History - Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Northern Thailand - page 991

The War in Vietnam
The 1954 Geneva Accords resulted in two Vietnams. Ho Chi Minh led the communist
northern zone, while the South was ruled by Ngo Dinh Diem, a fiercely anticommunist
Catholic. Nationwide elections scheduled for 1956 were never held, as the Americans and
the South rightly feared that Ho Chi Minh would win easily.
During the first few years of his rule, Diem consolidated power effectively. During
Diem's 1957 official visit to the USA, President Eisenhower called him the 'miracle man'
of Asia. As time went on Diem became increasingly tyrannical in dealing with dissent.
In the early 1960s, the South was rocked by anti-Diem unrest led by university students
and Buddhist clergy. The US decided Diem was a liability and threw its support behind a
military coup. A group of young generals led the operation in November 1963. Diem was
to go into exile, but the generals got overexcited and both Diem and his brother were killed.
He was followed by a succession of military rulers who continued his erratic policies and
dragged the country deeper into war.
As WWII drew to a close, Japanese rice requisitions, in combination with floods and breaches
in the dikes, caused a horrific famine in which two million of northern Vietnam's 10 million
people starved to death.
War Breaks Out
The North's campaign to 'liberate' the South had begun in late 1950s with the creation of
the National Liberation Front (NLF), nicknamed the Viet Cong (VC) by the Americans. By
early 1965, Hanoi was sending regular North Vietnamese Army (NVA) units down the Ho
Chi Minh Trail and the Saigon government was on its last legs. To the Americans, Vietnam
was the next domino and could not topple. It was clearly time for the Americans to 'clean
up the mess', as one of Lyndon Johnson's leading officials put it.
For the first years of the conflict, the American military was boldly proclaiming victory
upon victory, as the communist body count mounted. However, the Tet Offensive of 1968
brought an alternative reality into the homes of the average American. On the evening of
31 January, as Vietnam celebrated the Lunar New Year, the VC launched a series of strikes
in more than 100 cities and towns, including Saigon. As the TV cameras rolled, a VC com-
mando team took over the courtyard of the US embassy in central Saigon. The Tet Offens-
ive killed about 1000 US soldiers and 2000 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN)