Watch the Viet Cong's guerrilla communist forces move down the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos and Cambodia
After South Vietnamese Premier Ngo Dinh Diem canceled reunification elections scheduled for 1956, the communist Viet Minh decided on war. From Vietnam Perspective (1985), a documentary by Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
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Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.The time when “terror [was] the order of the day.”
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Contunico © ZDF Studios GmbH, Mainz; Thumbnail © Badboo/Dreamstime.com; © 1957 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.; Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; TV Radio Mirror Magazine, March 1957Learn about cultural changes in East and West Germany during the 1950s.
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Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Try saying this term five times, fast.
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Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.On January 31, 1968, at the beginning of the traditional New Year festival of Tet, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong launched an all-out offensive. From Vietnam Perspective (1985), a documentary by Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation.
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Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.During World War II the communist Viet Minh were the only effective Vietnamese force resisting the Japanese occupation of French Indochina. From Vietnam Perspective (1985), a documentary by Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation.
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Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.With the defeat of the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the United States became concerned about communist gains in Vietnam. From Vietnam Perspective (1985), a documentary by Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation.
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Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.From 1946 to 1954, the communist Viet Minh battled the French in what is often called the First Indochina War. From Vietnam Perspective (1985), a documentary by Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation.
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Transcript
[Music in]
NARRATOR: In 1956, Ho Chi Minh was confident that the Viet Minh would win the reunification elections scheduled for that July. Fearing the Communists would indeed win, Diem, with the approval of the United States, refused to hold those elections. Ho and the Viet Minh saw no solution but a military one. Thus the second--and American--Indochina war began.
Gradually, over the next three years, down from the north, down the rugged Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos and Cambodia, flowed men, arms, and materiel for communist forces in the south. Regrouped, reorganized, and rearmed, this band of guerrillas--called Viet Cong, slang for "Vietnamese Communist"--began to wage a war of terrorism, sabotage, and subversion against the Diem regime.
[Music out]
NARRATOR: In 1956, Ho Chi Minh was confident that the Viet Minh would win the reunification elections scheduled for that July. Fearing the Communists would indeed win, Diem, with the approval of the United States, refused to hold those elections. Ho and the Viet Minh saw no solution but a military one. Thus the second--and American--Indochina war began.
Gradually, over the next three years, down from the north, down the rugged Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos and Cambodia, flowed men, arms, and materiel for communist forces in the south. Regrouped, reorganized, and rearmed, this band of guerrillas--called Viet Cong, slang for "Vietnamese Communist"--began to wage a war of terrorism, sabotage, and subversion against the Diem regime.
[Music out]
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