NationMaster - Encyclopedia: National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam

The Viet Cong, also known as the National Front for the Liberation of Southern Vietnam (Vietnamese Mặt Trận Dân Tộc Giải Phóng Miền Nam), VC, or the National Liberation Front (NLF), was an insurgent (partisan) organization fighting the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The NLF was funded, equipped and staffed by both South Vietnamese and the army of North Vietnam. Image File history File links FNL_Flag. ... Image File history File links FNL_Flag. ... An insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority, by any irregular armed force that rises up against an enforced or established authority, government, or administration. ... Look up partisan on Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... National motto: ??? Official language Vietnamese Capital Saigon Last President Duong Van Minh Last Prime Minister Vu Van Mau Area - Total - % water 173,809km² N/A population - Total - Density 19,370,000 (1973 est. ... Combatants Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) United States of America South Korea Thailand Australia New Zealand the Philippines Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) Strength ~1,200,000 (1968) ~420,000 (1968) Casualties South Vietnamese dead: 230,000 South Vietnamese wounded: 300,000 US dead...

Its military organization was known as the People's Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF). The PLAF were, according to the official history of the (North) Vietnamese Army, strictly subordinated to the general staff in Hanoi. Their name "Viet Cong", (VC) came from the Vietnamese term for Vietnamese Communist (Việt Nam Cộng Sản). American forces typically referred to members of the NLF as "Charlie," which comes from the US Armed Forces' phonetic alphabet's pronunciation of VC ("Victor Charlie"). The Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet was developed in 1941 and was used by all branches of the United States military until the promulgation of the NATO phonetic alphabet in 1956, which replaced it. ...

1 Organization
2 The Tet Offensive and Afterward
3 See also
4 Further reading

Organization

The VC was nominally independent of the North Vietnamese armed forces and although the leadership of the group was communist, the NLF was also made up of others who were allied with the Front against the policies of Ngo Dinh Diem. However, as the war with the Americans escalated North Vietnamese personnel increasingly formed the military staff and officer corps of the VC as well as directly deploying their own forces. People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) official history refers to the PLAF as "part of the PAVN". Communist cadres also, from the start, formed the majority of the decision-making strata of the organization, though non-Communists, encouraged by the initial chair, Nguyen Huu Tho, were also involved in this process. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN), or less commonly, Vietnamese Democratic Republic (Vietnamese: Viá»‡t Nam DÃ¢n Chá»§ Cá»™ng HÃ²a), also known as North Vietnam, was proclaimed by Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi, September 2nd1945 and was recognized by the Peoples Republic of China and the... Â«ngoh dihn zih-ehmÂ» (January 3, 1901 â€“ November 2, 1963) was the first President of the Republic of Vietnam (1955â€“63). ... Staff officers in the U. S. Navy provide specialized support to Line Officers and to all other persons in the organization. ... In military organizations, an officer is a member of the service who holds a position of responsibility. ... Nguyen Huu Tho (Chu nom é˜®å‹å£½, July 10, 1910- December 24, 1996) was acting President of Vietnam from March 30, 1980 to July 4, 1981. ...

American soldiers and the South Vietnam government typically referred to their guerrilla opponents as the Viet Cong or VC. Guerrilla War redirects here. ...

The VC organization grew out of the Viet Minh organization. By the time the Viet Cong began fighting the ARVN, the insurgency had a national infrastructure in the country. Rather than having to create "liberated zones" as in a classic insurgency, the VC were in control of such zones at the start of the war. The US/ARVN response - involving big-unit, conventional warfare and counter-insurgency was ineffective in part because it was fighting an insurgency with an infrastructure that in many areas was already 20 years old. The long western border of South Vietnam and the weakness of its reflected the People's War approach of Vo Nguyen Giap, who modified the writings of Mao for his purposes. But in truth, the People's War approach was abandoned after the Tet Offensive in favor of small-unit conventional warfare led by the army of North Vietnam. Peoples war (also called protracted peoples war) is a military-political strategy invented by Mao Zedong. ... Vo Nguyen Giap General Vo Nguyen Giap (born 1912) is a Vietnamese four-star general, who was the military leader of the Viet Minh guerrilla group under Ho Chi Minhs political leadership, and of the Peoples Army of Vietnam (PAVN) in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. ... Mao could refer to: Mao Zedong, (Mao Tse-Tung in Wade-Giles) leader of the Communist Party of China from 1935 to 1976. ...

In 1969, the VC formed a Provisional Revolutionary Government - PRG which after the fall of Saigon in 1975 claimed to represent South Vietnam. The provisional government never ruled any territory or exercised the functions of a government. Its principal role was to sign the instruments of unification with North Vietnam forming the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1976. No non-communists were allowed to take part in the transitory PRG governement. VC "minister of justice" Truong Nhu Tang describes how cadres from the north took over the work of his ministry within days of the take-over. 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnamese: ThÃ nh ChÃ Minh) is the largest city in Vietnam, located near the delta of the Mekong River. ... 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1976 calendar). ...

The Tet Offensive and Afterward

During the celebration of Tet in January of 1968, the NLF violated an implicit holiday ceasefire held between themselves and the US-RVN forces and attacked many of the main cities, provincial capitals and villages throughout South Vietnam. The US embassy in Saigon was attacked, and it appeared at first glance that the PLAF could attack anywhere with impunity. The Tet Offensive came as a surprise to the American public, who had gotten constant optimistic appraisals of the war by General William Westmoreland. In the wake of Tet, Westmoreland claimed that the NLF failed to achieve any of their strategic goals or hold any of their brief gains and that they achieved a "psychological victory" at best. Westmoreland's assertions have been called into question by Vietnam historians such as David Hunt and Marvin Gettleman, who argue that one of the major aims of Tet was to bring the Americans to the bargaining table. Although the main military forces of the PLAF no doubt suffered tremendous losses due to the Offensive, historians differ on the degree to which the NLF suffered as a result of Tet. However, there is no doubt that after Tet the cadres of the NLF were more and more made up of Vietnamese from the north. For the river in Roussillon, France, see Têt River. ... Combatants South Vietnam United States New Zealand Australia North Vietnam National Liberation Front Commanders William Westmoreland VÃµ NguyÃªn GiÃ¡p Strength 50,000+ (estimate) 85,000+ (estimate) Casualties USA/AUS/SKOR: 1,536 dead, 7,764 wounded, 11 missing ARVN: 2,788 dead, 8,299 wounded, 587 missing Total... General William Westmoreland William Childs Westmoreland (March 26, 1914 â€“ July 18, 2005) was a U.S. Army General who commanded American military operations in the Vietnam War at its peak from 1964 to 1968 and who served as US Army Chief of Staff from 1968 to 1972. ...

The Tet Offensive is sometimes portrayed as a crushing failure for the US, a military giant humiliated by the NLF. This analysis, however, speaks more to the largely-unanticipated psychological effect the Offensive had on the American public, rather than any military success. The NLF and North Vietnamese had clearly stated goals in launching the Offensive, including a mass uprising of the South Vietnamese citizenry in support of the NLF. These goals were not achieved, but the US military, media and public were all caught very much off guard by the offensive, thanks largely to Westmoreland's rather faulty prognostications. Walter Cronkite, for example, famously stated on February 27, 1968, that the US was "now mired in a stalemate" in Vietnam. The idea that Vietnam could not be won, and instead should be resolved via "disengagement with honor", animated both the Johnson and Nixon regimes and led to the latter's process of "Vietnamizing" the war. Some academics have pointed out that regardless of the ultimate military success of the US at the end of the Tet offensive, the offensive had shown that three years into the war US intelligence was inept in not being able to even detect a national uprising, that the scale of the offensive showed that the insurgency had not been defeated by the introduction of hundreds of thousands of soldiers from the US, and that those supporting the war could not credibly describe a strategy for victory. Rather than offering a hope for success, many supporters of the war fell back on patriotic arguments and the idea that the war had to continue on in its current form forever because a lack of success was better than an admission of failure. Walter Cronkite Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. ...

In 1969, the NLF formed the Provisional Revolutionary Government which operated until the end of the Vietnam War. But it was a powerless front organization that no real authority and no other function than propaganda. When the North Vietnamese army captured Saigon in 1975, the NLF and the PRG were set up as a legal front as part of the process of unification. The PRG never functioned as a real government in South Vietnam. After the fall of Saigon, administration was organized by the North Vietnamese Army. The country was unified under the leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1976. 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnamese: ThÃ nh ChÃ Minh) is the largest city in Vietnam, located near the delta of the Mekong River. ... 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... Stamp featuring Ho Chi Minh commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Communist Party The Communist Party of Vietnam (Äáº£ng Cá»™ng sáº£n Viá»‡t Nam) is the currently and indefinitely ruling, as well as the only legal political party in Vietnam. ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1976 calendar). ...

Contents

Organization

The Tet Offensive and Afterward GA_googleFillSlot("encyclopedia_square");

See also

Further reading

The Tet Offensive and Afterward