Myths of the Vietnam War
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Myths of the Vietnam War
The Leninist construction is also supported by Ho's treatment of non-Communist Vietnamese nationalists. If any individual could have claimed to be the George Washington of Vietnam between 1900 and 1925, it would have been Phan Boi Chau. Bernard Fall called him "Vietnam's Sun Yat-sen," and he is today claimed as a hero in both North and South Vietnam. According to historian Joseph Buttinger, the French regarded Chau as the most dangerous of the nationalist revolutionaries. "Between 1907 and the end of World War I, there was probably no single decision made or act of resistance committed that was not either directly instigated by
Chau's agents or inspired by his political teachings." Ho recognized Chau as a rival, and as a major obstacle in the Communist attempt to take control of the anti-French movement. He therefore "sold" Chau to the French, who were happy to pay a large sum of money to capture their most effective opponent
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Vietnam does indeed have a "tradition of unity." But the boundaries of "Vietnam" in this context embrace (approximately) only the territory known today as North Vietnam. The Pentagon study
includes a map showing the "Historical Development of Vietnam". and depicting "
Viet Expansion." The map shows that prior to 1303 A.D., the southern boundary of "Vietnam" was quite close to the seventeenth parallel — the line dividing North and South Vietnam
today. Between the fifteenth and the latter part of the eighteenth century, the southern boundary of Vietnam gradually moved southward — the Saigon area being annexed between 1698 and 1797. At the same time, the Viets were moving into present-day Cambodia
and Laos.
Furthermore, as even North Vietnamese accounts admit, during this period of expansion true unity was rare. In 1558, the Nguyen family established an autonomous administration for the southern part of Vietnam (Hue and the provinces farther south), while the Trinh family ruled in the North (now North Vietnam). For most of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Vietnam was divided at the Gianh River in Quang Binh Province (now the southernmost province of North Vietnam), and the two families fought each other fiercely. During truces in the fighting, the Nguyen family pushed southward, conquering most of what is today South Vietnam.
The two zones were united in 1786 by Nguyen Hue, and less than a century later Vietnam was under French control. The French divided Vietnam into two protectorates (Tonkin in the
North, Annam in the center) and a colony (Cochinchina, in the South), which along with Cambodia and Laos were administered as French Indochina. Thus there is, in fact, no tradition of unity between North and South Vietnam. North Vietnamese leaders are fond of referring to Vietnam's "four thousand year-old national history;" but it should be remembered that North and South Vietnam — as they exist today — were united for less than a hundred years of that history.
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Viet Cong Terrorism
Terrorism was a key tactic of the Viet Cong from, the first, when they "used terror to recruit former Viet Minh for the new movement, threatening them with `treason' and elimination." The Pentagon study describes the following account of Viet Cong strategy as "quite accurate":
To begin with, they start acts of violence through their underground organizations. They kill village chiefs, headmen, and others working for the government, and, by so doing, terrorize the population, not necessarily by acts of violence against the people but by demonstrating that there is no security for them in accepting leadership from those acknowledging the leadership of the government. Even with much smaller numbers of troops than the constituted authority, it is not difficult now for the Communists to seize the initiative. Douglas Pike, author of the most comprehensive study of the Viet Cong to date, explains the rationale of the VC assassination
policy: