Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0404/04042.txt

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$Unique_ID{COW04042}
$Pretitle{232}
$Title{Vietnam
Chapter 4D.   Relations with Non-Communist Countries}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Ronald J. Cima}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{vietnam
states
united
vietnamese
war
asean
hanoi
relations
vietnam's
cambodia}
$Date{1987}
$Log{}
Country:     Vietnam
Book:        Vietnam, A Country Study
Author:      Ronald J. Cima
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1987

Chapter 4D.   Relations with Non-Communist Countries

The United States

     The Communist victory in South Vietnam in 1975 abruptly concluded three
decades of United States intervention in Vietnam and brought to a close a
painful and bitter era for both countries. The war generated considerable
social and political discord in the United States, massive disruption in
Vietnam, and was enormously costly to both sides. Vietnam endured physical
destruction--ravaged battle sites, leveled factories and cities, and untold
numbers of military and civilian casualties. The United States escaped
physical devastation, but it suffered the loss of 58,000 lives (2,400
unaccounted for) and spent roughly $150 billion in direct expenses to sustain
the war. The war also divided and confused American society.

     To the Vietnamese communists, the war against the United States simply
extended the war for independence initiated against the French. In Hanoi's
view, when the United States displaced the French in Indochina, it assumed the
French role as a major-power obstacle to Vietnam's eventual reunification.

     For the United States, intervention was derived from considerations that
largely transcended Vietnam. In the closing months of World War II, the United
States had supported the idea of an international trusteeship for all of
Indochina. Subsequently, in spite of misgivings in Washington about French
intentions to reimpose colonial rule in Indochina, the United States
eventually tilted in support of the French war effort in the embattled region.
Anticolonial sentiment in the United States after World War II thus failed to
outweigh policy priorities in Europe, such as the evolving North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) relationship. The formal creation of NATO and the
communist victory in China, both of which occurred in 1949, led the United
States to support materially the French war effort in Indochina. The
perception that communism was global and monolithic led the administration of
President Dwight D. Eisenhower to support the idea of a noncommunist state in
southern Vietnam, after the French withdrawal under the Geneva Agreements of
1954. Although this goal arguably ran counter to two key features of the
Geneva Agreements (the stipulation that the line separating North and South
Vietnam be neither a political nor territorial boundary and the call for
reunification elections), it was based on the United States assessment that
the Viet minh--which, contrary to the agreements, had left several thousand
cadres south of the demarcation line--was already in violation. The first
United States advisers arrived in the South within a year after Geneva to help
President Ngo Dinh Diem establish a government that would be strong enough to
stand up to the communist regime in the North.

     Although Washington's advisory role was essentially political, United
States policy makers determined that the effort to erect a non- communist
state in Vietnam was vital to the security of the region and would be
buttressed by military means, if necessary, to inhibit any would- be
aggressor. Defending Vietnam's security against aggression from the North and
from southern-based communist insurgency was a mission Washington initially
perceived as requiring only combat support elements and advisers to South
Vietnamese military units. The situation, however, rapidly deteriorated, and
in 1965, at a time when increasing numbers of North Vietnamese-trained
soldiers were moving in South Vietnam, the first increment of United States
combat forces was introduced into the South and sustained bombing of military
targets in North Vietnam was undertaken. Nearly eight more years of conflict
occurred before the intense involvement of the United States ended in 1973.

     An "Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam" was signed
in Paris on January 27, 1973, by Washington, Hanoi, Saigon, and the
Provisional Revolutionary Government, representing the Vietnamese communist
organization in the South, the Viet Cong (see Glossary-- contraction of Viet
Nam Cong San). The settlement called for a cease- fire, withdrawal of all
United States troops, continuance in place of North Vietnamese troops in the
South, and the eventual reunification of the country "through peaceful means."
In reality, once United States Forces were disengaged in early 1973 there was
no effective way to prevent the North from overwhelming the South's defenses
and the settlement proved unenforceable. Following the fragile cease-fire
established by the agreement, PAVN units remained in the South Vietnamese
countryside, while Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN-- see Glossary) units
fought to dislodge them and expand the areas under Saigon's control. As a
result, the two sides battled from 1973 to 1975, but the ARVN, having to fight
without the close United States air, artillery, logistical, and medevac
(medical evacuation) support to which it had become accustomed, acquitted
itself badly, losing more and more ground to the communists.

     The surprisingly swift manner in which the South Vietnamese government
finally collapsed in 1975 appeared to confirm that the Paris agreement had
accomplished little more than to delay an inevitable defeat for the United
States ally, South Vietnam, and that Washington had been impotent to avert
this outcome.

     Following the war, Hanoi pursued the establishment of diplomatic
relations with the United States, initially in order to obtain US $3.3 billion
in reconstruction aid, which President Richard M. Nixon had secretly promised
after the Paris Agreement was signed in 1973. Under Article 21 of the
agreement, the United States had pledged "to contribute to healing the wounds
of war and to postwar reconstruction of the DRV . . ." but had specifically
avoided using terminology that could be interpreted to mean that reparations
were being offered for war damages. Nixon's promise was in the form of a
letter, confirming the intent of Article 21 and offering a specific figure.
Barely two months after Hanoi's victory in 1975, Premier Pham Van Dong,
speaking to the National Assembly, invited the United States to normalize
relations with Vietnam and to honor its commitment to provide reconstruction
funds. Representatives of two American banks--the Bank of America and First
National City Bank--were invited to discuss trade possibilities, and American
oil companies were informed that they were welcome to apply for concessions to
search for oil in offshore Vietnamese waters.

     Washington neglected Dong's call for normal relations, however, because
it was predicated on reparations, and the Washington political climate in the
wake of the war precluded the pursuit of such an outcome. In response, the
administration of President Gerald R. Ford imposed its own precondition for
normal relations by announcing that a full accounting of Americans missing in
action (MIAs--see Glossary), including the return of any remains, would be
required before normalization could be effected. No concessions were made on
either side until President Jimmy Carter softened the United States demand
from a full accounting of MIAs to the fullest possible accounting and
dispatched a mission to Hanoi in 1977 to initiate normalization discussions.

     Although the Vietnamese at first were adamant about United States
economic assistance (their first postwar economic plan counted on the amount
promised by President Nixon), the condition was dropped in mid- 1978 when
Hanoi made additional gestures toward normal relations. At that time,
Vietnam