Vietnam: A History

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A · ry The Frrst Complete Account of Vietnam atWar

A Penguin Book

"This is history writing at its best." -Chicago Sun-Times This monumental narrative clarifies, analyzes, and demystifies the tragic ordeal ofthe Vietnam war. Free ofideological bias, profound in its understanding, and compassionate in its human portrayals, it is filled with fresh revelations drawn from secret documents and from exclusive interviews with the participants-French, American, Vietnamese, Chinese; diplomats, military commanders, high government officials; journalists, nurses, workers, soldiers.

Vietnam: A History puts events and decisions into such sharp focus that we come to understand-and make peace witha convulsive epoch of our recent history. "Even those of us who think we know something about it will read with fascination." -The New York Times

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The War Nobody Won

The town of Langson, near the border of China, was partly destroyed when Chinese forces invaded Vietnam in early 1979. The Vietnamese preserve the ruins as testimony to what they call Chinese aggression.

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The Vietnam memorial ill Washil1gtoll, D.C., a wall of polished black granite bearing the names of 57,939 Americmls who died or are missillg ill actioll ill the Vietnam war, was dedicated ill November 1982.

Wounded veterans watch a soccer match in Vietnam after the war. Though Vietnamese authorities never published the figures, estimates are that the Communists lost some 600,000 men in the struggle.

Thousands of Vietnam veterans and their families appeared in Washington in November 1982 to commemorate the American soldiers who died in the war. They participated irl a parade arId other ceremorlies, ineluding a vigil at the Narional arhedral.

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A few of the one m'II' more than I Ion V' who fled V' letnamese I etnam aifte war. These "b r the languish b oat people" ' a oard a shl'p , an/Ia B In M auth ' ~y, awaiting , ~Ylzatlon by the PhILIppine land Th government to , ousands of rejUgees are still con /; to camps th roughout':J,ned ' S outheast A Sla.

A Texan with t he family or V' 'J letnamese ,t;, has adopt d reJ ..gees she h' e , Nearl ya , aif-million V.letname Immigrated to the ~e States fioII oWIng . V'United conquest b h letnam's Co y t e mmunlsts ill A '/ 1975. pYl

Peasants in Tayninh, a province in the southern part of Vietnam, work in an area defoliated by American herbicides during the war. Many of the 250,000 acres offorest in the area, ruined in 1966 alone, remained barren for years after the war.

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The mausolelwl in Hanoi cOlltaillillg the embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh is one oj the few Ilew stYl/eture bllilt ill the city. The mal/solel/m, desigrled by Soviet architects, IVa modeled 011 Lellil/' tomb ill Mo (OIV. Ho died ill eptelllber 1969.

A "re-education" camp in southern Vietnam for former Saigon government officers arrested after the war. More than 50,000 political prisoners remain in such camps, many of them suffering from mistreatment and hunger.

Peasants at a "cooperative," the government euphemism for a collective farm, in southern Vietnam. The Communist authorities were compelled to reverse the collectivizatioll programs ill the years after the war, when peasant opposition reduced food prod•.wiol1.

Young Vietnamese in Ho Chi Minh City continue to defy "socialist transformation." nre T-shirt is either a remnant from the American period or a new copy, and the motor scooters are fueled by black-market gasoline.

'rile mall/urs alld mores of the old regime corltilll/e ill Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigol/, despite the omllll4llist takeover. 71~lo yor"'g prostitutes ply their trade near YOlltils peddlil/,(I black-markef Allleri all cr;l/arette .

Ne of tile saddest legacies of tile war are Amerasian cllildren like this girl, the offsprirlg of a GI and a Vietnamese woman. Ostracized by the ommunists, they survive by beggillg or hawking black-market wares.

The skulls piled up in Phnompenh, capital of Cambodia, are those of victims ofgenocide carried out by the Khmer Rouge, the Cambodian Communist movement. As many as two million people may have beer! slaughtered in the purge.

Piety and Power

I /II/ltis Cart/ier, a heroic French officer, led an attack against the Citadel irl Hanoi. J If' 11'(1.1 killed, as seen here, by lIIercetwries fighth/JZ Jor the Vietrlamese in December Ilf/i. A(('oll/w oj his (O/lrage spfirmlllll' ,.."t'III'h irnperialist drille to I'M/qUe/' Vietnam.

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An eighteenth-centttry European view of Torzkin, the northern area of Vietnam. The British and Dutch had designated areas in which foreign traders were permitted to maintain commercial posts.

Pierre Pigneau de Behaine, bishop of Adran, the Catholic missionary who first evoked France's interest in Vietnam in the late eighteenth century. He befriended a pretender to the Viettlamese throl/e, N.ft11yen Anh (Cia LOI/J!) , who foul/ded a dynasty.

Prince Canh, the young son oj Nguyen Anh, who accompanied Monsignor Pigneau de Bihaine to the court oj Louis XVI at Versailles, where he caused a sensation. His exotic cosiume, contrived Jor the visit, was more Indian than Vietnamese.

de Rhodes, the who traveled IIIIlIllgl1 Asia in the • lil'I/IN'lIth cenlury. An IIIll111lfJlished linguist, he " IIlmlll system, still in 1I1I' lodlly, to transcribe the I 'I I'll/III/leSe language in 1'1111/111/ letters instead oj ,''''1/1'.11' ideo.'Zraphs. /111',\'1/11111'1'

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Emperor Minh Mang, who ruled Vietnam in the early nineteenth century. The son of Gia Long, founder of the Nguyen dynasty, Minh Mang was a gentle scholar whom French propagandists of the time depicted as a cruel tyrant.

The port of Faifo, on the Vietnamese coast, was one of the first European trading stations in Vietnam. It was founded by Portuguese merchants, but commerce with Vietnam failed to make much headway until the early twentieth century.

Jean-Baptiste de Chaigneau, a French soldier offortune who entered the service of Emperor Gia Long. Married to a Vietnamese woman, he was promoted by the emperor to the rank of mandarin first class. Many Europeans served Asian rulers as mercenaries.

III//liral Pierre Paul de 1.11 ;ralldiere, a French Ill/crt/or oj Cochinchina /11 Ille rllid-nineteenth IllIl/ry, A Ilirtual Iliceroy, lit' j/'cqueHtly acted without 1I,(I'rel/ce 10 gOllernment /111/1 y made in Paris,

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A French Ilersion oj the execution by the Vietnamese oj Father Borie, a Catholic missionary, Relatillely jew European priests were executed in Vietnam, but their martyrdom was publicized in France to stir up religious jerllor.

Phan Thanh Giang, a prominent Vietnamese mandarin oj the nineteenth century, tralleled to Paris to negotiate a treaty with Napoleon III. When the French Iliolated the pact, Phan committed suicide after pledging his sons neller to cooperate with Fra II ce ,

An engraving of the Mekong made by a French exploratory expedition. Asian folklore held that the river represented a sacred serpent that wound its way down .from Tibet into Southeast Asia.

The French expedition organized in 1868 to explore the Mekong pauses on the steps of Angkor Wat, the great Cambodian temple. The group believed that the Mekong was a waterway to China, and would thus serve as a major trade route, but it was not always navigable and thus poor for trade.

;ctllamese portrayal of a French battle in Vietnam in 1884. The French soldiers r(lIht) are supported by Vietnamese auxiliaries, distinguishable by their bare I ,'t, The fleeing forces (left) are Chinese who have invaded Vietnam to profit from the IIIIIlfT

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Vietnam at the turn of the century was populated by French adventurers like the weapons merchant Jean Dupuis, dressed here in a Chinese costume. He persuaded the French to launch an attack against Tonkin, the northern part ofVietnam.

No figure during the late nineteenth century did more to promote French imperialism in Vietnam than Prime Minister Jules Ferry. A liberal politician, he considered colonialism to be vital to France's industrial growth.

The French maintained the fiction of "protecting" the areas of Tonkin and Annam through a Vietnamese government. One puppet emperor was Dong Khanh, who was selected to rule because of his docility. The French often sent recalcitrant Vietnamese emperors into exile.

3 The Heritage of

Vietnamese Nationalism

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'Ii-jeu Au, the Vietnamese equivalent ofJoan of Are, fought for Vietnam's iI/dependence against Chirla in the third centllry A. D. Defeated at the age of twentythree, she committed suicide. lie I still worshiped as a sacred figure.

The economy of Vietnam, like that of all Southeast Asia, is based on the cultivation of rice-a technique learned .from the Chinese. Crowing rice requires two factors: manual labor alld water, both plentifUl in Vietrlam.

'. ",' 1\ wealrhy Vietllamese couple phoroj!raphed il'l front oj their luxurious !Jilla ill the /'"rly twel'llierh cerl/ury. The mall is wearillg his French decoratio'l and Western shoes. Ilis wife's /ems firl,
Two senior French officers, General Philippe Leclerc (left) and Admiral Thierry d'Argenlieu, confer in Saigon in 1945 as they plan to reimpose France's rule in Vietnam. Behind d'Argenlieu is General Douglas Gracey, the British commander who was ,assigned to disarm the Japanese in southern Vietnam.

Ho Chi Minh in 1946 with General Leclerc (left) and Jean Sainteny, a French emissary. Sainteny later acted as an intermediary between President Nixon and the Vietnamese Communists in 1969.

General Vo Nguyen Giap, Vietminh commander, reviewing troops in northern Vietnam in 1951 as the war with France began to gather momentum. The Vietminh sustained serious setbacks during the early period of the war because Giap overextended its forces.

Ho Chi Minh seated, in casual attire, flanked by his senior comrades (left to right) Pham Van Dong, Truong Chinh, and Vo Nguyen Giap. Truong Chinh borrowed his pseudonym, which means Long March, from the famous exploit of the Chinese Communists in 1934.

Armed women warriors of the Hoa Hao, a reformist religious sect founded in the Mekong delta. Like most religious cults in Vietnam, the Hoa Hao rapidly developed into a private army that operated mainly for the benefit of its leaders.

A leader of the Cao Dai religious sect with armed troops of the organization. The ornate temple, located near the southern Vietnamese town of Tayninh, displays statues of the sect's saints, among them Jesus, Buddha, and Joan of Arc.

5 The Light That Failed

No Chi Mi"h and his 11l~f!" (ommand plamlitlg the battle of Dienbienphu in their

jun.f!Ie headquarters. At r((!IIt is Ge"eral Vo Nguyetl Giap, commander oflhe Viet",;,,1, Jorces.

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Bao Dai, cJlOSefl by the Frellc" to be the pflppet emperor oj Vietnam, seen here as a boy i1/ Paris, where the Frmch sent him to be educated. He lived with a French fizmily and acquired a partiwfar afficrioll Jor Frellch girls. He also [eamed to play te1H1is.

Late ill 1949, Secretary of State Achesoll (below, at right) persuaded President Truman to earmark $15 million in aid to the French Jorces itl bldochitla. Over the next Jour years, American assistat'ICe Jor the French war mOlH/ted to more tlla1l S2 billioll.

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Baa Dai abdicated jn 1945 and then fled to Hong Kong, wllere he was caricawred by Al Hirschfeld, then 0" 0 world tOllr with S. J. Perelman. To Perelmm" tile ex-emperor was a Hslippery-looking customer ratlrer on tile pudgy side a"d .freshly dipped i" Crisco. "

Ce"era/jeal' de Lottre de Tassigny, tile daslli"g Frenclr commander it! ["dochi"a. A Callie version of Get/eral Douglas MacArthur, vai" a"d brillimH, lie raised FretlCh morale after arriving ill 1950.

Ho Chi Minh gained a major advantage when the Communists cOflquered China in 1949: he was then able to obtain modem weapons and other assistance directly. Here he eats with Chinese advisers under portraits of himself and Mao Zedong, the Chinese leader.

The Vietminh forces were meticulous in planning battles. Here, using a sand-table model, they prepare an assault against a village fortified by the French and their Vietnamese auxiliaries. Though outgunned by the French, the Vietminh had the advmllage of mobility.

The French commmJder in IndochifJa, Gmeral He'Jri Navarre {right}, with a deputy, Major Gmeral Rene CogllY. Navarre's plan to pursue the Vietmi,lh forces in the hinterland led him to deploy French units in the remote northeastem valley of Die'lbienphu, near the border of Laos.

Colonel Christian de Castries French commander at Dienbienphu was a romantic cavalry officer who had be'" wounded and decorated in World War II; he also had a pile of gambling debts and a list of brokenhearted wom",. J

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With the Vietminh shelling them from the hazy hills in the distm,ce, the French forces at Dienbienphu tried to survive itl trenches reminiscent oj World War I. But the Vietminh gradually approached the French garrison by digging tu'mels.

A wOlmded Foreign LegiOfI lieutenant amid the sondbags of a d"go"t at Dienbietlplw. The Fretlch were stumted that the

Vietminh had managed to haul howitzers onto the ridges overlookit'g the valley mId were pOlmditJg its airstrip and fortificatiolls.

Prime Minister MendesFrance poses for photographers with 2ho" Enlai, the Chinese foreign minister, "at Geneva in 1954. The two mm had met se-

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cretly beforehand and laid the grout,dwork for a set-

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"Earthquake MeGoon, 11 was DllC oj two America115 killed at Dicllbiwphu. He (/lid his copilot, Wallace Hllfard, were shot down by tllf~ Vietmi"h while

jlyillg SlIpplies to tlie /:n:I1c1, i" IIfI1lUlrked U.S. (nlt/sport platies .

Vietmit,h troops emeritlg Hmloi ill October 1954 , followil/g the Frel/ch evacuatioll. For many of these soldiers, this was the first time they had pe"etrated an urban area si"ce the war agaimt the French broke OtlC "jlle years earlier.

Presidem Eise,thower with Secretary of State Dulles. They regarded the Frel/ch stand ill IlIdocJriua as vital to the U.S. policy of (fcontaillingJ) Commlmism througllOtll the world) mId they fillal/eed the war.

6 America's Mandarin

Ngo Dinh Diem in a characteristic meditative pose in his palace irl Saigon. Aloof and austere, he mingled poorly with people, preferring instead to isolate himself with his family and close aides.

In June 1954, when Diem returned to Vietnam as prime minister, he was met at the Saigon airport by only a handfitl of enthusiasts, most of them Catholics like himself. Though a veteran nationalist, he was a virtually unknown figure.

Nearly a million refitgees, a large proportion of them Catholic, fleeing from northern Vietnam in late 1954 as the Communists prepared their takeover. In many instances, as here, the evacuation was handled by the U.S. navy.

Not long after his return to Vietnam as prime minister, Ngo Dinh Diem organized a referendum to oust Emperor Bao Dai. Diem received almost all the votes, the result of electoral devices contrived by his American advisers.

Ngo Dinh Diem consolidated his power by defeating the Binh Xuyen, a private gang supported by the French. Diem's forces clashed with the Binh Xuyen in the streets of Saigon, devastating the city.

Ngo Dinh Diem owed his political survival largely to Colonel Edward Lansdale (near left), an air force officer attached to the CIA. Lansdale, a former San Francisco advertising man, was portrayed as Colonel Hillendale in the 1965 best-seller The Ugly American.

Ngo Dinh Diem posing with his immediate family. Behind him stands his brother and chief adviser, Ngo Dinh Nhu; the woman in the center is Madame Nhu, his powerjUl sister-in-law. The most influential figure, however, is Archbishop Thuc, the oldest brother.

A meeting of the Lao Dong in 1961, as the North Vietnamese Workers party called itself. By the 1960s, the North Vietnamese had decided to step up the insurgency against the Diem regime in Saigon.

A peasant woman mourns her husband, murdered by Vietcong terrorists in the Mekong delta. He was selected for assassination because he had informed on the Vietcong, whose terrorists tended to be selective in eliminating Saigon government officials and sympathizers.

Nguyen Huu Tho (below), head of the National Liberation Front, as the Vietcong was officially called. The movement was formed in 1960 on directives from Hanoi.

Ngo Dinh Diem on one

or his early trips into the South Vietnamese cOl/ntryside. Despite his cheerful expression, Diem disliked such expeditions, /I,hich were urged on him his American advisers, /I,ho thought he lacked the "common touch."

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Ngo Dinh Diem waves to " New York City lunchlilll(' crowd as a parade in "is IUlllor proceeds up /lroadway in May 1957. I 'rry few Americans could 1,"11'(' then found Vietllatr/ "11 a lIIap.

Soon after consolidating its power in Saigon, the Diem regime embarked on a massive campaign to liquidate the remaining Vietminh elements in South Vietnam. Many were imprisoned in re-education camps, as seen here. By 1958, almost all the residual insurgents had been wiped out.

Not long after establishing their government in North Vietnam, the Vietnamese Commlmists launched a brutal land reform program in which thousands of landlords were executed. Ho Chi Minh later apologized for the excesses of the episode. Here "Nguyen Van Dinh, poor peasant," as his sign identifies him, attends a land reform meeting with his family.

7 Vietnam Is the Place

;~.* ''Ii, 0 An. American adviser, Lieutenant Colonel William Dickerson, supervises the abandonment oj an untenable outpost in the jungle. American helicopters flown by American pilots helped evacuate the South Vietnamese troops.

President Kennedy and two of his principal advisers on Vietnam-Secretary of Defense McNamara (left) and Secretary of State Rusk. Rusk's experience in Asian affairs dated back to his military service during World War II.

Vice-President Johnson chatting with Ngo Dinh Diem in Saigon in May 1961. Johnson, whom Kennedy had sent on an ambassadorial world tour, exuberantly praised Diem as the "Wil1sto/'/ Churchill of Asia," which reassured Diem of American mpport.

Captain Gerald Kilburn (left), an American adviser, leads South Vietnamese troops into action in the Mekong delta in 1963. American advisers then in Vietnam were supposed to avoid combat, but many participated in battle nevertheless. Frederick Nolting (left), American ambassador to South Vietnam, chats with General Paul Harkins, commander of the U. S. military advisory mission. Nolting's previous diplomatic experience had been in Europe. Harkins had once played minor roles in the movies.

In February 1962, two insurgent South Vietnamese air force pilots bombed Diem's palace. Diem and his family miraculously escaped injury, but Madame Nhu was slightly hurt. Here, sometime later, Madame Nhu inspects the bombed palace.

Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu, President Diem's beautifUl and impetuous sister-inlaw, who considered herself South Vietnam's First Lady. She was an active feminist who organized her own corps of women warriors, to whom she here gives a lesson in target practice.

Diem's younger brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu. An t'l"ratic figure with scholarly pretensions, Nhu fllolved an arcane doctrine cal/ed Personalism'- which rejected both capitalism (/lid socialism. It was IIl1derstood by very few Vietrlllmese.

A South Vietnamese peasant helps a Vietcong guerrilla make traps to be used against Saigon government troops. These devices, made oj barbed nails capable ojpenetrating the sole oj a boot, were concealed in flooded rice fields or on jungle trails.

Beginning in the late 1950s, North Vietnam sent supplies to Vietcong insurgents in the south. Porters carried the equipment along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which threaded through the mountains and jungles oj adjacent Laos.

An American adviser trains a South Vietnamese soldier in the use of a bayonet. Despite training and equipment, the South Vietnamese troops were .frequently no match for the highly organized and motivated Vietcong guerrillas.

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u. S, advisers also tried to teach the benefits of American civilization to local youths. The effort was known as "nationbuilding"; it made only a superficial dent in Vietnamese culture.

To isolate peasants from the Vietcong guerrillas, the South Vietnamese government built fortified enclosures called