With the end of the Japanese Empire in 1945and the weakness of war-exhaustedcolonial powers like France,east Asian “dominos” fell to communism:• China 1949• North Korea 1950-53• communist control of Vietnamnorth of the 17th parallel 1954

Dwight D. EisenhowerU.S. President1952-1960

“You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly.”- Eisenhower , press conference, April 7, 1954.

Eisenhower quote from Eisenhower Memorial website, National Park Service http://www.nps.gov/features/eise/jrranger/quotes2.htm

Except…that Korea was not China,the Chinese were not Vietnamese, and while “international communism”(the Russians) did offer some aid and encouragementthey did not direct Chinese communists, Korean communists,or Vietnamese communists.

The Vietnamese people were not dominos.

As effective as they were to frighten American politicians,big red arrows on maps in Pentagon briefing roomswere just that: big red arrows on maps.

But the Big Red Arrows on the maps were frightening,and American fear of communismwas at a fever pitch throughout the 1950s.

In the US Congress the House Un-American Activities Committee(HUAC) investigated Communism nationally;In the U.S. Senate, Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin held hearings, called witnesses, (bulllied witnesses),demanded names, publicly accused the U.S. State Departmentand the U.S. Army of harboring communist spies.

Julius and Ethel RosenbergWere charged by the U.S.Justice Department with passing atomic bomb secretsto the Russians. They were convicted and executed for espionage in 1953.

© 1957 Albert Kallis

© 1954 Warner Brothers http://www.riprenfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/015-white-house-flying-saucer50s.jpg

Modern cultural commentary understands the flying saucer scaresand popular “alien invasion” movies of the 1950s as manifestations ofanti-communist hysteria.

People were freaked out!

Major American cities had special investigative units in their police departments to investigate communism.

According to Munk, the Portland (Oregon) Police Department “Red Squad” was very active in the 1950’s.

“In 1954…the House UnAmerican Activities Committee held Portland hearings to investigate communism in Oregon.

Fifty-three Oregonians were publicly identified as leftists by three HUAC informers... Most of those who defied HUAC lost their jobs, and four…were convicted of contempt of Congress…and sentenced to prison; their convictions were reversed on appeal by the Supreme Court.” (Munk, 2012)

LET’S BE PERFECTLY CLEAR: Anti-communist hysteriawas a great tool to attack leftists, progressives, anti-war activists, and organized labor. And to build support for foreign policy.

REFERENCE: Munk, Michael. (2012). McCarthy Era (late 1940s-late 1950s). In Oregon Encyclopedia (Oregon History and Culture).

Retreived from http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/view/mccarthy_era/

Communism:Russia,China,

N. KoreaN. Vietnam

u.s.

u.s.

u.s.

u.s.The U.S. foreign policy strategywas containmenton a global scale,not major military confrontation.

Vietnam was understood by American politiciansto be just another frontin the world-wide struggle against communism.

A battlefield in the Cold War against the Russians…and since 1949, against the Chinese too.

The French were non-communist American allies. So we supported the French attempt to re-occupy Vietnam.It was their colony after all. They could manage it.They had a mision civilatrice. They said so.

But America was not seeking to colonize. We did not desire to control Vietnam or take it over, or take its natural resources of oil, tin, rubber, rice,land, or people.

Just deny them to the communists.

NOT COLONIALISM.

GET IT?

• By the early 1950s the US were propping up the Frenchin Vietnam with about $1 billion a year

• Dien Bien Phu 1954Vietnamese communists besiege and defeat a French Army; France gives up all claims to SE Asia

• 1954 Geneva Convention temporarily divides Vietnam into a northern zone, to be controlled by the Vietminh, and a southern zone, controlledsince 1945 by the French-installed Bao Dai

• Vietnam was divided at the 17th parallel pending a planned 1955 election to reunify

• the US does not sign off on this Geneva-sanctioned election plan; concerned that Ho Chi Minh, and the communist Vietminh would win. Ho Chi Minh and the Vietminh who had fought against the Japanese and thrown out the French

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/cia-maps-publications/map-downloads/Vietnam_Physiography.pdf

1954 Geneva Convention“temporary” partitionat the 17th parallel,pending elections

17th parallel

Vietminh (communist) northCapitol: Hanoi

Non-communist, U.S. supported southCapitol: Saigon

N

© 2012 Time.

Ngo Dinh Diem Premier of the Republic of Vietnam(South Vietnam)ruled 1955 – 1963

• wealthy aristocrat• catholic• authoritarian• acceptable to a range of American politicians

Tolerated government corruption

Suppressed democratic opposition,prosecuted dissent, neglectedmuch-needed land reform,Promoted wide-spread political repression including“extra-judicial” arrests, detentions, and assassinations.

The US looked for a stronganti-communist leader in the South.Diem looked great, at first…

“By 1959, the (Diem) land reform program was virtually inoperative. As of 1960, 45% of the land remained concentrated in the hands of 2% of landowners, and 15% of the landlords owned 75% of all the land.

By the fall of 1960, the intellectual elite of South Vietnam was politically mute; labor unions were impotent; loyal opposition in the form of organized parties did not exist. In brief, Diem's policies virtually assured that political challengesto him would have to be extra-legal.”

Pentagon Papers (1971: vol. 1: 11, 77) https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon/pent11.htm

• 1959 the communist North Vietnamese government approvessupporting a new guerrila movement in the south to resist Diemand his American supporters; Diem christens themViet Cong, meaning “vietnamese communists”

• mostly in the countryside, and sometimes in the cities,the Viet Cong battle the Diem government for control:- assassinate pro-Diem village leaders, government officials, and landowners- hit and run battles, sabotage, ambush tactics against the American-armed and supplied Army of the Republic of Vietnam(ARVN)

1960 National Liberation Front (the Viet Cong) wereestablished in southern Vietnam

• to train for armed struggle• to defeat Diem• expel American forces• redistribute land

300,00 memberslived among the peasantsbecause they were the peasants

The VIET CONG were the National Liberation Front (NLF)

They had two key components:the Liberation Armyfor armed missions (usually carried out by organized military units).

And a parallel political organization: The People's Revolutionary Party (the "Marxist-Leninist Party of South Vietnam“)

W

The NLF program called for nationalism, anti-colonialism and land reform.What do you think the U.S. foreign policy establishment saw?

http://www.johndclare.net/images/Soviet_takeover.GIF

They saw Vietnam as another front in the Cold Waragainst Russia and Communist China

Question: if it was so important to keep South Vietnam out of Communist hands, and if the North Vietnamese were arming the communist Viet Cong in south Vietnam, why did the U.S. not go to war against North Vietnam? The U.S. had the most powerful military on the planet: why did we not follow the suggestion of USAF General Curtis LeMay to, “bomb them back to the Stone Age”?Why did we hold back?

Answer #1: if the North Vietnamesecommunists were – as was believed –proxies or tools of the Russians andthe Chinese, then taking the war to North Vietnam might well be perceivedto be an attack on Russia or China.We didn’t want to start that war. Russiaand China had atomic weapons.

Answer #2: the communist Vietnamese – and the Russians,and the Chinese - accused the U.S. of trying to replace the French and make Vietnam a U.S. colony. U.S. politicians also believed that if we invaded North Vietnamwith full-scale war, we would lose a global public-relations warwith other developing countries. We didn’t want that either.

Which is why we pinned our hopes on Diem.

In 1956, then Senator John F. Kennedy had this to say about Diem:

“The living conditions of the peasants have been vastly improved, the wastelands have been cultivated, and a wider ownership of the land is gradually being encouraged. Farm cooperatives and farmer loans have modernized an outmoded agricultural economy; and a tremendous dam in the center of the country has made possible the irrigation of a vast area previously uncultivated. Legislation for better labor relations, health protection, working conditions and wages has been completed under the leadership of President Diem.”Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy at the Conference on Vietnam Luncheon in the Hotel Willard, Washington, D.C., June 1, 1956. http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Ready-Reference/JFK-Speeches/Remarks-of-Senator-John-F-Kennedy-at-the-Conference-on-Vietnam-Luncheon-in-the-Hotel-Willard-Washing.aspx

Then Sen. Kennedy’s confident predictions did not work out.

By the time Kennedy won the U.S.Presidency in 1960, Diem was failing on several fronts:

• land reform never happened; Diem had little to no support in the country

• persecution, jail, torture continued for any political dissenters

• corruption in government was widespread

• the Catholic Diem vigorously suppressed the majority Buddhists

• most fatally, he failed to prosecute the struggle against the Viet Cong; the Army of Vietnam (ARVN) lacked will to fight andperformed badly

• his own generals distrusted him

• he squabbled with his American political supporters

Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức burns himself to death in Saigonduring Buddhist protests against Diem regime repression, 1963.© 1963 Malcom Brownehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Quang_Duc

In 1963, massive Buddhistprotests, combined withArmy discontent, led toan ARVN general’s coupagainst Diem.

By then, Diem’s resistanceto U.S. demands for reformhad so alienated his U.S.supporters, that when the CIA suggested a coup wasimminent, President Kennedy chose not to interfere.

Diem was assassinatedNovember 1st, 1963.The ARVN generals tookover.

Three weeks later, onNovember 22, 1963,U.S. President John F.Kennedy was assassinated.

By the time Kennedy’s Vice President Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidency on November 23, 1963,

16,700 American troops had already been committed to South Vietnam. They were Special Forces Green Berets,not regular Army.

Lyndon Johnson never fully understood Vietnam's fierce determination to endure whatever was necessary to prevent foreign domination.

“You generals have all been educated at the taxpayers’ expense, and you’re not giving me any ideas and any solutions for this

damn little pissant country.”President Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1964quoted inhttp://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/lbj-foreign/

What’s next?

1964 – 1968:

• President Johnson looks for – and finds – a reason to deploy conventional U.S. Army forces to supplement Kennedy’s Special Forces already in Vietnam

• begins Air Force bombing of selected targets in North Vietnam

USAF bombing North VietnamPhoto: U.S. DOD: HD-SN-99-02076; NARA FILE #: 306-MVP-15-14 WAR

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/learning_history/vietnam/escalate_graph1.cfm

U.S. Army troop levels in Vietnam 1950-1974