Vietnam War Report; BBC Presents

The British Broadcasting Corporation presents the Viet-Nam the twenty year war. This program is subtitled The end of French rule and introduced by Roderick MacFarquhar editor of China quarterly and Patrick Harney reader in Vietnamese studies at London University. Roderick MacFarquhar speaks first. If we're ever to understand what's happening in Vietnam today and what's been happening there since the end of the Second World War is absolutely necessary to start without preconceptions. The first preconception that has to be destroyed is that this situation the most important test of political and military power in our world is in any way a simple matter. It's just not in the nature of Vietnam past or present to be simple as Robert a long time student of Vietnam says but where all is trapped all these double all is tricky. The easiest attitude to fall into about Vietnam apart from apathy is there's which says either this is a war against Communist aggression or this is suppression of an indigenous democratic revolution. Neither of

you is totally right or wrong. There's an element of both in the situation. Vietnam is a hugely complicated labyrinth of conflicting loyalties objectives states of mind hopes and fears. It's a morass of misunderstandings and cross-purposes and it's likely to remain so for many years still regardless of what the West Russia or China chooses to do and what we hope to do is to separate as many of the elements of the mess as we can so that at least we may see a little below the surface of this terrible war. What lies below the surface is a history of conflict of hardship of struggle that goes back 20 centuries. It was necessary for us to recount the main facts of that history for and then lies at least a clue to the problem of how and why a small underdeveloped and by Asian standards underpopulated country has managed to inflict defeat onto historically great powers China and France and misery and confusion on the most powerful state in the modern world.

Nobody knows much about early Vietnam except that it was populated by a race of Chinese like but ethnically distinct people whose territories stretched from well into southern China down into the Red River Delta. We know they fell under Chinese occupation a century before Christ and after in millenium of sporadic rebellions drove the Chinese out again. In one hundred and thirty nine A.D. having meanwhile absorbed the Chinese pattern of life in agriculture social organization education and religion even their language was written in Chinese media graphs and borrowed many of its words from Chinese. Through all this they preserved intact and national and racial identity trying to recognize the independence of Vietnam. The name means the foreigners of the South in Chinese. China recognizes independence in nine hundred seventy two and forty years later under the founder of the 200 year lead in a city. There came a kind of stability that

stability had something to do with the character of the Vietnamese and something to do with external pressures upon them. Neither of these is a relevant today to the north of Vietnam where China separated from it by the range of mountains that had helped to break Chinese rule but which could not alone protect Vietnam from renewed Chinese efforts to dominate it to the south led jungles hills the coastal plains of Tampa and the Empire of the conveyors in what is today central and southern Vietnam and an uncaught in China. There's nothing for a nation in these circumstances to do except to become soldierly Vietnamese became excellent soldiers. These people have been in the war for so many years they have developed a fantastic capacity of surviving beyond being family and living in the jungle fighting in the night and so on and then are just the most terroristic soul years that the

world has produced so far. They successfully held off the Chinese extended their own conquest of Jhumpa in passing defeated the unstoppable Mongols under God like can and again threw off their short lived Chinese annexation in the 15th century. One of the problems of being a state skilled in warfare is that the army becomes a powerful force in politics. It's of course not a new problem. Vietnam had extended its southern front year well down the country by the middle of the fifteenth century only to fall into internal troubles in which the throne was usurped and regained over several generations with the help of the generals. One of these established ascendancy over the Emperor of the lead in a city he restored to the throne. Another Not liking this all the fact that the Ascended general was called King by the Emperor. Built a fence between his own southern territories and the Emperor and effectively split Vietnam very much in the same place of that split today. And so it continued for more than a century. But first a

hot war as the Northern generals plan attempted to recapture the allegiance of the South. But subsiding with the passage of time into a Cold War it was only to end in the Southern rebellion against the clan that ruled it. And in the north taking this opportunity to invade and capture part of the lost territories there ensued a series of complex and confused walls. But the end of which the Tyson brothers named after their home village controlled the whole country divided into three parts one for each brother. The charms had long since been smashed in the shape and size of Vietnam where much as they are today in Vietnam where armed struggle for political or temporal power is endemic it was always counted a mistake for the engineers of a coup to leave any of the outgoing rulers or their families in a position to begin a counter call. Tradition demanded the extermination of three generations the Tastee brothers committed to kill every member of the state that had ruled over them. And this submission was to have consequences

that it would be fair to say are indirectly being felt today. The heir to the southern throne escaped with his son Prince Kang to an island off the coast whereby one of those accidents on which has been so often turns. He fell in with a Roman Catholic bishop a refugee like himself from the rebellion and one of the missionaries who in the preceding century arrived to convert the Vietnamese this was been known to behead the missionaries were the first evidence of European interests in this corner of the Far East. They had great success initially but came soon to be persecuted as the effects of their new teachings on the old social order became apparent. Trade missions from Holland Portugal Britain and France followed the French run being largely a cover for the smuggling of missionaries into the country. We know that the Han took Prince Kang with him to France to ask for military help in replacing when Ang on the throne of Vietnam. Not solely out of the goodness of his heart however but in exchange for concessions. The project did not

succeed because forces couldn't be supplied from pundits had it been out of a hand. Therefore recruited his own mercenary army which grand soldiers built him a fleet and acted as advisors. Their advice from nuanced point of view was excellent. The war lasted a long time but the Navy never to you know it was proclaimed Emperor of the re unified Vietnam under a name of Salam. He and his foreign advisors built the great sort of tools of Vietnam the Saigon naval dockyard the great road from north to south. For a brief while Vietnam appeared ready to shake off the old stagnation to move into a new dynamic era with the help of Western technological advance. But the chance was thrown away. Until this time the life of Vietnam had been overwhelmingly agricultural full of hardships almost primitive and conducted almost exclusively at a largely autonomous village level. Each village of wattle and all

parts was surrounded by a dense hedge broken only by a massive gate. It lived a close knit community electing its own council teaching its own young living its own taxes and returning them to the Emperor. Contact with the world outside the hedge was limited achieved name day by water for roads hardly existed. Wheel vehicles were few and overland travel was either on foot or on horseback. Perhaps a lot of the villagers would have been even harder had it not been so for the government on the Chinese model was or was authoritarian and often harsh. The overlord for sure was a repository of all power. But he was served by a medical critic civil service of mandarins recruited by competitive examination open to any citizen at provincial level. These men to ribbons civil and military like the modern commissars held unchallenged sway and according to their natures when mild or harsh but

more often harsh than not. If you'll be at Minnies can be found even now to speak with regret of their passing and their passing was within living memory. The Maginot could have passed away much earlier. Perhaps if these are long successes in the 19th century had been as wise as he. All the neighbors the time who cleverly exploited European interest to their own advantage. But they were not like Japan and China. They attempted to purge their land of foreigners and receded off entirely from outside influences. A hopeless task in the climate of the times. Colonialism was a tremendous expansionary force the imagined wealth of China was an irresistible attraction and so small an underdeveloped country. A great temptation to the west anxious for Empire. France a late comer to this imperialist drive in the Far East sort of window on China Vietnam was the window and she was determined to reopen it after having had it shot in her face by the wind successors

using the persecution of mission riz as a cause is belie. She attacked Vietnam but to run the modern Donna in 1858 Saigon in the following year in the remainder of the nineteenth century French occupation was extended to the whole of Vietnam and the two neighboring countries of Laos and Cambodia. These three making up what came to be known as French Indochina officially. Much of it was not colonial territory as far as Vietnam was concerned. Only the lower part of the South China was a colony. As such the other two divisions and am in the center and talking in the north around Hanoi being protectorates. The distinction was largely verbal French wate was well established throughout the country until the end of the 19th century. It was not a wholly secure rule and it was rule ended effectively in 1940 by the Japanese. Nevertheless it's a fixed on the Vietnamese people and country were

enormous. Cities were built and linked by a country wide rail and road network modern ports were constructed factories open schools and universities set up. Agriculture was diversified by rubber and coffee plantations and the rich delta of the Mekong River was drained and farmed Hill services were set up and the population soared as health improved and as new wealth was created. Most important of all the French presence smashed the logjam of traditional thought and ways and the society unchanged for centuries and probably otherwise incapable of change was revolutionized. For all these benefits the Vietnamese found disadvantages to outweigh them they were second class citizens in their own land economically and socially inferior. Limited to occupy only the lowliest posts in the administration. There was rebellion first among the former elite the mandarins and scholars. They were crushed by the military superiority

of France and withdrawal for ever as a class from the Vietnamese political field. But resistance to the French occupation didn't end with them during the 1920s and 1930s. The middle classes took up the struggle journalists doctors teachers and the like their gander Stein part is there are several uprisings there frequent protests while troublesome weare incapable of breaking the French grip on their country. In 1930 a Moscow trained professional communist revolutionary with years of experience as an active agent of the Communist International established the Vietnamese communist party shortly afterwards rechristened the Indo Chinese Communist Party to accommodate the other states the French Indochina Laos and Cambodia. Then for the first time the anti French resistance movement required the services of an international organization and its members received training in revolutionary techniques from Soviet instructors in its early years. The Communist Party had few members far list from the nationalist parties.

It made mistake after mistake and paid heavily in a wrists and executions of its members but it acquired it experienced during those years perfected its techniques and by the outbreak of the Second World War was a force to be reckoned with. When the war commenced the leading communists moved across the country into southern China where they were joined by the party's founder and inspiration. When I go later to change and then to dreaming. There they found the Viet Name the first of several United National fronts which they established to win the support of the more numerous nationalists while still keeping the movement under communist control. With the defeat of France in 1940 the future for French Indochina was bleak. Since the colonial officials and soldiers were deprived of direction funds and supplies from the motherland. Consequently the colonial regime quickly acceded to Japanese pressures and demands allowing the region to fall under Japanese occupation. The

Japanese aiming at the conquest of Asia had no wish to waste manpower on governing the states of Indochina. So the deal was done between them and the French. They permitted the French to go on administrative territory under the overall control of Japan. Meanwhile making full use of airfields harbors railways and roads for their military advance into Malaya Burma and Indonesia. It was an arrangement which worked until March 1945. Indeed Japanese planes flying from Vietnamese airfields sank the major British warships the Prince of Wales in the repulse by 45 it had already become clear that Japan was about to be defeated. The French fearful of what the victorious allies might do to them by way of punishment for their long collaboration with the enemy set up a very belated marquee. They did this so amateur rashly that the Japanese were fully aware of it from the start and in March 45 through all the French into prison camps. Japan then granted nominal independence to the three states of India China which formed their own governments. These

remained ineffective because the administration and public services had always been run by Frenchmen and these were then in prison. The psychological effects of receiving independence there were enormous and greatly influence the events which were to follow the communist control of yet meaning failed to attract many Vietnamese nationalists and the Chinese woman Donald product is already hostile to communism sponsored the formation of a rival nationalist coalition. But the Viet meeting fared better with the American missions in China. PS In particular the Oasis the forerunner of CIA exploited the communist network of secret cells in Vietnam to get intelligence and armed Viet Minh guerrillas to wage subversive war against the Japanese. The arms were seldom used against the Japanese but it was stored for later use against the fish when the end of the war came the Viet meeting was the only Vietnamese organization with armed guerrilla forces inside Vietnam.

Vietnam was if I did of the sixteenth parallel by the victorious allies in 1945 the northern half being occupied by the Chinese and the south among the British it was a chaotic period politically and militarily. But these were the conditions in which the long years of training and revolution experience proved their worth. It means independence and establishing a communist led government that we took the unprecedented step of dissolving the official Communist Party to allay suspicions by these and other political maneuvers. You secure all the abdication of the Emperor die and maintain the upper hand of the inexperienced nationalists at every stage. Here is what Professor Bernard full an American specialist on Vietnam has to say about it. The French returned to Saigon with British troops under me to draw it Gracie. In October nineteen hundred and forty five they found a fait accompli. They found coaching men in power. They signed it would help him in an agreement in March 1946 which recognized Vietnam as a free state within the French union.

The friendship treaty is well it is my view that the French remain responsible for the eventual outbreak of the war by violating that agreement. But suppose a friendship. Back to the letter of it what you men would have been president of the unified Vietnam since 946 can be argued that a hundred men under such circumstances might have become a US leader he might have a crime National Crime It surely wasn't by trying to be on a doubt but it is also clear that even would have run all of Vietnam in every community. The differences between the French and the Vietnamese were fundamentally incapable of resolution. Philip the historian of French rule in Indochina describes them. The main problem has been politic on economic. Politically it seems to the question of democracy. Barry said the time that it was impossible to have a communist lades state within the French union

because it in the secret of defense of anything like this would not be kept within the French union but would be channeled to the Russians. The second plan was that it was realized that this didn't I mean the government was really serious in trying to make a planning committee in controlling the foreign interests and directing his economy in a socialist direction. So the friendship or business interest in the train now so that there will need to have your earlier prediction for their continuation of business with such a government and so the press the French government to try to do to fine other Vietnamese more I'm unable to understand the French interest. Neither party was prepared to modify its basic demands so that long drawn out negotiations including two major conferences came to nothing. Incidents which inflamed the passions of both sides occurred frequently

until on December the 19th 1946 the Viet meeting opened hostilities in Hanoi and then withdrew to the countryside to begin the lengthy resistance war. The evening's decision to fight face the Nationalists with an impossible decision they had to make up their minds whether to join the anti French resistance under communist control or remain in French held territory and do nothing to win their country's independence. The vast majority followed the Viet meeting. Now it was armed conflict and the question would be settled by military strength. I saw with my eyes the beginnings of the China war when we had seven planes and 12 pilots in the whole of India China and France being able to send large forces to Vietnam quickly. She might have crushed the uprising in its early stages but you still have suffered the effects of her defeat at home and of the German occupation. In addition she understandably withdrew old experienced personnel on the grounds that they were collaborators

and substituted Free French people new to Asia. It was more or less back to square one. Shipping was scarce and there were other claims on her army. The military buildup was agonizingly slow. After Marjah doing it the snobbish communism in China in 1949 and the Viet Ming it occupied the whole Chinese front a region in the following year. Military victory passed beyond the grasp of France. But French politicians were already engaged in finding a political solution which might yet defeat the Viet Minh. They offered national independence within the French Union to the exiled ex Emperor about hoping that if you returned as chief of state you could attract the nationalist majority out of the Viet Ming to his side. If the small communist minority with us isolated they argued it would be the work of only a few months to mop them up. But I agreed after lengthy bargaining and returned to Vietnam at a propitious moment for the full weight of Comus control had already

begun to alienate nationalist elements in the view. Large numbers were prepared to join him but since all that the means are invariably suspicious of French promises they waited to see the reality lived up to the promises. In France the period was one of chronic political instability revolving door governments of the Fourth Republic followed one another with unprecedented rapidity and political intrigue was the order of the day. Prominent among the political pressure groups was the Indo China lobby supported and financed by commercial interests with large holdings in Vietnam. Under this and other pressures successive French governments hesitated to accord to bow to his government the powers which it had demanded and which France had promised to weight control over some of the areas of government were given. But all is long delayed and hedged about with rows of restrictions. The waiting Vietnamese went slow to appreciate what was happening and to realize that their suspicions had been well founded. Abdul himself was bitterly disappointed

feeling he had been duped. He did not withdraw from the agreements he made but he refused to rally the Vietnamese people behind his own government and somewhat ostentatiously spent much of his time on the French Riviera as a mark of his disgust his government in Vietnam failed to win either prestige or popular support so that when full independence finally came it was largely discredited and received none of the acclaim. An important new factor came into play in 1950 which was destined to play a decisive role in the struggle. Before then the powerful French Communist Party which was the largest party in the country had entertained hopes of achieving power through parliamentary means listed destroy its chances by antagonizing patriotic elements in France it pointedly refrained from condemning the Indochina War particularly in its public pronouncements early in 1980 However the evening's government was recognised by China and the Soviet Union which described it as socialist. The event

more or less coincided with the final abandonment by the French Communist Party of a parliamentary takeover of power. Thereafter this powerful party mobilized all its resources against the continuation of the Vietnam War. The weak governments were acutely embarrassed by the campaign and showed themselves incapable of stopping it. Communist recognition of the victime the securing of the frontier with China by its soldiers the granting of military aid and training facilities by China combined to put a new complexion on the Vietnam struggle. United States would have to regard the war as a colonial war of independence and had evinced some sympathy with the objectives of the Viet Minh if not with its political complexion. Now we got to view it as primarily a communist war. France encouraged this interpretation. Arguing that she had promised independence to the victime is nationalists and therefore cannot be held guilty of colonialism and sought aid from America. Slowly at first but with an ever increasing momentum. United States aid began to flow into Vietnam until in the later stages of the war. America

was bearing the major part of the cost. Many Vietnamese hoped that Washington would attach strings to the aid making it a condition of providing this assistance that France carry out have promises of full independence for Vietnam. In other circumstances this might have been done but America was deeply concerned at that time with the security of Western Europe. The cooperation of France was considered vital to this when the French showed themselves extremely touchy about any American attempts to influence our policies and actions in Vietnam. The United States desisted thus ending any remaining chance of making the bow die solution work. The appointment of Gen.. Later Now I shall delight with attaching you to the double post of governor general and military commander in chief in Vietnam brought a temporary raising of French hopes. But even he could do little to remedy the underlying weakness of the French position. For all his undoubted gifts when he died from illness little more than a year after his appointment a French defeat became

a matter of time. The war dragged on for a further two years with the French position growing perceptibly weaker month by month large areas were abandoned to the getting as the French withdrew to the Red River Delta in the north. Their superiority was never so clearly established in the south. Increasingly desperate French undertakings became the new pattern with seaborne landings on the coast of the Vietnamese held areas of central Vietnam and the like. These culminated with the setting up of a complex of forts deep inside Vietnam territory in northwestern to tonking in the hopes of enticing the enemy into a large scale set piece battle which the French were convinced they'd win thanks to their artillery and air power. The place was the envy and full set in a valley which flooded in the rainy season and was surrounded by jungle clad hills. It proved to be an irresistible target for the Viet meeting. The battle of the Indian food was won before the fighting commenced by the thousands of

tough resilient Vietnamese who hold heavy Chinese guns and shells through mountains and jungles considered impossible and concealed them in the hills surrounding the French fortress of it mean victory was now assured. It had seeming agreed to attend an international conference in Geneva convened to end the war. On the eve of its opening the NBN for was overrun and the remnants of its battered Garrison taken prisoner. France must face the Geneva conference from the weakest of all possible positions or appeals to the United States to intervene with bombers to wipe out the Viet Ming attackers had been rejected largely because of the Anthony Eden's refusal to associate Britain with such an attack and France resigned herself to the ending of her rule in French Indochina on the best terms she could obtain. Ironically one of her last acts before the Geneva conference was the granting of full independence to bow Di's Nationalist government. If the French conduct of this prolonged military and political struggle in Vietnam must be summed up in a single phrase it is too little and too

late. You have been listening to the end of French rule. This was a production of the British Broadcasting Corporation in London.