Page 27 - Contrast1967November

I suppose all that needs to be said about the
Vietnam war has been said and nothing new will be
found in the following paragraphs.

But some issues in life just do not go away
and so we continue to discuss them with as much
articulation as possible in the hope that a human
and reasonable resolution may be found.

Any question about our involvement in Vietnam
must be answered from a
How we were constrained
of this small Southeast
and oftep misunderstood

Ho Chi Minh, admittedly a Marxist, became the

leader of Vietnam after the end of World War II.

He is known to have been cooperative with the "

American effort against Japan and to have helped ,/ .'.~,"~,,

U.S. flyers who were shot down in Japanese held ,;, C:'.;;;"~",

terr itory. Subsequent to the war, he successfully ~,~ ,~,~ ,

fought the French until the latter's defeat on May ,\\ \,~....-,

7, 1954 at Dien Bien Phu. ~,I_, '\

,fj;pThere soon followed the Geneva Conference in //;A~' .

=.,':"July of 1954 and Vietnam was divided into North,,/i@ I"

~

and South temporarily, and only temporarily,

the 17th parallel. This was a division that most

people understood as no permanent political '['

boundary. The Geneva Accords make it quite clearl

that the 17th parallel was meant to be a militar~
line of demarcation (a cease-fire line) pro tem

until the national elections were held in 1956. \~

And there was no question but that Ho Chi Minh I ~\

would have won the election because he was by now I \~'\ "Ii

a popular hero and much more a Vietnamese nationalist ~h~~Vk~c

than an international communist. That these electio ll /

should have occurred was a main stipulation of the t~ y

Geneva Agreement. ~',

I'~'~~t

While the Geneva Conference was going on, a

man by the name of Ngo Dinh Diem became premier of

South Vietnam under Emperor Bao Dai. This Diem

,t((who had never fought the French) with the help of

the American government soon eliminated his leader Ii
and became president. We then aided in establishin

him as the chief of South Vietnam; we financed him \

and gave him military advice and assistance and then':~

ordered this puppet to reject the Geneva Accords by "'~~,:"

:::::;;;~::~:;;!::;:::;;:;;;;~~i~!~:~:dm:~~"~5~~~,r .,~~'~:.:~'"

~.ntent~.on of Geneva by cu t t r.nc off all tra de and \~\\
'\
pol itical ties with Nor th Vietnam and was every bit"~,, \

as ruthless as Ho in liquidating his internal

opposition. According to Bernard Fall, the refusal
to hold elections and the cutting off of trade