University of Virginia Library

French Period

During the French colonial
period, Vietnam as well as Laos
and Cambodia were united
under French domination; but
even then, France administered
Vietnam in three parts, with
Hanoi, Hue and Saigon being
the three centers of control.

Following the Japanese
surrender in the summer of
1945, Ho Chi Minh's
communist forces emerged as
the strongest political group
within Vietnam, and the most
militant anti-French. Ho
captured control of the
nationalist movement by being
the most aggressive force
fighting the French from 1946
to 1954; but there were also
many non-communist
Vietnamese nationalists who
wanted the French out of their
country, but not at the price of
giving political control to Ho
Chi Minh.

The 1954 Geneva Accords
on Vietnam did not settle the
political struggle within
Vietnam; they permitted the
French to withdraw, and set up
a demarcation line at the 17th
parallel to enable communist
and non-communist forces to
re-group and get ready for the
next round in their civil war.

The international conflict in
Vietnam started in 1949 when
Mao Tse Tung's forces
conquered the mainland of
China and began to aid Ho Chi
Minh against the French. The
United States then aided the
French and greatly stepped up
this assistance after the
outbreak of war in Korea.
When the French were on the
verge of defeat early in 1954,
President Eisenhower refused
to use U.S. military forces to
prevent a Viet-Minh victory.
However, he further
internationalized the conflict
by concluding the SEATO pact
with seven other nations
guaranteeing South Vietnam,
Laos and Cambodia against
attack from Hanoi.

The civil war resumed in
earnest in 1906, and by 1963
the Saigon government of Ngo
Dinh Diem was engulfed by
both the Viet Cong insurgency
and political turmoil among
the non-communist forces. His
ouster in the fall of 1963 by
the South Vietnamese Army
was recognition that the
communist forces were
winning the civil war.

President Kennedy had
decided already in the fall of
1961 that a communist victory
in South Vietnam would be
catastrophic to U.S. interests
elsewhere in Asia, and he set in
a vast increase in military
assistance to South Vietnam
which clearly contemplated the
use of American forces if that
became necessary to prevent a
collapse in Saigon.