Hanoi's Road to the Vietnam War, 1954-1965

by Asselin, Pierre

  Evidence for this pessimistic assessment was revealing. According to incomplete statistics compiled by the NLF and submitted by the assemblyman, by early 1961 Saigon had conducted 2,185 “small and big sweep operations,” built 874 political prisons, and incarcerated 270,000 political dissidents. An additional 200,000 dissidents lived as virtual prisoners in some 250 “forced” or “secret” settlements resembling concentration camps. Between 1954 and 1960, the same statistics showed, Diem’s military and security forces killed 77,500 people and detained or tortured 725,000 others. “The life of the people of the South in the past seven years has been a life full of misery,” the assemblyman said, summarizing this evidence. In the South, “the life of one person has no value” and “the United Nations Charter is still worthless.”164

  The assemblyman concluded by implicitly deploring Hanoi’s apparent indifference to the suffering he described. “The people of the North sympathize deeply with the compatriots of the South,” he added with more than a touch of irony. They have supported them by “training millions of people through thousands of meetings” and produced “thousands of petitions submitted to the [ICSC].” Meanwhile, they “resolutely build socialism in the North to create stable conditions for the unification struggle of the southern compatriots,” as the latter struggle against a ruthless enemy under the “brilliant leadership” of the NLF.165 This aroused speaker was not the only assemblyman to praise southerners for resisting Saigon and the Americans and to deride northern contributions to the fight against the common enemy below the seventeenth parallel. Following a “tradition of heroic struggle,” another assemblyman noted, southerners “struggled heroically against” Diem and the Americans without feeling “intimidated” by them. “The southern compatriots surely will secure victory.”166

  To avoid continued and possibly growing criticism, veiled or otherwise, of its revolutionary line, Hanoi would have to revisit its approach to the South and do so sooner rather than later—unless it could find, via the diplomatic struggle, peaceful ways of defusing the crisis. As it turned out, it would spend much of the next year trying to do just that.

  FIGURE 1. Soviet ambassador to the DRVN Alexander Lavrishchev visiting Lang Son, November 1954 (courtesy of the Revolution Museum, Hanoi).

  FIGURE 2. DRVN president Ho Chi Minh meeting with members of the Indian ICSC delegation, 1954 (courtesy of the Revolution Museum, Hanoi).

  FIGURE 3. Vietnamese dockworkers posing with Soviet sailors following delivery of Chinese rice, Haiphong, undated (courtesy of the Revolution Museum, Hanoi).

  FIGURE 4. Vietnamese demonstrators holding banners calling for U.S. withdrawal from the South (on left ) and support for the independence struggle of the Algerian people, undated (courtesy of the Revolution Museum, Hanoi).

  FIGURE 5. DRVN delegation led by prime minister Pham Van Dong during a visit to India, April 1955 (courtesy of the Revolution Museum, Hanoi).

  FIGURE 6. PRC president Liu Shaoqi (on left ), accompanied by Ho Chi Minh, greeted by Hanoians, May 1963 (courtesy of the Revolution Museum, Hanoi).

  FIGURE 7. Crowd gathered at Ba Dinh Square in Hanoi to hear a speech by Liu Shaoqi, May 1963 (courtesy of the Revolution Museum, Hanoi).

  FIGURE 8. Vietnamese of Chinese descent conducting a military training exercise, Haiphong, undated (courtesy of the Revolution Museum, Hanoi).

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  Exploring Neutralization, 1962

  During the first half of 1962, the cessation of hostilities in Algeria, the recognition of its independence by France, and the signing of a multilateral agreement neutralizing Laos suggested that a less troublesome era in global politics was about to begin. However, the brief but fierce Sino-Indian War soon highlighted the limits of Asian and Third World solidarity, while the Cuban missile crisis brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war and dealt a near-fatal blow to the prospect for East-West détente. By year’s end, the accords on Laos were unravelling. After a short-lived “ambiguous truce,” Beijing’s enmity toward Moscow resumed and reached new heights as a result of Khrushchev’s refusal to forgive Albania even as he attempted rapprochement with Yugoslavia, maintained close contacts with Delhi during and after the Sino-Indian War, and “capitulated” during the Cuban crisis.

  In this tense international context, the United States sustained its commitment to preservation of a noncommunist government in South Vietnam. The Cuban crisis underscored the dangers of unchecked communist expansion and validated presidential calls for increasing aid to Saigon to “save” the RVN.

  Hanoi closely followed these events. During the first half of the year, it supported negotiations to neutralize Laos and, upon their successful culmination, envisaged a similar solution for South Vietnam. However, mounting American support for the regime in Saigon, the collapse of the accords on Laos within weeks after their signing, and the outcome of the Cuban crisis convinced many party members that neutralization of the South and any diplomatic solution to the situation there would not work. That conviction marked the passing of what may have been the last good chance for peace in Vietnam before the onset of war.

  HANOI AND ITS NEIGHBORS

  The deteriorating situation in the South, the growing credibility gap between Hanoi and southern revolutionaries, mounting intraparty tensions, and fissures in the socialist camp perturbed DRVN leaders in early 1962. Now they faced another, arguably more pressing danger: growing American interference in Laos and Cambodia. The machinations of the Americans and their agents in the two countries were not only “worrisome” to Hanoi but confirmed its “worst suspicions” about Washington’s ambitions in Indochina.1

  In 1958, Laotian prime minister Souvanna Phouma, a neutralist in Cold War terms, had sought to form a coalition government including members of the communist Pathet Lao revolutionary front led by Souphanouvong, the “Red Prince.” Washington responded by suspending assistance to Vientiane, precipitating the fall of Souvanna’s government. The new government under Phoui Sananikone was manifestly “reactionary,” that is, pro-American and anticommunist. In July 1959, Phoui’s government arrested and detained Souphanouvong and other leaders of the Pathet Lao.2 As a result, the political situation in Laos began to draw “maximum attention” from Hanoi, which suspected that the United States intended to spark a civil war in its small, landlocked neighbor, in part to destabilize the DRVN.3 But in mid-1960 units of the Royal Lao Army under Captain Kong Le captured Vientiane and reinstated the country’s foreign policy of neutrality in the Cold War. Souvanna returned as prime minister and created a new, broadly based coalition government, again including representatives of the Pathet Lao. In December of that year, General Phoumi Nosavan, a staunch anticommunist, and troops loyal to him stormed the capital, ousted Souvanna’s government, and installed the pliable Boun Oum as prime minister. Souvanna fled to the Plain of Jars, controlled by the Pathet Lao, where he proclaimed his the “legitimate” government of Laos, soon recognized by communist and nonaligned states but not the United States and its allies. Despite objections to his heavy-handed tactics by American diplomats in Vientiane, Phoumi secured Washington’s patronage and assistance.4 In fact, he capitalized on American support, even largesse, to consolidate his authority and hound his communist opponents.

  The situation in Cambodia was less alarming to Hanoi, but troubling nonetheless. There, Norodom Sihanouk’s government was under increasing pressure from Washington to abandon its neutrality in foreign policy, which Hanoi considered “compatible” with its own interests, and to align itself with the United States.5 To defuse regional tensions and preserve his autonomy, Sihanouk responded to these pressures by calling for restraint on all sides. Sensing that the civil war between Phoumi’s forces and those of the Pathet Lao might “explode into an international conflict” engulfing all of Indochina, a prospect Hanoi seriously feared, Sihanouk proposed an international conference on the future of Laos to involve essentially the same parties that had produced the 1954 Geneva ac
cords on Indochina.6

  NATION-BUILDING IN LAOS

  After the fall of Souvanna’s government in July 1958, Hanoi had redoubled its effort to strengthen the Pathet Lao. The need to prevent conditions in Laos from deteriorating may in fact have contributed to its unwillingness to commit more of its scarce resources to the insurgency in southern Vietnam. Also, as historian Christopher Goscha has noted, the Ho Chi Minh Trail, opened in 1959, “made all of eastern Laos vital to the northern supplying of southern Vietnam,” limited as that supplying was at the time.7 By this time, too, the Vietnamese and Laotian struggles for national liberation had been intertwined for years, ever since the war with France, if not earlier. The presence of nearly ten thousand PAVN troops and more than four thousand militiamen and support personnel from the DRVN in Laos in mid-1962, while DRVN leaders still refused to commit PAVN units to the insurgency in South Vietnam, attested to the importance Hanoi attached to Laos.8 The military personnel, all officially “volunteer troops,” not only advised and trained Pathet Lao forces but, beginning in the fall of 1960, joined them in combat operations against enemy forces.9 The “economic crisis” in the DRVN, a June 1961 French assessment noted, “does not appear to bother the North Vietnamese Government” in Laos, where it continued to “provide aid to the troops of the Pathet Lao.” Clearly, the assessment concluded, the Laotian problem was “at the forefront” of Hanoi’s concerns.10

  Over time the DRVN mission in Laos extended well beyond strengthening and protecting the Pathet Lao. It became a veritable nation-building effort aimed at containing American influence, stabilizing socioeconomic conditions in parts of the country, and laying the foundation for communist domination.11 “The capitalist-imperialist camp will use every method of persuasion” to pull Laos into its orbit, a Vietnamese report stated in 1961. To preclude that eventuality, to help Laos “become a truly independent and positively neutral country, the countries of the socialist camp must have a comprehensive, long-term, and sustainable supply plan.”12 A special committee whose purpose was to achieve those goals coordinated the effort from Hanoi under the supervision of Politburo member Hoang Van Hoan.13 Hoan’s group concluded in 1961 that Souvanna Phouma’s rump state represented Hanoi’s best hope for an alternative to the current regime in Vientiane. A communist government in Vientiane would have been ideal for Hanoi, but the Pathet Lao was too weak to bid for national power. Unfortunately for Hanoi, Souvanna’s government had as yet no “functional bureaucracy” and no “plan to develop the economy.” It therefore required Hanoi’s assistance to survive as a bulwark against American encroachment.14 The “apparatus” of Souvanna’s government had just begun to build itself, a Vietnamese assessment concluded.15 Possibly, Hanoi armed the Pathet Lao and supported Souvanna’s government with a view not only to frustrating Washington’s ambitions in Laos but also to drawing its attention away from Vietnam.

  In 1961 Hanoi signed a series of agreements with various Laotian factions, including Souvanna’s government, demonstrating the seriousness of its intent to contain American influence and bring Laos into the Vietnamese orbit. In honoring those agreements, Hanoi dispatched political, economic, and other specialists to Laos, funded their endeavors, and funneled other aid to the Laotians from the DRVN and also from the rest of the socialist camp.16 Hanoi welcomed the latter show of support for its efforts in Laos, despite the logistical difficulties it often encountered in delivering aid goods and materiel. “There are some misunderstandings between a number of [donor] countries and our party and government,” DRVN authorities noted.17 Despite those difficulties, between December 1960 and the end of June 1961, the Vietnamese delivered to Souvanna’s government 4,229 arms of various kinds from the Soviet Union, five tons of medical supplies and fifteen tons of dry provisions from China, and significant assortments of foodstuffs, medications, and sugar from Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Mongolia, and Poland.

  Abetted by Beijing and Pyongyang, Hanoi also secretly provided military aid to the Pathet Lao, despite pledges to the contrary to Souvanna Phouma and Moscow. During the six months ending in June 1961, the DRVN supplied Laotian communists with 6,447 arms of various kinds with ammunition from China, as well as 699 weapons plus ammunition from its own stocks. North Korea provided American weapons captured during the Korean War as well as antiaircraft artillery and 80-mm mortars.18 This weaponry was in sharp contrast to the cameras, film projectors, and other such trivia sent to the Pathet Lao by Moscow via the DRVN in these years of peaceful coexistence.19 In view of these disparities, DRVN representatives in Moscow were soon bragging, in defiance of Hanoi’s instructions to keep such matters secret, that “the Vietnamese have played the leading role in the revolutionary struggle of the Indochinese people.” In Laos, the braggarts boasted, the Pathet Lao armed forces, “which grew and became stronger, had many Vietnamese members who helped in the organization of political work and the preparation of cadres.”20 One Vietnamese source even called the DRVN “the supply rear base” of the Laotian revolution.21 Indeed a French report noted that by July Hanoi’s military contributions had been “more important for Laos” than the contributions in nonmilitary goods made by the Soviets and other allies.22 While he appreciated Vietnamese contributions to the Laotian cause—those he was aware of—Soviet premier Khrushchev thought the Laotian situation should be resolved through diplomacy, not violent revolution.23

  Moscow’s limited support for these activities was only one of the challenges Hanoi faced in Laos. The roads connecting Vietnam to that country were in such disrepair that aid deliveries were often delayed and always difficult, sometimes simply impossible. Only a single road connected DRVN supply depots to the “liberated” Laotian province of Xieng Khouang, and that road was variously described as “destroyed, usable for only six months of the year, difficult [to use] during the rainy season, [and] impossible to use some months.” After December 1960, the Vietnamese had at least ten Soviet transport aircraft at their disposal in the effort to supply Laos, but the small planes could transport only two tons of goods per sortie and were limited to two flights daily, and poor weather often forced cancellation of flights.24 “Although the requirements of Laos are not very many,” a DRVN report noted, “foreign aid is still not enough.”25 Part of the problem stemmed from the refusal of socialist states to coordinate their aid efforts because of the Sino-Soviet dispute. “It is at least possible that the USSR has undertaken the support” of Laos “as a gesture of good faith,” a western analyst wrote at the time, “while the Chinese prefer to let the Russians get themselves involved in an area where China will inevitably have the ultimate profit.”26 Historian Ilya Gaiduk remarks that Moscow wanted to contain “reactionary” influence in Laos, but without running the risk of widening the conflict.27 Keeping the Laotian situation “in hand” would deny Beijing a pretext to enter into it and thus to stir up trouble there that could threaten peaceful coexistence. According to historian Mari Olsen, Moscow came to the aid of Laos at the urging of Hanoi but limited its assistance because it feared further destabilization in Indochina.28 Soviet suspicion that supplies earmarked for Laos were redirected to South Vietnam prompted Moscow to suspend aid deliveries to Hanoi temporarily in November 1961, further impeding the Vietnamese mission in that country.29

  THE GENEVA CONFERENCE ON LAOS

  As Hanoi endeavored to defend its interests in Laos, the International Conference on the Settlement of the Laotian Question convened in Geneva on 16 May 1961. The brainchild of Cambodian leader Norodom Sihanouk, as noted earlier, the conference aimed to avert internationalization and intensification of the civil war in Laos by creating a neutral government of national concord sanctioned by international accords. Hanoi had reservations about such a conference and also about the prospect of a neutral Laos. A genuinely neutral Laos would hamper its ability to support the insurgency in southern Vietnam and might cramp the freedom of movement of the Pathet Lao. Also, Washington might use the conference to sabotage Laotian sovereignty and create new obstacles for the
Vietnamese revolution. The British Consulate thought DRVN leaders were “very hesitant” in “deciding whether a communist or a neutralist Laos would be best for them.” A communist takeover in Vientiane would give Hanoi “an assured corridor of approach to supply the rebellion in South Vietnam” as well as a “guarantee” of security along part of the DRVN’s western border. On the other hand, a premature or unsuccessful power grab by the Pathet Lao would likely cause the United States to “react sharply in defence of their position in South East Asia.” If that reaction resulted in destruction of the Pathet Lao and consolidation of an anticommunist regime in Vientiane backed by western military force, Hanoi would certainly be less able to influence events in South Vietnam, and it might provoke the Chinese to intervene militarily in Laos. “I think,” British consul general J. F. Ford wrote London, “that the North Vietnamese would not like to see a situation arise in Laos in which the Chinese would feel impelled to enter in strength.” Their “main interest,” he surmised, “is in having Laos friendly to them, and free of American influence.”30