The Vietnam War

Vietnam, together with Cambodia and Laos, was part of the French colony of Indochina. It was occupied by the Japanese in World War II. During this time, the Viet Minh league, led by the Communist Ho Chi Minh, declared Vietnam independent from France.

After the war, France refused to recognize Ho Chi Minh’s government and war broke out between the French and the Vietnamese. This war ended in defeat for the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. An international agreement then divided Vietnam into communist North and non-Communist South.

Almost immediately, civil war broke out. From 1959, Communist guerrillas in the south, known as the Viet Cong, were helped by North Vietnam. The US, anxious to prevent the spread of Communism, sent military aid to the South Vietnamese. However, the Viet Cong’s guerrilla tactics were hard to combat. In an attempt to cut off supply lines, US planes bombed North Vietnam. Vast areas of forest were sprayed with chemicals to destroy any vegetation that may have been concealing Viet Cong bases.

ANTI-WAR DEMONSTRATIONS

The Vietnam War was the first to be widely covered on television. People were able to see events as they happened. As growing numbers of US troops were killed or injured, people took to America’s streets in protest. By 1967, the protests had spread beyond the US. The strength of anti-war feeling helped persuade President Richard Nixon to withdraw from the war.

In 1968, the Viet Cong’s Tet offensive in the South convinced most Americans that the war could not be won. In 1969, the US began to withdraw its troops and a ceasefire was agreed in 1973. Fighting continued until 1975, when North Vietnamese troops took over the south. Vietnam was united.