Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Vietnam
The 17th Parallel
Robert C. Cottrell
Foreword by
Senator George J. Mitchell
Introduction by
James I. Matray
California State University, Chico
Dedicated to Sue and Jordan
Librarywww.chelseahouse.com
First Printing
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
ISBN: 0-7910-7834-5
Contents
Foreword by Senator George J. Mitchell vi
1 Geneva, 1954 1
2 Vietnamese History 13
3 French Colonization 22
4 Vietnamese Resistance 32
5 Vietnam at War 46
7 Dienbienphu 68
8 A Divided Vietnam 79
Bibliography 127
Index 133
Foreword
Senator George J. Mitchell
I spent years working for peace in Northern Ireland and in the Middle
East. I also made many visits to the Balkans during the long and vio-
lent conflict there.
Each of the three areas is unique; so is each conflict. But there are also
some similarities: in each, there are differences over religion, national
identity, and territory.
Deep religious differences that lead to murderous hostility are com-
mon in human history. Competing aspirations involving national iden-
tity are more recent occurrences, but often have been just as deadly.
Territorial disputes—two or more people claiming the same land—are
as old as humankind. Almost without exception, such disputes have been
a factor in recent conflicts. It is impossible to calculate the extent to which
the demand for land—as opposed to religion, national identity, or other
factors— figures in the motivation of people caught up in conflict. In my
experience it is a substantial factor that has played a role in each of the
three conflicts mentioned above.
In Northern Ireland and the Middle East, the location of the border
was a major factor in igniting and sustaining the conflict. And it is
memorialized in a dramatic and visible way: through the construction of
large walls whose purpose is to physically separate the two communities.
In Belfast, the capital and largest city in Northern Ireland, the so-called
“Peace Line” cuts through the heart of the city, right across urban streets.
Up to thirty feet high in places, topped with barbed wire in others, it is
an ugly reminder of the duration and intensity of the conflict.
In the Middle East, as I write these words, the government of Israel has
embarked on a huge and controversial effort to construct a security fence
roughly along the line that separates Israel from the West Bank.
FOREWORD vii
Having served a tour of duty with the U.S. Army in Berlin, which was
once the site of the best known of modern walls, I am skeptical of their
long-term value, although they often serve short-term needs. But it can-
not be said that such structures represent a new idea. Ancient China
built the Great Wall to deter nomadic Mongol tribes from attacking its
population.
In much the same way, other early societies established boundaries and
fortified them militarily to achieve the goal of self-protection. Borders
always have separated people. Indeed, that is their purpose.
This series of books examines the important and timely issue of the
significance of arbitrary borders in history. Each volume focuses atten-
tion on a territorial division, but the analytical approach is more com-
prehensive. These studies describe arbitrary borders as places where
people interact differently from the way they would if the boundary did
not exist. This pattern is especially pronounced where there is no geo-
graphic reason for the boundary and no history recognizing its legiti-
macy. Even though many borders have been defined without legal
precision, governments frequently have provided vigorous monitoring
and military defense for them.
This series will show how the migration of people and exchange of
goods almost always work to undermine the separation that borders seek
to maintain. The continuing evolution of a European community pro-
vides a contemporary example illustrating this point, most obviously
with the adoption of a single currency. Moreover, even former Soviet bloc
nations have eliminated barriers to economic and political integration.
Globalization has emerged as one of the most powerful forces in inter-
national affairs during the twenty-first century. Not only have markets
for the exchange of goods and services become genuinely worldwide, but
instant communication and sharing of information have shattered old
barriers separating people. Some scholars even argue that globalization
has made the entire concept of a territorial nation-state irrelevant.
Although the assertion is certainly premature and probably wrong, it
highlights the importance of recognizing how borders often have
reflected and affirmed the cultural, ethnic, or linguistic perimeters that
define a people or a country.
Since the Cold War ended, competition over resources or a variety of
interests threaten boundaries more than ever, resulting in contentious
viii FOREWORD
surrender of Japanese forces at the end of World War II. However, histo-
rians have presented persuasive evidence that a political contest existed
inside Korea to decide the future of the nation after forty years of
Japanese colonial rule. Therefore, Korea’s division at the 38th parallel was
an artificial boundary that symbolized the split among the Korean peo-
ple about the nation’s destiny. On the right were conservative landown-
ers who had closely aligned with the Japanese, many of whom were
outright collaborators. On the left, there were far more individuals who
favored revolutionary change. In fact, Communists provided the leader-
ship and direction for the independence movement inside Korea from
the 1920s until the end of World War II. After 1945, two Koreas emerged
that reflected these divergent ideologies. But the Korean people have
never accepted the legitimacy or permanence of the division imposed by
foreign powers.
Korea’s experience in dealing with the artificial division of its country
may well be unique, but it is not without historical parallels. The first set
of books in this series on arbitrary borders examines six key chapters in
human history. One volume will look at the history of the 38th parallel in
Korea. Other volumes will provide description and analysis of the division
of the Middle East after World War I; the Cold War as symbolized by the
Iron Curtain in Central Europe; the United States.-Mexico Border; the
17th parallel in Vietnam, and the Mason-Dixon Line. Future books will
address the Great Wall in China, Northern Ireland’s border, and the Green
Line in Israel. Admittedly, there are many significant differences between
these boundaries, but these books will cover as many common themes as
possible. In so doing, each will help readers conceptualize how factors
such as colonialism, culture, and economics determine the nature of con-
tact between people along these borders. Although globalization has
emerged as a powerful force working against the creation and mainte-
nance of lines separating people, boundaries are not likely to disappear as
factors with a continuing influence on world events. This series of books
will provide insights about the impact of arbitrary borders on human his-
tory and how such borders continue to shape the modern world.
James I. Matray
Chico, California
November 2003
1
Geneva,
1954
2 VIETNAM: THE 17TH PARALLEL
The Geneva conference on Indochina opened on May 8, 1954. After 10 weeks of negotia-
tion, the parties agreed to a temporary partition of Vietnam. The expectation was that
Vietnam would be reunited following national elections to be held within two years. That
expectation was never to be realized.
4 VIETNAM: THE 17TH PARALLEL
The French and the Americans distrusted one another, and the
Americans considered the British, who favored an artificial divi-
sion of Vietnam and wished to operate as peacemakers, too
weak. The Russians and the Chinese appeared mutually hostile
to one another, disproving the notion that all communists acted
in unison. Moreover, Zhou Enlai, drawing on a careful reading
of history, was opposed to the idea of a unified Vietnam,
whether placed under colonial or Vietnamese rule. At the same
time, he wanted to keep the United States out of Indochina and
avoid a repetition of the Korean War, in which the Chinese suf-
fered a million casualties. The Soviets, experiencing increasingly
strained relations with China, hoped for improved dealings with
the United States and adopted a less belligerent stance. Still,
British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden acknowledged that he
had never before encountered diplomatic maneuvering of this
sort: “The parties would not make direct contact, and we were in
constant danger of one or another backing out the door.”3
The United States apparently had little desire or few hopes that
a peaceful resolution of the conflict without communist control
over all of Indochina could be achieved in Geneva. Secretary of
State Dulles fired off instructions to the U.S. delegation on May
12, ordering them, in effect, not to deal with representatives
from China or other governments that the United States refused
to recognize. Dulles also ordered American delegates to present
themselves as representatives of an “interested nation” only, not
as a “belligerent or a principal.” American participation in
Geneva, Dulles continued, resulted from a desire to help nations
in Southeast Asia “peacefully to enjoy territorial integrity and
political independence under stable and free governments.” The
United States remained adverse to peoples in those countries
being “amalgamated into the Communist bloc of imperialistic
dictatorship.” Furthermore, the United States opposed any
action that would result in the subverting of “the existing lawful
governments” of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.4
Pham Van Dong continued to press the case of the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam, demanding that a political settlement
Geneva, 1954 7
Under the terms of the Geneva Accord, the partition at the 17th parallel provided the
Vietminh with the richest section of Vietnam, including control over Hanoi. Shown here in a
picture taken on October 9, 1954, barefoot children run into the streets to welcome the com-
munist Vietminh troops.
Vietnamese
History
14 VIETNAM: THE 17TH PARALLEL
*****
Gia Long possessed an insular attitude about Vietnamese
involvement with the West, but he did allow French missionaries
to remain in Vietnam. The French were not the first Westerners to
come to Southeast Asia: a Portuguese ship had landed in Malaya
in the early sixteenth century. Within a matter of decades, Spanish,
Dutch, French, and English seamen could be found on the Indian
Ocean and the South China Sea. Some Westerners came to trade
with the people of the region, and others were determined to con-
duct missionary enterprises. The first Western ship to appear in
Vietnam landed in 1535, when a Portuguese boat headed into the
Bay of Danang. Shortly thereafter, Portugal established a trading
station in Faifo (later called Hoi An), just south of Danang.
By the early seventeenth century, additional European trading
posts could be found along the seaboard. That period also saw
the first group of Jesuit missionaries—fresh from the Portuguese
colony in Macao—arrive in Faifo. Within a short while, however,
French churchmen, led by Alexander of Rhodes, began to sup-
plant the Portuguese. That scholar’s impact on Vietnamese his-
tory was considerable because he trained Vietnamese to become
Catholic priests and introduced the Roman alphabet to
Vietnam. These endeavors became controversial as concerns
spread that Catholicism endangered Confucian principles and
even allegiance to Vietnamese rulers. Edicts barred proselytizing
by Christians; many missionaries faced expulsion, and some suf-
fered an even harsher fate.
For a period, European involvement in Vietnam slackened
noticeably, but the dynastic squabbles of the latter stages of the
eighteenth century again afforded an opportunity for the French
to make inroads. The backing of a French bishop, Pigneau de
Behaine, helped bring about the defeat of the Trinh.
Nevertheless, Gia Long refused to give the French preferred
trade relations, as would his successor, Minh Mang. Indeed,
Minh Mang proved to be more heavy handed in his dealings
with Christian missionaries than Gia Long had been, and he per-
secuted Vietnamese who had converted to Catholicism.
Vietnamese History 19
negotiate with the French in part so that his forces could subdue
peasants in the North who were battling against mandarins they
considered corrupt. He also ordered an emissary to the United
States in 1873 in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain assistance
against French colonialism.
Vietnamese History 21
French
Colonization
French Colonization 23
*****
Soon after they had secured their rule in Indochina, the French began to mistreat the
native people. In 1926, when this photograph was taken, there were many large rubber
plantations in the province of Bie Hao, French Indochina. Landless peasants by the thou-
sands went to work in these plantations. These shown are pouring rubber sap into large
vats by hand.
PAUL DOUMER
The governor-general of Indochina
from 1897 to 1902, Paul Doumer was
the embodiment of French coloniza-
tion in the region and the leading
advocate of the establishment of
arbitrary borders to lengthen imperial
control. Striving to make Indochina a
profitable enterprise for France,
Doumer attempted to tighten the
existing colonial bureaucracy while
improving the economic condition of
French Indochina. This resulted in a
job freeze and a campaign to curb
administrative expenses, causing a
Paul Doumer was the governor-general on
centralized treasury to take control of Indochina from 1897–1902. He lived in
colonial budgets. Hanoi and oversaw French rule of
Under Doumer’s watch, taxes fell Cochinchina and the protectorates of
heavily on the Vietnamese populace, Annam, Tonkin, Cambodia, and Laos.
causing a great deal of resentment,
as did his extension of the infrastructure in the form of roads, bridges, and rail-
roads, which relied heavily on the forced labor of often overworked and disease-
riddled Vietnamese peasants. The French government’s monopolistic hold on
salt, opium, and alcohol also wore down the Vietnamese, many of whom labored
in coal mines and on rice plantations. Doumer’s government sponsored the use
of opium by the Vietnamese and ran a modern refinery in Saigon that produced
prepared opium fit for smoking by more affluent purchasers. The government
also set up government dens and shops where poorer workers could acquire the
drug. Opium use mushroomed, as did levels of addiction. The collected revenues
resulted in a budgetary surplus, the first in more than a decade. Doumer thus
was able to expand his public works program and to obtain a large loan that
helped with the building of hospitals and schools. Doumer witnessed the estab-
lishment of the Ecole Française d’Extreme-Orient—which first appeared in
Saigon in 1898—to offer an opportunity for elite education.
Residing in Hanoi, Doumer oversaw French rule of Cochinchina and the pro-
tectorates of Annam, Tonkin, Cambodia, and Laos. Doumer determinedly guided
a policy of pacification designed to eradicate guerrilla insurgencies, which
challenged the placement of the arbitrary borders that he helped create.
French Colonization 29
Vietnamese
Resistance
Vietnamese Resistance 33
In the late nineteenth century, French colonialists were forced to grapple with Vietnamese
guerrillas who had the tacit support of the emperor’s court.
and his depleted band of rebel fighters into the mountain area by
the Laotian border, where dysentery killed the great nationalist
leader in 1896.
Although the administration of Paul Doumer was particularly
determined to eradicate the vestiges of Vietnamese resistance,
opposition to French rule never entirely dissipated. Prince
Cuong De, who traced his claim to the throne to Gia Long,
hoped that Japan, which was undergoing a time of rapid mod-
ernization, might provide military assistance to drive out the
French colonialists in Vietnam. Japan’s stunning victory in the
Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, the first example in modern
times of an Asian nation defeating a major European power,
provided still more hope for Vietnamese nationalists.
In the first decade of the twentieth century, on the heels of
Doumer’s departure from Vietnam, two great nationalists, Phan
Boi Chau and Phan Chu Trinh, offered contrasting approaches
to expelling French colonialists and aradicating their arbitrary
borders. Born in the central province of Nghe An in 1867, Phan
Boi Chau began spearheading resistance efforts against the
French shortly after completing his mandarin examinations
with honors in 1900; his organization, Duy Tan Hoi, the
Reformation Society, first appeared in 1904. Phan Boi Chau
asserted that “the French treat our people like garbage.... The
meek are made into slaves, the strong-minded are thrown into
jail. The physically powerful are forced into the army, while the
old and weak are left to die.... The land is splashed with
blood.”27 Condemning antiquated feudal ways, Phan Boi Chau
championed modernization. Initially, Phan Boi Chau backed
the restoration of the monarchy, supporting Cuong De’s claim
to the throne.
After Japan’s sweeping victory over Russia, the two men
decided to spend time in the rising Asian powerhouse, hoping to
obtain backing for their campaign to reassert Vietnamese auton-
omy. Phan Boi Chau was drawn to the reformist program that
the Emperor Meiji seemed to accept for Japan. Heeding the
advice of the Japanese, Phan Boi Chau urged scores of young
36 VIETNAM: THE 17TH PARALLEL
Phan Chu Trinh’s plea, like Phan Boi Chau’s exhortations, res-
onated with the Vietnamese people, who were chafing at French
colonialism and the arbitrary borders that reinforced it. Some
intellectuals established the Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc, or the Free
School of Hanoi, hoping to foster Western and Chinese concepts
of a progressive cast. Within a matter of months, however, the
French shut the school down. All the while, Phan Chu Trinh
continued to disagree with Phan Boi Chau’s willingness to resort
to violence, instead maintaining a faith in French anticolonialists
that many other Vietnamese nationalists considered naïve.
Despite his nonviolent approach, however, Phan Chu Trinh was
arrested by the French and charged with provoking tax revolts in
Annam in 1908. Receiving a death sentence, Phan Chu Trinh
ended up on the island of Con Son, where other political dissi-
dents were sent. His release came after three years at Con Son
and was followed by a stay in France, where he sharply criticized
French colonial rule in Indochina.
*****
Vietnam
at War
Vietnam at War 47
We must rely on our own force with some outside help. When
the people absorb this beautiful idea of revolution, they will
create the strongest of forces. Everything because of the peo-
ple; everything for the people. People first, guns last. If we
have the people on our side, then we will have guns. If we have
the people, we will have everything.36
Ho Chi Minh spent many years fighting for Vietnamese independence. He is seen
here saddling a mule for a mission against the French in 1954.
*****
THE VIETMINH
The Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi, or the League for the Independence of
Vietnam, provided an organizational apparatus to battle French colonialism,
Japanese occupation during World War II, and the arbitrary borders France
had previously devised for Vietnam. In May 1941, the Eighth Plenum of the
Indo-Chinese Communist Party established the League, whose members
became known as the Vietminh. Headed by prominent communists such as
Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap, the Vietminh nevertheless adopted a front-
like posture to attract Vietnamese nationalists of all types. Moreover, the
Communist Party deliberately downplayed the call for social revolution,
emphasizing instead the need for all Vietnamese to battle against colonial
oppression.
The Vietminh adopted a strategy of guerrilla warfare, conducting insurgent
strikes in both rural and urban sections of Vietnam. In August 1945, the
Vietminh helped spark the August Revolution, which resulted in the procla-
mation of Vietnamese independence and the establishment of the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
From 1946 to 1954, the Vietminh fought against the French, a conflict that
concluded with one of the century’s most important battles, which occurred
at Dienbienphu. After the Geneva Accords of 1954, the Vietminh heeded calls
to lay down their arms, which resulted in the capture and execution of many
by soldiers and government agents associated with Ngo Dinh Diem’s regime
in South Vietnam. Nevertheless, Vietminh veterans began to urge peasants to
take land from the gentry throughout the Mekong Delta area and the rest of
the territory in Vietnam situated south of the 17th parallel.
Eventually, Vietminh forces would be reconstituted as members of the
National Liberation Front once another guerrilla war—this one—waged
against Diem and his American backers, broke out. That war continued the fight
to overcome arbitrary borders, both long-standing and new, afflicting Vietnam.
The French
Indochina War
56 VIETNAM: THE 17TH PARALLEL
General Vo Nguyen Giap was a talented Vietminh leader who turned a largely dis-
organized collection of guerrilla fighters into an army powerful enough to defeat
the French.
In December 1946, French troops came into Hanoi demanding that the Vietminh disarm.
They took up positions on rooftop perches where they could train their machine guns down
onto the street. This photo from January 1947 shows troops from the French Indochinese
Union Army in one such location.
*****
Dienbienphu
Dienbienphu 69
*****
After the surrender of the French troops to the Vietminh on May 8, 1954, 10,000 French
troops became prisoners of war. Some of these captured men are shown being marched
across the field after their surrender at Dienbienphu. This defeat ended nearly a century of
French occupation of Indochina.
A
Divided
Vietnam
80 VIETNAM: THE 17TH PARALLEL
This map of Indochina in 1954 shows the partition line between North and South
that was agreed upon by the parties who signed the Geneva Accord. This line, at
approximately the 17th parallel, did not satisfy anyone, but the communist
Vietnamese were particularly unhappy with it. Their ultimate goal remained the
reunification of their country.
82 VIETNAM: THE 17TH PARALLEL
*****
The United States thus cast its lot with the Republic of
Vietnam, headed by Bao Dai. Despite their desire for Bao Dai to
create a viable government, American policymakers feared, as
they had for some time, that the former emperor hardly seemed
credible as a rival to Ho. There did exist another model for some
American officials: Ramon Magsaysay of the Philippines. That
charismatic figure was a skillful enough politician and reformer
that he, along with counterinsurgent activities, had helped sub-
due the communist-led Huk guerrillas. Colonel Edward Geary
Lansdale, a former advertising executive, had provided valuable
public relations advice to Magsaysay. Lansdale then went to
Vietnam, where he met up with a Vietnamese nationalist chosen
by the United States to become prime minister under Bao Dai:
Ngo Dinh Diem. A staunchly nationalist anticommunist, Diem
had refused to continue in a ministerial post under a govern-
ment he saw as too beholden to the French. He had also refused
to work with Ho and then left Vietnam in 1950, undoubtedly to
escape assassination at the hands of the Vietminh, a fate suffered
by one of his brothers.
84 VIETNAM: THE 17TH PARALLEL
NATION BUILDING
In the wake of the apparent success in fostering an anticommunist demo-
cratic government in the Philippines and inconstructing arbitrary borders,
American policymakers believed that they could also create a viable nation-
state in the area south of the 17th parallel, another artificial partition estab-
lished by the demands of Cold War participants. As the policymakers saw it,
the United States was not a colonial power and had no designs of an impe-
rial cast in Southeast Asia. Rather, the United States only wanted to ensure
that the people in the southern part of Vietnam could experience economic
and political opportunities of the sort obviously denied to those living under
the Communist dictatorship in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. American
administrations from Truman onward denied that nationalist sentiments
associated with Ho Chi Minh and the Vietminh existed, considering the
Northern regime, like the guerrillas in the South, to be part of an international
communist conspiracy.
Clearly, U.S. intentions in Vietnam appeared altruistic, or so the American
public was led to believe. As it turned out, however, not all Vietnamese, com-
munist or not, agreed with this perception of developments in Southeast Asia.
For many, the United States came to be viewed as a neocolonial power deter-
mined to continue the Western rule established by the French. Fair or not, the
United States was considered arrogant, and the attempts to create a govern-
ment in the South were seen as heavy-handed and oppressive. Fueling such
perceptions was the association of the United States with a series of unpop-
ular and repressive governments in the South. As events unfolded, the United
States never did uncover a Vietnamese version of Ramon Magsaysay but was
saddled instead with the Ngo Dinh Diem and his successors.
Not all were pleased with the decision to back Diem or the
experiment in nation building in South Vietnam, the direct by-
product of the arbitrary border allowed by the Geneva
Accords. A National Intelligence Estimate delivered in August
1954 to the Eisenhower administration warned that the likeli-
hood of establishing a viable government was “poor,” and the
Joint Chiefs of Staff indicated that it would be “hopeless” to
construct an army without a “reasonably strong, stable civil
government in control.”76 Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson
A Divided Vietnam 85
This family portrait of President Ngo Dinh Diem and his family was taken in Saigon in 1963,
the same year that his regime was overthrown. Diem (second from the left, standing) and
his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu (left, standing) were subsequently murdered in the year this pho-
tograph was taken. The woman seated is Diem’s mother, shown with her grandchildren, the
children of Nhu and his wife.
The
Americanization
of the War
The Americanization of the War 95
Such a barrier, the Joint Chiefs warned, would take three com-
plete divisions, years to build, and a vast amount of construction
material. It would serve as an impediment only to thrusts by
large numbers of NVA troops and would fail to prevent seaborne
96 VIETNAM: THE 17TH PARALLEL
*****
*****
That did not endear Ky and Thieu to the vast majority of the
civilian populace in South Vietnam, who were increasingly
caught in the crossfire of a brutal war that appeared both civil
and colonial in nature. American policies were unpopular too,
particularly General William Westmoreland’s emphasis on
search-and-destroy missions, body counts, free fire zones
where pilots could strafe whatever targets they considered
essential, and the production of ever-greater numbers of
refugees forced into overpopulated slums in urban centers
throughout the South. For Westmoreland, the United States
and its South Vietnamese ally had to wage a “war of attrition”
against the enemy.
Few people in the Johnson administration proved willing to
challenge the president’s Vietnam policy. One who did so was
Undersecretary of State George Ball, who warned the president
in mid-1965:
KHE SANH
The scene of some of the bloodiest fighting of the Vietnam War, Khe Sanh is
a valley encircled by mountains, located a half-dozen miles from the Laotian
border and 14 miles from the demilitarized zone. In the summer of 1962, the
U.S. Military Assistance Command instructed a Special Forces unit to join
ARVN forces in setting up a surveillance camp outside the village of Khe
Sanh. Operating out of a base constructed in the valley, U.S. Study and
Observation Groups conducted a series of reconnaissance missions into Laos
to check out enemy infiltration along the Ho Chi Minh Trail near the border
drawn at the 17th parallel; those missions were designed to reinforce that
boundary. As the number of NVA troops coming down the trail increased in
1966, General Westmoreland ordered American Marines to build a base of
their own at Khe Sanh.
During the next spring, NVA fighters attacked a team of Marines west of
Khe Sanh. A firestorm of criticism resulted after a rescue patrol suffered
heavy losses because of the faulty performance of their M16 rifles. That
same period witnessed a series of assaults by Marines on the hills around
Khe Sanh, where tough, hand-to-hand fighting occurred. Later that year,
intelligence reports indicated that 25,000 to 40,000 NVA soldiers were gath-
ering for a major assault. General Westmoreland believed that the 6,000 U.S.
Marines stationed at Khe Sanh, along with massive firepower, could with-
stand an enemy offensive.
On January 22, 1968, the Battle of Khe Sanh began. Fearing that another
Dienbienphu would result, Westmoreland and President Johnson remained
determined that Khe Sanh would not fall. The U.S. forces relied heavily on
B-52s to pound enemy forces. Undoubtedly designed by the NVA as a diver-
sionary move, the attack on Khe Sanh soon was overshadowed by the Tet
Offensive. In March, the NVA units called off the siege of Khe Sanh; three
months later, General Creighton Abrams, the new commander of U.S. forces
in Vietnam, ordered the closing of American bases in Khe Sanh, which were
intended to maintain the border along the DMZ. The fight for Khe Sanh and
the Tet Offensive graphically demonstrated the artificiality of the border divid-
ing North and South Vietnam.
108 VIETNAM: THE 17TH PARALLEL
War’s End
and the
Aftermath
War’s End and the Aftermath 111
When President Nixon took office he initiated the withdrawal of some American troops
from Vietnam. However, protests of the war continued in the United States, including the
demonstration shown here at the Washington Monument on Moratorium Day, November
15, 1969.
This proved true during the invasion of Laos, known as Lam Son
719, when the South Vietnamese experienced terrible losses.
Kissinger believed that ARVN units opted to withdraw quickly,
fearing a large North Vietnamese attack that could result in a
massacre of their own forces.
A continually frustrating problem for the United States
involved the plight of several hundred servicemen, most of them
aviators, held as prisoners of war (POWs) by the VC or the
North Vietnamese. Starting in May 1971, Kissinger began par-
ticipating in secret meetings with North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho,
in which the American policy advisor indicated that the United
States would remove its remaining troops from South Vietnam
in return for the release of the POWs. The North Vietnamese
delegate insisted that his country would not accept an armistice,
or truce, until the South Vietnamese government, headed by
President Nguyen Van Thieu since 1967, was replaced by one
that included VC members.
When the attempt to resolve matters diplomatically failed, the
North Vietnamese, seeking to drive Thieu from power, con-
ducted another major offensive. In the spring of 1972, North
Vietnamese troops led by General Vo Nguyen Giap flooded
across the 17th parallel. Attacks occurred in South Vietnam’s
northern sectors, across the Central Highlands, and then near
Saigon itself. The NVA offensive surprised the South
Vietnamese, whose commander in the northern sector, General
Lam, did not believe the communists would violate the Geneva
Accords so flagrantly. He had previously insisted that the North
Vietnamese simply could not move over the 17th parallel.
The enemy forces, President Nixon reflected in his diary, were
more willing than their ARVN counterparts to make the kinds of
sacrifices that would result in victory. To prevent the collapse of the
South Vietnamese regime during the so-called Easter Offensive,
Nixon undertook massive bombing strikes against the north, rely-
ing on B-52s to carry out Operation Linebacker I. Targets previ-
ously off-limits to American planes were now hit; Haiphong was
mined and a naval blockade was instituted against North Vietnam.
116 VIETNAM: THE 17TH PARALLEL
*****
121
CHRONOLOGY & TIMELINE
111B.C.
China’s Han dynasty
conquers Nam Viet 1930
Ho Chi Minh helps
found the Indochinese
1500 Communist Party
Europeans begin to
make inroads into 1862
Vietnam The Treaty of
Saigon is signed
111B.C. 1802
1930
The reign of the Emperor
Gia Long begins
1850
French incursions take
hold with Vietnamese
resistance resulting
939 1883
Ngo Quyen drives out The French establish
the Chinese and reestablishes a protectorate
the state of Vietnam over Vietnam
122
CHRONOLOGY & TIMELINE
1940—45 1948
The Japanese French name former
effectively emperor Bao Dai head
rule Vietnam of Vietnam
1945
Ho Chi Minh declares 1965
the establishment President Johnson
of the Democratic sends American ground
Republic of Vietnam troops to Vietnam
1940 1973
1954
Battle of Dienbienphu
123
NOTES
124
NOTES
125
NOTES
88. Ibid., p. 215. Line: The Siege of Khe Sanh. New York: W.
89. Quoted in David Halberstam, The Best W. Norton & Company, 2002, p. 70.
and the Brightest. New York: Random 100. Quoted in “Address by Commander of
House, 1969. U.S. Forces in Vietnam, Gen. William C.
90. Quoted in “Resolution of the Ninth Westmoreland,” November 21, 1967,
Conference of the Lao Dong Party Vietnam: A History in Documents, p. 354.
Central Committee,” December 1963, 101. Quoted in Martin Luther King Jr.,
Vietnam: A History in Documents, p. 257. “Declaration of Independence from the
91. Quoted in Olson and Roberts, Where the War in Vietnam (April 1967),” in Against
Domino Fell, p. 118. the Vietnam War: Writings by Activists.
92. Quoted in “The Senate Debates the Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press,
Tonkin Gulf Resolution,” August 6–7, 1999, p. 102.
1964, in A Vietnam Reader, pp. 75–76. 102. Quoted in Turley, The Second Indochina
93. Quoted in “Undersecretary of State War, p. 108.
George Ball’s Memo to President 103. Quoted in Pisor, The End of the Line, p.
Johnson,” July 1, 1965, A Vietnam Reader, 236.
p. 87.
94. Quoted in Schulzinger, A Time for War, p.
178. Chapter 10
95. Quoted in J. William Fulbright, The
104. Quoted in Hearden, The Tragedy of
Arrogance of Power. New York: Random
Vietnam, p. 153.
House, 1967.
105. Quoted in Schulzinger, A Time for War, p.
96. Quoted in Herring, America’s Longest
299.
War, p. 208.
97. Quoted in Olson and Roberts, Where the 106. Quoted in “The Final Declarations of the
Domino Fell, p. 158. Geneva Conference,” July 21, 1954, in A
98. Ibid. Vietnam Reader, p. 40–42.
99. Quoted in Robert Pisor, The End of the 107. Quoted in Moss, Vietnam, p. 395.
126
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cooper, Chester L. The Lost Crusade. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1970.
Currey, Cecil B. Victory at Any Cost: The Genius of Viet Nam’s Gen. Vo
Nguyen Giap. Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, Inc., 1999.
Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random
House, 1969.
Hoopes, Townsend. The Devil and John Foster Dulles. Boston: Little,
Brown, 1973.
Long, Ngo Vinh. Before the Revolution: The Vietnamese Peasants under
the French. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.
127
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Olson, James S., and Randy Roberts. Where the Dominoes Fell: American
and Vietnam, 1945–1995. St. James, NY: Brandywine Press, 1999.
Pisor, Robert. The End of the Line: The Siege of Khe Sanh. New York: W.
W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2002.
Prados, John. The Blood Road: The Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Vietnam
War. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1998.
Schulzinger, Robert D. A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam,
1941–1975. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
128
FURTHER READING
Books
Allen, Douglas, and Ngo Vinh Long, Eds. Coming to Terms: Indochina,
the United States, and the War. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991.
Dawson, Alan. 55 Days: The Fall of South Vietnam. New York: Prentice-
Hall, 1977.
129
FURTHER READING
130
FURTHER READING
Olson, James, Ed. Dictionary of the Vietnam War. New York: Peter
Bedrick Books, 1987.
Roy, Jules. The Battle of Dienbienphu. New York: Carroll & Graf
Publishers, 2002.
Shaplen, Robert. The Lost Revolution. New York: Harper & Row, 1965.
Shultz, Richard H., Jr. The Secret War Against Hanoi: The Untold Story of
Spies, Saboteurs, and Covert Warriors in North Vietnam. New York:
Perennial, 2000.
Simpson, Howard R. Dien Bien Phu: The Epic Battle American Forgot.
Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s Inc., 1996.
Tucker, Spencer C., Ed. The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political,
Social, and Military History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
VanDemark, Brian. Into the Quagmire: Lyndon Johnson and the
Escalation of the Vietnam War. New York: Oxford, 1995.
Wells, Tom. The War Within: America’s Battle over Vietnam. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1994.
131
FURTHER READING
Zaroulis, Nancy and Gerald Sullivan. Who Spoke Up?: American Protest
against the War in Vietnam 1963–1975. Garden City, NY: Doubleday
& Company, Inc., 1984.
Articles
132
INDEX
133
INDEX
Khe Sanh
Geneva Conference of 1954, 1–12, 111 synopsis of, 107
acknowledgements of, 10–11
arguments over the divide, 9–10
conference about Vietnam, 2 Lattre Line, de
and the fall of Mendes–France French forts built, 65
government, 10 Lattre, General Jean de
as five-power conference, 2 orders in French Indochinese War, 65–66
misgivings of France and Vietminh, 11–12 Le Dynasty
misgivings of United States and Vietnam, battle with Champa, 16
11–12 Long, Gia
opening day, 2 insular attitude about Vietnam, 18–19
partition of Vietnam, 2–3 Ly Dynasty, emergence of, 15–16
turmoil with, 82–83
as two divided hot spots, 2
Giap, Vo Nguyen Matray, James I., 134
attack on French troops, 64–65 McClintock, Rob
attacks on South Vietnamese, 115–116 on Diem, 8
call for guerilla forces, 53–54 McNamara Line, The
photograph with caption, 57 establishment of, 95–97
role in the Vietnam War, 51 and the Jason Group, 96–97
strike on Lai Chau, 72–73 McNamara, Robert
Guerrilla forces, 7 Americanization of the war, 95–97
Mendes–France, Pierre
on Enlai, 8
Hanoi Free School Geneva conference and the fall of his gov-
established during Vietnamese ernment, 10
resistance, 37 Prime Minister of France, 7
Harmand, General Jules strive to bring the war in Indochina to
warning to the Vietnamese, 33–34 rest, 7
Ho Chi Minh Trail Minh, Ho Chi, 4
building of, 89–90 analysis of his homeland, 8–9
Hoopes, Townsend attempt to reach out to the United States,
as Dulles’ biographer, 4–5 59–61
encounter with Enlai, 42
issuance of Declaration of Independence,
Indochina 58–59
French domination in, 21–31 and the plight of his countrymen, 44–45
map of, 81 referenced as Ho, 8–9
and the Whites Man’s Burden’, 21 return to Vietnam, 47–49, 51
Indochinese Communist Party schooling of, 38–41
134
INDEX
135
INDEX
136
PICTURE CREDITS
page:
Frontis Courtesy of the Library of Congress 61 Associated Press, AP
Geography & Map Division 73 Associated Press, AP
77 Associated Press, VIETNAM NEWS
3 Associated Press, AP AGENCY
9 Associated Press, AP 81 © Bettmann/CORBIS
26 © Bettmann/CORBIS 92 Associated Press, AP
28 © Hulton|Archive by Getty Images 101 Associated Press, AP
34 © Leonard de Selva/CORBIS 103 Associated Press, AP
49 © Hulton|Archive by Getty Images 114 Associated Press, AP
57 Associated Press, AP
137
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
138