Mark Moyar

And Eisenhower actually goes to the British and says, we'd like you to join us in an anti-communist coalition.

And the British say, well, you know, you didn't help us out in India.

So we're not really that keen on helping save the French in Indochina.

And so for that reason, the United States holds its hand.

Now, it creates an interesting what if.

I do think had we bombed, actually, we could have perhaps saved the French.

But we didn't really know that at the time.

We didn't realize the Viet Minh, the communists, as they called themselves, had committed almost their entire army to Dien Bien Phu.

And we're very vulnerable.

But again, we didn't know that at the time.

So

the U.S.

then decides we're just going to hold on to the southern half.

French leave, and so we support this new government in South Vietnam.

And so at the beginning, the new president of South Vietnam is Ngo Dinh Diem, a very religious Catholic Vietnamese.

And a lot of people don't think he's going to succeed because there's a lot of chaos in the South, but he is able to consolidate power.

And the communists initially think they can beat him with just political agitation, but that turns out not to be the case.

And so as his regime gets stronger, the communists decide in 1960 to launch an armed insurrection, basically using the techniques of Mao for mobilizing the peasants.

And so you have that begins in 1960.

The ZM regime struggles at first.