Vietnam War

==Diệm era, 1954–1963==
{{Main|Ngô Đình Diệm|War in Vietnam (1954–1959)}}

===Rule===
[[File:Ngo Dinh Diem at Washington - ARC 542189.jpg|thumb|U.S. President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] and Secretary of State [[John Foster Dulles]] greet President [[Ngô Đình Diệm]] of [[South Vietnam]] in Washington, 8 May 1957]]

A devout [[Roman Catholic]], Diệm was fervently anti-communist, nationalist, and socially conservative. Historian Luu Doan Huynh notes that "Diệm represented narrow and extremist nationalism coupled with autocracy and [[nepotism]]."<ref name=McNamara/>{{Rp|200–201}} Most Vietnamese people were [[Buddhism|Buddhist]], and they were alarmed by Diệm's actions, like his dedication of the country to the [[Virgin Mary]].

Beginning in the summer of 1955, Diệm launched the "Denounce the Communists" campaign, during which suspected communists and other anti-government elements were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, or executed. He instituted the death penalty against any activity deemed communist in August 1956.<ref name="WarBegan" /> The North Vietnamese government claimed that, by November 1957, over 65,000 individuals were imprisoned and 2,148 were killed in the process.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Turner |first=Robert F. |title=Vietnamese Communism: Its Origins and Development |date=1975 |publisher=[[Hoover Institution]] Publications |isbn=978-0817964313 |pages=174–178}}</ref> According to [[Gabriel Kolko]], 40,000 [[political prisoner]]s had been jailed by the end of 1958.<ref name=Kolko/>{{Rp|89}}

In October 1956, Diệm launched a [[Land reform in South Vietnam|land reform program]] limiting the size of rice farms per owner. More than 1.8m acres of farm land became available for purchase by landless people. By 1960, the land reform process had stalled because many of Diem's biggest supporters were large land owners.<ref name="Collision">{{Cite book |last1=Doyle |first1=Edward |url=https://archive.org/details/collisionofcultu00doyl |title=The Vietnam Experience, a Collision of Cultures |last2=Weiss |first2=Stephen |date=1984 |publisher=Boston Publishing Company |isbn=978-0939526123 |url-access=registration}}</ref>{{Rp|14–16}}

In May 1957, Diệm undertook a [[Ngô Đình Diệm presidential visit to the United States|ten-day state visit to the United States]]. President Eisenhower pledged his continued support, and a parade was held in Diệm's honor in New York City. Although Diệm was publicly praised, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles privately conceded that Diệm had to be backed because they could find no better alternative.<ref name=Karnow/>{{Rp|230}}

===Insurgency in the South, 1954–1960===
{{Main|Viet Cong|War in Vietnam (1959–1963)}}

Between 1954 and 1957, the Diệm government succeeded in preventing large-scale organized unrest in the countryside. In April 1957, insurgents launched an assassination campaign, referred to as "extermination of traitors".<ref name="McNamera35">{{Cite book |last1=McNamera |first1=Robert S. |title=Argument Without End |last2=Blight |first2=James G. |last3=Brigham |first3=Robert K. |date=1999 |publisher=[[PublicAffairs]] |isbn=1-891620-22-3 |pages=35}}</ref> Seventeen people were killed in  [[Châu Đốc massacre|an attack at a bar]] in Châu Đốc in July, and in September a district chief was killed with his family on a highway.<ref name="WarBegan" /> By early 1959, however, Diệm had come to regard the (increasingly frequent) violence as an organized campaign and implemented Law 10/59, which made political violence punishable by death and property confiscation.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Excerpts from Law 10/59, 6 May 1959 |url=http://vietnam.vassar.edu/doc6.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080723163835/http://vietnam.vassar.edu/doc6.html |archive-date=23 July 2008}}</ref> There had been some division among former Viet Minh whose main goal was to hold the elections promised in the Geneva Accords, leading to "[[wildcat strike|wildcat]]" activities separate from the other communists and anti-GVN activists. [[Douglas Pike]] estimated that insurgents carried out 2,000 abductions, and 1,700 assassinations of government officials, village chiefs, hospital workers and teachers from 1957 to 1960.<ref name=Hastings/>{{Rp|106}}<ref name="WarBegan" /> Violence between the insurgents and government forces increased drastically from 180 clashes in January 1960 to 545 clashes in September.<ref name="cmh">{{Cite book |last=Kelly |first=Francis John |url=http://www.history.army.mil/BOOKS/Vietnam/90-23/90-23C.htm |title=History of Special Forces in Vietnam, 1961–1971 |publisher=[[United States Army Center of Military History]] |year=1989 |location=Washington, D.C. |page=4 |id=CMH Pub 90-23 |access-date=14 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140212151656/http://www.history.army.mil/books/Vietnam/90-23/90-23C.htm |archive-date=12 February 2014 |url-status=dead |orig-year=1973}}</ref>

In September 1960, [[Central Office for South Vietnam|COSVN]], North Vietnam's southern headquarters, gave an order for a full scale coordinated uprising in South Vietnam against the government and 1/3 of the population was soon living in areas of communist control.<ref name=Hastings/>{{Rp|106–107}} In December 1960, North Vietnam formally created the [[Viet Cong]] with the intent of uniting all anti-GVN insurgents, including non-communists. It was formed in [[Memot District|Memot, Cambodia]], and directed through COSVN.<ref name=Ang/>{{Rp|55–58}} According to the ''Pentagon Papers'', the Viet Cong "placed heavy emphasis on the withdrawal of American advisors and influence, on land reform and liberalization of the GVN, on [[coalition government]] and the neutralization of Vietnam." The identities of the leaders of the organization often were kept secret.<ref name="WarBegan" />

Support for the VC was driven by resentment of Diem's reversal of Viet Minh land reforms in the countryside. The Viet Minh had confiscated large private landholdings, reduced rents and debts, and leased communal lands, mostly to poorer peasants. Diem brought the landlords back to the villages. People who had been farming land for years had to return it to landlords and pay years of back rent. [[Marilyn B. Young]] wrote that "The divisions within villages reproduced those that had existed against the French: 75 percent support for the NLF, 20 percent trying to remain neutral and 5 percent firmly pro-government".<ref name="Young">{{Cite book |last=Young |first=Marilyn |url=https://archive.org/details/vietnamwars194510000youn |title=The Vietnam Wars: 1945–1990 |date=1991 |publisher=Harper Perennial |isbn=978-0-06-092107-1 |url-access=registration}}</ref>{{Rp|73}}

====North Vietnamese involvement====
{{See also|North Vietnamese invasion of Laos|Ho Chi Minh trail}}

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; however, as both China and the Soviets opposed confrontation at this time, Lê Duẩn's plan was rejected.<ref name=Ang/>{{Rp|58}} Despite this, the North Vietnamese leadership approved tentative measures to revive the southern insurgency in December 1956.{{Sfn|Olson|Roberts |2008|p=67}} This decision was made at the 11th Plenary Session of the Lao Dong Central Committee. Communist forces were under a single command structure set up in 1958.{{Sfn|Military History Institute of Vietnam|2002|p=68}} In May 1958, North Vietnamese forces seized the transportation hub at [[Tchepone]] in Southern Laos near the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam.<ref name="Prados-1999">{{Cite book |last=Prados |first=John |title=The Blood Road: The Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Vietnam War |date=1999 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=9780471254652}}</ref>{{RP|24}}

The North Vietnamese Communist Party approved a "people's war" on the South at a session in January 1959,<ref name=Hastings/>{{Rp|119–120}} and, in May, [[Group 559]] was established to maintain and upgrade the [[Ho Chi Minh trail]], at this time a six-month mountain trek through Laos. On 28 July, North Vietnamese and [[Pathet Lao]] forces invaded Laos, fighting the Royal Lao Army all along the border. Group 559 was headquartered in Na Kai, [[Houaphan]] province in northeast Laos close to the border.<ref name="Morrocco-1985">{{Cite book |last=Morrocco |first=John |title=Rain of Fire: Air War, 1969–1973 |date=1985 |publisher=Boston Publishing Company |isbn=9780939526147 |series=Volume 14 of Vietnam Experience}}</ref>{{RP|26}} About 500 of the "regroupees" of 1954 were sent south on the trail during its first year of operation.{{Sfn|Military History Institute of Vietnam|2002|p=xi}} The first arms delivery via the trail was completed in August 1959.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Prados |first=John |title=Rolling Thunder in a Gentle Land |date=2006 |publisher=Osprey Publishing |isbn=978-1-84603-020-8 |editor-last=Wiest |editor-first=Andrew |location=Oxford |pages=74–95 |chapter=The Road South: The Ho Chi Minh Trail |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/rollingthunderin00wies}}</ref> In April 1960, North Vietnam imposed universal military conscription for adult males. About 40,000 communist soldiers infiltrated the south from 1961 to 1963.<ref name=Ang/>{{Rp|76}}