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Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was an international Cold War conflict for control of South Vietnam involving North Vietnam and its allies against South Vietnam, the United States, and their allies between 1957 and 1975. The war had four distinct periods characterized by the nature of the conflict and the nationality of the combatants: a period of civil war (1957-1964), the Americanization (1964-1969), the Vietnamization (1969-1973), and the end (1974-1975).
Overview
The war originated from the unresolved antagonisms implicit in the Geneva Accords (1954) and French and U.S. Cold War ambitions, namely to "contain" the spread of communism. The Geneva Accords promised elections in 1956 to determine a national government for a united Vietnam. Neither the United States government nor Ngo Dinh Diem's State of Vietnam signed anything at the 1954 Geneva Conference. With respect to the question of reunification, the non-communist Vietnamese delegation objected strenuously to any division of Vietnam, but lost out when the French accepted the proposal of Viet Minh delegate Pham Van Dong,[1] who proposed that Vietnam eventually be united by elections under the supervision of "local commissions".[2] The United States countered with what became known as the "American Plan," with the support of South Vietnam and the United Kingdom.[3] It provided for unification elections under the supervision of the United Nations, but was rejected by the Soviet delegation and North Vietnamese.[4]
Due to the stalemate, North Vietnam created two organizations. The National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF) was a political organization to establish civil government for the South Vietnamese regions controlled by its military arm, the Viet Cong (VC). The political/military actions of the NLF and VC against the Diem regime in South Vietnam, and Diem's escalation against the NLF/VC, essentially started a civil war. The climatic event of the civil war period was the Buddhist crisis in 1963 ending in the assassination of Ngo by a CIA-backed operation authorized by President Kennedy. .... (read more)
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