Questions for Film Vietnamizing the War 1968-1973 from the PBS series Vietnam: A Television History

 

 

Nguyễn Cao Kỳ (b. 1930): strongly anti-Communist, French-trained South Vietnamese military leader, who participated in Nguyễn Văn Thiệu’s coup with in 1965.  Kỳ served as premier (1965–67) and vice president (1967–71) before leaving politics in 1971. Kỳ fled Saigon in 1975 and settled in Southern California.

 

Nguyễn Văn Thiệu (1923-2001) led a successful coup in 1965.  In 1967 Thiệu took the position of president with US support. Thiệu fled Vietnam in 1975, shortly before the PAVN entered Saigon.  He died in Boston, MA.

 

Bůi Diễm: Former newspaper publisher, who was a political opponent of President Diem, and later served as the RVN’s ambassador to the United States (1966-72).

 

Provincial Revolutionary Government (PRG): political wing of the NLF in South Vietnam, which was formed in June 1969.

 

William Colby (1920-1996): intelligence officer, who began in the OSS in 1943 and served as director of the Phoenix Program from 1968 to 1971, during which time as many as 60,000 Vietnamese were targeted and killed.    He was the director of the CIA from 1973 to 1975. Colby would later defend his role in the Phoenix Program, while questioning other activities of the CIA.

 

Hoŕng Đức Nhă:  personal secretary to the President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu and top RVN adviser in the negotiations leading to the Paris Accords of January 1973.

 

William Rogers (1913-2001): US Secretary of State (1969-1973), who participated in the 1973 Paris Accords negotiations.

 

Ellsworth Bunker (1894-1984): US Ambassador to RVN (1967-1973), who was a strong supporter of  President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu’s goivernment.

 

  1. What problems did the RVN military face in its war effort?  What problems did it face in its cooperation with US military forces?
  2. What happened to the conflict in southern Vietnam after 1968?  What happened to South Vietnamese society in this period?
  3. How would you describe relations between US combatants and Vietnamese civilians in this period? What forces generated the rise in societal corruption?
  4. How did the US war effort change in 1970?  What problems developed in the military chain of command?
  5. How did the Phoenix Program work?  What were some of the unintended outcomes of this “pacification” effort?
  6. What was the Spring Offensive of March 1972?  What was the outcome of this campaign?  How was the South Vietnamese response different than it had been in earlier campaigns?
  7. How did the RVN government react to the US general withdrawal in 1973?