- 20 Mar 2003 09:05
#3771
Just over twenty years ago, John Pilger reported the end of the Vietnam War from the American Embassy in Saigon, where the last American troops fled from the roof-top helicopter pad.
He was later made Journalist of the Year and International Reporter of the Year for his reporting of the Vietnam War over a period of almost ten years.
The American invasion of Vietnam marked the last stage of the longest war of the last century, a war in which the greatest tonnage of bombs in history was dropped, in which more than two million Vietnamese were killed and a bountiful land devastated.
With the Americans finally gone, Vietnam was made an international pariah. The United States mounted an embargo that covered both trade and aid and other Western governments and international banks soon joined in.
Out of thirty years of war came twenty years of isolation - such were the spoils of victory.
In 1978 John Pilger and David Munro made the documentary, 'Do you remember Vietnam?'
In 1998's 'Vietnam: The Last Battle', Pilger returned to Vietnam to review these twenty years, seeking to rescue something of Vietnamese past and present from Hollywood images which pitied the invader while overshadowing one of the most epic struggles of the 20th century.
Modern History of Vietnam
1858-93
French conquer the area of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Re-name it French Union of Indo-China.
1930
Ho Chi Minh founds Indochina Communist Party to resist French rule. Goes into exile in the Soviet Union and China after the Party is savagely suppressed.
1940-1
After France surrenders to Germany, Japan, Germany's ally, takes control of Indochina, ruling jointly with the Vichy French. Ho Chi Minh returns to lead resistance to the Japanese and French. Sets up the Vietminh - League for Vietnamese Independence. Though led by communists, it attracts many nationalists.
1941-5
Vietminh lead the fight against the Japanese, supported by the US, which supplies them with weapons. When France is liberated, the Japanese imprison French troops. In 1945, when the Japanese surrender after Hiroshima, the Vietminh, who are based in the north, take over Hanoi and declare the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh hopes for US support against the French.
British troops arrive in Saigon from Burma. They aim to restore French colonial rule. They rearm Japanese troops and use them to drive the Vietminh out of Saigon and the south. The French re-establish colonial rule in the south.
1946
The French fight the Vietminh for control of the north. They drive the Vietminh out of Hanoi. But the French fare badly in the war against the Vietminh as their highly successful leader, General Giap, employs Maoist guerrilla tactics. In France, there is a lack of enthusiasm and funds for the war.
1949-50
Communist forces triumph in China and give military aid to the Vietminh. France turns to the US for aid, claiming it is a war against Chinese communist expansionism rather than a colonial war. After the US becomes embroiled in the Korean War, fighting communist North Korea and then the Chinese, it begins to supply military aid to the French.
1954
The Americans are funding 80% of the French war. After a disastrous defeat at Dien Bien Phu, the French decide to withdraw from Indochina. Peace talks take place in Geneva.
The July 1954 Geneva Agreement states that the country will be temporarily divided at the 17th parallel. The Vietminh will withdraw north of this line, the French south. Ho Chi Minh's government is recognised as the government of independent North Vietnam; the French remain temporarily in South Vietnam. Free elections to be held in July 1956 across both zones will decide the future government of a united Vietnam. In the meantime, neither zone to accept outside military help, foreign troops or join any military alliance. Laos and Cambodia to become free, independent and neutral.
The agreement was signed by France, Britain, China, the Soviet Union and the Vietminh. The South Vietnamese were represented by the French. The US did not approve the agreement, and was not a signatory. However, Washington undertook not to upset it by force or threat of force.
US forms SEATO in September 1954 - an anti-Communist alliance of Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Pakistan and the Philippines - and extends protection to Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam, thus undermining the Geneva Accord. President Eisenhower sends an undercover CIA team to Vietnam to disrupt and weaken the North.
1955-9
Ngo Dinh Diem, a wealthy Catholic anti-Communist, takes control of the South and establishes the Republic of Vietnam as a separate country. Diem is opposed by virtually all sectors of South Vietnamese society, but is backed by Washington and the CIA. He cancels the election and establishes a corrupt, ruthless, authoritarian regime which discriminates against the Buddhist majority and does not tolerate any opposition.
1960
Groups opposing Diem form the National Liberation Front to overthrow Diem and the US presence by force. Though led by communists, the NLF is an alliance of Buddhists, nationalists and peasants. Diem dubs them the Viet Cong (Vietnamese Communists) and requests US aid to fight them. Ho Chi Minh sends aid to the NLF.
1962-3
President Kennedy increases the number of military advisors from 800 to 16,000 and forms the 'Green Berets' special forces. Buddhist priests set fire to themselves in protest. The US decides Diem's murderous regime is too unpopular and supports an army coup in which he is shot. A month later, Kennedy is assassinated.
1964
President Lyndon Johnson sends another 5000 advisors. US ships patrol the coast of Vietnam to stop the North supplying the rebels by sea. While engaged in secret military activity off the coast of North Vietnam, the US claims to have come under fire. Johnson uses this subterfuge to get the 'Gulf of Tonkin' resolution through Congress. This allows him to do whatever he deems necessary to pursue the war without consulting Congress.
1965-67
US begins Operation Rolling Thunder, the continuous, intensive bombing of North Vietnam to destroy infrastructure and supply lines and force the North to stop aiding the NLF. Soviet Union supplies aid and weapons to the North and the North sends 14,000 PAVN (People's Army of Vietnam) troops south to help the NLF.
US launches air-war in South Vietnam, designating large areas free-fire zones to bomb and napalm. First US Marine ground combat troops go ashore at Danang in March 1965. Large-scale search-and-destroy operations begin. A five-year defoliation campaign begins, spraying toxic Agent Orange to destroy ground cover. By 1967, there are 525,000 US troops in Vietnam and two million refugees.
In 1967, after a succession of short-lived military governments, General Thieu becomes president of South Vietnam and remains until 1975.
1968
In January, the Tet Offensive begins with NLF and PAVN attacking and occupying most southern towns and cities. They occupy Hue for two months and hold the US Embassy compound in Saigon for 24 hours. The US Marine base at Khe Sanh, near the border, is besieged for 77 days. In March, a US army platoon kills more than 400 unarmed women, children and old men at My Lai.
Johnson refuses General Westmoreland's request for an additional 200,000 troops. The war is costing a fortune, is increasingly unpopular and looks unwinnable. He suspends the bombing of the North to enable peace talks to begin in Paris and does not stand for re-election.
Democratic Convention in Chicago is disrupted by anti-war protests.
1969
President Nixon begins to withdraw US ground troops under guise of 'Vietnamisation' - the South Vietnamese Army will fight the war while the US provides aid, advice and air support.
Ho Chi Minh dies and is succeeded by Le Duan.
1970
Nixon orders the secret bombing and invasion of Cambodia, seeking NLF bases. Bombing of Cambodia continues until 1973. Congress repeals the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.
1972
Officially, the last US combat troops leave Vietnam in August. Nixon announces an impending peace agreement before the presidential election. After his re-election in November, he launches a massive Christmas bombing of North Vietnam to secure better terms. But the terms of the agreement signed in January 1973 are almost identical to those previously offered and rather similar to the Geneva Agreement of 1954.
1974
US bombers continue to destroy South Vietnam in support of the ARVN. Many US 'advisors' remain to assist and direct ARVN. Nixon resigns because of Watergate.
1975
PAVN spring offensive meets little opposition as President Thieu orders the Central Highlands to be abandoned.
Congress refuses President Ford's request for further funds to support South Vietnam. ARVN collapses without US support. In March, Hue and Danang fall and the PAVN presses on to Saigon. April 21: President Thieu resigns and flees. April 29-30: US evacuates about 8000 people by helicopter. April 30: Saigon falls to the PAVN, ending thirty years of war.
Hollywood Distortions
To many in the Western world, the war in Vietnam was purely an 'American tragedy'.
Its popular history has been rewitten by Hollywood. It is a story of self-pity in which the United States made mistakes, but the fault lay at the door of the Vietnamese for defending their own country.
It was a 'flawed but noble' cause as Hollywood actor and later US President Ronald Reagan put it.
Films like 'Rambo', 'Platoon', 'Hamburger Hill', 'Missing In Action', 'Born on the Fourth of July', 'Uncommon Valour' and 'The Deer Hunter' present an image which allows no sense of the Vietnamese people through.
At the end of the war, 2273 American servicemen were unaccounted for - 'Missing In Action'.
The US Department of Defence knew the fate of 1657 of these, categorized 'body not recoverable'. Many were pilots who had gone down with their planes.
To this day, many Americans still believe that they are alive in Vietnam, tortured and imprisoned in bamboo cages - as portrayed in 'Rambo'.
An MIA office was opened in Hanoi, staffed by a team of American investigators.
Although a few remains were found, no live servicemen have ever been discovered. Many of the missing are known to have died in the air, or at sea or in explosions.
Film producer David Puttnam says: "America is a complex country which, in a childlike way, is only able to deal with certain truths … We like them simple and, if necessary, we'll have them distorted."
President Reagan declared Rambo to be one of his favourite films. Despite the evidence of his own intelligence agency, he still promoted the film's accusation.
The Vietnamese were puzzled and exasperated. More than 200,000 Vietnamese remained unaccounted for, mostly obliterated by high explosives. However, in an attempt put an end to the issue, they offered the Americans every assistance in their hunt.
The Sham of War in Vietnam
On 2 September 1945, nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnamese independence from France.
"All men are created equal," he said, "endowed with the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
These words were taken directly from the US Declaration of Independence and were a direct appeal to the government in Washington for aid and recognition.
Despite Vietnamese refusals of help from both China and the Soviet Union, the US cast Ho Chi Minh as the partner of a Chinese-led communist conspiracy and declared war on Vietnam.
In 1965, US troops landed on China Beach in central Vietnam believing they were repelling a Communist invasion from the North on the freedom-loving people of the South.
One of those troops, Robert Muller, who was decorated for bravery, said: "It didn't take long to have that explode into the myth that it was. Vietnam was a lie. It was a lie from the beginning, throughout the war, and even today as they are trying to write it into the history books."
"A retreat of the US from Vietnam would be a Communist victory of massive proportions and would lead to World War Three," claimed Nixon.
"If we withdrew from Vietnam, the communists would control Vietnam. Pretty soon Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and all of South East Asia would be under the control of the communists and the domination of the Chinese," claimed John F Kennedy.
World War Three, of course, never materialised.
Instead, a war-ravaged Vietnam was abandoned to fend for itself. As punishment for their audacity to defeat the United States, they became the victims if a twenty-five year Western embargo.
The Vietnamese may have beaten the United States, but Washington still controlled their destiny.
The Invasion of Cambodia
In 1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia to oust the dictatorship of Pol Pot. The invasion was a response to two years of border incursions by Pol Pot's forces.
These incursions, which began on May 1, 1975, the very day after the American evacuation, had resulted in the deaths of 30,000 civilians, the destruction of border villages and the abandonment of vast tracts of agricultural land.
Within a fortnight of the invasion, the Khmer Rouge had been driven out into Thailand. In its place, the Vietnamese installed a government led by Cambodian communists who had opposed Pol Pot.
The liberation of Cambodia set off a chain of events which led to the isolation of Vietnam. Pol Pot had been China's protégé. By the late seventies, China and the US had virtually become allies in international affairs.
Together they ensured that Thailand gave sanctuary to the remains of the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge was rearmed and rebuilt into a guerrilla army, an ever-present threat to the population.
Despite the proven massacre of more than a million Cambodians, the international community continued to recognise the Khmer Rouge as the legitimate government of Cambodia, keeping its seat at the UN.
Though the US and its allies constantly called for a Vietnamese withdrawal, it took ten years for the international community to take responsibility for Cambodia and to come up with a solution which enabled the Vietnamese to withdraw. During this decade, 80,000 Vietnamese troops were wounded or killed in Cambodia.
China responded to the defeat of Pol Pot by invading Vietnam. It attacked with a force of over 600,000 troops which sustained thousands of casualties at the hands of Vietnam's frontier guards.
The Chinese advanced into the border province of Lang Son, destroyed the provincial capital and then, as the Vietnamese regular army began to move towards them, retreated into China.
However, the border remained an area of tension; there was no hope of aid from China; and China and the US - two of the most powerful countries in the world - formed an effective lobby against Vietnam.
The Cambodian War was a principal cause of Vietnam's economic crisis in the eighties. Washington interpreted the invasion in terms of Soviet expansionism and, from 1979, enforced an embargo which shut Vietnam out of the world economic system.
The US blocked lending from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank. Sources of international credit all but dried up, reserves of foreign currency were exhausted and Vietnam became entirely dependent on the Soviet Union.
The occupation of Cambodia was a continuing drain on manpower and resources which would otherwise have been available for reconstruction.
The Immediate Aftermath of War
In 1975, the Hanoi government was faced with a country devastated by thirty years of war. There were three million dead, another four million injured, a land pock-marked by 25 million bomb craters.
In the South, an enormous area (including 50% of the jungle, 41% of the coastal mangrove forests and 40% of the rubber plantations) had been poisoned by 11 million gallons of chemical defoliant.
Intricate irrigation networks built over hundreds of years had been blitzed into oblivion. Bamboo villages had been reduced to cinders. Giant B52 bombers had destroyed ports, railways, bridges, hospitals and factories in the North.
A greater tonnage of bombs had been dropped on Vietnam than in all of World War II. It had taken 15 years, and billions of dollars in aid, to repair that damage in post-war Europe.
In Vietnam, the ravages of war were compounded by other factors. For more than twenty years, the South had been living off American aid of over $1 billion a year.
Even rice was imported and paid for by the US. When the Americans pulled out in April 1975, this income disappeared overnight.
They left behind serious social problems. Approximately 10 million people - half the population of the South - had been uprooted during the war.
Saigon and the southern cities were swollen by several million refugees, with approximately a half million prostitutes, 100,000 heroin addicts, 400,000 amputees and 800,000 orphans.
Large numbers of people were suffering from disease, in particular leprosy, malaria and TB. In addition, 40% of the population in the South was illiterate.
There was a severe skills shortage. Virtually all of middle management fled South Vietnam in anticipation of the American withdrawal, as did many people with professional and other qualifications.
Negotiating the American withdrawal at the Paris Peace Conference in 1973, Kissinger and Nixon promised Hanoi $3.25 billion in aid over five years and 'without any political conditions' for the post-war reconstruction of North Vietnam.
With Nixon disgraced and gone, the US administration reneged on its promise and made no recompense for the damage done. In fact, in April 1975, as the war ended, the US forbade all American exports to Vietnam unless approved by the State Department.
In 1978, President Carter made the claim that 'the damage was mutual ...we owe them nothing.'
The new Vietnamese government succeeded to Saigon's membership of the World Bank. It applied for reconstruction loans. The first loan, $60 million towards a major irrigation project to help replace rice production lost as a result of the war, was approved in August 1978: only the US voted against.
However, the money never arrived and this first loan turned out to be the last.
He was later made Journalist of the Year and International Reporter of the Year for his reporting of the Vietnam War over a period of almost ten years.
The American invasion of Vietnam marked the last stage of the longest war of the last century, a war in which the greatest tonnage of bombs in history was dropped, in which more than two million Vietnamese were killed and a bountiful land devastated.
With the Americans finally gone, Vietnam was made an international pariah. The United States mounted an embargo that covered both trade and aid and other Western governments and international banks soon joined in.
Out of thirty years of war came twenty years of isolation - such were the spoils of victory.
In 1978 John Pilger and David Munro made the documentary, 'Do you remember Vietnam?'
In 1998's 'Vietnam: The Last Battle', Pilger returned to Vietnam to review these twenty years, seeking to rescue something of Vietnamese past and present from Hollywood images which pitied the invader while overshadowing one of the most epic struggles of the 20th century.
Modern History of Vietnam
1858-93
French conquer the area of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Re-name it French Union of Indo-China.
1930
Ho Chi Minh founds Indochina Communist Party to resist French rule. Goes into exile in the Soviet Union and China after the Party is savagely suppressed.
1940-1
After France surrenders to Germany, Japan, Germany's ally, takes control of Indochina, ruling jointly with the Vichy French. Ho Chi Minh returns to lead resistance to the Japanese and French. Sets up the Vietminh - League for Vietnamese Independence. Though led by communists, it attracts many nationalists.
1941-5
Vietminh lead the fight against the Japanese, supported by the US, which supplies them with weapons. When France is liberated, the Japanese imprison French troops. In 1945, when the Japanese surrender after Hiroshima, the Vietminh, who are based in the north, take over Hanoi and declare the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh hopes for US support against the French.
British troops arrive in Saigon from Burma. They aim to restore French colonial rule. They rearm Japanese troops and use them to drive the Vietminh out of Saigon and the south. The French re-establish colonial rule in the south.
1946
The French fight the Vietminh for control of the north. They drive the Vietminh out of Hanoi. But the French fare badly in the war against the Vietminh as their highly successful leader, General Giap, employs Maoist guerrilla tactics. In France, there is a lack of enthusiasm and funds for the war.
1949-50
Communist forces triumph in China and give military aid to the Vietminh. France turns to the US for aid, claiming it is a war against Chinese communist expansionism rather than a colonial war. After the US becomes embroiled in the Korean War, fighting communist North Korea and then the Chinese, it begins to supply military aid to the French.
1954
The Americans are funding 80% of the French war. After a disastrous defeat at Dien Bien Phu, the French decide to withdraw from Indochina. Peace talks take place in Geneva.
The July 1954 Geneva Agreement states that the country will be temporarily divided at the 17th parallel. The Vietminh will withdraw north of this line, the French south. Ho Chi Minh's government is recognised as the government of independent North Vietnam; the French remain temporarily in South Vietnam. Free elections to be held in July 1956 across both zones will decide the future government of a united Vietnam. In the meantime, neither zone to accept outside military help, foreign troops or join any military alliance. Laos and Cambodia to become free, independent and neutral.
The agreement was signed by France, Britain, China, the Soviet Union and the Vietminh. The South Vietnamese were represented by the French. The US did not approve the agreement, and was not a signatory. However, Washington undertook not to upset it by force or threat of force.
US forms SEATO in September 1954 - an anti-Communist alliance of Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Pakistan and the Philippines - and extends protection to Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam, thus undermining the Geneva Accord. President Eisenhower sends an undercover CIA team to Vietnam to disrupt and weaken the North.
1955-9
Ngo Dinh Diem, a wealthy Catholic anti-Communist, takes control of the South and establishes the Republic of Vietnam as a separate country. Diem is opposed by virtually all sectors of South Vietnamese society, but is backed by Washington and the CIA. He cancels the election and establishes a corrupt, ruthless, authoritarian regime which discriminates against the Buddhist majority and does not tolerate any opposition.
1960
Groups opposing Diem form the National Liberation Front to overthrow Diem and the US presence by force. Though led by communists, the NLF is an alliance of Buddhists, nationalists and peasants. Diem dubs them the Viet Cong (Vietnamese Communists) and requests US aid to fight them. Ho Chi Minh sends aid to the NLF.
1962-3
President Kennedy increases the number of military advisors from 800 to 16,000 and forms the 'Green Berets' special forces. Buddhist priests set fire to themselves in protest. The US decides Diem's murderous regime is too unpopular and supports an army coup in which he is shot. A month later, Kennedy is assassinated.
1964
President Lyndon Johnson sends another 5000 advisors. US ships patrol the coast of Vietnam to stop the North supplying the rebels by sea. While engaged in secret military activity off the coast of North Vietnam, the US claims to have come under fire. Johnson uses this subterfuge to get the 'Gulf of Tonkin' resolution through Congress. This allows him to do whatever he deems necessary to pursue the war without consulting Congress.
1965-67
US begins Operation Rolling Thunder, the continuous, intensive bombing of North Vietnam to destroy infrastructure and supply lines and force the North to stop aiding the NLF. Soviet Union supplies aid and weapons to the North and the North sends 14,000 PAVN (People's Army of Vietnam) troops south to help the NLF.
US launches air-war in South Vietnam, designating large areas free-fire zones to bomb and napalm. First US Marine ground combat troops go ashore at Danang in March 1965. Large-scale search-and-destroy operations begin. A five-year defoliation campaign begins, spraying toxic Agent Orange to destroy ground cover. By 1967, there are 525,000 US troops in Vietnam and two million refugees.
In 1967, after a succession of short-lived military governments, General Thieu becomes president of South Vietnam and remains until 1975.
1968
In January, the Tet Offensive begins with NLF and PAVN attacking and occupying most southern towns and cities. They occupy Hue for two months and hold the US Embassy compound in Saigon for 24 hours. The US Marine base at Khe Sanh, near the border, is besieged for 77 days. In March, a US army platoon kills more than 400 unarmed women, children and old men at My Lai.
Johnson refuses General Westmoreland's request for an additional 200,000 troops. The war is costing a fortune, is increasingly unpopular and looks unwinnable. He suspends the bombing of the North to enable peace talks to begin in Paris and does not stand for re-election.
Democratic Convention in Chicago is disrupted by anti-war protests.
1969
President Nixon begins to withdraw US ground troops under guise of 'Vietnamisation' - the South Vietnamese Army will fight the war while the US provides aid, advice and air support.
Ho Chi Minh dies and is succeeded by Le Duan.
1970
Nixon orders the secret bombing and invasion of Cambodia, seeking NLF bases. Bombing of Cambodia continues until 1973. Congress repeals the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.
1972
Officially, the last US combat troops leave Vietnam in August. Nixon announces an impending peace agreement before the presidential election. After his re-election in November, he launches a massive Christmas bombing of North Vietnam to secure better terms. But the terms of the agreement signed in January 1973 are almost identical to those previously offered and rather similar to the Geneva Agreement of 1954.
1974
US bombers continue to destroy South Vietnam in support of the ARVN. Many US 'advisors' remain to assist and direct ARVN. Nixon resigns because of Watergate.
1975
PAVN spring offensive meets little opposition as President Thieu orders the Central Highlands to be abandoned.
Congress refuses President Ford's request for further funds to support South Vietnam. ARVN collapses without US support. In March, Hue and Danang fall and the PAVN presses on to Saigon. April 21: President Thieu resigns and flees. April 29-30: US evacuates about 8000 people by helicopter. April 30: Saigon falls to the PAVN, ending thirty years of war.
Hollywood Distortions
To many in the Western world, the war in Vietnam was purely an 'American tragedy'.
Its popular history has been rewitten by Hollywood. It is a story of self-pity in which the United States made mistakes, but the fault lay at the door of the Vietnamese for defending their own country.
It was a 'flawed but noble' cause as Hollywood actor and later US President Ronald Reagan put it.
Films like 'Rambo', 'Platoon', 'Hamburger Hill', 'Missing In Action', 'Born on the Fourth of July', 'Uncommon Valour' and 'The Deer Hunter' present an image which allows no sense of the Vietnamese people through.
At the end of the war, 2273 American servicemen were unaccounted for - 'Missing In Action'.
The US Department of Defence knew the fate of 1657 of these, categorized 'body not recoverable'. Many were pilots who had gone down with their planes.
To this day, many Americans still believe that they are alive in Vietnam, tortured and imprisoned in bamboo cages - as portrayed in 'Rambo'.
An MIA office was opened in Hanoi, staffed by a team of American investigators.
Although a few remains were found, no live servicemen have ever been discovered. Many of the missing are known to have died in the air, or at sea or in explosions.
Film producer David Puttnam says: "America is a complex country which, in a childlike way, is only able to deal with certain truths … We like them simple and, if necessary, we'll have them distorted."
President Reagan declared Rambo to be one of his favourite films. Despite the evidence of his own intelligence agency, he still promoted the film's accusation.
The Vietnamese were puzzled and exasperated. More than 200,000 Vietnamese remained unaccounted for, mostly obliterated by high explosives. However, in an attempt put an end to the issue, they offered the Americans every assistance in their hunt.
The Sham of War in Vietnam
President Nixon wrote:It's time we recognised that ours was, in truth, a noble cause.
On 2 September 1945, nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnamese independence from France.
"All men are created equal," he said, "endowed with the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
These words were taken directly from the US Declaration of Independence and were a direct appeal to the government in Washington for aid and recognition.
Despite Vietnamese refusals of help from both China and the Soviet Union, the US cast Ho Chi Minh as the partner of a Chinese-led communist conspiracy and declared war on Vietnam.
In 1965, US troops landed on China Beach in central Vietnam believing they were repelling a Communist invasion from the North on the freedom-loving people of the South.
One of those troops, Robert Muller, who was decorated for bravery, said: "It didn't take long to have that explode into the myth that it was. Vietnam was a lie. It was a lie from the beginning, throughout the war, and even today as they are trying to write it into the history books."
"A retreat of the US from Vietnam would be a Communist victory of massive proportions and would lead to World War Three," claimed Nixon.
"If we withdrew from Vietnam, the communists would control Vietnam. Pretty soon Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and all of South East Asia would be under the control of the communists and the domination of the Chinese," claimed John F Kennedy.
World War Three, of course, never materialised.
Instead, a war-ravaged Vietnam was abandoned to fend for itself. As punishment for their audacity to defeat the United States, they became the victims if a twenty-five year Western embargo.
The Vietnamese may have beaten the United States, but Washington still controlled their destiny.
The Invasion of Cambodia
In 1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia to oust the dictatorship of Pol Pot. The invasion was a response to two years of border incursions by Pol Pot's forces.
These incursions, which began on May 1, 1975, the very day after the American evacuation, had resulted in the deaths of 30,000 civilians, the destruction of border villages and the abandonment of vast tracts of agricultural land.
Within a fortnight of the invasion, the Khmer Rouge had been driven out into Thailand. In its place, the Vietnamese installed a government led by Cambodian communists who had opposed Pol Pot.
The liberation of Cambodia set off a chain of events which led to the isolation of Vietnam. Pol Pot had been China's protégé. By the late seventies, China and the US had virtually become allies in international affairs.
Together they ensured that Thailand gave sanctuary to the remains of the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge was rearmed and rebuilt into a guerrilla army, an ever-present threat to the population.
Despite the proven massacre of more than a million Cambodians, the international community continued to recognise the Khmer Rouge as the legitimate government of Cambodia, keeping its seat at the UN.
Though the US and its allies constantly called for a Vietnamese withdrawal, it took ten years for the international community to take responsibility for Cambodia and to come up with a solution which enabled the Vietnamese to withdraw. During this decade, 80,000 Vietnamese troops were wounded or killed in Cambodia.
China responded to the defeat of Pol Pot by invading Vietnam. It attacked with a force of over 600,000 troops which sustained thousands of casualties at the hands of Vietnam's frontier guards.
The Chinese advanced into the border province of Lang Son, destroyed the provincial capital and then, as the Vietnamese regular army began to move towards them, retreated into China.
However, the border remained an area of tension; there was no hope of aid from China; and China and the US - two of the most powerful countries in the world - formed an effective lobby against Vietnam.
The Cambodian War was a principal cause of Vietnam's economic crisis in the eighties. Washington interpreted the invasion in terms of Soviet expansionism and, from 1979, enforced an embargo which shut Vietnam out of the world economic system.
The US blocked lending from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank. Sources of international credit all but dried up, reserves of foreign currency were exhausted and Vietnam became entirely dependent on the Soviet Union.
The occupation of Cambodia was a continuing drain on manpower and resources which would otherwise have been available for reconstruction.
The Immediate Aftermath of War
In 1975, the Hanoi government was faced with a country devastated by thirty years of war. There were three million dead, another four million injured, a land pock-marked by 25 million bomb craters.
In the South, an enormous area (including 50% of the jungle, 41% of the coastal mangrove forests and 40% of the rubber plantations) had been poisoned by 11 million gallons of chemical defoliant.
Intricate irrigation networks built over hundreds of years had been blitzed into oblivion. Bamboo villages had been reduced to cinders. Giant B52 bombers had destroyed ports, railways, bridges, hospitals and factories in the North.
A greater tonnage of bombs had been dropped on Vietnam than in all of World War II. It had taken 15 years, and billions of dollars in aid, to repair that damage in post-war Europe.
In Vietnam, the ravages of war were compounded by other factors. For more than twenty years, the South had been living off American aid of over $1 billion a year.
Even rice was imported and paid for by the US. When the Americans pulled out in April 1975, this income disappeared overnight.
They left behind serious social problems. Approximately 10 million people - half the population of the South - had been uprooted during the war.
Saigon and the southern cities were swollen by several million refugees, with approximately a half million prostitutes, 100,000 heroin addicts, 400,000 amputees and 800,000 orphans.
Large numbers of people were suffering from disease, in particular leprosy, malaria and TB. In addition, 40% of the population in the South was illiterate.
There was a severe skills shortage. Virtually all of middle management fled South Vietnam in anticipation of the American withdrawal, as did many people with professional and other qualifications.
Negotiating the American withdrawal at the Paris Peace Conference in 1973, Kissinger and Nixon promised Hanoi $3.25 billion in aid over five years and 'without any political conditions' for the post-war reconstruction of North Vietnam.
With Nixon disgraced and gone, the US administration reneged on its promise and made no recompense for the damage done. In fact, in April 1975, as the war ended, the US forbade all American exports to Vietnam unless approved by the State Department.
In 1978, President Carter made the claim that 'the damage was mutual ...we owe them nothing.'
The new Vietnamese government succeeded to Saigon's membership of the World Bank. It applied for reconstruction loans. The first loan, $60 million towards a major irrigation project to help replace rice production lost as a result of the war, was approved in August 1978: only the US voted against.
However, the money never arrived and this first loan turned out to be the last.
- By wat0n
- By Potemkin
- By Saeko