Background to the Vietnam War

Most historians view the background of the Vietnam War, and the nature of the war itself, as rooted in the history of French colonial French Indochina, and the growing ethnic, political, and economic division between Catholic and Buddhist Vietnamese. Vietnamese society at all levels was politically and economically divided at the end of French rule.

At the end of World War II, Japanese forces in Indochina turned over power to Vietnamese Nationalists as a way of causing trouble for the allied occupation forces operating in the postwar period. Japan had, late in the war, created a nominally independent Vietnamese government. Japan allowed this government to be displaced by the Viet Minh under Ho Chi Minh. In September 1945, Chinese forces as agreed at the Potsdam Conference occupied Indochina south to the 16th parallel to supervise the surrender and repatriation of the Japanese. The next month, a British force landed in Southern Vietnam and occupied Indochina south of the 16th parallel. The immediate postwar period was very chaotic with criminals, nationalists and French soldiers released from prison all fighting for power.

The French eventually gained a measure of control back over parts of Vietnam. Those parts were mostly in the British zone. In early 1946, the French began a series of dual negotiations with the Chinese and Viet Minh over the future of the Vietnam. The Viet Minh were willing for nationalist reasons to agree to almost any concessions including the return of the French in order to get the Chinese army out of the country. For their part, the French traded their pre-war concessions in Shanghai and other Chinese ports for Chinese cooperation in Vietnam. The French landed in early 1946 outside Hanoi and quickly established themselves as the administration in the cities. After failed negotiations with the French over the future of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh and his Viet Minh retreated into remote parts of the countryside to fight a small-scale insurgency against the French.

Though the US had no direct role in the return of the French to Indochina, Washington's desire for a more uniform postwar European economy and European cooperation on a variety of other matters required French cooperation in the postwar period. And because successive French governments threatened to become more uncooperative in Europe if the United States refused to accede to their demands overseas, Washington committed itself to a policy of supporting the French in Indochina.

Containment

In 1949, the communists reached the border of Vietnam in the north. The result was that the Viet Minh were able to receive almost unlimited amounts of conventional weapons. The war in Vietnam transformed itself from an insurgency to a full war between armies in the remote areas of Vietnam. The international situation had also changed dramatically. The Soviet Union had put in place in Eastern Europe authoritarian regimes under its control. China had fallen to communist armies and war had broken out in Korea. The war in Korea helped build a U.S. perception of a general communist threat in Asia. Given China's involvement in Korea and its supply of weapons to the Viet Minh in Indochina, U.S. policymakers began giving support to the French administration.

After taking power in 1953, the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower accepted the Indochina policy established by the Truman Administration and its foreign policy corps essentially without modification. Support for the French colonial regime was continued, on the pretense that the French were fighting towards the ultimate independence of Vietnam, as well as the defeat of the communists. With the end of the Korean war, the U.S. became less interested in sustaining the French presence in Vietnam.

The end of French involvement

It is generally accepted that the United States funded approximately one-third of the French attempts to retain control of Vietnam, in the face of resistance from the Viet Minh movement led by Communist Party leader Ho Chi Minh. The French, however, failing to achieve more than what amounted to a military stalemate, under financial pressure at home and under increasing pressure from Washington to make good on their end of the bargain, adopted new measures by 1953. For instance, the so-called Navarre Plan called for a buttressing of the Vietnamese National Guard and the deployment of an additional nine battalions of French troops. The French made a request for $400 million in American assistance, of which $385 million was ultimately given. This discrepancy has often led to the charge that the United States failed to adequately fund French efforts to crush the rebellion early. (Herring, 1986, p. 27) The Navarre Plan ultimately failed to end the fighting, however. After the Viet Minh defeated the French colonial army at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the French negotiated an end to their presence in Indochina.

The issue of increasing US involvement in Vietnam was by this point already proving to be divisive in Washington. President Dwight D. Eisenhower refused to overtly commit US forces to the region, even to support the faltering French forces at Dien Bien Phu. After the end of the Korean War, Vietnam ceased to have any strategic value for the U.S. and French colonial rule seemed to, if anything, be helping to strengthen the communist movement in the country.

Unwilling to directly support French colonialism, and somewhat disillusioned by the mixed results of American intervention in Korea, Congress instead opted for Secretary of State John Foster Dulles' proposal for "United Action" in Southeast Asia. "United Action" was an outgrowth of the Eisenhower Administration's "New Look" policy, whereby local forces should be called upon for the defense of their territories rather than relying on direct US military involvement. "United Action" called for Vietnamese forces to be responsible for the defense of Vietnam, although with US assistance. The direct results of "United Action" were Washington's tacit acceptance of the upcoming Geneva Accords and the creation of SEATO, a coalition of the United States, United Kingdom, France, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, and Pakistan to draw a firm line against communist expansion and make war in Southeast Asia less likely. The signatories would share the military burdens of protecting Southeast Asia from "indirect aggression."

The partition of Vietnam and the Diem Government

According to the ensuing Geneva Conference, Vietnam was partitioned, ostensibly temporarily, into a Northern and a Southern zone of Viet-Nam. The former was to be ruled by Ho Chi Minh, while the latter would be under the control of Emperor Bao Dai. In 1955, the South Vietnamese monarchy was abolished and Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem became President of a new South Vietnamese republic.

The Geneva Conference specified that elections to unify the country would be scheduled to take place in July 1956, but such elections were never held. In the context of the Cold War, the United States (under Eisenhower) had begun to view Southeast Asia as a potential key battleground in the greater Cold War, and American policymakers thought democratic elections in Vietnam would be impossible. Ho Chi Minh had already launched a campaign to murder his enemies in rural areas in the name of land reform. Political and economic leaders in rural Vietnam opposed to the communists were executed in large numbers. The hostile and authoritarian nature of the government in North Vietnam led eventually to some 900,000 refugees fleeing southwards.

At this point, South Vietnam came under the control of the US-backed Ngo Dinh Diem, an anti-Communist exile previously residing in New Jersey. Over French objections, the United States sought to install Diem because he was regarded as a staunch nationalist who could more adequately oversee the construction of a pro-Western South Vietnam than the Emperor, Bao Dai who was seen as weak. This decision was based largely upon Diem's anti-communist and pro-western stances, not his wisdom or experience as a ruler.

Diem's early regime was troubled by the so-called sect crisis of 1955. The Cao Dai and Hoa Hao religious sects were among the most potent political factions in Vietnam in the wake of the partition. They effectively controlled huge rural areas and maintained their own private armies. In addition, the Binh Xuyen, something of a mafia organization, also wielded immense influence and military strength. Their challenge to Diem's fledgling government cast serious doubt on the likelihood of success of the American efforts in Vietnam, and many began to expect an ultimate US withdrawal. Although it initially appeared that Diem would be unable to resist the pressures of these organizations, his startlingly successful campaigns against them in 1955 prompted a deeper American commitment.

Dulles, on the premise that a communist leadership would under no circumstances allow free elections, argued that it was in US interests to allow Diem to hold a referendum ahead of the elections mandated by the Geneva Conference. Given the solvency of the Diem government shown by its victory over the sects. Diem won public support in the 1955 referendum.

In the late 1950s, the United States provided support to South Vietnam. But at the same time, North Vietnam began to activate former Viet Minh groups that had remained in the south in violation of the Geneva accords. At the highest levels in North Vietnam, it had been decided to overthrow the government of the south by force without regard to the costs or consequences to the Vietnamese people.

In the end, neither the US nor the two Vietnams signed the election clause in the accord. Initially, it appeared as if a partitioned Vietnam would become the norm, similar in nature to the partitioned Korea created years earlier.