TERMS AND
GUIDE QUESTIONS FOR FILM
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Ho
Chi Minh (1890-1969): Founder of the Vietnamese Communist Party and
President of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam (DRVN). Viet
Minh: a shorthand for Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh
(League for the Independence of Viet Nam), a military front organization of
both communists and non-communists that was set up by the Indochinese
Communist Party (ICP) under Ho Chi Minh during WWII. Vo
Nguyen Giap (1910? - present): History
teacher who became an early organizer of the ICP. Giap later made his name as
a talented military strategist in Vietnamese conflicts with French, and
later, US forces. Battle
of Dien Bien Phu (March-May 1954):
conflict in
the First Indochinese War that ended the French drive in Indochina. Ngo
Dinh Diem (1901-63): Vietnamese
nationalist and president of South Viet Nam following the national partition,
from 1955 until his and his brother's assassinations in 1963. |
National Liberation Front
(NLF): a loose alliance of
anti-Diem organizations, secretly guided by Ha Noi and first established in
the winter of 1960-61. When the alliance's military arm became involved in
skirmishes with South Vietnamese government, Diem himself gave the groups the
pejorative title Viet Cong or
"Vietnamese Communists." Gulf of Tonkin Incident
(1964): events involving two
allegedly unprovoked attacks by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on the
destroyers Maddox and C. Turner Joy of the U.S. Seventh
Fleet in the Gulf of Tonkin on August 2nd and August 4th. On August 5th, President Lyndon
Johnson issued the Gulf of Tonkin
Resolution to increase US commitment of troops and resources to the
Vietnamese civil war effort. Tet Offensive (1968): The Viet Cong and North
Vietnamese attack on the Lunar New Year's holiday in late January 1968 on
more than 100 cities and military bases in the South. |
#1. How did Cold War politics
affect the US entry into the Viet Nam Conflict?
#2. How did the Johnson administration use widespread bombing as a
political tool in the conflict? What
was the North Vietnamese reaction?
#3. Why was the Tet Offensive
initially a major defeat for the DRVN/NLF forces but ultimately a major victory
for Ha Noi?