destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, Johnson ordered the retaliatory bombing of military targets in North Vietnam. In August of 1964, after DRV torpedo boats attacked two U.S. Johnson, and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to further increase U.S. The ensuing political instability in South Vietnam persuaded Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Though the NLF claimed to be autonomous and that most of its members were not communists, many in Washington assumed it was a puppet of Hanoi.Ī coup by some of his own generals succeeded in toppling and killing Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, in November 1963, three weeks before Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. In December 1960, Diem’s many opponents within South Vietnam-both communist and non-communist-formed the National Liberation Front (NLF) to organize resistance to the regime.
#1920X1080 BATTLEFIELD V IMAGE CRACKED#
With training and equipment from American military and the CIA, Diem’s security forces cracked down on Viet Minh sympathizers in the south, whom he derisively called Viet Cong (or Vietnamese Communist), arresting some 100,000 people, many of whom were brutally tortured and executed.īy 1957, the Viet Cong and other opponents of Diem’s repressive regime began fighting back with attacks on government officials and other targets, and by 1959 they had begun engaging the South Vietnamese army in firefights. Eisenhower had pledged his firm support to Diem and South Vietnam. With the Cold War intensifying worldwide, the United States hardened its policies against any allies of the Soviet Union, and by 1955 President Dwight D. In 1955, however, the strongly anti-communist politician Ngo Dinh Diem pushed Emperor Bao aside to become president of the Government of the Republic of Vietnam (GVN), often referred to during that era as South Vietnam. The treaty also called for nationwide elections for reunification to be held in 1956.
The subsequent treaty signed in July 1954 at a Geneva conference split Vietnam along the latitude known as the 17th Parallel (17 degrees north latitude), with Ho in control in the North and Bao in the South. The French loss at the battle ended almost a century of French colonial rule in Indochina. involvement in the war began in 1954, though ongoing conflict in the region had stretched back several decades.Īfter Ho’s communist forces took power in the north, armed conflict between northern and southern armies continued until the northern Viet Minh’s decisive victory in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954. WATCH NOW When Did the Vietnam War Start? But while Ho and his supporters wanted a nation modeled after other communist countries, Bao and many others wanted a Vietnam with close economic and cultural ties to the West.ĭid you know? According to a survey by the Veterans Administration, some 500,000 of the 3 million troops who served in Vietnam suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, and rates of divorce, suicide, alcoholism and drug addiction were markedly higher among veterans. Seeking to regain control of the region, France backed Emperor Bao and set up the state of Vietnam in July 1949, with the city of Saigon as its capital.īoth sides wanted the same thing: a unified Vietnam.
Seeing an opportunity to seize control, Ho’s Viet Minh forces immediately rose up, taking over the northern city of Hanoi and declaring a Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) with Ho as president.
To fight off both Japanese occupiers and the French colonial administration, political leader Ho Chi Minh-inspired by Chinese and Soviet communism-formed the Viet Minh, or the League for the Independence of Vietnam.įollowing its 1945 defeat in World War II, Japan withdrew its forces from Vietnam, leaving the French-educated Emperor Bao Dai in control. Vietnam, a nation in Southeast Asia on the eastern edge of the Indochinese peninsula, had been under French colonial rule since the 19th century.ĭuring World War II, Japanese forces invaded Vietnam.
0 kommentar(er)
