A Vietnamese American (Vietnamese: Người Mỹ gốc Việt) is an American of Vietnamese descent.^[2] They make up about half of all overseas Vietnamese (Người Việt Hải Ngoại) and are the fourth-largest Asian American group.

Mass Vietnamese immigration to the United States started after 1975, after the end of the Vietnam War. Early immigrants were refugee boat people fleeing persecution or poverty. Forced to flee from their homeland and often thrust into poor urban neighborhoods, these newcomers have nevertheless managed to establish strong communities in a short amount of time. More than sixty percent of Vietnamese Americans reside in the states of California, Texas, Washington, Florida, and Virginia.^[1]

Demographics[link]

As a relatively recent immigrant group, most Vietnamese Americans are either first- or second-generation Americans. They have the lowest distribution of people with more than one race among the major Asian American groups. As many as one million people who are five years and older speak Vietnamese at home—making it the seventh-most spoken language in the United States. As refugees, Vietnamese Americans have some of the highest rates of naturalization.^[3] In the 2006 American Community Survey, 72% of foreign-born Vietnamese are naturalized US citizens; this combined with the 36% who are born in the United States makes 82% of them United States citizen in total. Of those born outside the United States, 46.5% entered before 1990, 38.8% between 1990 and 2000, and 14.6% entered after 2000.^[4]

According to the 2010 Census, there are 1,548,449 people who identify themselves as Vietnamese alone or 1,737,433 in combination with other ethnicities, ranking fourth among the Asian American groups. Of those, 581,946 (38%) live in California and 210,913 (14%) in Texas. The largest number of Vietnamese outside of Vietnam is found in Orange County, California—totalling 183,766, or 6.1% of the county's population. Vietnamese American businesses are ubiquitous in Little Saigon, located in the communities of Westminster and Garden Grove, where they constitute 40.2 and 27.7 percent of the population, respectively. The metropolitan areas of San Jose, Seattle, Dallas-Fort Worth, Washington, D.C. (in Northern Virginia), and Houston have sizable Vietnamese communities. Recently, the Vietnamese immigration pattern has shifted to other states like Oklahoma (Oklahoma City in particular) and Oregon (Portland in particular).

Spread of the Vietnamese language in the United States

Vietnamese Americans are much more likely to be Christians than Vietnamese who are residing in Vietnam. While Christians (mainly Roman Catholics) make up about 6% of Vietnam's total population, they compose as much as 23% of the total Vietnamese American population.^[5]

According to the 2010 census, the Vietnamese American population had grown to 1,737,433 and remains the second largest Southeast Asian American subgroup following the Filipino American community.^[1]

History[link]

Vietnamese refugees at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, 1975

Crewmen of the amphibious cargo ship USS Durham (LKA-114) take Vietnamese refugees aboard a small craft, 1975

The history of Vietnamese Americans is a fairly recent one. Prior to 1975, most Vietnamese residing in the United States were wives and children of American servicemen in Vietnam or academia. Records^[6][7] show a that a very sparse group arrived to work in various menial jobs during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including future Vietnamese politician Ho Chi Minh. However, their numbers were insignificant. According to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization services, only 650 Vietnamese arrived from 1950 to 1974. The Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975—which ended the Vietnam War—prompted the first large-scale wave of immigration from Vietnam. Many people who had close ties with the Americans or with the then Republic of Vietnam government feared promised communist reprisals. So, 125,000 of them left Vietnam during the spring of 1975. This group was generally highly-skilled and educated. They were airlifted by the U.S. government to bases in the Philippines and Guam, and were subsequently transferred to various refugee centers in the United States.

South Vietnamese refugees initially faced resentment by Americans following the turmoil and upheaval of the Vietnam War. A poll taken in 1975 showed only 36 percent of Americans were in favor of Vietnamese immigration. President Gerald Ford and other officials strongly supported Vietnamese immigration to the U.S. and passed the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act in 1975, which allowed Vietnamese refugees to enter the United States under a special status. In order to prevent the refugees from forming ethnic enclaves and to minimize their impact on local communities, they were scattered all over the country. Within a few years, however, many resettled in California and Texas.

The year 1978 began a second wave of Vietnamese refugees that lasted until the mid-1980s. As South Vietnamese people—especially former military officers and government employees—were sent to Communist "reeducation camps," about two million people fled Vietnam in small, unsafe, and crowded boats. These "boat people" were generally lower on the socioeconomic ladder than the people in the first wave. Vietnamese escaping by boat usually ended up in asylum camps in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong, or the Philippines—where they might be allowed to enter countries that agreed to accept them.

Congress passed the Refugee Act of 1980, reducing restrictions on entry, while the Vietnamese government established the Orderly Departure Program (ODP) under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in response to world outcry—allowing people to leave Vietnam legally for family reunions and for humanitarian reasons. Additional American laws were passed allowing children of American servicemen and former political prisoners and their families to enter the United States. Another peak of Vietnamese immigrants to the US was in 1992, when many individuals in Vietnam's reeducation camps were released or sponsored by their families to come to the United States. Between 1981 and 2000, the United States accepted 531,310 Vietnamese political refugees and asylees.

Political activism[link]

Vietnamese Americans parading with the South Vietnamese flag during Tet

According to a study by the Manhattan Institute in 2008, Vietnamese Americans are among the most assimilated immigrant groups in the United States.^[8] While their rates of cultural and economic assimilation were unexceptional compared to other groups (perhaps due to language differences between English and Vietnamese), their rates of civic assimilation were the highest among all the large immigrant groups.^[8] Vietnamese Americans, being political refugees, view their stay in the United States as permanent and became involved in the political process in higher rates than other groups.

As refugees from a Communist country, many Vietnamese Americans are strongly opposed to communism. In a poll conducted for the Orange County Register in 2000, 71% of respondents ranked fighting communism as "top priority" or "very important".^[9] Vietnamese Americans regularly stage protests against the Vietnamese government, its human rights policy and those whom they perceive to be sympathetic to it.^[10] For example, in 1999, protests against a video store owner in Westminster, California, who displayed the current Vietnamese flag and a photograph of Ho Chi Minh peaked when 15,000 people held a vigil in front of the store in one night, causing debates regarding free speech. Membership in the Democratic Party was once considered anathema among Vietnamese Americans because it was seen as less anti-communist than the Republican Party. However, their support for the Republican Party has somewhat eroded in recent years, as the Democratic Party has become seen in a more favorable light by the second generation as well as by newer, poorer refugees.^[11] However, the Republican Party still has overwhelming support; in Orange County, Vietnamese Americans registered Republicans outnumber registered Democrats at 55% and 22%, respectively,^[12] while a national survey in 2008 showed that 22% identify with the Democratic Party while 29% identify with the Republican Party.^[13] Exit polls during the 2004 presidential election show that 72% of Vietnamese American voters in the 8 eastern states polled voted for Republican incumbent George W. Bush compared to only 28% who voted for the Democratic challenger John Kerry.^[14] In a poll conducted prior to the 2008 presidential election, two-thirds of Vietnamese Americans who made up their mind stated they would vote for the Republican candidate John McCain, in stark contrast to the other Asian American groups surveyed.^[13] The Republican Party's particularly strong voice of Anti-Communism tends to make it more attractive to older Vietnamese Americans and first generation Vietnamese Americans, especially with their arrival to the US during the Reagan Administration. Although most Vietnamese are registered Republican, most young Vietnamese lean toward the Democratic Party. A AALDEF poll found that Vietnamese Americans from the ages of 18 through 29 favored Democrat Barack Obama by 60% during the 2008 Presidential Election. ^[15]

Recently, Vietnamese Americans have exercised considerable political power in Orange County, Silicon Valley, and other areas. Many have won public offices at the local and statewide levels in California and Texas. One Vietnamese American, Janet Nguyen, serves on the Orange County Board of Supervisors, one has served as mayor of Rosemead, California and several serve or have served in the city councils of Westminster, Garden Grove, San Jose,^[16] and places as varied as Clarkston, Georgia. In 2008, Westminster became the first city to have a majority Vietnamese American city council.^[17] In 2004, Van Tran, a Republican candidate and Hubert Vo, a Democratic candidate, were elected to the state legislatures of California and Texas, respectively. Viet Dinh was the Assistant Attorney General of the United States from 2001 to 2003 who was the chief architect of the USA PATRIOT Act. In 2006, as many as 15 Vietnamese Americans were running for elective office in California alone,^[18] a sign of the growing maturity of the community. For federal elective office, at least four candidates have run for a seat in the United States House of Representatives as their party's official candidate.^[19] Some Vietnamese Americans have recently lobbied many city and state governments to make the former South Vietnamese flag instead of the current flag of Vietnam the symbol of Vietnamese in the United States, a move which raised objections from the Vietnamese government. Their efforts resulted in the California and Ohio state governments enacting legislations to adopt that flag in August 2006. From February 2003 to January 2006, in the USA, 9 States, 3 Counties and 76 Cities have adopted Resolutions recognizing the yellow flag as the Vietnamese Heritage and Freedom Flag.^[20]

During the months following Hurricane Katrina, the Vietnamese American community in New Orleans, among the first to return to the city, rallied against a landfill used to dump debris near their community.^[21] After months of legal wrangling, the landfill was closed, which the activists consider a victory, and the Vietnamese-American community in New Orleans became a political force.^[22][23] In 2008, Anh "Joseph" Cao, a Katrina activist, won Louisiana's 2nd congressional district seat in the House of Representatives as a Republican, becoming the first Vietnamese American elected to Congress.^[24]

Economics[link]

Vietnamese Americans' income and social class levels are quite diverse. Many Vietnamese Americans are middle class professionals who fled from the increasing power of the Communist Party after the Vietnam War, while others work primarily in blue-collar jobs. In San Jose, California, for example, this diversity in income levels can be seen in the different Vietnamese American neighborhoods scattered across Santa Clara County. In the Downtown San Jose area, many Vietnamese are working-class and are employed in many blue-collar positions such as restaurant cooks, repairmen, and movers, while the Evergreen and Berryessa sections of the city are middle- to upper–middle class neighborhoods with large Vietnamese American populations—many of whom work in Silicon Valley's computer, networking, and aerospace industries. In Little Saigon of Orange County, there are significant socioeconomic disparities between the established and successful Vietnamese Americans who arrived in the first wave and the later arrivals of low-income refugees.

Vietnamese Americans have come to America primarily as refugees, with little or no money. While (on a collective basis) not as academically or financially accomplished as their East Asian counterparts, (who generally have been in the US longer, and did not come as war or political refugees but for economic reasons), census shows that Vietnamese Americans are an upwardly mobile group. Although clear challenges remain for the community, their economic status improved dramatically between 1989 and 1999. In 1989, 34 percent of Vietnamese Americans lived under the poverty line, but this number was reduced to 16 percent in 1999, compared with just over 12 percent of the U.S. population overall.

Phước Lộc Thọ, the first Vietnamese-American shopping center in Little Saigon, California

Many Vietnamese Americans have established businesses in Little Saigons and Chinatowns throughout North America. Indeed, some Vietnamese immigrants, have been highly instrumental in initiating the development and redevelopment of once declining older Chinatowns, as they tend to find themselves attracted to such areas. Like many other immigrant groups, the majority of Vietnamese Americans are small business owners. Throughout the United States, many Vietnamese—especially first or second-generation immigrants—open supermarkets, restaurants, bakeries specializing in bánh mì, beauty salons and barber shops, and auto repair businesses. Restaurants owned by Vietnamese Americans tend to serve ethnic Vietnamese cuisine, Vietnamized Chinese cuisine, or both, popularizing phở and chả giò in the United States.

The younger generations of the Vietnamese-American population are well educated and often find themselves providing professional services. As the older generations tend to find difficulty in interacting with the non-Vietnamese professional class, there are many Vietnamese-Americans that provide specialized professional services to fellow Vietnamese immigrants. Of these, a small number are owned by Vietnamese Americans of Hoa ethnicity. In the Gulf Coast region—such as Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama—some Vietnamese Americans are involved with the fish and shrimp industries. In California's Silicon Valley, many work in the valley's computer and networking businesses and industries, although many were laid off in the aftermath of the closure of many high-technology companies.

Tet Festival in Little Saigon, Orange County, California

Many Vietnamese parents pressure their children to excel in school and to enter professional fields such as science, medicine, or engineering because the parents feel insecurity stemming from their chaotic past and view education as the only ticket to a better life. Vietnam's traditionally Confucianist society values education and learning, contributing to success among Vietnamese Americans. Many have worked their way up from menial labor to have their second-generation children attend universities and become successful.

Recent immigrants who do not speak English well tend to work in menial labor jobs like assembly, restaurant/shop workers, nail and hair salons. As much as 80% of nail technicians in California and 43% nationwide are Vietnamese Americans.^[25] The work involved in nail salons takes skilled manual labor, but requires only limited English speaking ability. Some Vietnamese Americans see working in nail salons as a fast way to build wealth and many will send earnings back to Vietnam to help family members abroad. This concept and economic niche has proven so successful that visiting overseas Vietnamese entrepreneurs from Britain and Canada have also adopted the Vietnamese American model and opened several nail salons in the United Kingdom, where few previously existed.

In the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, Vietnamese Americans have accounted for between 45-85% of the shrimping business in the region. However, the dumping of imported shrimp, ironically from Vietnam, has affected their source of livelihood.^[26]

Religion[link]

The majority of Vietnamese Americans are Buddhist, but more accurately practice a fusion of Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and native animist practices, including ancestor veneration that have been influenced by Chinese folk religion.^[27] Approximately 29 to 40% of Vietnamese Americans are Roman Catholic.^[27]

There are approximately 150 to 165 Vietnamese Buddhist temples in the United States, with most adopting a mix of Pure Land (Tịnh Độ Tông) and Zen (Thiền) doctrines and practices.^[28][29] Most temples are small, consisting of a converted house with one or two resident monks or nuns.^[28] Two of the most prominent figures in Vietnamese American Buddhism are Thich Thien-An and Thich Nhat Hanh.^[29]

Societal perception and portrayal[link]

As with other ethnic minority groups in United States, Vietnamese Americans have come into conflict with the larger U.S. population, particularly in how they are perceived and portrayed. There have been degrees of hostility directed toward Vietnamese Americans. For example, on the U.S. Gulf Coast, the white fishermen complained of unfair competition from their Vietnamese American counterparts resulting in hostility. In the 1980s, the Ku Klux Klan attempted to intimidate Vietnamese American shrimpers.^[30] Vietnamese American fishermen banded together to form the first Vietnamese Fishermen Association of America to represent their interests.

Some studies,^[31] show that there is a real world basis to the "valedictorian-delinquent" perception of Vietnamese American youth. Based on field work in a Vietnamese American community, social scientists^[who?] argue that Vietnamese American communities often have dense, well-organized sets of social ties that provide encouragement to and social control of children. At the same time, these communities are often located in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods at the margins of American society. Vietnamese children who maintain close connections to their own communities are often driven to succeed, while those who are outsiders to their own society often assimilate into some of the most alienated youth cultures of American society and fall into delinquency.^[32] Recent studies have indicated that juvenile delinquency among Vietnamese Americans may have increased in the 21st century, as ethnic community ties have weakened.^[33]

Ethnic subgroups[link]

While the census data only count those who report themselves to be ethnically Vietnamese, the way some other ethnic groups from Vietnam view themselves may affect census reporting.

Hoa[link]

This article may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (November 2008)

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

A fraction of Vietnamese Americans consists of Hoa people who immigrated to Vietnam during the last few centuries. As a result, some Vietnamese Americans also speak fluent Cantonese (although with Vietnamese influence, as the dialect spoken differs slightly from Cantonese spoken by immigrants hailing from Guangdong, China and in Hong Kong). Vietnamese Americans of Hoa ethnicity generally code-switch between Cantonese and Vietnamese when conversing with Hoa immigrants from Vietnam, and are mostly able to speak to ethnic Vietnamese. Teochew, a comparatively obscure language, essentially unknown in the United States before many speakers arrived in 1980s, is also commonly spoken by another group of Hoa immigrants, but is not used in general discourse. A small number of Vietnamese Americans may also speak Mandarin as a third or fourth language, in some aspects of business and interaction.

The population distribution of Hoa people in the United States varies. For instance, many Hoa immigrants tend to reside in communities where there is a concentration of ethnic Vietnamese (such as in "Little Saigon" in Orange County, California or San Jose), while others have chosen to intermingle and concentrate with Chinese diasporas (namely with emigres from Mainland China and Hong Kong) as can be seen in San Francisco and Los Angeles in California and in New York City.

Eurasians and Amerasians[link]

Some Vietnamese Americans are racially Eurasians—persons of European and Asian descent. These Eurasians are descendants of ethnic Vietnamese and French settlers and soldiers and sometimes Hoa during the French colonial period (1883–1945) or during the First Indochina War (1946–1954).

Amerasians are descendants of an ethnic Vietnamese parent or a Hoa parent and an American parent, most frequently of White, Black or Hispanic background. The first substantial generation of Amerasian Vietnamese Americans were born to American personnel (primarily military men) during the Vietnam War (1961–1975). Many such children were disclaimed by their American parent and, in Vietnam, these fatherless children of foreign men were called con lai, meaning "mixed race", or the pejorative bụi đời, meaning "the dust of life."[7] Many of these initial generation of Amerasians, as well as their mothers, experienced significant social and institutional discrimination both in Vietnam—where they were subject to denial of basic civil rights like an education, the discrimination worsening following the American withdrawal in 1973—as well as by the United States government, which officially discouraged American military personnel from marrying Vietnamese nationals, and frequently refused claims to US citizenship lodged by Amerasians born in Vietnam whose mothers were not married to their American fathers.^[34][35][36] Such discrimination was typically even greater for children of Black or Hispanic servicemen than for children of White fathers.^[37]

Subsequent generations of Amerasians (particularly children born in the United States), as well those Vietnamese-born Amerasians whose American paternity was documented by their parents' marriage prior to birth or by subsequent legitimization, have generally faced a much different, arguably more favorable, outlook.^[38]

The American Homecoming Act, passed in 1988, helped over 25,000 Amerasians remaining in Southeast Asia to emigrate to the United States. Nonetheless, although granted permanent resident status, many have yet been unable to obtain citizenship; and many have expressed feeling a lack of belonging or acceptance in the U.S., because of differences in culture, language, and citizenship status.^[39][40] The Amerasian Naturalization Act of 2005 would have granted automatic citizenship to many of these Amerasians, but the bill died in committee without being passed.

Ethnic Khmer and Cham[link]

Some ethnic Khmer and Cham refugees who were born in Vietnam can also be included in the category of Vietnamese Americans.

Writing and publishing[link]

Both Vietnamese writers in Vietnam and Vietnamese-American writers have a unique set of challenges they encounter when trying to step out of the shadows of writing and publishing. In Vietnam, few literary writers are endorsed by the state and respected by their literary peers; for artists of all types, particularly literature, Vietnam has a climate of repression and harassment. Writers must find ways to get around these barriers and sometimes when they do, they are severely reprimanded or - more infrequently - jailed for their writing. In the United States, a new generation, often referred to as the "1.5 generation" (those born in Vietnam, but who came to the United States at an early age), of Vietnamese-American writers are figuring out how to portray themselves outside of the experiences of the Vietnam War and "fall of Saigon". Many Vietnamese-American writers are for the first time, stepping away from the topic of war and displacement, to the far more urgent subject of identity, or what it means to have a divided cultural identity.

The Vietnamese-American writing and publishing scene has been steadily growing since the mid/late-1990s and shows no signs of slowing down. In 1997, Lan Cao’s Monkey Bridge - considered the first novel written by a Vietnamese-American about the immigrant experience - was published by Viking Press and received rave views for lyrical writing from major newspapers, such as the NY Times, the LA Times, the Chicago Tribune and others. In the semi-autobiographical novel, a young girl and her mother leave Vietnam after the war, bound for America, and once settled in, have to deal with issues that typify the immigrant experience. Many similarly themed novels and memoirs have followed as the 1.5 generation has come of age and begun to articulate their identity as both Vietnamese and American, a (sometimes successful) fusion of Eastern traditions in a Western society, and the confusion that resulted from growing up Vietnamese in American culture.

In the United States, Vietnamese-American writers have the freedom to explore both negative and positive aspects of their cultural and societal experiences. Only recently, though, has the 1.5 generation, who has the advantage of being raised with the English language, really starting to develop a literary scene and any type of movement. The first generation Vietnamese-Americans had the disadvantages of not knowing English and needing to find work to support themselves and/or their families. Not only do Vietnamese-Americans have the freedom to explore these issues, but people in American society are increasingly interested in those issues as well, as evidenced by the success of Monique Truong’s novel Book of Salt.

Other notable books include Quang X. Pham's acclaimed 2005 father-son memoir A Sense of Duty,^[41] Andrew Lam's PEN Award-winning Perfume Dreams, Andrew Pham's Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize winner Catfish and Mandala, and Aimee Phan's debut collection of short stories We Should Never Meet.

If the literary scene in the United States has been a bit fragmented, there seems to be signs of it unifying and strengthening as more novels, short stories, and poetry are published every year. And Vietnamese-Americans are being recognized, apart from ethnicity, for solid literary writing that depicts the outsider experience, allowing people of all ages, ethnicities, and other cultural divides, to connect with one another and with the written word.

Notable Vietnamese Americans[link]

See also[link]

• Asian American
• Boat people
• Diaspora studies
• Hyphenated American
• List of U.S. cities with large Vietnamese American populations
• List of Vietnamese Americans
• American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam
• Little Saigon
• Overseas Vietnamese
• Refugees
• Vietnamese people
• History of the Vietnamese-Americans in Houston

Further reading[link]

• Chan, Sucheng, ed. . The Vietnamese American 1.5 Generation: Stories of War, Revolution, Flight, and New Beginnings (2006) 323pp
• Tran, Tuyen Ngoc, “Behind the Smoke and Mirrors: The Vietnamese in California, 1975–1994” (PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 2007). Dissertation Abstracts International, 2008, Vol. 69 Issue 3, p1130-1130,
• Zhou, Min and Carl L. Bankston, Growing Up American: How Vietnamese Children Adapt to Life in the United States (1998) New York: Russell Sage Foundation

References[link]

External links[link]

• Teaching Tolerance - Vietnamese Americans
• Census Data
• Vietnamese American population by city
• Vietnamese-American Protests from 1975–2001 by Nhu-Ngoc T. Ong and David S. Meyer
• Vietnamese American Heritage Project at the Smithsonian Institution
• Asian-Nation: Vietnamese American Community by C.N. Le, Ph.D.
• Southeast Asian Archive
• Vietnamese Studies Internet Resource Center
• Documentary film centered on Vietnamese American community in New Orleans
• 30 years after the fall of Saigon: from The Orange County Register
• Vietnamese American history
• Vietnamese who found new lives: from the BBC
• Vietnamese American Council
• National Congress of Vietnamese Americans
• US Census 2000 foreign born population by country
• Vietnamese Families, Family Life, and Gender Roles
• The Three d's of Vietnamese Professionals, by Nguyen Xuan Vinh, May, 1990
• The Experience of Vietnamese Refugee Children in the United States
• Delinquency and Acculturation in a Vietnamese Community
• The Dragon and the Eagle: Toward a Vietnamese American Theology, Originally published in Theology Digest 43:3 (Fall 2001).
• The Biculturation of the Vietnamese Student by Min Zhou and Carl L. Bankston III
• The Vietnamese Population in Louisiana

v t e Asian Americans East Asian Chinese (Tibetan1) Japanese Korean Mongolian Taiwanese South Asian2 Bangladeshi Indian Indo-Caribbean Nepalese Pakistani Sri Lankan Tamil Southeast Asian Burmese Cambodian Filipino Hmong Indonesian Laotian Mien Singaporean Thai Vietnamese Other Afro-Asian Amerasian Asian Hispanic and Latino Americans Eurasian Multiracial American Punjabi Mexican History General Immigration Military Topics Arts and Entertainment Demographics Politics Stereotypes 1 The US Census Bureau reclassifies anyone identifying as "Tibetan American" as "Chinese American".[8] 2 The US Census Bureau considers Afghanistan a South Asian country, but does not classify Afghan Americans as Asian.[9]

Vietnam War
Part of the Cold War and the Indochina Wars
A Bell UH-1D helicopter piloted by Major Bruce P. Crandall climbs skyward after discharging a load of U.S. infantrymen on a search and destroy mission
Date 1 November 1955 (1955-11-01)[A 1] – 30 April 1975 (1975-04-30) (&1000000000000001900000019 years, &10000000000000180000000180 days) Location South Vietnam, North Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos Result North Vietnamese victory Withdrawal of American forces from Indochina Dissolution of the Republic of Vietnam Communist governments take power in South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos Territorial changes Unification of North and South Vietnam into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Belligerents
Anti-Communist forces: Republic of Vietnam  United States  Republic of Korea Australia  Philippines  New Zealand Thailand Khmer Republic Kingdom of Laos Supported by: Spain Republic of China[1]	Communist forces: Democratic Republic of Vietnam Viet Cong Khmer Rouge Pathet Lao Supported by: Democratic People's Republic of Korea People's Republic of China (to 1968) 22x20px Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Republic of Cuba
Commanders and leaders
Ngô Đình Diệm Nguyễn Văn Thiệu Nguyễn Cao Kỳ Cao Văn Viên Lyndon B. Johnson Richard Nixon William Westmoreland Creighton Abrams ...and others	Hồ Chí Minh Lê Duẩn Võ Nguyên Giáp Hoàng Văn Thái Văn Tiến Dũng Trần Văn Trà Nguyễn Văn Linh Nguyễn Hữu Thọ ...and others
Strength
~1,830,000 (1968) Republic of Vietnam: 850,000 United States of America: 536,100 Free World Military Forces: 65,000[2][3] Republic of Korea: 50,000[4] Commonwealth of Australia: 7,672 Kingdom of Thailand, Philippines: 10,450 New Zealand: 552	461,000+ Democratic Republic of Vietnam: 287,465 (January 1968)[5] People's Republic of China: 170,000 (1969) Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: 3,000 Democratic People's Republic of Korea: 300–600
Casualties and losses
Republic of Vietnam 361,000[6]-2,000,000 civilian dead;[7] military dead: 220,357 (lowest est.)[8] – 316,000 dead (highest est.);[6] 1,170,000 wounded United States 58,220 dead;[A 2] 303,644 wounded[A 2] Republic of Korea 5,099 dead; 10,962 wounded; 4 missing Commonwealth of Australia 521 dead; 3,000 wounded New Zealand 37 dead; 187 wounded Kingdom of Thailand 1,351 dead[8] Kingdom of Laos 30,000 killed, wounded unknown[13] Total dead: 426,228 – 2,381,228 (2,000,000 South civilians) Total wounded: ~1,490,000+	North Vietnam & NLF 50,000[6]-2,000,000 civilian dead;[7] 1,176,000 military dead or missing;[8] 600,000+ wounded[14] People's Republic of China 1,446 dead; 4,200 wounded 22x20px Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 16 dead[15] Total dead: 1,227,452-3,177,462 (50,000–2,000,000 North civilians) Military dead: ~1,177,462 ) Total wounded: ~604,200+
Vietnamese civilian dead: 411,000[6] – 4,000,000[16] Cambodian civilian dead: 200,000 – 300,000*[17][18][19] Laotian civilian dead: ~20,000 – 200,000* Total civilian dead: – 631,000 – 4,500,000 Total dead: – 1,653,740 - 5,558,690 * indicates approximations, see Casualties below For more information see Vietnam War casualties

The Vietnam War^{[A 3]} was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955^{[A 1]} to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other anti-communist countries.^[25] The Viet Cong (also known as the National Liberation Front, or NLF), a lightly armed South Vietnamese communist-controlled common front, largely fought a guerrilla war against anti-communist forces in the region. The Vietnam People's Army (North Vietnamese Army) engaged in a more conventional war, at times committing large units into battle. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery, and airstrikes.

The U.S. government viewed involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam as part of their wider strategy of containment. The North Vietnamese government and Viet Cong viewed the conflict as a colonial war, fought initially against France, backed by the U.S., and later against South Vietnam, which it regarded as a U.S. puppet state.^[26] American military advisors arrived in what was then French Indochina beginning in 1950. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with troop levels tripling in 1961 and tripling again in 1962.^[27] U.S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Operations spanned international borders, with Laos and Cambodia heavily bombed. American involvement in the war peaked in 1968, at the time of the Tet Offensive. After this, U.S. ground forces were gradually withdrawn as part of a policy known as Vietnamization. Despite the Paris Peace Accords, signed by all parties in January 1973, fighting continued.

U.S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973 as a result of the Case–Church Amendment passed by the U.S. Congress.^[28] The capture of Saigon by the Vietnam People's Army in April 1975 marked the end of the war, and North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year. The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities (see Vietnam War casualties). Estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed vary from less than one million^[29] to more than five million.^[7][30] Some 200,000–300,000 Cambodians,^[17][18][19] 20,000–200,000 Laotians,^{[31][32][33][34][35][36]} and 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict.^{[A 2]}

Names for the War[link]

Various names have been applied to the conflict. Vietnam War is the most commonly used name in English. It has also been called the Second Indochina War, and the Vietnam Conflict.

As there have been so many conflicts in Indochina, this conflict is known by the name of their chief opponent to distinguish it from the others.^[37] Thus, in Vietnamese, the war is known as Chiến tranh Việt Nam (The Vietnam War), or as Kháng chiến chống Mỹ (Resistance War Against America), loosely translated as the American War.^[38]

The main military organizations involved in the war were, on one side, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and the U.S. military, and, on the other side, the Vietnam People's Army (VPA) (also known as the North Vietnamese Army, or NVA), and the Viet Cong, or National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF), a South Vietnamese communist guerrilla force.

Background to 1949[link]

France began its conquest of Indochina in the late 1850s, and completed pacification by 1893.^[39][40][41] The Treaty of Huế, concluded in 1884, formed the basis for French colonial rule in Vietnam for the next seven decades. In spite of military resistance, most notably by the Can Vuong of Phan Dinh Phung, by 1888 the area of the current-day nations of Cambodia and Vietnam was made into the colony of French Indochina (Laos was added later).^[42] Various Vietnamese opposition movements to French rule existed during this period, such as the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang who staged the failed Yen Bai mutiny in 1930, but none were ultimately as successful as the Viet Minh common front, which was founded in 1941, controlled by the Indochinese Communist Party, and funded by the U.S. and the Chinese Nationalist Party in its fight against Japanese occupation.^{[43][A 4]}

During World War II, the French were defeated by the Germans in 1940. For French Indochina, this meant that the colonial authorities became Vichy French, allies of the German-Italian Axis powers. In turn this meant that the French collaborated with the Japanese forces after their invasion of French Indochina during 1940. The French continued to run affairs in the colony, but ultimate power resided in the hands of the Japanese.^[43]

The Viet Minh was founded as a league for independence from France, but also opposed Japanese occupation in 1945 for the same reason. The U.S. and Chinese Nationalist Party supported them in the fight against the Japanese.^[45] However, they did not have enough power to fight actual battles at first. Viet Minh leader Ho Chi Minh was suspected of being a communist and jailed for a year by the Chinese Nationalist Party.^[46]

Double occupation by France and Japan continued until the German forces were expelled from France and the French Indochina colonial authorities started holding secret talks with the Free French. Fearing that they could no longer trust the French authorities, the Japanese army interned them all on 9 March 1945 and assumed direct control themselves^[47] through their puppet state, the Empire of Vietnam, under Bảo Đại.

During 1944–1945, a deep famine struck northern Vietnam due to a combination of bad weather and French/Japanese exploitation. 1 million people died of starvation (out of a population of 10 million in the affected area).^[48] Exploiting the administrative gap^[49] that the internment of the French had created, the Viet Minh in March 1945 urged the population to ransack rice warehouses and refuse to pay their taxes.^[50] Between 75 and 100 warehouses were consequently raided.^[51] This rebellion against the effects of the famine and the authorities that were partially responsible for it bolstered the Viet Minh's popularity and they recruited many members during this period.^[49]

In August 1945, the Japanese had been defeated and surrendered unconditionally. In French Indochina this created a power vacuum, as the French were still interned and the Japanese forces stood down.^[51] The Viet Minh stepped into this vacuum and grasped power across Vietnam in the August Revolution,^[51] largely supported by the Vietnamese population.^[52] After their defeat in the war, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) gave weapons to the Vietnamese, and kept Vichy French officials and military officers imprisoned for a month after the surrender. The Việt Minh had recruited more than 600 Japanese soldiers and given them roles to train or command Vietnamese soldiers.^[53][54]

Ho Chi Minh declared the independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam before a crowd of 500,000 in Hanoi on 2 September 1945.^[51] In an overture to the Americans, he began his speech by paraphrasing the United States Declaration of Independence: All men are created equal. The Creator has given us certain inviolable Rights: the right to Life, the right to be Free, and the right to achieve Happiness.^[51]

However, the major allied victors of World War II, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union, all agreed the area belonged to the French.^[51] As the French did not have the ships, weapons, or soldiers to immediately retake Vietnam, the major powers came to an agreement that British troops would occupy the south while Nationalist Chinese forces would move in from the north.^[51] Nationalist Chinese troops entered the country to disarm Japanese troops north of the 16th parallel on 14 September 1945.^[55] When the British landed in the south, they rearmed the interned French forces as well as parts of the surrendered Japanese forces to aid them in retaking southern Vietnam, as they did not have enough troops to do this themselves.^[51]

Following the party line from Moscow, Ho Chi Minh initially attempted to negotiate with the French, who were slowly re-establishing their control across the country.^[56] In January 1946, the Viet Minh won elections across central and northern Vietnam.^[57] On 6 March 1946, Ho signed an agreement allowing French forces to replace Nationalist Chinese forces, in exchange for French recognition of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as a "free" republic within the French Union, with the specifics of such recognition to be determined by future negotiation.^[58][59][60] The French landed in Hanoi by March 1946 and in November of that year they ousted the Viet Minh from the city.^[61] British forces departed on 26 March 1946, leaving Vietnam in the hands of the French.^[62] Soon thereafter, the Viet Minh began a guerrilla war against the French Union forces, beginning the First Indochina War.

The war spread to Laos and Cambodia, where Communists organized the Pathet Lao and the Khmer Serei, both of which were modeled on the Viet Minh.^[63] Globally, the Cold War began in earnest, which meant that the rapprochement that existed between the Western powers and the Soviet Union during World War II disintegrated. The Viet Minh fight was hampered by a lack of weapons; this situation changed by 1949 when the Chinese Communists had largely won the Chinese Civil War and were free to provide arms to their Vietnamese allies.^[63]

Exit of the French, 1950–1954[link]

In January 1950, the communist nations, led by the People's Republic of China (PRC), recognized the Viet Minh's Democratic Republic of Vietnam, based in Hanoi, as the government of Vietnam, while non-communist nations recognized the French-backed State of Vietnam in Saigon, led by former Emperor Bảo Đại, as the Vietnamese government the following month.^[64] The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 convinced many Washington policymakers that the war in Indochina was an example of communist expansionism directed by the Kremlin.^[65]

French soldiers fight off a Viet Minh ambush in 1952.

PRC military advisors began assisting the Viet Minh in July 1950.^[66] PRC weapons, expertise, and laborers transformed the Viet Minh from a guerrilla force into a regular army.^[67] In September 1950, the United States created a Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) to screen French requests for aid, advise on strategy, and train Vietnamese soldiers.^[68] By 1954, the United States had supplied 300,000 small arms and spent US$1 billion in support of the French military effort, shouldering 80 percent of the cost of the war.^[69]

There were also talks between the French and Americans in which the possible use of three tactical nuclear weapons was considered, though reports of how seriously this was considered and by whom are even now vague and contradictory.^[70][71] One version of the plan for the proposed Operation Vulture envisioned sending 60 B-29s from U.S. bases in the region, supported by as many as 150 fighters launched from U.S. Seventh Fleet carriers, to bomb Viet Minh commander Vo Nguyen Giap's positions. The plan included an option to use up to three atomic weapons on the Viet Minh positions. Admiral Arthur W. Radford, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave this nuclear option his backing. U.S. B-29s, B-36s, and B-47s could have executed a nuclear strike, as could carrier aircraft from the Seventh Fleet.^[72]

U.S. carriers sailed to the Gulf of Tonkin, and reconnaissance flights over Dien Bien Phu were conducted during the negotiations. According to U.S. Vice-President Richard Nixon, the plan involved the Joint Chiefs of Staff drawing up plans to use three small tactical nuclear weapons in support of the French.^[70] Nixon, a so-called "hawk" on Vietnam, suggested that the United States might have to "put American boys in".^[73] U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower made American participation contingent on British support, but London was opposed to such a venture.^[73] In the end, convinced that the political risks outweighed the possible benefits, Eisenhower decided against the intervention.^[74] As an experienced five-star general, Eisenhower was very wary of getting the United States involved in a land war in Asia.

The Viet Minh received crucial support from the Soviet Union and PRC. PRC support in the Border Campaign of 1950 allowed supplies to come from the PRC into Vietnam. Throughout the conflict, U.S. intelligence estimates remained skeptical of French chances of success.^[75]

The Battle of Dien Bien Phu marked the end of French involvement in Indochina. Giap's Viet Minh forces handed the French a stunning military defeat, and on 7 May 1954, the French Union garrison surrendered. Of the 12,000 French prisoners taken by the Viet Minh, only 3,000 survived.^[76] At the Geneva Conference, the French negotiated a ceasefire agreement with the Viet Minh, and independence was granted to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.

Transition period[link]

The Geneva Conference, 1954

Vietnam was temporarily partitioned at the 17th parallel, and under the terms of the Geneva Accords, civilians were to be given the opportunity to move freely between the two provisional states for a 300-day period. Elections throughout the country were to be held in 1956 to establish a unified government.^[77] Around one million northerners, mainly minority Catholics, fled south, fearing persecution by the communists^[78] following an American propaganda campaign using slogans such as "The Virgin Mary is heading south",^[79] and aided by a U.S. funded $93 million relocation program, which included ferrying refugees with the Seventh Fleet.^[80] It is estimated that as many as two million more would have left had they not been stopped by the Viet Minh.^[81] The northern, mainly Catholic refugees were meant to give the later Ngô Đình Diệm regime a strong anti-communist constituency.^[82] Diem later went on to staff his administration's key posts mostly with northern and central Catholics.

In addition to the Catholics flowing south, up to 130,000 "Revolutionary Regroupees" went to the north for "regroupment," expecting to return to the south within two years.^[83] The Viet Minh left roughly 5,000 to 10,000 cadres in the south as a "politico-military substructure within the object of its irredentism."^[84] The last French soldiers were to leave Vietnam in April 1956.^[67] The PRC completed its withdrawal from North Vietnam at around the same time.^[66] Around 52,000 Vietnamese civilians moved from south to north.^[85]

In the north, the Viet Minh ruled as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and engaged in a drastic land reform program in which more than 100,000 perceived "class enemies" were executed.^{[86][87][88][89]} In 1956, leaders in Hanoi admitted to "excesses" in implementing this program and restored a large amount of the land to the original owners.^[90]

The south, meanwhile, constituted the State of Vietnam, with Bảo Đại as Emperor and Ngô Đình Diệm (appointed in July 1954) as his prime minister. In June 1955, Diem announced that the scheduled 1956 elections would not be held, claiming South Vietnam had rejected the Geneva Accords from the beginning and was therefore not bound by them. "How can we expect 'free elections' to be held in the Communist North?" he asked. President Eisenhower echoed senior U.S. experts^[91] when he wrote that, in 1954, "80 per cent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh" over Emperor Bảo Đại.^[92][93]

From April to June 1955, Diem (against U.S. advice) eliminated any political opposition in the south by launching military operations against the Cao Dai religious sect, the Hoa Hao sect of Ba Cut, and the Binh Xuyen organized crime group (which was allied with members of the secret police and some military elements). As broad-based opposition to his harsh tactics mounted, Diem increasingly sought to blame the communists.^[94]

In a referendum on the future of the State of Vietnam on 23 October 1955, Diem rigged the poll supervised by his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu and was credited with 98.2 percent of the vote, including 133% in Saigon. His American advisers had recommended a more modest winning margin of "60 to 70 percent." Diem, however, viewed the election as a test of authority.^[95] Three days later, he declared South Vietnam to be an independent state known as the Republic of Vietnam (ROV), with himself as president.^[96]

The ROV was created largely because of the Eisenhower administration's desire for an anti-communist state in the region.^[94] The domino theory, which argued that if one country fell to communism, then all of the surrounding countries would follow, was first proposed as policy by the Eisenhower administration.^[97] It was, and is still, commonly hypothesized that it applied to Vietnam. John F. Kennedy, then a U.S. Senator, said in a speech to the American Friends of Vietnam: "Burma, Thailand, India, Japan, the Philippines and obviously Laos and Cambodia are among those whose security would be threatened if the Red Tide of Communism overflowed into Vietnam."^[98]

Diem era, 1955–1963[link]

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles greet President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam in Washington, 8 May 1957.

Rule[link]

A devout Roman Catholic, Diem was fervently anti-communist, nationalist, and socially conservative. Historian Luu Doan Huynh notes that "Diem represented narrow and extremist nationalism coupled with autocracy and nepotism."^[99] As he was a wealthy Catholic, many ordinary Vietnamese viewed Diem as part of the elite who had helped the French rule Vietnam; Diem had been interior minister in the colonial government. The majority of Vietnamese people were Buddhist, and were alarmed by actions such as Diem's dedication of the country to the Virgin Mary.

Beginning in the summer of 1955, Diem launched the "Denounce the Communists" campaign, during which communists and other anti-government elements were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, or executed. He instituted the death penalty against any activity deemed communist in August 1956.^[100] The regime branded its opponents Viet Cong ("Vietnamese communist") to degrade their nationalist credentials. As a measure of the level of political repression, about 12,000 suspected opponents of Diem were killed between 1955 and 1957 and by the end of 1958 an estimated 40,000 political prisoners had been jailed.^[101]

In May 1957, Diem undertook a ten-day state visit to the United States. President Eisenhower pledged his continued support, and a parade was held in Diem's honor in New York City. Although Diem was publicly praised, in private Secretary of State John Foster Dulles conceded that Diem had been selected because there were no better alternatives.^[102]

Future U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara wrote that the new American patrons of the ROV were almost completely ignorant of Vietnamese culture. They knew little of the language or long history of the country.^[64] There was a tendency to assign American motives to Vietnamese actions, and Diem warned that it was an illusion to believe that blindly copying Western methods would solve Vietnamese problems.^[64]

Insurgency in the South, 1954–1960[link]

President Eisenhower noted that had the Geneva Accords been held, "possibly 80 percent of the population would have voted for Communist Ho Chi Minh" and the government quickly became more repressive and unpopular. The Diem government had largely failed in implementing a land reform program for the peasants of South Vietnam (90% of the population) which along with "Peace, security, freedom, [and] their standard of living" was the peasants' prime concern according to specialist Philippe Devillers. Among the changes the government altered the tenant structure to competitive bidding which led to more tenant insecurity. Only 10% of the tenants benefited from the program and were oftentimes northerners, refugees, or Catholics which created more animosity among the Vietnamese. In 1959 the program became inoperative and by 1960, only 2% of the landowners owned 45% of the land.^[24]

The South government used widespread repression, between 1954 and 1960 it captured 50,000 prisoners and had put them into "political reeducation camps" as part of the Denunciation of Communists Campaign. In 1959 British specialist PJ Honey was invited to examine the camps and concluded after interviewing rural Vietnamese that "the consensus of the opinion expressed by these peoples is that...the majority of the detainees are neither communists nor pro-communists."^[24]

According to the Pentagon Papers the prisons were "little more than concentration camps for potential foes of the government" and used torture regardless of whether they were communist or not. The Diem government had also abolished elections for village councils out of fear of large amounts of Viet Minh candidates winning and replaced administrative village autonomy with government officials.^[24]

This had an effect, between 1954 and 1957 there was large scale random dissidence in the countryside which the Diem government managed to successfully quell. In early 1957 South Vietnam had its first peace in over a decade. However, by mid-1957 through 1959 incidents of violence increased but the government "did not construe it as a campaign, considering the disorders too diffuse to warrant committing major GVN resources." By Early 1959 however, Diem had considered it a campaign and implemented Law 10/59, which made political violence punishable by death and property confiscation.^[103] There had been some division among former Viet Minh whose main goal was to hold the elections promised in the Geneva Accords, leading to "wildcat" activities separate from the other communists and anti-GVN activists.^[24]

In December 1960, the National Liberation Front (NLF) was formally created consisting of all anti-GVN activists and included non-communists. According to the Pentagon Papers, the NLF "placed heavy emphasis on the withdrawal of American advisors and influence, on land reform and liberalization of the GVN, on coalition government and the neutralization of Vietnam." Often the leaders of the organization were kept secret.^[24]

North Vietnam interference?[link]

Very little evidence points to organization or interference on the part of North Vietnam. As the Pentagon Papers point out, "No direct links have been established between Hanoi and perpetrators of rural violence." As Kahin and Lewis point out:

Contrary to United States policy assumptions, all available evidence shows that the revival of the civil war in the South in 1958 was undertaken by Southerners at their own—not Hanoi's—initiative...Insurgency activity against the Saigon government began in the South under Southern leadership not as a consequence of any dictate from Hanoi, but contrary to Hanoi's injunctions.^[24]

Similarly, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. states that "it was not until September, 1960 that the Communist Party of North Vietnam bestowed its formal blessing and called for the liberation of the south from American imperialism".^[24]

During John F. Kennedy's administration, 1961–1963[link]

In the 1960 U.S. presidential election, Senator John F. Kennedy defeated Vice-President Richard Nixon. Although Eisenhower warned Kennedy about Laos and Vietnam, Europe and Latin America "loomed larger than Asia on his sights."^[104] In his inaugural address, Kennedy made the ambitious pledge to "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty."^[105] In June 1961, he bitterly disagreed with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev when they met in Vienna to discuss key U.S.-Soviet issues.

The Kennedy administration remained essentially committed to the Cold War foreign policy inherited from the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. In 1961, the U.S. had 50,000 troops based in Korea, and Kennedy faced a three-part crisis – the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the construction of the Berlin Wall, and a negotiated settlement between the pro-Western government of Laos and the Pathet Lao communist movement.^[106] These made Kennedy believe that another failure on the part of the United States to gain control and stop communist expansion would fatally damage U.S. credibility with its allies and his own reputation. Kennedy was thus determined to "draw a line in the sand" and prevent a communist victory in Vietnam. He told James Reston of The New York Times immediately after his Vienna meeting with Khrushchev, "Now we have a problem making our power credible and Vietnam looks like the place."^[107][108]

In May 1961, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson visited Saigon and enthusiastically declared Diem the "Winston Churchill of Asia."^[109] Asked why he had made the comment, Johnson replied, "Diem's the only boy we got out there."^[102] Johnson assured Diem of more aid in molding a fighting force that could resist the communists.

Kennedy's policy toward South Vietnam rested on the assumption that Diem and his forces must ultimately defeat the guerrillas on their own. He was against the deployment of American combat troops and observed that "to introduce U.S. forces in large numbers there today, while it might have an initially favorable military impact, would almost certainly lead to adverse political and, in the long run, adverse military consequences."^[110] The quality of the South Vietnamese military, however, remained poor. Bad leadership, corruption, and political promotions all played a part in emasculating the ARVN. The frequency of guerrilla attacks rose as the insurgency gathered steam. While Hanoi's support for the NLF played a role, South Vietnamese governmental incompetence was at the core of the crisis.^[111]

South Vietnam, Military Regions, 1967

One major issue Kennedy raised was whether the Soviet space and missile programs had surpassed those of the United States. Although Kennedy stressed long-range missile parity with the Soviets, he was also interested in using special forces for counterinsurgency warfare in Third World countries threatened by communist insurgencies. Although they were originally intended for use behind front lines after a conventional invasion of Europe, Kennedy believed that the guerrilla tactics employed by special forces such as the Green Berets would be effective in a "brush fire" war in Vietnam.

Kennedy advisers Maxwell Taylor and Walt Rostow recommended that U.S. troops be sent to South Vietnam disguised as flood relief workers. Kennedy rejected the idea but increased military assistance yet again. In April 1962, John Kenneth Galbraith warned Kennedy of the "danger we shall replace the French as a colonial force in the area and bleed as the French did."^[112] By 1963, there were 16,000 American military personnel in South Vietnam, up from Eisenhower's 900 advisors.^[113]

The Strategic Hamlet Program had been initiated in 1961. This joint U.S.-South Vietnamese program attempted to resettle the rural population into fortified camps. The aim was to isolate the population from the insurgents, provide education and health care, and strengthen the government's hold over the countryside.^{[citation needed]} The Strategic Hamlets, however, were quickly infiltrated by the guerrillas.^{[citation needed]} The peasants resented being uprooted from their ancestral villages.^{[citation needed]} In part, this was because Colonel Pham Ngoc Thao, a Diem favourite who was instrumental in running the program, was in fact a communist agent who used his Catholicism to gain influential posts and damage the ROV from the inside.^{[citation needed]}

The government refused to undertake land reform, which left farmers paying high rents to a few wealthy landlords. Corruption dogged the program and intensified opposition.

On 23 July 1962, fourteen nations, including the People's Republic of China, South Vietnam, the Soviet Union, North Vietnam and the United States, signed an agreement promising the neutrality of Laos.^[114]

Coup and assassinations[link]

See also: Kennedy's role, 1960 South Vietnamese coup attempt, 1962 South Vietnamese Independence Palace bombing, Huế Phật Đản shootings and Xa Loi Pagoda raids

The inept performance of the South Vietnamese army was exemplified by failed actions such as the Battle of Ap Bac on 2 January 1963, in which a small band of Viet Cong beat off a much larger and better equipped South Vietnamese force, many of whose officers seemed reluctant even to engage in combat.^[115] The ARVN were led in that battle by Diem's most trusted general, Huynh Van Cao, commander of the IV Corps. Cao was a Catholic who had been promoted due to religion and fidelity rather than skill, and his main job was to preserve his forces to stave off coups; he had earlier vomited during a communist attack. Some policymakers in Washington began to conclude that Diem was incapable of defeating the communists and might even make a deal with Ho Chi Minh. He seemed concerned only with fending off coups, and had become more paranoid after attempts in 1960 and 1962, which he partly attributed to U.S. encouragement. As Robert F. Kennedy noted, "Diem wouldn't make even the slightest concessions. He was difficult to reason with..."^[116]

Discontent with Diem's policies exploded following the Huế Phật Đản shootings of majority Buddhists who were protesting against the ban on the Buddhist flag on Vesak, the Buddha's birthday. This resulted in mass protests against discriminatory policies that gave privileges to the Catholic Church and its adherents. Diem's elder brother Ngo Dinh Thuc was the Archbishop of Huế and aggressively blurred the separation between church and state. Thuc's anniversary celebrations shortly before Vesak had been bankrolled by the government and Vatican flags were displayed prominently. There had also been reports of Buddhist pagodas being demolished by Catholic paramilitaries throughout Diem's rule. Diem refused to make concessions to the Buddhist majority or take responsibility for the deaths. On 21 August 1963, the ARVN Special Forces of Colonel Le Quang Tung, loyal to Diem's younger brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, raided pagodas across Vietnam, causing widespread damage and destruction and leaving a death toll estimated to range into the hundreds.

Ngo Dinh Diem after being shot and killed in the 1963 coup.

U.S. officials began discussing the possibility of a regime change during the middle of 1963. The United States Department of State was generally in favor of encouraging a coup, while the Defense Department favored Diem. Chief among the proposed changes was the removal of Diem's younger brother Nhu, who controlled the secret police and special forces was seen as the man behind the Buddhist repression and more generally the architect of the Ngo family's rule. This proposal was conveyed to the U.S. embassy in Saigon in Cable 243.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was in contact with generals planning to remove Diem. They were told that the United States would not oppose such a move nor punish the generals by cutting off aid. President Diem was overthrown and executed, along with his brother, on 2 November 1963. When he was informed, Maxwell Taylor remembered that Kennedy "rushed from the room with a look of shock and dismay on his face."^[117] He had not approved Diem's murder. The U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge, invited the coup leaders to the embassy and congratulated them. Ambassador Lodge informed Kennedy that "the prospects now are for a shorter war".^[118]

Following the coup, chaos ensued. Hanoi took advantage of the situation and increased its support for the guerrillas. South Vietnam entered a period of extreme political instability, as one military government toppled another in quick succession. Increasingly, each new regime was viewed as a puppet of the Americans; whatever the failings of Diem, his credentials as a nationalist (as Robert McNamara later reflected) had been impeccable.^[119]

U.S military advisers were embedded at every level of the South Vietnamese armed forces. They were, however, almost completely ignorant of the political nature of the insurgency. The insurgency was a political power struggle, in which military engagements were not the main goal.^[120] The Kennedy administration sought to refocus U.S. efforts on pacification and "winning over the hearts and minds" of the population. The military leadership in Washington, however, was hostile to any role for U.S. advisers other than conventional troop training.^[121] General Paul Harkins, the commander of U.S. forces in South Vietnam, confidently predicted victory by Christmas 1963.^[122] The CIA was less optimistic, however, warning that "the Viet Cong by and large retain de facto control of much of the countryside and have steadily increased the overall intensity of the effort".^[123]

Paramilitary officers from the CIA's Special Activities Division trained and led Hmong tribesmen in Laos and into Vietnam. The indigenous forces numbered in the tens of thousands and they conducted direct action missions, led by paramilitary officers, against the Communist Pathet Lao forces and their North Vietnamese supporters.^[124] The CIA also ran the Phoenix Program and participation Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MAC-V SOG), which was originally named the Special Operations Group, but was changed for cover purposes.^[125]

Lyndon B. Johnson escalates the war, 1963–1969[link]

A U.S. B-66 Destroyer and four F-105 Thunderchiefs dropping bombs on North Vietnam

Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ), as he took over the presidency after the death of Kennedy, initially did not consider Vietnam a priority and was more concerned with his "Great Society" and progressive social programs. Presidential aide Jack Valenti recalls, "Vietnam at the time was no bigger than a man's fist on the horizon. We hardly discussed it because it was not worth discussing."^[126][127]

On 24 November 1963, Johnson said, "the battle against communism... must be joined... with strength and determination."^[128] The pledge came at a time when Vietnam was deteriorating, especially in places like the Mekong Delta, because of the recent coup against Diem.^[129] Johnson had reversed Kennedy's disengagement policy from Vietnam in withdrawing 1,000 troops by the end of 1963 (NSAM 263 on 11 October),^[130] with his own NSAM 273 (26 November)^[131][132] to expand the war.

The military revolutionary council, meeting in lieu of a strong South Vietnamese leader, was made up of 12 members headed by General Duong Van Minh—whom Stanley Karnow, a journalist on the ground, later recalled as "a model of lethargy."^[133] Lodge, frustrated by the end of the year, cabled home about Minh: "Will he be strong enough to get on top of things?" His regime was overthrown in January 1964 by General Nguyen Khanh.^[134] However, there was persistent instability in the military as several coups—not all successful—occurred in a short space of time.

An alleged NLF activist, captured during an attack on an American outpost near the Cambodian border, is interrogated.

On 2 August 1964, the USS Maddox, on an intelligence mission along North Vietnam's coast, allegedly fired upon and damaged several torpedo boats that had been stalking it in the Gulf of Tonkin.^[135] A second attack was reported two days later on the USS Turner Joy and Maddox in the same area. The circumstances of the attack were murky. Lyndon Johnson commented to Undersecretary of State George Ball that "those sailors out there may have been shooting at flying fish."^[136]

The second attack led to retaliatory air strikes, prompted Congress to approve the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on 5 August 1964, signed by Johnson, and gave the President power to conduct military operations in Southeast Asia without declaring war.^[137] Although Congressmen at the time denied that this was a full scale war declaration, the Tonkin Resolution allowed the President unilateral power to launch a full scale war if the President deemed necessary.^[137] In the same month, Johnson pledged that he was not "... committing American boys to fighting a war that I think ought to be fought by the boys of Asia to help protect their own land."^[138]

An undated NSA publication declassified in 2005, however, revealed that there was no attack on 4 August.^[139] It had already been called into question long before this. "Gulf of Tonkin incident", writes Louise Gerdes, "is an oft-cited example of the way in which Johnson misled the American people to gain support for his foreign policy in Vietnam."^[140] George C. Herring argues, however, that McNamara and the Pentagon "did not knowingly lie about the alleged attacks, but they were obviously in a mood to retaliate and they seem to have selected from the evidence available to them those parts that confirmed what they wanted to believe."^[141]

"From a strength of approximately 5,000 at the start of 1959 the Viet Cong's ranks grew to about 100,000 at the end of 1964...Between 1961 and 1964 the Army's strength rose from about 850,000 to nearly a million men."^[120] The numbers for U.S. troops deployed to Vietnam during the same period were quite different; 2,000 in 1961, rising rapidly to 16,500 in 1964.^[142]

A Marine from 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, moves an alleged NLF activist to the rear during a search and clear operation held by the battalion 15 miles (24 km) west of Da Nang Air Base.

The National Security Council recommended a three-stage escalation of the bombing of North Vietnam. On 2 March 1965, following an attack on a U.S. Marine barracks at Pleiku,^[143] Operation Flaming Dart (initiated when Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin was at a state visit to North Vietnam), Operation Rolling Thunder and Operation Arc Light commenced.^[144] The bombing campaign, which ultimately lasted three years, was intended to force North Vietnam to cease its support for the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF) by threatening to destroy North Vietnam's air defenses and industrial infrastructure. As well, it was aimed at bolstering the morale of the South Vietnamese.^[145] Between March 1965 and November 1968, "Rolling Thunder" deluged the north with a million tons of missiles, rockets and bombs.^[146]

Bombing was not restricted to North Vietnam. Other aerial campaigns, such as Operation Commando Hunt, targeted different parts of the NLF and VPA infrastructure. These included the Ho Chi Minh trail, which ran through Laos and Cambodia. The objective of forcing North Vietnam to stop its support for the NLF, however, was never reached. As one officer noted "this is a political war and it calls for discriminate killing. The best weapon... would be a knife... The worst is an airplane."^[147] The Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force Curtis LeMay, however, had long advocated saturation bombing in Vietnam and wrote of the Communists that "we're going to bomb them back into the Stone Age".^[148]

Escalation and ground war[link]

Universal Newsreel film about an attack on U.S. air bases and the U.S. response. 1965

Peasants suspected of being Vietcong under detention of U.S. army, 1966

After several attacks upon them, it was decided that U.S. Air Force bases needed more protection. The South Vietnamese military seemed incapable of providing security. On 8 March 1965, 3,500 U.S. Marines were dispatched to South Vietnam. This marked the beginning of the American ground war. U.S. public opinion overwhelmingly supported the deployment.^[149]

In a statement similar to that made to the French almost two decades earlier, Ho Chi Minh warned that if the Americans "want to make war for twenty years then we shall make war for twenty years. If they want to make peace, we shall make peace and invite them to afternoon tea."^[150] As former First Deputy Foreign Minister Tran Quang Co has noted, the primary goal of the war was to reunify Vietnam and secure its independence. The policy of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) was not to topple other non-communist governments in South East Asia.^[151]

The Marines' assignment was defensive. The initial deployment of 3,500 in March was increased to nearly 200,000 by December.^[152] The U.S. military had long been schooled in offensive warfare. Regardless of political policies, U.S. commanders were institutionally and psychologically unsuited to a defensive mission.^[152] In December, ARVN forces suffered heavy losses at the Battle of Bình Giã,^[153] in a battle that both sides viewed as a watershed. Previously communist forces had utilized hit-and-run guerrilla tactics, however at Binh Gia they had defeated a strong ARVN force in conventional warfare.^[154] Tellingly, South Vietnamese forces were again defeated in June, at the Battle of Đồng Xoài.^[155]

U.S. soldiers searching a village for NLF

Desertion rates were increasing, and morale plummeted. General William Westmoreland informed Admiral U.S. Grant Sharp, Jr., commander of U.S. Pacific forces, that the situation was critical.^[152] He said, "I am convinced that U.S. troops with their energy, mobility, and firepower can successfully take the fight to the NLF [National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam]."^[156] With this recommendation, Westmoreland was advocating an aggressive departure from America's defensive posture and the sidelining of the South Vietnamese. By ignoring ARVN units, the U.S. commitment became open-ended.^[157] Westmoreland outlined a three-point plan to win the war:

• Phase 1. Commitment of U.S. (and other free world) forces necessary to halt the losing trend by the end of 1965.
• Phase 2. U.S. and allied forces mount major offensive actions to seize the initiative to destroy guerrilla and organized enemy forces. This phase would end when the enemy had been worn down, thrown on the defensive, and driven back from major populated areas.
• Phase 3. If the enemy persisted, a period of twelve to eighteen months following Phase 2 would be required for the final destruction of enemy forces remaining in remote base areas.^[158]

The plan was approved by Johnson and marked a profound departure from the previous administration's insistence that the government of South Vietnam was responsible for defeating the guerrillas. Westmoreland predicted victory by the end of 1967.^[159] Johnson did not, however, communicate this change in strategy to the media. Instead he emphasized continuity.^[160] The change in U.S. policy depended on matching the North Vietnamese and the NLF in a contest of attrition and morale. The opponents were locked in a cycle of escalation.^[161] The idea that the government of South Vietnam could manage its own affairs was shelved.^[161]

Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin with U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson at the Glassboro Summit Conference where the two representatives discussed the possibilities of a peace settlement.

The one-year tour of duty deprived units of experienced leadership. As one observer noted "we were not in Vietnam for 10 years, but for one year 10 times."^[147] As a result, training programs were shortened.

South Vietnam was inundated with manufactured goods. As Stanley Karnow writes, "the main PX [Post Exchange], located in the Saigon suburb of Cholon, was only slightly smaller than the New York Bloomingdale's..."^[162] The American buildup transformed the economy and had a profound effect on South Vietnamese society. A huge surge in corruption was witnessed.

The Ho Chi Minh Trail running through Laos, 1967

Washington encouraged its SEATO allies to contribute troops. Australia, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines^[163] all agreed to send troops. Major allies, however, notably NATO nations Canada and the United Kingdom, declined Washington's troop requests.^[164] The U.S. and its allies mounted complex operations, such as operations Masher, Attleboro, Cedar Falls, and Junction City. However, the communist insurgents remained elusive and demonstrated great tactical flexibility.