Chapter 10: Vietnam

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History Through Literature Unit 4

• Chapter 10 Vietnam

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French Indochina

• Vietnam was a colony of the France
• After Franc fell in WWII, the Japanese and Vichy
  France continued to rule it
• US with the OSS (CIA) began helping Ho Chi Minh
  fight
• After the war China invaded (occupied) North
  Vietnam until the French could take over.
• Vietnamese preferred the French

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French Indochina War

• Vietnamese decided that they wanted there own
  country.
• Ho Chi Minh declared independence in 1946
• Purges political parties
• Gets Emperor Bao Dia to abdicate
• 1946 1954
• 1950 Ho Chi Minh gets communist support from
  USSR and China
• French defeated at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu

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Geneva Accords 1956

• End of the French Indochina War.
• Divided Vietnam on 17th Parallel
• Unification to be decided in a country wide vote
• French allowed (US pressure) for Ngo Dinh Diem to
  become non-communist dictator of South
• US and Diem fear communists would win election
• Vote never happened

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Lu Duan

• Ho Chi Minh looses power Lu Duan becomes Prime
  Minister
• Ho Chi Minh becomes President (figurehead)
• Lu Duan wants to go to war in South against Diem
  and US

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Ngo Dinh Diem

• US puppet leader of South Vietnam
• Anti-communist
• Harsh and unpopular
• US turned a blind eye when a coup was carried out
  to remove him in 1963.
• Military dictatorship took over

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Vietminh and Vietcong

• Vietminh political party of the North that
  wanted independence from the French.
• Vietcong revolutionaries (communists) and
  guerilla fighters in Southern Vietnam.
• Vietcong started attacking targets in South
  Vietnam

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US Involvement

• 1963 Diem killed
• 1963 (few weeks later) Kennedy killed
• 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave President
  Johnson authority for military action
  (declaration of war)
• 1965 US starts bombing North Vietnam
• 1968 - Tet Offensive North Vietnam and Vietcong
  have a massive attack throughout Vietnam US won
  US public opinion low
• 1968 Johnson pulls out of Presidential race and
  Nixon wins
• 1969 Vietnimization Nixons plan to pull out
  and train the South to fight on
• 1970 US invade Cambodia (Ho Chi Minh Trail)
  to little to late

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Nixon and Protests and the End of the war

• Kent State Massacre/Ohio State Guard
• Not friend of the Peace movement
• He did keep the nation from falling apart
• Nixon escalates air war Hanoi most bombed city
• 1972 US troops drop from 500,000 to 20,000
• Nixon re-elected
• US signs the Paris peace accords (Kissinger) and
  all US participation ends in 1973.