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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neeka who wrote (162905)	5/23/2005 3:22:41 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Ok, so I knew that the culture warriors have long been intent on rewriting the history of the 60's, but this is getting really bizarre. There were elections scheduled for Viet Nam, after the French withdrawal but long before the American war, but somebody put the kibosh on them, and it wasn't "the Left", except maybe in the fevered imagination of W's culture warriors. On the conventional reality front: The Geneva Conference of 1954 ended France's colonial presence in Vietnam and partitioned the country into North and South Vietnam. From his home in France, Emperor Bao Dai appointed Ngo Dinh Diem as Prime Minister of South Vietnam. While Diem was trying to settle the differences between the armed groups Bao Dai was persuaded to reduce his power. This forced Diem to use a referendum in 1955 to remove the former Emperor and declare himself as president of the Republic of Vietnam. The Geneva Accords promised elections to determine a national government for a united Vietnam. However, only France and the North Vietnamese government (DRV) signed the document. The US and the Saigon government refused to abide by the agreement, surmising that Ho Chi Minh would readily win the election because of his popularity. The result was the "Second Indochina War", also known as the Vietnam War. The war reached its height in 1966, when President Lyndon Johnson ordered 500,000 American troops into South Vietnam. Fearing the Chinese would directly enter the war with a massive army, as had occurred when U.S.-led United Nations forces approached the Chinese border during the Korean War, American ground troops were forbidden to enter North Vietnam. en.wikipedia.org