Vietnam: The Two Wars

Examine how the seeds of Vietnam's future were sown while it was still a colony of France. After the defeat of the occupying Japanese forces in World War II, Vietnam became an unstable land, a land where new alliances were forged and the balance of power continually shifted during its war of independence against the returning French. Long held resentments and beliefs would foster the conflicts still to come; conflicts that would give this small, remote country a central place in world history.

After the defeat of the French and the division of Vietnam into communist North and democratic South, the Vietnamese communist leader Ho Chi Minh began a campaign to unite the country under his rule. In 1960 he restarted the war. The threat of another country falling to communism proved enough to draw the US into the conflict. Vietnam became a battlefield for the Cold War, a place where communism confronted the free world.