Korean War and Early Vietnam Unit 6 – Post War Boom

Part 1 The Korean War

How the Korean War Began Japan controlled Korea until the end of WWII The allies divided up Korea into the modern 2 countries In 1950 North Korea invaded South Korea

US gets involved The US protects its interests in South Korea by sending in soldiers US at first beats back the North Koreans but then the Chinese (at that time a Communist country) bring in troops to help the North Koreans. The US troops are pushed back to South Korea

The War Ends Fighting continues. US President Truman warns that he will use a nuclear weapon if the North Koreans and Chinese don’t stop attacking. The war ends with a ceasefire that has lasted for 50 years. No one won that war. We just agreed to not go into North Korea and so North Korea has not been touched and has turned into a dictatorship

Part 2 The Early Events of Vietnam

The French In Vietnam The French ruled Vietnam from the 1800s to the 1940s/50s The Vietnamese fought the French for many years to be independent Communist China also was influencing the Vietnamese

Geneva Accords In 1954, the Geneva Accords (a meeting of several powerful countries) stopped the fighting in Vietnam THEY DID NOT SET UP 2 COUNTRIES of North Vietnam and South Vietnam The Geneva Accords established that in 1956 free elections would occur in Vietnam to decide the future of the country

Things go wrong The Geneva Accords allowed the North to be controlled by Communists and the South to be controlled by the Western leaning Saigon government In Saigon Ngo Dinh Diem was the ruler. He was a terrible ruler

Ngo Dinh Diem Dishonest and Brutal He put family members in top positions and had a secret police force to silence his enemies The US government knew what he was doing but allowed it because they did not want Vietnam to be communist

Who was in charge in the North? Hi Chi Minh Very popular Blamed landlords for poverty Communist government officials searched out landowners, imprisoned them and killed thousands

Things get worse As the planned elections approached, Diem refused to allow the Southern part of the country to participate because he knew that the country would become communist To stamp out growing support for Ho Chi Minh, Diem arrested thousands of citizens The National Liberation Front is created to fight Diem

Who were the NLF? And how did the US get involved? North Vietnamese guerrilla forces President Eisenhower (following the Truman doctrine) sent aid and soldiers to Vietnam By 1960 we have 800 soldiers in Vietnam The next President, Kennedy, called Vietnam “a test of American responsibility and determination in Asia”. He sent 16,000 soldiers to Vietnam in 3 years

Warning This next image is graphic Feel free to look away

Protest Diem’s government becomes less popular One group, the Buddhists, which is a religion that preaches non violence, was attacked by soldiers In protest they set themselves on fire

Diem Dies In an effort to save the situation, his military leaders kill him and his brother They believed that removing Diem would make people happy since he was unpopular It only made things worse