THIS IS NOT NOTES IT IS THE LESSON

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Congo

Throughout the Cold War Era, Communist guerrillas and revolutionaries stirred up trouble in Africa. The European powers had intended to prepare their colonies in Africa for gradual independence, but various Communists revolutionaries used terrorism and subversion to demand immediate emancipation.

One of the classic examples of strife in Africa and Communism revolves around the once Belgian colony of the Congo. In 1960, the Congo became the Independent Republic of the Congo. When civil war erupted, the Soviets provided aid to pro-communist rebels, while the United Nations sent a peace-keeping force who were inexperienced and violated the people of the Congo. In 1964, Marxist-supported terrorists executed thousands of people and held Christian missionaries hostage. Before United States paratroopers could rescue the missionaries, twenty-nine of the missionaries were executed. In 1965, all remnants of colonialism in Africa were erased when Joseph Mobutu became dictator of the Republic of the Congo. Though colonialism left the Congo, economic chaos and political chaos remained.

VIETNAM WAR

In 1930, the pro-communist Ho Chi Minh formed the Indochinese Communist Party with the intention of establishing Communism all over Indochina. At the end of World War II, the Communists began to work toward having the French thrown out of Indochina. In 1954, Cambodia and Laos became independent nations while Vietnam was divided into the Communist North Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh and South Vietnam, whom the United States agreed to support if Communism attempted to expand into southern parts of Asia. The 17th Parallel, a demilitarized zone, separated the two sections of Vietnam.

Conflict

Problems for Vietnam erupted when Communist guerilla fighters, known as the Viet Cong, began to attack villages in South Vietnam to pressure the southern neighbor to accept Communism and Ho Chi Minh’s rule. In response, Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy began to send military advisors and supplies to South Vietnam. Cambodia was dragged into the conflict when North Vietnam began to use the nation as a base to launch attacks against South Vietnam, resulting in the United States invading Cambodia to remove the North Vietnamese.

In 1963 and 1964, the war raged, bringing political chaos to South Vietnam and military conflict for the United States. South Vietnam plunged into political turmoil when the President Ngo Dinh Diem was assassinated. The result was South Vietnam had the appearance of a puppet government for the United States. In July of 1964, the United States was attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin when North Vietnamese torpedoes struck two United States destroyers. In August of 1964, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution provided the United States with legal justification to take military action in Vietnam; however, there were some who claimed that the attack in the Gulf of Tonkin was fabricated to give the United States President, Lyndon B. Johnson, unconstitutional war-making powers.

In February of 1965, President Johnson ordered American forces to bomb North Vietnam, and by July of 1965, there was a general build up of American soldiers in South Vietnam under the command of William C. Westmoreland who wanted to execute an all-out invasion of North Vietnam. However, political leaders in Washington, D.C. denied Westmoreland’s wishes because they believed it would bring “an unacceptable risk of confrontation with the U.S.S.R,” according to Secretary of Defense McNamara. By 1968, the conflict escalated as both sides built up their forces when the Viet Cong launched the Tet Offensive against 30 South Vietnamese cities and the United States military. Actually, the United States claimed a military defeat during the Tet Offensive, but journalists portrayed the offensive as a decisive victory for North Vietnam. All across the United States, Communist agitators in universities and in American cities took to the streets to denounce what they saw as “American imperialism.”

During his administration, United States President Richard Nixon began to withdraw American troops and replace them with South Vietnamese soldiers in a policy known as Vietnamization. After years of fighting, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the United States signed a cease-fire on January 27, 1973. The State Department of the United States decided to decrease American involvement in Vietnam because of the fear that it might further hurt the effort to open relations with China.

In March of 1975, North Vietnam violated the cease-fire and attacked South Vietnam. Unprepared to defend themselves, South Vietnam’s capital of Saigon fell to North Vietnam on April 30, 1975.