INTROD UC TO N he Asian country of Vietnam was wracked by war for much of the mid 20th century After decades as a colony of France Viet nam won its independence in 1954 and was then divided into two parts North Vietnam and South Vietnam North Vietnam set up a communist government It wanted to unify the country under a single communist regime modeled after those of the Soviet Union and China On the other side the anticommunist government of South Vietnam wanted to keep Vietnam more closely aligned with the West Soon these competing interests led to war The conflict that pitted North Vietnam and its allies against South Vietnam and its allies principally the United States is called the Vietnam War Tellingly many Americans do not realize that in Vietnam the conflict is known as the American War The two decades long conflict was more about an idea Communism versus anticommunism than it was about a land grab or a wish to control natural resources Looking at the big
INTRODUCTION 7 Child commandos wait outside the Vietnamese army training headquarters
KEY FIGURES OF THE VIETNAM WAR picture the Vietnam War was a manifestation of Cold War tensions between the communist Soviet Union and the anticommunist United States North Vietnam received weapons and military advis ers from the Soviet Union and China The United States provided South Vietnam with advisers beginning in the 1950s and sent troops to fight in the war from 1965 to 1973 U S leaders believed that if Vietnam became a communist country it would lead to the fall of neighboring states to the communists an idea known as the domino theory In the end the North was victorious and Vietnam was reunited under Communist rule But more than 20 years of war from 1954 to 1975 had devastated Vietnam Entire villages and rice paddies had been destroyed Vast areas of the countryside were left barren and unusable because of the effects of bombings land mines and the spraying of an herbicide called Agent Orange Mil lions of Vietnamese had been left homeless Not until 1995 did Vietnam release its official estimate of war dead as many as 2 million civilians on both sides and some 1 1 million North Vietnamese sol diers and Viet Cong communist rebels According to U S estimates between 200 000 and 250 000 South Vietnamese soldiers died More than 58 000 U S troops were killed or went missing as a result of the war Their names are inscribed on the Viet nam Veterans Memorial in Washington D C Among the countries that had smaller forces in
INTRODUCTION 9 Vietnam South Korea suffered more than 4 000 dead Australia more than 500 Thailand about 350 and New Zealand some three dozen Key Figures of the Vietnam War will not only profile those people who played instrumental roles in and leading up to this long and bitter conflict it will also provide an overview of the country of Vietnam and a chronicle of the war
