Cao Ky: The Vietnam War

Reality

The Vietnam war was, like many other wars, a bloody and brutal fight. Vietnam used to be a territory of France until 1954 when they surrendered because they outnumbered in a battle. The Geneva Conference was then held to discuss the end of the war and due to that, North and South vietnam were split up because of the different leaders. China, the Soviet Union, and other communist countries were supportive of the North while the United States and anti-communist allies were supportive of the South. The leader for the North side was communist Ho Chi Minh and the South was ruled by anti-communist Ngo Dinh Diem. Ngo Dinh Diem starts off as prime minister in 1954 but eventually becomes president in 1955. The United States and others wanted to avoid the

“Domino Effect”, therefore in attempt to try and get rid of communism, they supported Ngo Dinh Diem mainly for the fact that he was anti-communist. Although Diem was not pro communism, he was still against elections and non-corrupt government. Soon Diem began to persecute buddhism, his own people.

He started storming temples and by 1963 it got really out of hand. This change in character led the south and many people getting angered. The result of this anger led to the assassination of Diem. With Diem gone, Nguyen Van Thieu and Nguyen Cao Ky come into power. Only a few years later Nguyen Van Thieu is able to get Cao Ky out of the picture. There was a bit of shady business before Cao and Van took over. There was a claim that U.S. maddox was attacked by North Vietnamese. Days later there was another claim that an different U.S. vessel was attacked by North Vietnamese boats again. These attacks named the Gulf of Tonkin incidents really angered Congress and gave Lyndon B. Johnson a choice to officially initiate a war with Vietnam. Things were escalated and got to 500,000 U.S. troops. In 1968, congress told the people they were about to succeed and things seemed to be looking bright. That was until the viet cong coordinated a huge attack to South Vietnam called the “Tet Offensive”. The American people and Congress began to be suspicious of this because LBJ gave false hope on winning the war but then having the Viet Cong coordinate such a secret attack. The United States thought their soldiers could take a

new road. All that was done was create the My Lai Massacre. The only outcome of such horrific events were the death of many children and women by U.S. troops. Only very few soldiers actually got jail time for doing such horrific things. In 1971 Pentagon papers stating that leadership in war was lying on activities were leaked to the public. This further provided evidence for the idea that congress and the American people are being lied to. An example being them engaging with Laos and Cambodia because of weapons/supplies. That is when Nixon came in and wanted to wind down the troops in a manner that wouldn't be considered as official retreat. With this tactic, they made North Vietnam sign some peace accords. It seemed to all be settled until the meaning of signing this accord was to North Vietnam was revealed. It is said that North Vietnam solely signed this treaty in order to get rid of the U.S. and later do as wanted. In 1975, North Vietnam overran the South and took over. This resulted in Saigon becoming Ho Chi Min city. President Van Thieu was quoted saying he would never leave the South Vietnam people; that is until it was really evident that the South no longer had a chance at winning. With this, Van Thieu packed all his things and fled to Massachusetts. 1 to 3 million Vietnamese were killed at the end and nearly 58 thousand U.S. troops were killed.