13 Vietnam 1945 1975 Key Terms Ho Chi Minh Vietminh vs Vietcong My Lai Kent State Not classified as a war but warlike experience for Americans I Why Vietnam 1 France and Japan France imperialized Vietnam in 1880s They don t just take Vietnam they also take Cambodia and Laos France decides to smash all three places into one governing region calling it French Indo China They send diplomats military take some resources and set up markets for their stuff bring language French architectural styles food sandwich made of French buggets In charge of Vietnam from 1880s 1940s The Vietnamese people did not want to be under French control The answer to Vietnam is no but then Japan comes to town Japan invades Vietnam and Vietnamese people fight them off as much as they can Besides Vietnam fighting Japan the United States is fighting them as well The US military sends weapons to Vietnamese people In 1945 get blown up they re out of Vietnam First thing they say is they want independence Vietnam plagiarizes constitution from United States sends it to UN and tells Vietnam no In 1945 UN denies Vietnam their independence US is key reason for this We tell Vietnam no because of Ho Chi Minh 2 Ho Chi Minh Every step of the way Ho Chi Minh is there He is a Vietnamese man who grew up in French Indo China Because he is middle class he gets a French education When reading all of these French books he reads about French Revolution all about liberty and equality He is reading this and inspires a Vietnamese Revolution Uses French history to say Vietnam needs independent from France He genuinely believed France would allow him independence Feels almost personally betrayed everything he believed in is a lie Say Democratic Capitalism as reason they are still being imperialized Now sees Soviet Union as a comrade Soviet Union says communism will be the way to become independent In 1920s Ho Chi Minh travels to Soviet Union to learn how to be a communist Number one goal of Ho Chi Minh is freedom and communism comes along with that In 1920s he is in Soviet Union in 1930s he is sent back to Vietnam to spread ideas of communism Because he talks about it as pathway to independence people will listen since they are being screwed by democratic capitalism In 1930s communism and Ho Chi Minh become very popular When Japan invades Vietnam in 1940s he helps lead Vietnamese in fight against Japan The United States is also fight Japan so they give Japan weapons US is helping Communists country fight Japan Fascism is true big bad they are fighting so it s okay for them to do this WWII and Vietnam writes declaration of Independence and plagiarizes the United States In 1945 United States is worried about communist and Ho Chi Minh is communist If Vietnam got their independence this man would become president and country would officially be communist so US says no In 1945 they are denied independence because of Ho Chi Minh France is invited by UN to take over French Indo China This creates war between government of France and Vietnamese people Significance his communist ideology leads US to essentially reject their independence at end of WWII Long term the US will now be involved in Vietnamese future for next 30 years 3 Geneva Accords between 1945 the Government of France is trying to control Vietnam For next five years 1945 1954 the government of France is using Military troops at Vietnam is fighting back The United States has the money and the guns The US supplies 80 percent of these supplies to France so they can go into Vietnam The one thing we said we were going to do was contain communism so we are going to help France to do this 10 000 French die in this war After 9 years France says we are done they surrender They sue Vietnam for piece France and Vietnam sit down and right treaty Geneva Accords The United States is running the Geneva Accords in Switzerland Theoretically Vietnam should be free but US is still all about containment In order to come as close as we can we make two brand new Vietnams One called North Vietnam and one South Vietnam Ho Chi Minh lands in North Vietnam and that country becomes communists South Vietnam will now become Democratic and Capitalists North has a leader Ho Chi Minh who obviously wins South Vietnam needs a leader US picks one In 1956 South Vietnam gets to hold election to pick their own leader The Geneva Accords picked leader for South Vietnam and then promised them they could hold elections for their leader II Civil War 1 Ngo Dinh Diem Diem is the leader picked by US for South Vietnam About 90 percent of Vietnam s population is Buddhists Diem is a Catholic 10 percent of population also worked for France between 195 and 1954 He worked for French so understands problem is he thinks differently than rest of nation Is not the most popular leader Seen as trader because he worked for France In 1956 Diem loses election One of possibilities is to vote in a communists United States solves problem by canceling the election If you are going to lose election why not just cancel is US walked into South Vietnam and Diem stays as president which makes him more hated He is the symbol of French Imperialism as well as US imperialism He is paranoid because he knows his country hates him Knows only reason he has his job is because of US If you are South Vietnamese and hate this guy you are going to speak up In a democracy that s what we do Diem starts jailing Puts people in jail for speaking out against government and his presidency which makes more people want to speak out Some of these people are being killed This is pissing people off more and more This is the guy we picked to be democracy s shining star At some point this problem reaches crisis point 2 Vietminh vs Vietcong Insurgent terrorist groups Two groups which are not interchangeable Vietminh are North Vietnamese communists whose number one goal is to reunite North and South Vietnam Based on this ideological basis they want this one country to be communists This is not official army of country but think their idea is fine and unofficially support this group but not nation of North Vietnam running this What they start doing is start launching terrorists attack is South Vietnam and kill as many soldiers as they can go after government buildings This is not helpful to Diem especially when he isn t already popular The Vietcong are South Vietnamese sometimes communism They were loosely referred to as South Vietnamese you could slap label of communism on