Vietnam, 1945-1954 Vietnam since 1975






North Vietnam, 1954-1975



At the GENEVA CONFERENCE of 1954, the partition of French Indochina into 4 independent states - Laos, Cambodia, South Vietnam and North Vietnam was decided. Only North Vietnam was to be a coommunist country, ruled by the VIET MINH. The latter felt betrayed, for it had been them who had defeated the French in the battle of DIEN BIEN PHU.
Vietnam was partitioned at the 18th degree northern latitude. The capital of socialist North Vietnam was HANOI. The North Vietnamese were not willing to accept the situation; the VIET CONG, a communist resistance organization was founded in South Vietnam, stringly supported from the north. The US, believing in the DOMINO THEORY, again and again increased financial and military aid to the southern government, sent military advisers, troops who then actively got involved in the fighting. The situation escalated into the VIETNAM WAR.
Until 1964 the fighting was limited to South Vietnamese territory; in 1964 US President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered North Vietnamese territory to be bombed. The US strategy seemed to be working, until the TET OFFENSIVE of 1968 came as a shock to the US public, Vietcong fighters temporarily holding the roof of the US embassy in Saigon.
In 1973, after negotiations held in Geneva (for which US secretary of state HENRY KISSINGER and North Vietnamese diplomat LE DUC THO were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize), the US declared her intention to withdraw her troops from the South East Asian theater. After a face-saving period of two years, the communists launched offensives and toppled the non-communist administrations in Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam; Vietnam finally was unified.






EXTERNAL
FILES
DOCUMENTS Estimates of Death Toll in North Vietnam (State Suppression, Vietnam War), posted by Matthew White, scroll down for North Vietnam
Coat of Arms, from Wappenlexikon, comment in German
REFERENCE Article : Vietnam, in : Britannica Book of the Year 1956 pp.733-734, 1957 pp.796-797, 1958 p.737, 1959 p.736, 1960 pp.735-736, 1961 pp.737-738, 1962 pp.726-728, 1963 p.842, 1964 pp.856-857, 1965 pp.857-859, 1966 pp.797-801, 1967 pp.794-798, 1968 pp.798-802, 1969 pp.790-795, 1970 pp.788-793, 1971 pp.771-775, 1972 pp.725-729, 1973 pp.723-728, 1974 pp.720-726, 1975 pp.727-729, 1976 pp.725-728 [G]
Article : North Vietnam, in : The World in Figures 1st ed. 1976 pp.203-204 [G]
Article : Vietnam, in : Americana Annual 1957 pp.827-828, 1961 pp.811-812, 1962 pp.818-820, 1963 pp.727-730, 1964 pp.710-713, 1965 pp.733-736, 1967 pp.734-739, 1968 pp.731-738, 1969 pp.735-742, 1970 pp.736-742, 1971 pp.741-743, 1972 pp.739-741, 1973 pp.737-739, 1974 pp.647-649, 1976 pp.103, 588-591 [G]
Article : North Vietnam, in : The Statesman's Year-Book 1970-1971 pp. 1479-1482, 1975-1976 pp. 1476-1479 [G]
Marvin E. Gettleman (ed.), Vietnam. History, Documents, and Opinions on a Major World Crisis, Grenwich : Fawcett Crest 1965 [G]


This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2000, last revised on May 1st 2007

Click here to go Home
Click here to go to Information about KMLA, WHKMLA, the author and webmaster
Click here to go to Statistics