The global war: Vietnam

Question 1

How and when was Vietnam divided + significance?

Answer 1

-July 1954
-Geneva Accords
-split across the 17th parallel
-Ho chi minh is in the north
-Diem is in the south

Question 2

What is JFK’s aims and motives in Vietnam?

Answer 2

-prevent a domino effect
-not let communism spread to other countries like Lao
-containment
-NOT using rollback
-upcoming elections in 1964
-Bay of pigs fiasco- humiliating
-not ‘losing China’ like Truman- political suicide
-Cuban missile crisis was a bit embarrassing
-global police man

Question 3

What was Operation Rand Hand and when did it start?

Answer 3

-1962
-using chemicals such as agent orange- destroys trees
-agent blue- deprives people of food
-killing crops
-caused mutations in people/health implications/death
“drying up the sea” of the “revolutionary fish”
-4.5 million people exposed
- 19 million gallons used
-‘rainbow herbicides’
-aim was to kill the communists
-in actuality it turned many people towards them instead

Question 4

What was Diems main aim’s/ motives?

Answer 4

-prevent the spread of communism to the south
-catholic values
-installed by the west = ‘American puppet’
-good alliance/ relations with the USA
-weaken Ho Chi Minh
-maintain his oppressive regime

Question 5

What and when and what was significant about the 15th plenum

Answer 5

-Jan 1959
-Ho’s resolution
-allowed the south to protect themselves when absolutely necessary
-armed struggle begins mid 1959
-leads to the eventual formation of the NLF