Ngo Dinh Diem was a man who had been described by many different titles. This was due to the many different things which he had said and done in order to get where he wanted to get in his political career. Diem showed characteristics of being both a nationalist and an opportunist. This essay will seek to answer whether he was truly a nationalist or an opportunist through a thorough analysis of different sources. According to Source H Ngo Dinh Diem played an active and important role in achieving his political success in Vietnam. Due to the war between France and the Viet Minh in December 1946, Diem began the attempt to create a ‘Third Force’ in Vietnam to take on France and as well as the Viet Minh. Diem was well that at that point of time he did not have the proper resources to create an adequate third force, this resulted in him laying low in order to establish alliances and as well as to grow his supporters for hid …show more content…
Finances given to South Vietnam by America soon stopped as most of the money was pocketed by Diem and government officials and not used for the up keeping of the Strategic Hamlets. Although Diem and his regime were corrupt and fraudulent, the South Vietnamese economy improved as there were international businesses who were willing to trade. In 1957 Diem announced a five-year economic plan and called for foreign loans and domestic investment. Those who invested in the economy, particularly export industries, were promised government guarantees and concessions, such as lower tax rates and land rents. (Source E: Author: J. Llewellyn et al, “South Vietnam”, Alpha History.) The government began to import equipment such as machinery and farm machinery; this resulted in the agriculture sector recovering, rice production went from 70,000 tons per year in 1955 to 340,000 tons in 1960. (Source E: Author: J. Llewellyn et al, “South Vietnam”, Alpha
The period from 1960’s to 1970’s was a hardship time for Americans because of Vietnam invasion. In an attempt to contain and defeat communism, the United States, oblivious of the enemy capability and filled with pride, invaded Vietnam at a cost of large financial expense and human lives. North Vietnamese military supported by forces of China and the Soviet Union fought the American force ferociously and was able to force America to end its invasion in 1975. As with most other third world countries, Vietnam also has a long history of colonization by European powers.
Furthermore, United States’ support in Vietnam was initially supposed to be limited to training support (source A). As even United States president, Lyndon Johnson, was aware of the potential escalation of the war in Vietnam if American military forces were to involve themselves in the Vietnamese conflict. President Johnsons statement that “… we could get tied down in a third world war” (source A) substantiates the idea that America feared the worldwide consequence of American support in Vietnam (Source A). Contrary to this however,
Farmers saw increased production as the land was recovered and was put back to use, despite the Dust Bowl forcing many farmers to change professions all together
Him and millions of people marched into the capital city of Hanoi, he issued the Vietnam’s Declaration of Independence. “From the American Declaration of Independence he borrow the famous statements, All men are created equal and they endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”(Zinn 469) Ho Chi Minh and his people were fighting for their freedom against French like the our founding fathers they fought against the British in 1776 for their freedom. The reason Vietnamese wanted to end the French occupation was because they imposed inhuman laws on the vietnamese. For instance, “the French government built more prisons than schools, they have slain their patriots, they have robbed their natural resources, they have enforced unnecessary taxes, people are living in a state of poverty, and two million Vietnamese people suffered from malnutrition and they were starved to death.”(Zinn
In addition to general exhaustion from war, the American people wanted to focus on domestic equality before moving forward with global equality and democracy. Anti-Vietnam War protests were not necessarily unwarranted, as the anti-democracy Tet Offensive of North Vietnam resulted in the deaths of thousands of American soldiers, with the vast majority of states reporting over 100 war casualties in 1968 alone. (Document E) Economically, the Vietnam War was challenging to manage, as the department of defense budget once again rose to today’s equivalent of 450 billion dollars, adding to an already quickly growing, massive national debt. (Document G)
With the US military helping South Vietnam against the North Vietnam. The South Vietnam didn’t not feel like they had support under the Western’s power, which South Vietnam didn’t because Nixon was trying to help the South Vietnam, but no involving US soldiers to fight in the war. Although, Nixon made the Vietnamization policy to stop US involvement it cause more of a uprise for the US position in the war. The New Economic policy and Nixon Doctrine both policies made by Nixon was only towards his presidency and not actually stopping the US involvement. Nixon said it would make a change in the US involvement to better but instead Nixon didn’t follow up upon his campaign promises.
In November of 1969, Butterfield watched as Nixon erupted over a series of press reports by journalist Seymour M. Hersh. The president was informed about the massacre of hundreds of Vietnamese civilians by American soldiers in My Lai. The attack was led by Army Lieutenant William L. Calley and it was the best documented Vietnam war crime. Butterfield needed to be informed about anything that was of interest to the president. Therefore, he gathered numerous documents about the case into his documents.
In 1969, Life magazine, an extremely popular and influential magazine of the time, hires a new editor, and there is an obvious change in the type of stories they were printing. The stories become more anti-war, and they showcase the ways in which the war was affecting both the Vietnamese and the people at home in America. One extremely powerful and shocking piece they published titled "Vietnam: One Week 's Dead", showed over 200 young men who had been lost in the span of one full week in the conflict of Vietnam. There was no story, simply their picture, their name, their age, their hometown, and their ranking in the military. These photos were sent in by the families, and oftentimes showed the youth and joy of these passed men, with several
This historical analysis will define the imperial impact of French colonialism and the influence of Chinese communism and on the Vietnamese people in the pre-WWII era. The important role of China in the development of Vietnam’s history is crucial to understand the ways in which foreign colonists could not sustain dominance over these peoples. In the past, Northern Vietnam had been a part of China, which defines the close relationship that these people had with a larger and more powerful empire in this region of the world. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, the role of China’s own nationalist movements had an impact on Vietnam’s own struggles in French-Indochina. The early focus on “nationalism” in China was going against western
Ngo Dinh Diem did indeed emerge as the leader of South Vietnam in the aftermath of Dien Bien Phu which was eventually seen coming. The U.S policy makers surprisingly wanted to aid the support of Diem during the Eisenhower administration because of a couple of reasons. The accords called for elections to be held in 1956 to reunite the country under a single government. (FOW, 1:16:00-120:00) Diem didn’t want anything to do with the elections but fearing that Ho Chi Mihn would win the elections, President Eisenhower certainly approved of Diem’s actions and increased the aid to South Vietnam. Cables (243 & 279) Another factor was called the Domino’s effect, which stating that if one state’s falls under communism, the surrounding states fall with
Vietnam saw the war as a fight for independence while the U.S. saw the war as a fight against the communist regime, aiming to instil its capitalist approach in order to alienate the Soviets from the rest of society. This is a perfect example of numerous things in the theory of Realism, namely: the balance of power, the idea that peace and stability are most likely to be maintained when military power is distributed to prevent a single superpower from controlling the world; the security dilemma, the tendency of states to view the defensive arming of adversaries as threatening, causing them to arm in response so that all states’ security declines; and national interest, the goals that states pursue to maximize what they perceive to be selfishly best for their country (WPTT, 2011, pp.32-33). The U.S. saw the Vietnamese becoming allies with the Soviets as a security dilemma, so in order to somewhat restore the balance of power, a war was declared on the Vietnamese, all to preserve its national interest. The U.S. declared war on Vietnam even though there was no real need for one, as the Vietnamese were much too busy fighting for their independence from the Chinese in an attempt to differentiate
An example showing the improvement of the Viet Minh forces under the military assistance of China was the loses of French garrisons near the Sino-Vietnamese border where French lost around 6,000 of 10,000 men, 13 artillery pieces, 125 mortars and 450 trucks (Davidson, 1988). Chinese aid did not end with just military advisors; in 1952 they provided 250 tons of supplies a month which keep increasing dramatically to 1,500-4,000 tons a month in 1954 (Clodfelter, 1995). Up to 20,000 peasants were carrying supplies from China along a trail which later was called the Ho Chi Minh trail (Sutherland, 1990). All of these supports enabled Viet Minh to be capable of defeating the French army in large scale offensive operations. China also contributed to the victory of Viet Minh in Dien Bien Phu as a Chinese advisor name Wei Guoqing alerted them of the opportunity provide by the French reoccupation of the valley (Seals, 2008).
They believed that if Vietnam fell to communism so would the surrounding countries like Cambodia and Laos would as well. The third reason was the North Vietnamese attack on an American ship also known as the Gulf of Tonkin incident. This incident was very influential in the US
Evaluate the positive and negative of globalization on Vietnam Today, there are increasing international brands set their factories in Vietnam such as Columbia Sportswear, L.L.Bean and Nike(DangThu,2011). It is not a secret that globalization is increasing substantially and creating new opportunities for Vietnam. As Wild and Han said, ‘Globalization trend toward greater economic, culture, political, and technological interdependence among national institutions and economic. ’(Wild&Han, 2006:6) However, globalization not only took benefits to Vietnam.
Nhat Hanh also saw that people were having a difficult time which government had paid little effort to take care of public lives and welfare during the Vietnam War. He founded that there was a necessity to