laotian (as well as Cambodian) territory as a supply route and operational base for the escalating war in South Vietnam.

As the negotiations leading to the neutralization of Laos progressed, the Diem regime in South Vietnam was losing its ability to control the country.

Initially the United States tried to control the situation by increasing its aid package and sending an increasing number of military advisers, including special forces trained in guerrilla warfare and counter-insurgency methods, to help the ARVN. However, the record was far from encouraging: in October 1961 the American military estimated that the Diem government had lost its ability to control 80—90 per cent of South Vietnam’s rural areas. To stop further deterioration of the situation, the Kennedy administration ultimately raised the number of American ‘advisers’ in Vietnam to 16,700 in the autumn of 1963 (there had been about 900 such ‘advisers’ at the time Kennedy took office). By then, though, civil unrest had spread into the major cities, where students and Buddhists launched major protests throughout 1963 (the most famous of which was the self-immolation of a Buddhist monk, Thich Quang-Duc, in Saigon in June 1963).

National Liberation Front (NLF)

Established in 1960 as an umbrella organization for those opposing the rule of President Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam. Supported by North Vietnam, the NLF played an important role in the Vietnam War throughout the 1960s.

neutralism

The policy whereby a state publicly dissociates itself from becoming involved in Great Power conflicts. The first major advocate of the policy was Jawaharlal Nehru on behalf of post-independence India.

The Kennedy administration’s response to the deteriorating situation in South Vietnam was to support, or at least not discourage, a military coup against Diem and his entrenched family oligarchy. On 1 November 1963 Diem was arrested and killed, along with his brother, Nhu. This dramatic move did not, however, do anything to stem the haemorrhaging of power from the RVN regime. The problem was that no effective replacement could be found for Diem; instead he was succeeded by what amounted to a series of military juntas that lacked both political legitimacy and administrative competence.

Moreover, recognizing the RVN’s weakness, now that Diem had been removed, Hanoi in December 1963 decided to increase its support for the NLF. This in turn allowed the latter to begin to engage in larger unit actions against the ARVN, with the result that the situation on the ground grew steadily worse for the Saigon regime.

Third World

A collective term of French origin for those states that are part of neither the developed capitalist world nor the communist bloc. It includes the states of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and South-East Asia. Also referred to as ‘the South' in contrast to the developed ‘North'.

see Chapter 15

As if this were not enough, from 1963 to 1965 the United States also faced a deteriorating situation in the South-East Asian region at large. During this period, the fighting was renewed in Laos and there were fears that a serious communist insurgency might also begin in Thailand. Furthermore, these years witnessed a Chinese diplomatic offensive to win over radical anti-imperialist governments in the Third World. In South-East Asia, this led to Beijing developing increasingly close relations not just with Hanoi, but also with elements within the governments of Indonesia, Cambodia and Burma. Of these, the relationship that caused the greatest concern for Washington was that with Indonesia, where a delicate balance of power existed between President Sukarno, the army and the Indonesian Communist Party, the PKI, which was the largest communist party outside the socialist bloc. The United States was thus faced with a situation where any demonstration of weakness in Vietnam might lead to a general loss of confidence in its ability to live up to its alliance commitments. This might in turn lead to unwelcome consequences, such as Thailand seeking security in neutrality and a weakening of the army’s resistance to the PKI in Indonesia. Policy towards Vietnam could not be decided in a vacuum.

For the Johnson administration, which took over after Kennedy was assassinated on 22 November 1963, the choices in regard to Vietnam were far from appealing.

Abandonment of Vietnam and its almost certain unification under the DRV’s rule was unthinkable, both for the regional reasons laid out above, but also because of the immense damage that would have been caused worldwide to American prestige. This left two choices: either the United States could launch an all-out assault on North Vietnam, thus risking a Chinese entry into the conflict, or it could follow a policy of limited war, using ground troops in South Vietnam and air power over the DRV, to contain and eventually reverse the communist offensive. The first of these alternatives held little appeal, for there was no wish to fight another Korean War. Policy-makers therefore concentrated on the second option, hoping that an American military presence in South Vietnam would help to stabilize that country, while simultaneously a limited bombing campaign against the North would force Hanoi to the peace table.

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Source: Best Antony. International History of the Twentieth Century and Beyond. Routledge,2008. — 638 p.. 2008

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