Vietman War :: essays research papers

From the 1880s until World War II (1939-1945), France governed Vietnam as part of French Indochina. (Indochina also included Cambodia and Laos, and was ruled by the emperor Bao Dai). During this time, the nations of Indochina fought for their sovereignty. In 1940, the Japanese troops invaded and occupied French Indochina, (causing the United States to step in and demand Japan to leave). In December of that year, Vietnamese nationalists established the League for the Independence of Vietnam, (or Viet Minh), â€Å"using the turmoil of the war as an opportunity for resistance to French colonial rule† (Nixon, 24). When Japan would not cooperate, the U.S. and Viet Minh formed an alliance against them. The U.S. sent in militia, and the Viet Minh began guerrilla warfare. The Viet Minh troops rescued downed U.S. pilots, located Japanese prison camps, helped U.S. prisoners to escape, and provided valuable intelligence to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the Ce ntral Intelligence Agency (CIA). Ho Chi Minh, the principal leader of the Viet Minh, was even made a special OSS agent. Eventually, the Japanese signed their formal surrender (on September 2, 1945), and Ho Chi Minh used the occasion to declare the independence of Vietnam, which he called the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). However, although Emperor Bao Dai resigned the throne, the French refused to acknowledge Vietnam’s independence, and later that year drove the Viet Minh into the north of the country. Ho Chi Minh wrote over eight letters to Truman (while he was president) asking him for the U.S support. However, after the Cold War, the United States and Truman feared support of communism in any form. The United States and Truman therefore condemned Ho Chi Minh as an agent of international Communism and offered to assist the French in recapturing Vietnam. â€Å"In 1946 United States warships ferried elite French troops to Vietnam where they quickly regained control of the major cities, including Hanoi, Haiphong, Hue, and Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), while the Viet Minh controlled the countryside† (Ebert 38). (Although the Viet Minh had only 2000 troops at first, the recruiting increased after the arrival of French troops, and by the late 1940s, the Viet Minh had hundreds of thousands of soldiers). In 1949 the French set up a government to rival Ho Chi Minh’s, installing Bao Dai as head of state. In May 1954 the Viet Minh mounted a massive assault on the French fortress at Dien Bien, in Northwestern Vietnam.