Questions for Film The First Vietnam War from the PBS series Vietnam: A Television History

Vo Nguyen Giap: (b. 1912) Vietnamese military and political leader, who led to the Viet Minh victory over the French in 1954 and later to the North Vietnamese victory over South Vietnam and the United States in 1975. Dean Rusk (1909-1994): US Secretary of State from 1961 to 1969 under presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Bui Tin: Veteran Vietnamese Communist official, who would in 1990 criticize the DRV government while abroad in Paris. He was expelled from the Party as a result. Pierre Mendes-France: French Prime Minister in June 1954 at the conclusion of the Geneva Conference.

Henri Navarre: French Commander-in-chief at Dien Bien Phu. John Foster Dulles (1888- 1959): US Secretary of State from 1953 to 1959 under Eisenhower. Battle of Dien Bien Phu (March-May 1954): conflict in the First Indochinese War that ended the French drive in Indochina. Geneva Conference (1954): the series of international negotiations from April 26 to July 21, 1954 that ended in the Geneva Accords, which, among other things, divided Vietnam at the 17^th parallel.

1. Why did Ho Chi Minh agree to negotiate the French re-entry into VN? What happened when the French arrived?

2. What caused the final breakdown Franco-Vietnamese in relations? What was the French military calculation by 1946? What was the Viet Minh calculation?

3. How did the general population in Viet Nam support the Viet Minh?

4. What was the Chinese Communist contribution to the VN fight with the French?

5. What brought Viet Nam to the direct attention of the US government in 1950?

6. How had happened to the First Indochina War on the French domestic front by 1953? What had happened to US involvement by this point?

7. What happened at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu? How were the Chinese involvement and how did Chinese involvement change during the fighting? What was Vo Nguyen Giap’s change of military strategy?

8. What happened at the Geneva Talks in 1954?