11.Conflict in Asia 1955-63

Communist North Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh concentrated on consolidating communist control in North Vietnam, as a solid communist state would help fight for the eventual reunification of Vietnam.

Land reform

A key component of this process for his Vietnam Worker's Party VWP was land reform, seizing privately owned land and redistributing it among rural farming population.
However, thousands were executed and even more imprisoned in labour camps due to this.
In 1956 the military put down a revolt, about 6000 people were killed in this action.

Result of land reform

Minh was forced to issue an apology in August 1956 for his aggressive and clumsy implementation of the land reform programme.
Around 1 million refugees had fled north to South.
However, the achievements of the land reform programme were significant - collectivism (combining farming units and the state controlling them) was underway and agricultural production had increased.

Beginning of a war on the South

By the time strengthening communism in the North was well underway and the power of the VWP was well established, it was decided they needed to commit to a strategy that would unify Vietnam.
In effect this served as a declaration of war on the South.

Overthrowing the South

Minh's aim was to use military force to overthrow Diem's regime.
Despite this aggressive revolutionary position taken by the North there remained a powerful emphasis on a political struggle - based on creating national unity in the South in order to overthrow Diem's regime and the influence of any US backers.
Therefore the North undertook the policy of supporting anti-Diem groups in the South.

Diem and South Vietnam

Diem was a corrupt and nepotistic leader - his brother has served as Prime Minister and other members of his family were given lucrative posts in government.
Large amounts of US economic aid, such as those designed for agricultural improvements, were fraudulently taken by Diem's officials and family.

The corrupt government

There was a severely intolerant and bigoted approach to government within the South, and Diem's strategy for government was focused on repression.
His regime was based on the appearance of democracy but it was really rule by few, he ignored the interests of the majority of his population - he only cared about his own power.
Local councils were replaced with government officials.
He was able to achieve this with a corrupt (but loyal) ruling group and the support of the US.
Diem had embarked on a campaign to root out and destroy any communists in the South.

National Liberation Front

In December 1960, the North Vietnamese leadership established a new nationalist organisation in South Vietnam - the National Liberation Front.
Its purpose was to free South Vietnam from 'US imperialism' and create a unified, sovereign and independent Vietnamese state.
One of the main motivations behind the NLF was Diem's quasi-imperialist policies - many South Vietnamese were committed to the NLF due to anti-Diem, nationalist imperatives.
The NLF's manifesto was the 10-point-programme.

Who makes up the NLF?

Some NLF veterans were driven by nationalism and rejected what they saw as US imperialism, others were committed to communism and a reunified communist Vietnam, there was a mutually supportive relationship between nationalism and communism is the NLF.
This was no surprise due to the shared acceptance of the USA as an enemy of Vietnam.

NLF as an agent of communisation

There's a view that the NLF was not only controlled by North Vietnamese from their capital Hanoi but it was also a way communists could infiltrate and influence groups in the South.
It was an agent of communisation.
It was presented as a Southern nationalist/resistance movement to not appear as breaching Geneva conference agreements (forbidding the North to place forces in the South).

Ho Chi Minh Trail

The North established a complex support network for the NLF, the Ho Chi Minh Trail provided a supply route into the South for equipment and personnel.

Kennedy's views toward Vietnam

Kennedy's views around Vietnam's importance were made clear as early as 1956, before he was even president.
For him ensuring South Vietnam remained a democracy, despite the growing threat from communism, was of fundamental importance in securing the democratic future of Southeast Asia.
Kennedy was committed to containment and the notion of the domino theory.

Kennedy's flexible réponse

Kennedy's strategy was flexible response, which would reduce the threat of nuclear war by the USA remaining non-nuclear, allow the USA to be prepared for a variety of different threats, and it would end the constraints created by Eisenhower's massive retaliation (for example, massive retaliation would not be able to deal with insurgency, as it was based on the threat of using nuclear weapons).
Therefore Kennedy ensured to back counterinsurgency measures.
Flexible response reflected Kennedy's fear of the threats posed by the increasing strength's of both China and USSR

General Taylor and Walt Roscow Vietnam report

In November 1961, Kennedy sent General Taylor and the Chair of the State Planning Department Policy Committee, Walt Roscow, to Vietnam to assess the situation, they recommend:
-increased helicopter force to facilitate counterinsurgency
-greater training support for the South Vietnamese Army
-increase in the numbers of US combat forces
-strategic bombing of north Vietnam
Kennedy compromised as a response, remaining committed to all counterinsurgency and saw validity in strengthening the South's army, but didn't see validity in ground troops.

The Strategic Hamlet Program

In March 1962, through operation sunrise, this program was introduced.
It aimed to create armed stockades that'd house South Vietnamese rural peasants in order to isolate them from the Vietcong (NLF members, or as the name suggests Vietnamese communists).
For Diem this was a way of spreading his influence rather than a way of encouraging peasants to challenge the Vietcong.
By September, the regime claimed over 4 million people lived in strategic hamlets, and by the end of the year there were 3000+ hamlets.
Diem: "a means to institute basic democracy" in Vietnam
Thuc: "an enthusiastic movement of solidarity and self-sufficiency"

Failure of the Strategic Hamlet Program

It was largely a failure, as in reality it often led to improved recruitment of peasants into the Vietcong.
Corrupt officials fraudulently took money meant for medical aid, irrigation projects, fertiliser and seed further alienated the peasants.
It was almost impossible to isolate the Vietcong from the hamlets anyway.
The programme soon collapsed.

The Buddhist Crisis 1963

Diem was Roman Catholic and therefore favoured this religion, many Catholic exiles from the North got employment in the military or government work.
Ngo Dinh Thuc (Diem's brother) became the Archbishop of Hue after Diem lobbied the Vatican on his behalf.
However, he made the mistake of persecuting the Buddhist community (the majority of Vietnam was Buddhist), and this crisis came to a head in Hue in May 1963: Buddhists were banned from flying their flags, this was shortly after Catholics were encouraged to fly theirs.
The military was used to prevent Buddhists hearing a speech from their leader (Tri Quang).
9 people were killed.

Buddhism protest

However the clash escalated as Buddhists protests increased across the South.
Buddhist protests quickly became organised and coordinated, they trained in how to develop anti-government propaganda, organised hunger strikes and mass rallies and engaged with foreign, particularly US, press.
Tri Quang was a skilled leader who rallied support, and event met with US officials to warn them that they must put pressure on Diem to carry out reforms, or remove him from power.
He blamed the USA as they were supporting Diem and his regimes.
But Diem was unwavering in his belief that the Vietcong caused the Hue incident.

Buddhist sacrifices

His crisis deepens when, in June, an elderly Buddhist monk, Quang Doc, publicly burned himself alive in Saigon.
Many more acts similar followed.
Madam Nhu commented: "let them burn, and we shall clap our hands."

Replacing Diem

In August 1963, Nhu ordered a renewed assault on Buddhists.
The head of the State Department's Far Eastern Bureau, sent a telegram to the US ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge, and emphasised Lodge should explore alternative leadership in the South.
This message was approved by Kennedy.
But on 29th August Lodge sent Kennedy a message saying that the conflict in Vietnam could be resolved satisfactorily while Diem remained in office.
Kennedy was conscious of the implications that came with the US being directly involved in the removal of Diem, it could place the US in an entirely new position (in terms of its support for states resisting communism)

Assessing Vietnam

In September, Kennedy sent Robert McNamara and General Taylor to Vietnam to assess the situation.
It was clear from the visit that Diem wasn't prepared to cut down the repression of his people, or bring Nhu under any control.
This only reinforced the view that war couldn't be won with Diem leading the South.
General Taylor recommended reducing US support which would pressure Diem to cooperate.
This encouraged dissent generals in the South to plan a coup against Diem (violent seizure of power).

The assassination of Diem

On the 1st November 1963 South Vietnamese rebel generals activated a military coup against Diem.
The following day, both Diem and Nhu were assassinated.
On the 6th November, Lodge said to Kennedy that the coup was purely a Vietnamese affair. However, while the USA couldn't manage this coup he acknowledged that without the USA it wouldn't have been initiated.
Diem's assassination opened up a new chapter in the USA's commitment to Vietnam, containment and Southeast Asia.