4.8   Vietnam War

. Vietnam War By the end of Second World War, Viet Minh controlled the northern half of Vietnam. Viet Minh formed a government led by Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi. This Viet Minh government quickly occupied the southern half of Vietnam. However, the Allied Powers decided at Potsdam that the British in the south and the Chinese in the north should defend Indo-China from the Japanese. But Ho Chi Minh had established his control very firmly and so, early in , the British and Chinese troops had to withdraw, leaving the French and Viet Minh to confront each other. In March the two governments (French and Viet Minh) reached an agreement by which North Vietnam was to be a free state, within an Indo-Chinese Federation. In the French attempted to secure the support of the population by declaring Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia independent within the French Union, retaining only foreign affairs and defence under French control. While the French were receiving considerable financial aid from America, the Viet Minh were helped by the new Chinese communist government. The French troops were eventually defeated. The Geneva Conference ( ) that met in Korea and Indo China decided that Vietnam was to be an independent state but temporarily divided; the Viet Minh to control the north and Bao Dai to head the government the south. Cambodia and Laos were to be independent. With a population of million, North Vietnam became a Communist state with Ho Chi Minh as President. South Vietnam, approximately of the same size and population, was ruled by Ngo Dinh Diem. The government’s survival in South Vietnam depended on increasing amounts of US support. In marines landed at Danang naval base, and there were , US troops in the country within a month. The number increased and there were , , by the end of year. The US bombed both North and South in the hope that it could force the liberation forces to abandon the struggle. The fighters of North Vietnam, trained in guerrilla warfare, had grown out of spontaneous struggles against a repressive regime. They sustained