The Super Summary of World History (93 page)

After 30 years of war, Vietnam was conquered by the communists. Who were the winners? The communist leaders of North Vietnam were the clear winners. And who were the losers? The people of South Vietnam were the clear losers. Why did the South lose? The people of South Vietnam failed to find the fortitude to resist the invaders. South Korea won with American help because they were determined to maintain their freedom. South Vietnam lost because such determination went missing. How about the people of North Vietnam, did they win? No, they too lost. Only the leadership won. The millions of North Vietnamese bones littering Southeast Asia’s landscape is proof enough the people of North Vietnam paid a horrible price for their leader’s vision.

Background

After World War II, France re-established its control over Vietnam, its pre-World War II colony in Indochina. During the war the Japanese controlled the area using it as a base for attacking China and dominating the nearby sea lanes. After the Japanese surrender the Allies left the Japanese troops there to maintain order because communist guerillas were operating in Indochina, and without Japanese help they may have taken over before the French returned.

The French came back as the Japanese left. Japan believed the Vietnamese were racially inferior to them and had treated them harshly. The return of the French to their old colony might seem like a reprieve from oppression, but the French put their old administration back in place which favored the Catholic minority and generally continued to treat the Vietnamese as inferior.
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Meanwhile,
Ho
Chi
Minh
had been leading a war against the Japanese. Now he would lead his troops against the French.

In Southeast Asia, Ho Chi Minh (Ho) would use Mao’s guerilla war tactics to defeat the French in Vietnam and expand communist domination to the rest of Indochina. These plans were laid out in Moscow prior to the death of Stalin
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and only came to light after the fall of the Soviet Union. Some Western scholars and politicians maintained the wars in Korea and Vietnam were civil wars having nothing to do with forces outside the divided nations.
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Other academics had maintained the wars were part of a unified communist effort to push the West out of Asia. It turns out the wars were part of a unified plan to oust the West and its democratic ideology.

The communist dictators, Mao and Stalin, thought the West (mainly the United States) would not fight for Korea or Vietnam. In the actual event, the United States and United Nations intervened in Korea and fought the communists to a stalemate, but in Vietnam the French received less help and the United States found itself involved in Vietnam shortly after the French departed. How is it that the United States fell short in helping the French hold Vietnam but later on committed hundreds of thousands of its troops to continue the same war? This surrealistic chain of events must be examined to understand the Vietnam War.

Originally, the French were effectively fighting Ho Chi Minh’s guerillas, although they were a growing threat. The 1949 fall of nationalist China to the communists changed the picture entirely. Now Ho received extensive aid that easily flowed from the USSR through communist China to Southeast Asia. The fall of China to the Reds (communists) was one of the most important events of the Cold War. The Korean War and the Vietnam War stemmed directly from that disaster caused by Truman’s miserly assistance
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to the nationalists, and huge blunders by General Marshall who advised the president on the situation. In addition, there were the usual failures of US intelligence.

Once Ho was being well supplied he stepped up his campaign against the French. The strategy consisted of first gaining control of the countryside and its peasants by indoctrination of the villagers or by murdering the village leaders and replacing them with loyal communists. After the countryside was under control, larger attacks on the government would start with the goals of disrupting the economy and draining the resources and morale of the enemy. Meanwhile, additional emphasis would be placed on infiltration into the cities and establishing urban revolutionary cadres. In the final phase of the war, all-out assaults in World War II style would be launched against the French while communists revolutionaries in the cities would simultaneously rise up to overthrow the French supported government. After a series of major defeats the French would give up and leave.

The communists obtained help from the peasants through generous promises of more land and food. If cooperation from the peasants fell short, they would turn to indoctrination and then coercion. The communists counted on having excellent intelligence because they would infiltrate the government, both civilian and military, at every level. Even military secretaries were working for the Reds. The Reds would also take advantage of the corruption which riddled the society and the government in South Vietnam.

At first, the French won several bloody set piece battles
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with the communists, but they were losing control of the countryside. After these losses Ho returned to guerrilla warfare forcing the French to spread their forces to protect many vital points of communication, command, and control. Communist ambushes of convoys became common. These ambushes cut French communications and causing numerous casualties. Because the French could not spread their units out and remain strong everywhere the insurgents struck where the French were weak causing French casualties and lowering morale. In the countryside the communists were stealing the crops from the villagers to feed their men, forcing young villagers to join their units, levying taxes on areas they controlled, and causing widespread discontent with the government.
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After years of conflict, the communist forces gained more control and built up their army to challenge the French to set piece battles once more. The war came to a strategic focal point at the battle for
Dien
Bien
Phu
in
1954
.
Dien Bien Phu was a large fortified French base with an airstrip in northern Vietnam near the Chinese border. The base was placed across a key enemy supply route to help stop infiltration of supplies and men into Vietnam from China. It was vital for the communists to remove this supply impediment. As the communists increased pressure on the base, the elite French Foreign Legion reinforced it. The engagement became one of prestige as much as military importance. Politically, it was a fight the French had to win.

Unfortunately, the French chose the battle site poorly. Their base was in a valley overlooked by rugged jungle-covered mountains which were perfect for concealment. In these mountains the communists dug in long-range artillery and antiaircraft guns. The French did not know the communists had these long range weapons. The French counted on their air force to resupply the base in case the roads were cut. The problem was the airstrip was under artillery fire from the moment the big guns were in place. The well sighted antiaircraft guns, concealed by the jungle, were able to ravage the French Air Force as their fighter-bombers descended to attack the hills crawling with hidden communist troops and long-range artillery.

The roads supplying the base were cut, trapping the French forces in Dien Bien Phu. Airdrops achieved some reinforcement and resupply to the trapped men, but the situation for the well-shelled troops inside the fragmenting underground citadel was anything but happy. As massive artillery barrages collapsed French positions, heavy infantry attacks engulfed their outlying strong points one by one. As always, the Foreign Legion fought bravely and savaged the Reds as they rushed forward. The communist casualties will never be known, but thousands upon thousands died in the assaults. Incredible Legion bravery and large enemy casualties made no difference as the fanatic Reds swarmed over shattered French bunkers.

Eisenhower Stays Out

The French had been asking for more American help all along, but now they increased their pleas. The French foreign minister flew to Washington to meet with President Eisenhower. The problem was that the French wanted massive American intervention, far more than an increase in the aid already being given. They needed American troops, materials, and anything and everything the United States could send in mass. To Eisenhower this sounded like another Korea, and he had just managed to end the fighting in that place. Plus, the French were asking the Americans to fight so France could keep a colony. Eisenhower thought Americans would balk at this idea.
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Finally, the French asked the Americans to use the atomic bomb or give it to them so they could use it. Eisenhower once more demurred, and the French went home empty-handed. I think this decision hurt American relations with the French for decades to come. America had helped Korea why not help France, our old ally?

The real reason behind Eisenhower’s refusal was his good sense for foreign affairs. Eisenhower did not want to commit America unless there was a
vital
national
interest
. This concept is critically important to understanding how a nation decides when and where to use its resources. A nation needs to closely define its VITAL national interests. Such vital interests may be military, economic, or whatever; but it must be agreed by the leadership and the people that these interests are so critical they are worth going to war over. Nations should commit their blood and treasure only on interests where national survival is at stake. At this point, we should note that totalitarian regimes do not have to consult the people on anything, so these kinds of definitions only apply to democracies (although dictatorships would be well served by following this rule).

Nations often fail to analyze their vital national interests properly. Note the problem with the Japanese analysis of their vital national interest prior to World War II. Japan decided China must be conquered as a vital national interest; therefore, the military must be supplied and oil and other resources must be obtained for military conquest. The US was standing in the way of Japan obtaining oil and other military supplies, and telling Japan to back off China; thus, America must be attacked as they were thwarting Japan’s achieving a vital national interest.
Do
you
see
the
flaw
? The conquest of China, or not, would not affect the survival of Japan. Japan had decided the conquest of China was a vital national interest, but why? In fact, they just wanted to conquer China. Japan could have chosen to stop at taking Manchuria and Korea and they would have survived just fine. One might decide to attack a nation that threatened them, but China was no threat to Japan in the 1930s. As such, war with the West was not justified in terms of Japan’s vital national interest. The Japanese leadership determined Japan was a “have not” nation and must acquire territory to become a “have” nation. They further concluded Japan would always be under the thumb of America and Britain without the conquest of China. Oddly, after WWII, Japan was totally under control of the United State and it prospered as never before. It should have been clear in 1930 that Japan’s move on China was unwise, and no challenge to America or the United Kingdom was necessary to remain a viable, prosperous country. Thus, the analysis of vital national interests
must
be
competent
if a nation is to expend its blood and treasure wisely.

Eisenhower clearly discerned that Vietnam was not a vital national interest of the United States. Protecting France from humiliation was not in that category either. Giving France the atomic bomb, or using it himself, could lead to worldwide complications—something Eisenhower wanted to avoid. The result was that France was getting no additional assistance from the United States.

Eisenhower had applied the correct formula for intervention abroad. The presidents that followed him would not be so wise because the philosophy changed when the men holding the top office changed. Eisenhower wanted to stay with the vital national interest analysis because it kept the United States out of foreign entanglements unless they had supreme importance.
Nixon
, Eisenhower’s vice president who lost the race for the presidency in 1960, felt the same way. Presidents after Eisenhower decided when to send troops based on other concepts, and the results have been less than ideal as shown by public disenchantment with their policies.

The Fall of Dien Bien Phu

1954

With their backs to the wall, the French Foreign Legion at Dien Bien Phu fought on. Waves of artillery and enemy troops broke over the beleaguered fort and its exhausted defenders as French resistance bled away. Dien Bien Phu fell in 1954, and the communists captured about 16,500 tattered Frenchmen. The Reds paid a high price for the base (their casualties are unknown but thought to be thirty to fifty thousand), but they had it. They also had the French public. The people of France wanted out of the endless war in Southeast Asia.

At the peace talks the French gave the North to the communists while the South was to have elections to decide who would rule there. But the South did not hold elections, and a quasi-dictator, Diem, took the reins of power setting up the Republic of South Vietnam. The war was on again, but the nation of South Vietnam was weak and would fall quickly fighting against the experienced communist troops flooding down from the North.

America
Steps
In
(it)

1964

1962—Military
Advisors

John F. Kennedy became president of the United States in 1960. Kennedy ran against Richard M. Nixon, the vice president under Eisenhower. As history weirdly turned out, Kennedy would start the American involvement in Vietnam and Nixon would end it many years later. In between these two men a series of incompetent decision makers created national angst over the involvement.