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These tunnels led out of the villages into the jungle. A very plentiful source of information form 1981 and was close enough to the event so that I can call it a primary source written from the viewpoint of an American a little bit after the Vietnam War. Content & structure Scope and content. The long period of Chinese rule had left its mark on Vietnam. However, the capture of the Plain of Jars and other territory in Laos, as well as five provinces in northeastern Cambodia, allowed the North Vietnamese to reopen the Ho Chi Minh trail. [9], Former revolutionary organization in South Vietnam and Cambodia, This article is about the communist political organisation in South Vietnam. Primary Source: Statement by John Kerry of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (1971) ... We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs and search and destroy missions, as well as by Viet Cong terrorism – and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Viet Cong. A 1966 photo of an American soldier motioning to a woman refugee to keep her children's heads down during a fight with Viet Cong. They said that if they did not get the necessary information they would continue with the torture. Primary Sources Vietnamis a small country to the south of China ('Vietnamese' means "non-Chinese people of the south"). [84] According to the memoirs of Trần Văn Trà, the Viet Cong's top commander and PRG defense minister, he followed orders issued by the "Military Commission of the Party Central Committee" in Hanoi, which in turn implemented resolutions of the Politburo. In 1959, an estimated 1,200 of Diem's government officials were murdered. They also waged a mass murder campaign against civilian hamlets and refugee camps; in the peak war years, nearly a third of all civilian deaths were the result of Viet Cong atrocities. I tried to endure the pain knowing that an American military man should endure torture until he dies. Therefore, when a guerrilla was captured and tortured, his confessions did not do too much damage to the NLF. However, research suggests that it was the civilian population who suffered most from the poor rice harvests that followed the spraying. [23] In early 1958, Lê Duẩn met with the leaders of "Inter-zone V" (northern South Vietnam) and ordered the establishment of patrols and safe areas to provide logistical support for activity in the Mekong Delta and in urban areas. In Vietnam a Communist government has set out deliberately to conquer a sovereign people in a neighbouring state. About an hour later, the same thing happened again; this time I only saw a glimpse of a black jersey through the rice. A normal person can handle society. After the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, the PRG moved into government offices there. I thought they were torturing another prisoner. Citation: … Knowing that Vietnamese soldiers were often very young, from ages 14, they need to find a way for the U.S. Provides primary source information on the popular culture of the U.S. and U.K. from 1950 to 1975. Beginning in February 1970, Lê Duẩn's prominence in the official media increased, suggesting that he was again top leader and had regained the upper hand in his longstanding rivalry with Trường Chinh. I had to make a decision. The LASV had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized peasants in the territory the Viet Cong controlled. But he, too, was thrown out. [9][nb 1] Many writers shorten this to National Liberation Front (NLF). [57] Viet Cong entered the cities concealed among civilians returning home for Tết. (2) Not to insist on buying or borrowing what the people are not willing to sell or lend. I do not trust anyone now. [nb 4] The "2d Liberation Battalion" ambushed two companies of South Vietnamese soldiers in September 1959, the first large unit military action of the war. In March 1956, southern communist leader Lê Duẩn presented a plan to revive the insurgency entitled "The Road to the South" to the other members of the Politburo in Hanoi. National Archives Identifier: 542328. The Viet Cong created the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam in December 1960 at Tân Lập village in Tây Ninh as a "united front", or political branch intended to encourage the participation of non-communists. Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai negotiated the terms of the ceasefire with France and then imposed them on the Viet Minh. They thought they were shooting at trespassers, occupiers, that they had a right to be there and we didn't. [71] In May 1968, Trường Chinh urged "protracted war" in a speech that was published prominently in the official media, so the fortunes of his "North first" fraction may have revived at this time. Example: Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, North Vietnamese-correspondence-biography. The NLF called for southern Vietnamese to "overthrow the camouflaged colonial regime of the American imperialists" and to make "efforts toward the peaceful unification". Pushed into Cambodia, the Viet Cong could no longer draw South Vietnamese recruits. So I decided to forget about it. [38] The USS Core arrived in Saigon with 35 helicopters in December 1961. (8) To teach the population the national script and elementary hygiene. . The effect is sometimes paralysis." [77] Despite the Paris Peace Accords, signed by all parties in January 1973, fighting continued. [78], In response to the anti-war movement, the U.S. Congress passed the Case–Church Amendment to prohibit further U.S. military intervention in Vietnam in June 1973 and reduced aid to South Vietnam in August 1974. Two Viet Cong prisoners were interrogated on an airplane flying toward Saigon. For sometime the governments of South Vietnam and the United States had been concerned about the influence of the NLF on the peasants. [11] Within a few months, the Viet Cong had been driven into remote swamps. [56][nb 7] He submitted a plan to Hanoi in May 1967. Even if the troops found the entrance to the tunnels, they could not go into the tunnels as they were often too small for the much larger American soldiers. At the victory parade, Tạng noticed that the units formerly dominated by southerners were missing, replaced by northerners years earlier. These included:" (1) Not to do what is likely to damage the land and crops or spoil the houses and belongings of the people; (2) Not to insist on buying or borrowing what the people are not willing to sell or lend; (3) Never to break our word; (4) Not to do or speak what is likely to make people believe that we hold them in contempt; (5) To help them in their daily work (harvesting, fetching firewood, carrying water, sewing, etc.).". A Viet Cong soldier poses inside a captured M48 tank.Photo: Onbekend CC BY-SA 3.0. For example, the search Subject: sources AND (Subject: (viet OR vietnam*) produces books including: Virtual Vietnam Archive. ", As well as taking over the running of villages, the NLF would send out patrols into government controlled areas. I had to destroy villages, kill everybody there and then leave communist arms there. They all looked alike. For centuries, the Vietnamese peasants had accepted this state of affairs because they believed that poverty was a punishment for crimes committed by their ancestors. In 1969 alone, Operation Ranch Hand destroyed 1,034,300 hectares of forest. A person is a vicious animal. [6] This was considered the beginning of the "armed struggle" in communist accounts. Gulf of Tonkin Resolution . During the war, communist insurgents and anti-war activists claimed that the Viet Cong was an insurgency indigenous to the South, while the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments portrayed the group as a tool of North Vietnam. Based on some 800 documents captured in battle and on interviews with 100 ex-Viet Cong, much of the primary source material is reproduced, and all of it is interpreted in the light of the author's broad knowledge of Vietnam and its people. Nguyen Tuong Lai was a Viet Cong guerrilla. These materials were then used to make booby traps. For the video game, see, The flag of the Viet Cong, adopted in 1960, is a variation on the. Viet Cong guerrillas in small boats patrol the Saigon River in South Vietnam ... United Press International photo from an official communist source. The offensive riveted the attention of the world's media for weeks, but also overextended the Viet Cong. The peasants were motivated by fear as well as a sense of gratitude. "After the shooting," he said, "all the villagers became Communists. It is a contraction of Việt Nam Cộng-sản, (Vietnamese communist), or alternatively Việt gian cộng sản ("Communist Traitor to Vietnam"). North Vietnam established the National Liberation Front on December 20, 1960, to foment insurgency in the South. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the past and Vietnam in the present did not and do not recognize the division of Vietnam into two countries. I felt sorry for those children (soldiers arriving in Vietnam for the first time) knowing that they would all grow old in the land of endless dying. After 17 months observing pacification efforts in Vietnam as a state department official, I laid eyes upon an unmistakable enemy for the first time on New Year's Day in 1967. B. As one marine captain explained: "You never knew who was the enemy and who was the friend. Names [edit | edit source]. Biological Warfare. [48] Squads were assigned monthly assassination quotas. Finding Printed Copies of Primary Sources . [7] The earliest citation for Viet Cong in English is from 1957. However, over a period of time, it built up a large supply of captured weapons. In the majority of cases the peasants did not want to move and so the South Vietnamese army often had to apply force. And I changed my mind. According to Mao Zedong, the peasants were the sea in which the guerrillas needed to swim: "without the constant and active support of the peasants... failure is inevitable. He hated them too much. [18] Nguyễn Hữu Xuyên was assigned military command in the South,[19] replacing Lê Duẩn, who was appointed North Vietnam's acting party boss. Members generally referred to the Viet Cong as "the Front" (Mặt trận). When it became clear that President Ngo Dinh Diem had no intention of holding elections for a united Vietnam, his political opponents began to consider alternative ways of obtaining their objectives. I did away with him myself. [63], The offensive was undertaken in the hope of triggering a general uprising, but urban Vietnamese did not respond as the Viet Cong anticipated. [62] In an influential broadcast on February 27, newsman Walter Cronkite stated that the war was a "stalemate" and could be ended only by negotiation. I was walking point with three members of a company from the US army's 25th Division, moving through tall rice, the water over our ankles, when we heard firing close behind us. [64] "We did not base ourselves on scientific calculation or a careful weighing of all factors, but...on an illusion based on our subjective desires", Trà concluded. "[59] The offensive included a commando raid on the U.S. Embassy in Saigon and a massacre at Huế of about 3,500 residents. They had the advantage of knowing every ditch and dyke, every tree and blade of rice and piece of cover, like it was their own backyard. Elections on reunification were scheduled for July 1956. Tales of sensational murder and mayhem soon crowded the headlines. Explore resources and ideas for Using DPLA's Primary Source Sets in your classroom. [30] Violence between the Viet Cong and government forces soon increased drastically from 180 clashes in January 1960 to 545 clashes in September. Prados, John, (2006) "The Road South: The Ho Chi Minh Trail", Nghia M. Vo Saigon: A History 2011 - Page 140 "... on December 19 to 20, 1960, Nguyễn Hữu Thọ, a Saigon lawyer, Trương Như Tảng, chief comptroller of a bank, Drs. Many Liberation Army of South Vietnam units operated at night,[46] and employed terror as a standard tactic. Notes - Title from news agency caption. University Publications of America, Inc., Bethesda, MD, with fully indexed guide edited and compiled by Robert E Lester. The Viet Cong were a cruel, organized group of people who fought South Vietnam as well as The United States armed forces. And then I came more closely to consciousness and found out it was me. [6], To counter the accusation that North Vietnam was violating the Geneva Accord, the independence of the Viet Cong was stressed in communist propaganda. Names [edit | edit source]. The term Việt cộng appeared in Saigon newspapers beginning in 1956. In 1964, however, American political and military authorities believed their overwhelming firepower would be more than enough to subdue the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. The strategy and tactics of the National Liberation Front were very much based on those used by Mao Zedong in China. They did some similar things to my legs... During the night I heard someone screaming in the distance. The term Việt Cộng appeared in Saigon newspapers beginning in 1956. Modeling Activity: Since this lesson asks students to look closely at primary sources to make observations and inferences about the Vietnam War, … (4) Not to do or speak what is likely to make people believe that we hold them in contempt. The aim is to wear down gradually the much larger and stronger enemy. American M-16s, Chinese AKs, and French MAS rifles would be carried alongside other things like German MG-34s or even flintlock rifles. 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