International Baccalaureate History (Hl & Sl)

THE VIETNAM WARS

(1946-1975)

INTERNATIONAL BACCALAUREATE HISTORY (HL & SL)

MR.NICHOLS, JANUARY 2004

17

MGN IB History 2004/5

Introduction

The Vietnam War has been immortalised to the point of parody (see John Goodman’s veteran’s irrate comment in ‘The Big Lebowsky’ to a bowling rival: “This isn’t Vietnam. We have rules here”). Supposedly, more veterans of the war have committed suicide than died in combat there. It is a difficult statistic to believe, given that the vast majority of those sent to Vietnam (2.7million men in total) were never front-line troops (only 14% were). Undoubtedly though, the first war the US ever lost, did have an enormous psychological impact, and not just on those who fought there, but on the whole of the American nation.

Why the US got involved; how the war was fought and why the US ultimately lost (or rather why the Vietnamese won) are the main themes of this booklet.

17

MGN IB History 2004/5

Reasons for the War

The Vietnamese Perspective

The Vietnam War, from the Vietnamese point of view, was essentially an anti-imperialist, national struggle. To other Vietnamese though, it was also a civil war between Northerners and Southerners, something the Americans with their own Civil War (1861-65) should have been able to empathise with far more than they did.

Perhaps though most of all, the average Vietnamese just wanted to be left alone.

The Vietnamese had been fighting their foreign occupiers since the 1st century when, in AD 40, a woman had led an uprising against the Chinese. By the 10th century, the Vietnamese were utilising the guerrilla tactics that would be so successful against the Americans. By 1428, under the inspirational and legendary figure of Le Loi, Vietnam had become, in effect, an independent state – and was determined to remain so. From the 16th century, Vietnam was effectively divided between North and South by two dynastic families (the Trinh and Nguyen).

The French had arrived in the mid 19th century calling the Vietnamese areas of Annam, Tonkin and Cochinchina (along with Laos and Cambodia), Indochine. They behaved in a way unlikely to endear them to the local population, importing the guillotine and referring to the native population, contemptuously, as les jaunes. Successive Vietnamese revolts, like that in 1930, were brutally repressed. It was the arrival of the French, and their actions in the 1940s and 1950s, that laid the foundations for the Vietnam War.

Other imperialists who also had designs on the area, included the Japanese who invaded in the early 1940s. The defeated and humiliated French, co-operated with their Japanese masters and the easy defeat of the European white man must have given hope to nationalist leaders like Ho Chi Minh (whose wife and child had died in a French jail and whose sister-in-law had been guillotined). With Vo Nguyen Giap (who became its military leader), he founded the Vietminh in 1941.

The Vietminh, with US backing, fought the Japanese throughout WWII, but were rewarded by a partition of their country and new occupiers (the British this time) re-arming the defeated Japanese to keep the Vietnamese under control! Vietnam was carved up after the war and the French returned as colonial masters (helped by the British who were also loathe to give up their own prestigious, Asian colonies). Ho Chi Minh, however, was fully committed to national unity.

The French did not return unopposed and in November 1946 serious fighting left thousands dead. A state of war now existed in effect between the Vietminh and the French: the First Indochina War. The French believed they were fighting Marxists, but in reality they were fighting a liberation movement. The French never understood this. They appointed a puppet Vietnamese emperor, Bao Dai, in 1949 as head of state, but he had little credibility with the majority of Vietnamese. The Vietminh waged an increasingly successful guerrilla war after 1949, aided by newly communist China.

The US became increasingly involved. Initially, it had been hostile to French imperialism and incredible though it may sound, had been highly sympathetic to Ho and the Vietminh. However, the Cold War, and China’s revolution in 1949, changed all that and the French started to receive millions of dollars in military aid.

In 1954, the decisive battle of Dien Bien Phu (which, it must be emphasised, was a conventional victory for the Vietminh, who had hauled artillery 700 km to the battlefield) led to peace talks at Geneva. At Geneva, a disastrous agreement led to the division of the country along the 17th parallel, incorporating a DMZ. If the country had been united at these talks, the Second Indochina War may never have taken place. Instead, the North and South were created with the proviso that a future referendum (in 1956) would lead to their re-unification. However, the election was never held. The leader of the south, Ngo Dinh Diem, refused to hold elections and declared the South independent.

Diem was a French-educated, Roman Catholic from Saigon. He had little in common with his primarily Buddhist, peasant countrymen. To the Communist northerners, he was an American puppet standing in the way of national re-unification. In 1960, the struggle was resumed and the National Liberation Front (or Vietcong) was created. The Vietcong, however, though strongly influenced by the North, were not all communists by any means, despite Southern propaganda attempts to present them as Marxists fanatics. (To Cawthorne, however, the NLF was indeed a ‘Trojan horse’ for the communists. Whom you believe is up to you).

As Cawthorne also comments: “For Ho and Giap, the Vietnam War was part of their centuries-old war of national liberation to free themselves from the influence of foreign powers”. In 1961, Giap even spelt out how this was to be achieved in a book (‘People’s War, People’s Army’). It is a pity the Americans never studied it!

17

MGN IB History 2004/5

The American Perspective

For the Americans, the reasons for the war were entirely different. It was a glorious struggle to contain the evils of communism; to ensure the victory of democracy and the liberty of the individual. Of course, and paradoxically, this required supporting, a string of vicious and incompetent South Vietnamese dictators (Diem and later Ky and Thieu).

The establishment of the Bolsheviks in Russia; the paranoia engendered by Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ speech; the success of the CCP in China; the Korean War, all helped to convince successive American presidents of the need to oppose communism. Truman’s ‘domino theory’ was applied to South-East Asia by Eisenhower, who began the introduction of military advisers into Vietnam (in 1956, the first, US fatal casualty was sustained). The fear was that the fall of Vietnam would lead to Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, even Australia, becoming threatened. Controlling the Pacific was seen as essential to America’s security. In Johnson’s famous phrase, if South Vietnam was lost, America could find itself fighting on ‘the beaches of Waikiki’. Vietnam was to be a surrogate battlefield: better to fight there than on US soil.

Contrary to the popular, Oliver Stone inspired myth that Kennedy was preparing to withdraw from Vietnam, he actually massively increased US involvement in the country, including the dispatching of thousands of Green Berets. The Americans were drawing a line in the sand.

As Cawthorne succinctly points out: ”For America, Vietnam was the place the Cold War finally became hot” (though Korea might also be seen as the first instance of that).

American pragmatism was apparent in their support of the overthrow and assassination of Diem in 1963, by the ARVN (South Vietnamese army). By March 1965, the US was committing large nos. of ground troops to the conflict.

The August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident had provided the excuse. LBJ had fabricated a supposed unprovoked attack on two American ships, as the ideal excuse for becoming more actively involved in the war. The consequent Gulf of Tonkin Resolution allowed him carte blanche to do what he wanted with regard to Vietnam. He had been under domestic political pressure from rabid right-wingers like Barry Goldwater and, in the event, the resolution was opposed by no congressmen (the vote was 416-0) and only two senators (88-2). America had embarked on eight years of hellish conflict that would see millions dead and injured, a US government fall from power and a changed world situation – and all following a presidential fib.

17

MGN IB History 2004/5

The war on the ground has often been seen as one involving the most technologically advanced country up against one of the least technologically advanced. In some ways this was true (there were cases of Vietcong attacking helicopter gunships with bows and arrows tipped with rancid fat), but it should also be emphasised that though guerrilla tactics were used very effectively by the VC, they were not used in isolation.

The war quickly escalated after America committed ground troops. In early 1965 there were 23,000 US troops in the country; by the end of the year there were over 184,000 (eventually there would be half a million). The tactics of the Americans, under the command of the aggressive General Westmoreland, was to carry out ‘search and destroy’ missions and to engage the enemy wherever possible. It would be a war of attrition. The North Vietnamese command had also planned for a long war.

Besides the Americans, other countries were also involved. The North and VC received materiel from the Soviets and Chinese, and military support from their Laotian, Pathet Lao allies.

The US fought alongside over 7,500 Australians, 500 New Zealanders, 45,000 South Koreans, 11,500 Thais, 2,000 Filipinos, a handful of Taiwanese, Spaniards and Britons. Even Morocco donated 10,000 cans of sardines to the cause, while Switzerland sent microscopes.

The ARVN (according to Cawthorne: “not terribly effective”) contributed 620,000 men to the conflict. Given that its officers seemed more interested in peddling drugs and prostitutes, it is not surprising their allies had little respect for the South Vietnamese troops. Desertion rates in the ARVN stood at over 20%.

The ‘hearts and minds’ campaign of counter-insurgency favoured as an alternative, or in tandem with ‘search and destroy’ tactics, was a failure. The ‘strategic hamlets policy’ of trying to protect villages form VC infiltration failed to comprehend the fact that many of the villagers were the VC. South Vietnam was in a state of civil war.

Westmoreland was more interested in fighting a large scale conflict against large concentrations of troops and though he had initial successes (Operation Starlite), the VC soon learned to avoid pitched battles.

The Americans relied heavily on helicopters, Stratofortresses, ship to shore battery fire, artillery, tanks and APC’s. In contrast, the VC adopted the tactics of the ‘war of the flea’, aiming to kill as many Americans as possible so as to influence American domestic opinion.

The VC were meticulously organised (‘one slow, four quick’ principle). Of course, the VC also, unlike the Americans with their 365 day tours, were in it for the duration. The VC also successfully inducted women into the fight. They infiltrated the South through the DMZ, the Ho Chi Minh trail and by sea.

From 1965, the NVA became increasingly involved in the fighting. Westmoreland demanded to be able to tactical nuclear weapons; some US senators even wanted to use strategic, nuclear devices on the North! Instead, Westmoreland was given hundreds of thousands of more men.

The war became bloodier and dirtier with both sides committing terrible atrocities. Nowhere in Vietnam was safe. Conditions for the VC guerrilla and US G.I. were often equally appalling. American soldiers (often smaller Hispanics and called ‘tunnel rats’) were sent down VC tunnels, where booby traps (which included tied up venomous snakes) often caused a terrible death. Though, for the Americans, at least, good food and often luxurious conditions could await them back at base or on leave. Many VC guerrillas did, in fact, because of their appalling circumstances, defect to the South and by 1967, 75,000 had changed sides.

On return form leave, however, the American soldier and his allies found the VC or NVA still where he had left them. Even when military victories were achieved at places like Ia Drang, the enemy would re-emerge in the same area, soon afterwards. Winning the war on the ground looked increasingly impossible.

The Americans were convinced they could win the war by bombing the North into submission (‘Operation Rolling Thunder’). Strategic bombers like the B-52 dropped more bombs on Hanoi than had been dropped in the whole of WWII. Northern ports like Haiphong were devastated (90% of the North’s oil resources were destroyed).

Tactical airstrikes were used against VC and NVA troops. ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ C-47’s, F-4 Phantom’s, Thunderchiefs, Huey helicopter gunships, all brought ‘whispering death’ to the guerrillas (who feared aerial bombardment more than anything else). Napalm and de-foilants, like Agents White, Purple and Orange, were designed to destroy the enemy’s jungle cover. Napalm and de-foliants were also used in Laos and Cambodia - quite illegally.

Napalm was sticky gel that burned at very high temperatures and stuck to its unfortunate victims. It could not even be doused if a victim jumped into water. Napalm helped turn the American people against the war.

Cawthorne (who seems something of an apologist, at times) points out that the Americans were still relatively restrained. They never carpet-bombed the North nor did they destroy dykes, which could have caused widespread flooding.

The USAF however, did bomb power plants, steel works, road and rail bridges and border areas. They even tried to alter the weather to encourage heavier monsoons!

Movement detectors were dropped by planes (‘Operation Igloo White’) and this ate up a further $225m.

F-4 Phantoms successfully engaged and neutralised the NVAF’s MiG’s and US pilots got the fame and recognition denied to the grunts on the ground. However, downed pilots were often beaten up, by those on the ground, and spent long years in appalling captivity (John Cain being the most famous POW). The North was breaking the Geneva Convention, but then neither side paid much attention to it. Prisoners were often tortured and summarily executed by the Americans and their allies; the Vietnamese humiliating their captured foes in prisons like the ‘Hanoi Hilton’.