I. How Vietnam's Independent War Evolved into U.S.-China War

Sino-Vietnam interactions have flucuated for centuris. With a 331,000-square-kilometer territory Vietnam is located in the east Indochina Pennisula. Vietnam's 1,350 kilometer northern boder connects with two provinces of China, Yunnan and Guangxi. Friendhsip Pass (Zhengnan) was initialy set up by Han Dynasty two thousand years ago. Vietnam had ruled by China over 1,200 years. In 1802 a single Vietnam dynasty was formed and under China's protectorate. French Eastern Empire had been an imperialist project unfolded by French missionaries in Vietnam in early 17th century. Vietnam was chosen because it could have direct access to China. In late 18th century King Louis XVI (1754-1793) acted upon the recommendations of French aggressive missionaries. The French king had not lived long enough to see the creation of the "Eastern Empire" when he was executed at guillotine. In 19th century Napoleon III (Louis-Napoloen, 1808-1873)  resumed the "Eastern Empire" project while China declined rapidly after the first Sino-British Opium War. Without firing a shot France reaped the benefits of British gunboats militarism and signed French-China Huangpu Treaty on October 24, 1844 on French warship anchored at Huangpu, Guangzhou. In several decades French "settlement in China" expanded to several thousand square kilometers in Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou and Hangqou, particularly after British-French coalition army won the 2nd Opium War.

The 1st Sino-Fench war broke out on December 14, 1883 after decades of French military campaigns in Veitnam. French troops occupied Da Nang in 1858-one century later American marines would follow French steps. Saigon (now Ho Chi Min City) fell into French hand in 1859. By 1867 France took over South Vietnam and Cambodia. In June 1879 French consul to Haiphong announced its next move, Beiqi, one step away from China's southern gate Zhennan Pass (now Friendship Pass) :" France must conquer Beiqi because it is an ideal military base. From there France will be the first Western powers to get into Southwest China." In July 1881 France upgraded its Vietnam War with 2.4 million francs. One year ago Chinese Ambassador Zeng Jize (1839-1890) protested several times over French military campaigns in Vietnam which had been a Chinese protectorate for centuries. Disregard of Chinese reactions French troops acted more aggressively in Red Valley Delta in March 1883. Vietnamese government sought the assistance from peasants' Black Flag Army headed by Chinese Liu Yunfu (1837-1917). French was temporarily stopped its activities. In August French army entered Shunhua, the capital of Vietnam, and signed the 1st Shunhua Treaty in which Vietnam acknowledged French protectorate rather than the Chinese. In December France appropriated another 29 million francs (plus 5.5 million in May) military expenditure to attack China. On December 14 French troops assaulted Chinese army stationed at Beiqi and let that war continued until April 1885.

The last battle of Zhennan (now Friendship) Pass witnessed the humiliation of France. On February 23, 1885 French troops occupied the Pass and entered 10 kilometers into Chinese territory. Due to lack of supply French deserted the Pass with a wooden board on the dismantled wall:" The gate of China is no longer existed!" The Chinese army erected another board on the same spot: We would build our gate with heads of French soldiers. On March 23 over 2,000 French troops led by Francois Oscar de Negrier (1839-1913) attacked Zhennan Pass. Chinese army commanded by Feng Zicai (1818-1903) devastated aggresors, drove them into Vietnam and recaptured Liangshan. Chinese victory caused the collapse of French Jules Ferry (1832-1893).

After the the fall of 3rd Chinese Empire Jiang regime had tried a smarter approach to manipulate France in WW II. China and the US firmly opposed imperialists' occupation including Japan, French and Britain-in Southeast Asia in WW II and afterwards. In early 1942 the allied nations of U.S.-China-Britain appointed Generalissimo Jiang as the supreme commander of China War Zone in charge of armed forces of China, Burma, Tailand and Indochina-Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. In late February 1943 Song Ziwen, China's foreign affair minister, stated that China opposed any nation's occupation of Korea, Vietnam, Burma and other regions. This statement implied that imperialists Japan and French. In late August China recognized De Gaulle (1890-1970)'s government-in-exile in Algeria, North Africa. As the president of the French Committee of National Liberation, De Gaulle only tended to liberate France from German occupation. Like British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, De Gualle had been a conservative imperialist who would not desert former French Indochian colonies. He even warned China: If Chinese army moved into Vietnam he would order French troops fought back. In November U.S. President Roosevelt, Generalissimo Jiang and Church reached consensus at Cairo over important issues after WW II. Both Roosevelt and Jiang promised to help Indochina be independent.

Generalissimo Jiang dispatched the 1st Front National Army headed by Lu Han to Hanoi presiding Janpanese surrender ceremony In August 1945. Acted upon Jiang's 14 Principles of taking over Vietnamese Military and Adminstrative Facilities Lu Han conducted the ceremony on September 28 without French presense. French commander Alexanderia-defeated by Japanese and stationed in Monzi, Yunan Province-tended to fly his troop to Hanoi handling Japanese surrender in late August. He attempted to show the whole world that French recovered Hanoi and Vietnam. But China's Nationlist Army commander Ho Yingqin ordered to detain all French planes and soldiers at Kunming airport until Lu Han finished the Japanese surrender. Meantime the communist Ho Chi Minh (Nguyen Sinh Cung, 1890-1969) set up the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) in Hanoi in early September 1945. As the president of DRV in 1945-1969 Ho declared Vietnam to be an independent nation, which no countries ever recognize it in 1945-1950. In September Frech troops occupied South Vietnam, Cambodia and southern Laos. French soldiers would take over Hanoi and drove Ho and his gurrillas into jungle. France.

For redeploying troops to Northeat China in a military showdown with CCP Jiang changed its agreement with the late President Roosevelt. In late February 1946 China's foreign minister Song Ziwen (1891-1981) signed Sino-French Treaty to ackwledge French occupation of North Vietnam. By May Chinese troops had completed its troops from North Vietnam. On June 26 China's 4-year Civil War broke out. France refused to relinquish its former colony. In November over 100, 000 French soldiers occupied Haifong and Hanoi. Ho Chi Minh and his guerrillas ran to deep jungle waiting for the CCP to rescue him and liberate Vietnam. Because of the CCP expansive activities in Vietnam against one of its ally French, U.S., the leader of global anticommunist crusade, began its longest quagmire journey almost at the same time while it was fighting the first U.S.-China War in Korea. Vietnam would be a battlefield of anticommunist U.S. and communist China since 1950.

Ho toured Beijing and Moscow in February 1950. In Beijing Ho met number two leader of newly established PRC Liu Shaoqi. After the discussion of Vietnam future Liu sent the chief administrator of the CCP Central Military Committee Luo Guibo and six other cadres to North Vietnam to get the first hand survey of Vietnamese communists. Liu arranged Ho's trip to Moscow where he had further discussion with Satlin and Mao. Stalin simly told him that Vietnam was too far for Moscow to do anything. The CCP would do everything to rescue Vietnam communists. On February 17 Ho boarded the same train back to Beijing with Mao, who assured him military advisors, weaponry, training and financing for his fellow communist. When Ho hurried back to his jungle headquaters he made a long aid list with Luo Guibo, who got into Vietnamese jungle three times that year. In November Liu Shaoqi instructed Lou: We helped Vietnam communists help ourselves.

Five days after the Korean War broke out in June 1950 Mao and Liu met cadres of the CCP Vietnam Military Advisor Council (VMAC)-on June 30. Their mission was to help Ho score great victoris and restructure Vietnam gurrillas into a regular army. The 281-member VMAC was headed by Wei Guoqing (1913-89), who was the advisor of both Vietnam General Military Committee and the Commander-in-Chief of Vietnam Army. The deputies included Mei Jiashen, Deng Yifan. On August 12 the VMAC arrived at Guangyuan, Vietnam via Nanning, China. Two days later Chen Gen (1903-1961), the Vice Commander of Southwest Military District and the Commander-in-Chief of Yunnan Province Military District, joined the VMAC at Guangyuang. Chen had conducted three successful battles against French and scored the first victory on September 18 at Dongqi County and second at Gaoping and Qiqi. Chen left Vietnam for Korean battlefield in early November. Ever since then the VMAC had stationed in Vietnam.

China had played a decisive role in defeating French army in Vietnam as far as weaponry and personnel were concerned. Chinese communists had been backed up Ho Chi Minh since 1946. China was the first nation to acknowledge the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on January 18, 1950. Martin Windrow wrote about Beijng's role in the first Indochina War:" On April 1, 1950, an assistant pact was signed in Beijing. Deliveries of small arms and heavy weapons-mortars, light artillery and anti-aircraft machine guns-began almost immediately, and training was offered inside China. At Ho Chi Minh's request a Chinese military mission crossed into the Vietnam in August 1950: some 330 officers and men led by a veteran of Long March of 1934-35, General Wei Guoqing (The Last Valley, Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam, p.148). In the following two years, "some 10,000 Vietnamese officiers and 40,000 men were sent into China for training (Ibid, p.150)." Since then China had supplied all weaponry, ammunitions and equipment during the French-Vietnam War. Windrow said: "Chinese munitions and other supplies flowed into Vietnam People's Army from Nanning and Pingxiang (of Guangxi Province): 1,500 tons in 1950; 4,200 tons in 1952; 7,400 tons in 1953; 4,800 in 1954 (Ibid, p.152). Ho Chi Minh and his associates acknowledged that their victory over French was absolutely impossible without China's full sponsorship.

II. China Factor in first Vietnam War: Defeating U.S.-Backed France

Henry Kissinger, President Nixon's National Security advisor,  sneaked into China in July 1971 for twin missions: Withdrawing U.S. armies from Vietnam and making peace with China. Vietnam was not an alient subject for Kissinger because he toured South Vietnam several times. In October 1965 he toured Vietnam for the first time when he was a Harvard Professor and invited by U.S. Ambassador Lodge. Kissinger asked himself the same questions millons of Americans pondered: How this war would be ended up? It would take fiver years or another ten years?  The Vietnam War was escalated just in March 1965. In December Kissinger joined 190 U.S. scholars endorsing Presidnet Johnson to dispatch more troops to Vietnam. In July 1966 Kissinger toured South Vietnam and he wrote in August: U.S. withdrawing from Vietnam would be disastrous and negotiations would be unavoidable. The issue at stake was when and how U.S. departed with glory. At a seminar on Vietnam Kissinger insisted that Vietnam was China's puppet and jumped to his conclusion of ending U.S. military action gloriously through negotiations.

Kissinger himself stated bluntly in his memoir White House Years: The Johnson administration justified Vietnam War as his primary reason fighting against the specter of Asian communism headed by Beijing. For their respective national interests China and U.S. had converted Vietnam into a battlefield of Communism versus anticommunism. Started from Vietnam with fund, weaponry, training and advisors both expanded their confrontation in Southeast Asia. After 15 years' active role pulling the strings behind the scene China and U.S. had waged a war in Vietnam and Cambodia, Laos from 1965 to 1975. Since 1950 U.S. had financed the French Vietnam War until its end in May 1954. Professor Stuart-Fox wrote about the China factor and U.S. stepped in  in the first Vietnam War: Chinese recognition of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (headed by CCP-sponsored communist Ho Chi Minh in January 1950) effectively initialized the war in Indochina. France nominally transformed sovereignty to royal governments in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, which were promptly recognized by Washington and London. U.S. military assistance immediately began flowing to all three nations. From being a colonial war for independence, the war in Indochina became a part of the global struggle against communism. By the time it ended in 1954 U.S. was meeting 3 quarters of the military cost, as well as providing economic assistance. U.S. had trapped itself in Vietnam for two decades. Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon paper on the war to mass media, remarked on the bare-faced lies of U.S. presidents over the war: Each of the last five Presidents (Truman, Eisnhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon) has lied to the public about our involvement in Indochina and where it was likely to go, and always in reassuring, credible ways that made active opposition to his policy seem unnecessary or hopeless. The Presidential deceit has gone through three phases. The first, which lasted over three Presidents from 1946 to 1964, emphasized the theme:"It's not our war, and we won't get in." The next phase, under Johnson, was:"We're winning." Then the current one:" The war is being ended." ...None has ever been true. The war has always been ours. We have never been winning it (Papers on the War, p.253).

China had played a decisive role in defeating French army in Vietnam as far as weaponry and personnel were concerned. Chinese communists had been backed up Ho Chi Minh since 1946. China was the first nation to acknowledge the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on January 1950. Martin Windrow wrote about Beijng's role in the first Indochina War:" On April 1, 1950, an assistant pact was signed in Beijing. Deliveries of small arms and heavy weapons-mortars, light artillery and anti-aircraft machine guns-began almost immediately, and training was offered inside China. At Ho Chi Minh's request a Chinese military mission crossed into the Vietnam in August 1950: some 330 officers and men led by a veteran of Long March of 1934-35, General Wei Guoqing (The Last Valley, Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam, p.148). In the following two years, "some 10,000 Vietnamese officiers and 40,000 men were sent into China for training (Ibid, p.150)." Since then China had supplied all weaponry, ammunitions and equipment during the French-Vietnam War. Windrow said: "Chinese munitions and other supplies flowed into Vietnam People's Army from Nanning and Pingxiang (of Guangxi Province): 1,500 tons in 1950; 4,200 tons in 1952; 7,400 tons in 1953; 4,800 in 1954 (Ibid, p.152).

China turned Ho Chi Minh's guerilla into a regular army by formal training and millions of dollars military hardware.  Martin Windrow said:" The (Vietnamese) People's Army had relatively few men who were sufficiently educated for the technical tasks involved, and form the end of 1950 these were gathered together to pass through various courses at Chinese artillery training camps at Jingxi and Longzhou in Guangxi Province. ...In 1953, the Chinese supplied with U.S. 105 millimeter howitzers...captured in Korea during 1950-51 (Ibid, p.151)." PLA trained Vietnamese officers were vital to set up a successful profession Vietnam army:" After weapons, munitions, radios and training in their use, the professional education of Vietnamese officers was China's most vital contribution to the transformation of guerrillas into an army (p.157)." Stuart-Fox provided more details about what China had done during early 1950s. China gave "tens of thousands of small arms, hundreds of artillery pieces and heavy mortars, thousands tons of ammunition, not to mention food, medical supplies, military uniforms, vehicles and other equipment. What was more significant was the involvement of Chinese advisers in military planning for every major offensive campaign, including the Vietnam invasion of Laos in 1953 and 1954 (agreed upon as part of a grand strategic plan during a secret visit to Beijing by Ho Chi Minh in September 1952), and the battle of Dien Bien Phu that effectively brought the war to an end (Ibid, p.167)." At Geneva conference Vietnam was partitioned along the 17th Parallel. North was headed by Ho Chi Minh and South was under control of Bao Dai (Ngugen Vinh Thuy, 1913-1997), the last emperor in 1949-1955, who immigrated to France in 1955 and lived there since.

The 56-day Dien Bien Phu battle (March 13--May 7, 1954) ended the French control of Vietnam and Indochina. 50,000 Vietnamese soldiers had surrouded 13,000 French troops in a small village Dien Bien Phu, 200 kilometers west to Hanoi. Eight hundred made-in-USA cannons-captured from Korean battlefield by PLA-installed on the hills targeting French barracks. Paris requested Washington sending troops in assistance of this anticommunist war. No U.S. soldiers were sent but CIA airdropped 682 times' supplies to the seiged French troops. One plane was shot down and two crews were dead. Since 1950 U.S. had funneled $3 billion into French's Vietnam War. Without further capability to sustain the war France signed the Geneva Treaty on July 21, 1954 and got out by 1955. The end of French colonism in Indochina came with heavy casualties: 129,000 French soldiers and 750,000 Vietnamese including soldiers and civilians. Vietnam was divided into two parts: the North headed by communist Ho Chi Min and the South led by an anticommunist Ngo Dinh Diem (1901-63, 9-year president of South Vietnam, 1954-63). When French president Francois Mittran (1916-96) toured Dien Bien Phu in February 1993 he admitted:"That was a miktaken war."

In March 1956 PLA mission returned to China but thousands of PLA soldiers would be fighting Americans in Vietnam 9 years later. U.S. Historian J.Robert Moskin wrote:  American "interest in Vietnam started slowly and grew during the Cold War...With the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, President Truman increased arms shipments to the French in Indochina. The containment of communism in Asia was American policy, and the French fight in Indochina was seen as a way to effect that policy. Vietnam became part of the Cold War (The US Marine Corps Story, p.620)." U.S. and China were destinied to fight two hot wars in Cold War I. The 2nd Indochina war or U.S.-China war plus the mutual enemy Moscow led Washington and Beijing to normalize their bilateral relations and dismantle the Soviet Empire eventually in 1991.

III. U.S.-China Confrontation in Vietnam

U.S. got into the track of French and trapped in Vietnam for ove a decade. In late February 1950, U.S National Security Council paper No.64 justified U.S. involvement in Indochina and potential 2nd Indochina war: 1) "It is important to United States security interests that all practical measures be taken to prevent further communist expansion in Southeast Asia. Indochina is a key area of Southeast Asia and is under immediate threat"; 2) "The neighboring countries of Thailand and Burma could be expected to fall under communist domination if Indochina were controlled by a communist-dominated government ("the Red China"). The balance of Southeast Asia would then be in grave hazard"; 3) the "Departments of Sate and Defense should prepare as a matter of priority a program of all practical measures designed to protect United States security interests in Indochina." The paper said: Because troops of the communist China stationed along the borders of Indochina, weaponry, material and toops can get in the Ho Chi Ming-controlled areas freely. Any feasible measures would be taken preventing from the further expansion of communism in Southeast Asia. This was vital to U.S. national security. During early 1950s Truman and Eisenhower provided $2.6 billion aid for French war with communist Ho Chi Minh's guerrillas. Eisenhower's "domino theory held that if Vietnam fell to the communists, then the rest of Southeast Asia would soon follow. It was the responsibility and duty for the US containing the communist expansion. The limited U.S. assistance helped sustain French ruling in Vietnam for a while. But it could not keep French from falling apart. In the spring of 1954, as Moskin pointed out, "the French lost most of the country to the Viet Minh and their Chinese instructors who had come south in greater numbers after the Korean armistice in 1953 (Ibid, p.620)." In early 1954 Paris begged American military intervention in Vietnam. Vice President Richard Nixon, state secretary John fosters Dulles (1888-1959) and Pentagon urged President Eisenhower sending troops to Vietnam. No American actions were taken.

In order to contain communist expansion President Eisenhower entered informal  Vietnam War right after French left Vietnam in 1954. To Eisenhower, Vietnam backed up by communist China. Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, one by one, the whole Southeast Asia would be controlled by communists. It was a simple domino effect. Eisenhower (1890-1969) inherited his predecessors' anticommunist policy. In his first inaugural address in January1953 President Eisenhower said:" Forces of good and evil are massed and armed and opposed as rarely before in history." U.S. was the leader of the good because "the destiny had granted the US the responsibility to lead the freedom world." The Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Arthur W. Radford proposed to drop nuclear bombs during Dien Bien Phu siege. The National Security Council pressured Eisenhower sending troops to assist French. "No one could be more bitterly opposed to ever get the United States involved in a hot war in that region than I am." Eisenhower turned down both proposals, "I can not imagine a greater tragedy for America." He sent 600 U.S. advisors to help the South curb communist expansion in 1955. U.S. airlifted one million Catholics from North to South. Eisenhower generously provided the economic and military aid for South Vietnam: $322 million in 1955; $341 million in 1956; $393 million in 1957; $255 million in 1958; $245 million in 1959; $240 million in 1960; $216 million in 1961.

The containment policy of U.S. versus China in Asia in 1955-75 periods had double functions: ideological and military actions prevented the expansion of Chinese communism. Allen Davis and Harold Woodman remarked:" The American endeavor during those years (1955-1975) to contain Communist China was similarly not the result of an ideological crusade against communism but was primarily a response to China's attempts to change the status quo in Asia by force (Conflict and Consensus in Modern American History, p.489-490)."

U.S. soldiers were sent to Vietnam containing the expansion of communist China. Daniel Ellsberg wrote about two rules of U.S. presidents: For twenty years-since the "fall of China"(in 1949) and the rise of McCarthy-Rule 1 for Indochina policy for an American President has been: Do not lose the rest of Vietnam to Communism before the next election. Buth there was also Rule 2, learned shortly thereafter, in Korea: Do not fight a land war in Asia with U.S. ground combat troops either. Three Presidents, starting with Truman, managed to satisfy both constraints during their terms and passed the challenge to their successors. The problem grew, and Lyndon Johnson's Presidency was crushed in its first full term by the impossibility of fulfilling both requirements. But Johnson's foundering on Rule 2 did not repeal Rule 1 for his successor; even in 1969, even for a Republican, even for Ricahrd Nixon (Papers on the War, p.260). That was a costly failure worse than the Korean War. Back in 1960 there were 686 American military advisors in Saigon; 3,200 in 1961; 16,000 in 1963. As James Bamford wrote in his book "Body of Secrets, National Security Agency", the first American died outside Saigon was the 25-year code intelligent expert James Davis on December 22, 1961. He was landed at Saigon on May 13 under the coded USM626 of National Security Agency (NSA), or the Third Wireless Study Detachment, or U.S. Army Special Force 400 for mass media. Davis was dispatched to South Vietnam with other 236 intelligent officiers and ambushed by guerilla. Four years before the escalation of the war on the battlefield the invisible intelligence duel had long engaged. Davis was luckier than other 58,000 Americans died in the war because one building bearing his name at NSA headquarters in Maryland. Other soldiers had their names engraved on the Vietnam Memorial Monument at Washington DC. They fought a proxy war as U. S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara said: China was America's major enemy.

The first combat troop 3,500 U.S. marines landed at Danang, the first major American base in South Vietnam, protecting military facilities and Hawk missiles on March 8, 1965. That day had double meaning for historians and many Americans: 1) the beginning of the 2nd and last anticommunist war in Asia targeting China in the 20th century; 2) the 10-year longest war in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. In December 1965 over 160,000 combat troops engaged in a doomed-to-fail war in Vietnam. The last American helecopter took off from the roof of American Embassy in Saigon on April 30, 1975 while North Vietnam tanks rolled on the street. The longest American nighmare and tragedy had ended. What had American left behind: 5 million civilian deaths, 1 milliion widows, 880,000 orphans, 200,000 crippled, 200,000 prostitutes and million acres of chemically-polluted arable land and forests. In 1982 on the monument of American Vietnam War in Washington DC 58,249 names of dead and missing soldiers were engraved.  In that war 360,000 American were wounded and maimed; alternatively 1.6 million engaged in the battlefield; 2 million stationed in the Vietnam; 8 million young Americans were drafted in the army. Over $200 billion wasted. The lost of American lives and billions of dollars may be interpreted as normal in a 10-year war. But the reputation and credibility of Amercan government had permanently damaged beyond repair. Washington was defeated by Beijing in the battlefield of Vietnam. The 2nd war America lost in Asia and it was the same asymmetric war and the same communist rival, China.

China had been a staunch supporter of anti-U.S. activities in North and South Vietnam. In February 1959 Beijing and Hanoi signed 7 agreements in economic and technological aids to North Vietnam, which would obtain $100 million long term loans and $33 million free aids. In December 1960 Mao openly supported communist "National Liberation Front" (NLF) in South Vietnam with ceaseless military aids. Mao instructed to build a land military supply line to South Vietnam via Cambodia. Beijing shipped more weaponry from its military port in Hainan to Sihanoukville port where North soldiers inside Cambodia transported made-in-China weapons to South Vietnam. Mao had funded all military actions of the NLF with over $10 million cash. In June 1961, Mao met his counterpart of North Vietnam Vhan Wan Dong in Beijing and spoke highly of Vietnamese communist revolution. In May 1963 Liu Shaoqi, the No. 2 leader of China, visited Hanoi and reached a Sino-Vietnamese consensus against their mutual enemy U.S. imperialist.

China's 7-men aiding Vietnam committee created in spring 1965 after Mao met Ho Chiming in Beijing. Li Xianlin (1909-1992), vice premier and treasury minister, Bo Yibo (1910-2006), vice premier, Luo Ruqing (1906-78), defense minister and PLA Chief-in-Staff, Li Tianyou (191-1970), PLA deputy chief-in-staff, Liu Xiao (1908-88), ambassador to Hanoi, Li Qiang (1905-96), foreing trade minister and Yang Chenwu (1914-2004), PLA deputy chief-in-staff. Yang was in charge of this committee and other committees such as aiding Cambodia and Laos.

One month before U.S. marines stationing at Da Nang, in February 1965 Mao warned Washington in a one-million rally supporting Vietnam at Tiananmen Square:" American aggression against the North Vietnam is an aggression against China." Beijing sent 320,000 PLA soldiers and $ 20 billions of weaponry, grain and medical supply to Vietnam: military hardware to equip 2 million troops of army, navy and air force, 5 million tons of grain, 3 billion-meter cloth, 30,000 trucks, one million tons of oil, 300 kilometers' oil pipeline, 500 kilometers' railway, 40,000 kilometers' highway and 100 military factories. Without China's involvement in Vietnam America could have won the war.

Mao actually declared war on U.S. on March 12, 1965:" Chinese people will firmly do whatever they could to support peoples of Vietnam and Indochina in order to carry through the struggle against U.S. aggressors." Beijing and Hanoi signed a treaty in April 1965 regarding the deployment of PLA troops in North Vietnam to do air defense, military engineering, and combat actions. Since 1949 Beijing's aid to Vietnam amounted to $3 billion. Chinese troops withdrew from Vietnam in August 1973. Less than six years later China waged its own "self-defense offensive" war against Vietnam with the consent of U.S. When PLA invaded Vietnam on February 17, 1979, over 20,000 casualties and $1.4 billion spent for a 27-day costly war.

Why and how U.S. sent massive troops to Southeast Asia in 1965?  The CCP aggressive  actions in Southeast Asia provided the answer. Twice in 1965, President Johnson (1908-73) told Americans why they had to fight in Vietnam. In a speech delivered on April 17, 1965 at Johns Hopkins University President Johnson stated:" Over this war-and all Asia-is another reality: the deepening shadow of Communist China... North Vietnam has attacked the independent nation of South Vietnam. The rulers of Hanoi are urged by Beijing...The contest is Vietnam is part of a wider pattern of aggressive purpose." In a news conference held on July 28 Johnson explained in more details: "Three times in my lifetime, in two world wars and in Korea, Americans have gone to far lands to fight for freedom. We have learned at a terrible and brutal cost that retreat does not bring safety and weakness does not bring peace."  The Vietnam War "is spurred by Communist China. Its goal is to conquer the South (Vietnam), to defeat American power, and to extend the Asiatic domination of communism... an Asia so threatened by communist domination would certainly imperil the security of the United States itself... we are in Vietnam to fulfill one of the most solemn pledge of the American nation. Three Presidents-President Eisenhower, President Kennedy, and your present President-over 11 years have committed themselves and have promised to help defend this small and valiant nation... This, then, my fellow Americans, is why we are in Vietnam (Howard Quint, Main Problems in American History, p.403-405)."

In an interview with Doris Kearns Johnson further confirmed his premises and mentality of containment of the expansion of Chinese communism: "Everything I knew about history told me that if I got out of Vietnam and let Ho Chi Minh run through the streets of Saigon, then I'd be doing exactly Chamberlain (1869-1940, his peace agreement with Hitler in Munich made him the symbol of appeasement) did in World War II. I'd be giving a big fat reward to aggression. And I knew that if we let Communist aggression succeed in taking over South Vietnam, there would follow in this country an endless national debate-a mean and destructive debate- that there would shatter my Presidency, kill my administration, and damage our democracy. I knew that Harry Truman and Dean Acheson had lost their effectiveness from the day that the Communist took over China. I believed that the loss of China had played a large role in the rise of Joe McCarthy. And I knew that all these problems, taken together, were chicken-shit compared with what might happen if we lost Vietnam".

President Kennedy in his inaugural address vowed in January 1961:" Let every nation know, whether it wishes well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty...In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility; I welcome it". Kennedy had concurred with the domino theory. The credibility of American anticommunist commitments in Asia as well as the world must be upholding.

Vietnam was the right place for U.S. preventing Chinese communist expansion in Indochina. On May 14, 1961, under the order of Kennedy 500 advisors were sent to South Vietnam. In late August 1963, U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam in 1963-66 Henry Cabot Lodge (1902-85) reached a consensus over a coup toppling Ngo Dinh Diem (1901-63, the prime minister and president of the Republic of Vietnam in 1954-63) would be the best US solution to win the Vietnam War. On October 27, 1963, the under secretary of State Department George Ball (1909-1997) signed the ok cable for the coup and murdering Diem and his elder brother Ngo Dien Nhu (1910-63). Three months later, Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963. U.S. advisors in South Vietnam numbered more than 15,000. In a speech at American University on June 10, 1963, five month before his assassination in Dallas, Texas, Kennedy said:" The communist drive to impose their political and economic system on others is the primary cause of world tension today (Main Problems, p.451)."  To him and his successors, containing communist expansion anywhere was the right thing and primary responsibility of American. Vietnam was the right place for Americans to be.

Dissidents such as economist and ambassador to Indian John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) jotted down his dialogue with Indian Finance Minister Morarji Ranchhodji Desai (1896-1995) in late February 1961: "He thinks we-American-might get a deal in South Vietnam. Hanoi is becoming frightened; it fears equally that we will move in, or the Chinese will move in to prevent our coming...Anti-Communism is always considered hot stuff for Americans (Ambassador's Journal, p.268)". Galbraith voiced his deep concerns in a letter dated March 2, 1962 to President Kennedy: "We are increasingly replacing the French as the colonial military force and will increasingly arouse the resentments associated therewith... The Korean War killed us in the early 50's; this involvement could kill us now. That is what the military and the Department will never see... It has a sense of tradition. It believes that because we had a poor foreign policy under Truman and Eisenhower we should have a poor one under Kennedy. No one can complain about that." Galbraith recommended some policy options for Kennedy:

" 1. Keep up the threshold against the commitment of American combat forces. This is the utmost importance-a few will mean more and more and more. And then the South Vietnamese boys will go back to the farms. We will do the fighting.

2. Keep civilian control in Saigon. Once the military take over we will have no possibility of working out disentanglement...That was what cost us so heavily in Korea.

3. We must keep the door wide open for any kind of political settlement...the one thing that will cause worse damage and more penetrating attack will be increasing involvement. Politics is not the art of possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. I wonder if those who talk of a ten-year war really know what they are saying in terms of American attitude. We are not as forgiving as the French (Ibid, p.270-1)."

Vietnam would be quagmire for American toops if U.S. tended to escalate the war of containing communism in Asia. On April 4, 1962 Galbraith stressed the consequence of the Vietnam war:" 1. We have a growing military commitment. This could expand step by step into a major, long drawn-out, indecisive military involvement. 2. We are backing a weak and, on the record, ineffectual government and a leader who as a politician may be beyond the point of no return. 3. There is consequent danger we shall replace the French as the colonial force in the area and bleed as the French did (Ibid, p.297)." whatever Galbraith wrote in 1962 became the reality dragging on until January 1973 in which U.S. signed the Peace Accord in Paris.

Three years before Presidnet Johnson escalated the war China had backed Hanoi to be fully prepared the war. In summer 1962 Ho Chi Min went to Beijing in quest of large scale military aid and weaponery. PLA chief-in-staff Luo Ruqing toured Hanoi in March 1963 finalized the military aid package. In September Hanoi military delegation signed two agreements: Plan of Sino-Vietnam Combat Coordination and Plan of Chines Major Military Equipment and Logistics for Vietnam Army.

President Johnson made the Vietnam War an American war by his advisers: Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and national security adviser McGeorge Bundy. It was American responsibility to contain communists in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. On a memo dated January 27, 1964, with the "ok" handwriting of the Defense Secretary McNamara, U.S. asserted that its purpose of involvement in Vietnam "was not meant to aid a friend but to contain China (Seymour Topping, Journal between Two China)." On August 7, 1964 Johnson was authorized by Congress to "take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression" after two U.S. destroyers were attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin in early August. In fall, "the Chinese response to American attacks on North Vietnamese PT boat base was to make a specific military gesture." Professor Stoessinger said," The Chinese quietly deployed several units of Mig jet fighters, 50,000 railroad construction troops and some antiaircraft detachments to North Vietnam and began to construct military air bases in South China (Nations in the Darkness, p.82)."

President Johnson escalated the war in December 1964 after his re-election in November. An independent South Vietnam without communist ideology and threat from the communist China. Winning a war in Veitam was a U.S. mission impossible. Henry Luce, the publisher of Time magazine, tourded Saigon in 1964. How long it would take  to win the Vietnam War? That was Luce asked. An Australian military advisor, Colonel Francis Serong told Heny Luce: Unless Americans plan to stay in Vietnam for 40 years otherwise they should not come over. Luce once lamented for America's "losing China" in 1949 after the Chinese communists defeated his friend Jiang Jieshi.

 President Johnson ordered large scale bombardment on North Vietnam. He deliberately deceived American people and covered up several operations in Southeast Asia: The Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964, the secret bombing Laos for a couple of years. "The Chinese-American encounter in Vietnam during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson never exploded into armed conflict." President Johnson realized American soldiers fighting against China:" We know there are about 200 million in the Chinese army (including 6.6 million PLA soldiers and 133.4 million militiamen in the countryside and cities)...Think about 200 million Chinese coming down those trails...No, Sir, I don't want to fight them (Ibid, p.87)."  Johnson's order of escalation of the war on March 8, 1965 was costly, as historian Joseph Conlin put it:" The number of American boys dead, reported each evening on television, soared from an average 26 a week in 1965 to 96 a week in 1966 and 180 a week in 1967. In 1968, more than 280 Americans were killed in Vietnam each week (The American Past, 5th ed. p.874)." Thousands of U.S. soldiers were killed either by AK-47 rifles made in China or by N. Vietnam soldiers under the directives of Chinese military advisors.

Beijing had escalated its support of Hanoi one month after U.S. combat troops landed at Danang, South Vietnam.  The CCP Central Committee issued No.208 (65) paper on April 14, 1965 to county levels nationwide. The paper drafted by Deng Xiaoping said: China must be prepared for small, medium and large scale wars with Americans. The same month Hanoi's delegation came to Beijing to sign agreement of PLA attending Vietnam War. China's foreign minister Chen Yi and premier Zhou Enlai went to Hanoi. After Ho Chi Min's Beijing trip, the office of CCP and State Council headed by PLA generals Yang Chenwu and Li Tianyou was in operation.On October 20, Mao received another Hanoi delegation:" I only pay attention to drive Americans out. ...We support you to win the ultimate victory (Selected Works of Mao Zedong on Foreign Affairs, p.572)." Mao actually fooled Hanoi by saying "ultimate victory" of driving Americans out. Mao shared the same principle of Richard Nixon: Flexibility is the number one rule of politics. When Nixon shook hand with Mao in February 1972, Beijing pressured Hanoi signed the peace agreement with U.S. in early 1973 to prevent Hanoi from taking over Saigon. Mao's reconciliation with U.S. was a betrayal of Hanoi's unification of South with communist North Vietnam. That move eventually led the third Indochina war, the final war China fought in the 20th century, Sino-Vietnam war in early 1979.

Armed with ground-sky missiles, artillery, and communication equipment 330,000 PLA troops were dispatched to Vietnam fighting U.S. since June 1965. On June 9, the first group of 80, 000 PLA soldiers entered Vietnam through Friendship Pass, Guangxi Province. By March 1968 over 150,000 PLA soldiers were fighting Americans; in particular year 170,000 troops. Total 1,707 U.S. planes were shot down and 1,608 wounded by PLA. Forty two American pilots were captured. The CCP organ People's Daily reported that over 10,000 Chinese soldiers died and 5,000 wounded in 1965-75.  PLA had maintained railways, highways, bridges, airports and military factories in Vietnam. The Ho Chi Min Trail from Cambodia to South Vietnam constructed by PLA in 1962 sustained the supply line for Vietnam troops. Through the trail over 630,000 military personnel, 100,000 tons of grain, half a million of AK-47 rifles, and 50,000 tons of ammunition were transported in 1966-71. Another military base in Hainan Island in Southern China Sea had served Hanoi over a decade in maintaining gunships and mine-sweeping in Vietnam ports.

The 37th President Nixon followed suit in 1969 but his tactics were designed to win the honorable peace by ending the Vietnam War. He ordered more intensive bombing in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in order to destroy the military supply line China had been built and named "Ho Chi Minh Trail" via three nations. In 1970, Nixon sent combat troops consisting of American soldiers and South Vietnamese to Cambodia cutting off the supply line of North Vietnam from China. Nixon ordered mining the harbor of Haiphong and carpet-bombing surroundings of North Vietnam capital, Hanoi where the Chinese Embassy was hit. As John W. Mason pointed out in "The Cold War 1945-1991":"During the Vietnam War Chinese had replaced the Soviet to be the number one communist enemy" of America. Journalist William Shawcross expounded Nixon's withdraw from Vietnam in his book Side Show: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia:" From 1969 on, combat troops were withdrawn faster than support troops, and maneuver battalions fastest of all. These plans had been drawn up before the Cambodian invasion; they were not contingent upon it. By the spring 1972 Communist offensive, almost all American troops were safely in rear areas; nearly half of all American deaths during that year occurred out of combat, many of them in helicopter accidents. In 1969, 9,414 Americans died in combat; 4,221 in 1970; 1,380 in 1971; 300 in 1972 (p.172)".

Through its mass media China protested and warned the U.S. that the bombardment would endanger China's security. By private channels China informed U.S. of its stand: As long as U.S. kept its ground forces outside North Vietnam China would not provide any other aids beside war materials and medical supplies for North. China would confront American soldiers in Vietnam if U.S. insisted escalating war by deploying more ground forces like it once did in Korea 14 years ago. In fact, China provided weaponry for 230 Vietnam battalions in 1962. From 1962 to 1964, China gave free weaponry, uniforms, food, medicine and equipment for the soldiers of South Vietnam Liberation Coalition. In March 1963, Lou Ruqing (1906-78), PLA Chief of Staff went to Vietnam discussed the military strategies to smash US invasion. Thousands of PLA advisors and soldiers were sent to Vietnam quietly in Vietnamese uniform. China's official figure reported $30 billion were spent in Vietnam fighting U.S. imperialist.

Beijing would confront American soldiers in Vietnam. Via the CCP organ of People's Daily China's foreign minister Cheng Yi (1901-1972) stated on March 29, 1965:" At any moment China is ready to send its personnel fighting with Vietnamese people whenever they need us." On Aril 17, the Party Central Committee of Military ordered to establish a special detachment of 60,000 PLA soldiers trained for combating Americans in the jungle of the Vietnam. On April 21 the Chief-in-Staff of PLA Luo Ruiqin (1905-78) had a 2-day meeting with the Defense Minister of North Vietnam focusing on the deployment of Chinese troops in Vietnam. On May 31, Beijing said that China was ready for a Sino-U.S. war if U.S. bombs dropped in China. On June 9, just three months after the 2 battalions of U.S. marines landed in South Vietnam, total 20,000 PLA troops wearing Vietnam uniforms entered the North Vietnam; on June 23, about 60,000 Chinese soldiers; by November over 100,000. In September China relocate the North Vietnam Air force Pilot Academy to Xiangyuen Airport until 1975 in Yunnan Province. Since August 1965, an air-defense force of 150,000 Chinese had stationed in Vietnam for 4 years, in which they downed and damaged 3,315 U.S. planes. About 1,100 Chinese soldiers died and 4,200 were wounded (Contemporary Military Tasks of Chinese Army, 1989 ed. p.552-557).

Mao authorized the defense minister Lin Biao published "Long Live the Victory of People War" on People's Daily and PLA Daily on September 3, 1965. Mao regarded China as the only revolutionary base and center of global communism because Soviet Union was a revisionist nation under Khrushchev.  In celebration of the 20-year Chinese victory in the war against Japan Lin denied the role of Jiang Jieshi army and boasted of Mao's right strategy of People's War. With its 6.6 million army and 800 million people China would wage a people's war against U.S. in Vietnam and ended up as a winner.

The Jiang regime in Taiwan, Mao's enemy, was eager to take advantage of the Vietnam War. In September, Jiang Jinguo, the son of  Jiang Jiesi and the defense minister of ROC, flew to Washington offered deploying Taiwan army in Vietnam in exchange for American help Taiwan troops invading  three provinces of mainland: Fujiang, Guangdong and Guangxi. Taiwan attempted recovering the southern China for two purposes: 1. cut off the Chinese supply line to Vietnam. 2. Taiwan could recover the territory it lost in the 1946-49 civil wars. President Johnson rejected his deal which meantU.S. had learned something from the 1st U.S.-China War. A limited war in Vietnam without further agitation of China worked better for U.S. interests.

The deployment of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam broght more PLA troops into the battlefield. By December 1965 U.S. soldiers stationed in South had mounted to 25,000 and peaked to 550,000 four years later. The battlefields extended from South into communist North, Lao and Cambodia. On December 14, 1966, U.S. plane bombed Chinese Embassy to Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam. Next day U.S. stated that was a mistaken bombardment. By 1968 U.S. realized China had been using Vietnam as its proxy. American soldiers actually fought with 320,000 Chinese soldiers in Vietnamese army uniform. Amierican hope of ending the war and pulling of the Vietnam quagmire diminished year by year.

The Vietnam War had striking feature different from any previous war U.S. had waged. Almost all episodes of the war were grisly and vividly shown on TV from which millions of Americans watched the bloody war in their homes, offices, bars and hotels. Americans began to protest, especially young students. The antiwar campaign went rampant on campus nationwide: make peace, not war! Johnson felt the powerful domestic pressure to negotiate peace with North. Any intention for the 2nd term of the White House was very dim. The 36th President Johnson deliberately declined the re-nomination in 1968. He passed the burden of ending America's Vietnam War to the 37th President Nixon.

   Nixon's campaign slogan of "Peace in Vietnam" won populous support because most Americans were fed up by the long senseless war. Extricating U.S. from the war had to start the process of peace with China. President Nixon stressed his determination as a peacemaker and act accordingly with China. Peace had been progressed steadily before his Beijing trip in February 1972. By January 1972, about 400,000 U.S. soldiers had withdrawn from the Vietnam and the rest of 133,000 were scheduled leaving in 6 months. Helped by his successful Beijing trip and diminishing American troops in Vietnam Nixon won the 2nd term of presidency. In his 2nd inaugural address on January 20, 1973, President Nixon proudly announced his mark on American history:" The past year saw far-reaching results from our new policies for peace. By continuing to revitalize our traditional friendships, and by our missions to Beijing and to Moscow, we were able to establish the base for a new and more durable pattern of relationships among the nations of the world. Because of America's bold initiatives, 1972 will be long remembered as the year of the greatest progress since the end of World War II toward a lasting peace in the world."

The war dragged on for two more years after U.S. and Hanoi signed cease-fire agreement in Paris on January 27, 1973. The last American helicopter left Saigon on April 30, 1975.  From September 1973 to June 1975, Nixon withdrew 4,600 soldiers from Taiwan, where only 2,800 advisors stationed there. Nixon made the peace in Vietnam and China.    

Nixon's handling of Vietnam and China forcefully concluded the end of ideology. The domino theory he himself actively promoted had been a fallacy since the end of WW II. In his own book "No More Vietnams" published in 1985 Nixon said:" No more Vietnams mean we will not try again. It should mean we will not fail again". It sounds like a wishful concept. However, Nixon would never have the time to verify his conclusion becaue he died in 1994. Ever since then Vietnam has become a terminology of abusing military force or a synonym of doomed-to-fail invasion and occupation of any country by military action of superpowers.

Two U.S.-China hot wars proved one self-evident fact if not a paradigm, as Joshua Goldstein mentioned, "a large force cannot reliably defeat a small one (or, to be more accurate, the cost of doing so are too high), as demonstrated by U.S. in Vietnam and the Soviets in Afghanistan (International Relations, 6th ed. p. 545)." Coincidently, both superpowers fought a long war in Vietnam and in Afghanistan and failed with billions of dollars and thousands of lives wasted.

source: www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30755090/

A CIA employee helps Vietnamese evacuees onto an Air America helicopter from the top of  22 Gia Long Street, a half mile from the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, South Vietnam on April 29,1975.  Hugh Van Es / Bettmann - Corbis file

The Vietnam War had fought over the containing Chinese communist expansion. Five U.S. presidents (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon) involved with Vietnam deliberately misled American people and the world. As Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked Pentagon's Vietnam papere to New York Times, wrote in 1972, while the war was still going on:" Each of the last five Presidents has lied to the public about our involvement in Indochina and where it was likely to go, and always in reassuring, credible ways that made active opposition to his policy seem unnecessary or hopeless. This Presidential deceit has gone through three phases. The first, which last over three Presidents from 1946 to 1964, emphasized the theme:' It is not our war; and we won't get in.' The next phase, under Johnson, was:'We're winning.' Then the current one (President Nixon):' The war is being ended.' Each of these assurances has been plausible at the time, much more so than interpretations that contradicted it. Each was what most people wanted to believe, and did believe; each, coming from the President, served to ally concern, to defuse and deter resistance. None has ever been true. The war has always been ours; we have never been winning; it has never been ending (Papers on the War, p. 253)."

China had shot down 25 U.S. fighters in 1965-70 along Sino-Vietnam Border. Vietnamese airforce was based in Chinese territory of Guangxi and Yunnan. A couple of hundreds were shot down inside Vietnam by PLA artillery and missile troops. China shot down only 50 made-in U.S. planes-41 were operated by Taiwan-in 1952-64.

Vietnam Memorial Wall was dedicated in 1982, just seven years after the war ended. A polished black granite chevron set into the earth near the Lincoln Memorial, the memorial was built with money raised by the Washington-based Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, co-founded and headed by Jan C. Scruggs of Bowie. Scruggs, a Vietnam veteran who had been wounded in battle, came up with the idea in 1979 and with a team of other veterans raised $8.4 million for the project in three years.

The Wall was designed by architect Maya Lin and bears names of those killed or missing during the war. It was dedicated Nov. 13, 1982, with ceremonies and an emotional parade of tens of thousands of veterans from across the country. There were initially 57,939 names inscribed on the memorial. But 317 names have been added for various reasons, and the total now is 58,256. The dedication marked a time of healing and a sense among Vietnam veterans that they were at last being thanked for their service.

The reason of America's Vietnam War was to preserve the credibility of Washington's commitment to containing communism throughout the world particulary from China. At one point over 170,000 PLA soldiers were deployed in Vietnam. Khruscheve in 1963-1964 sought détente with Washington and hence tried -- unsuccessfully -- to restrain Hanoi. Henry Kissinger said bluntly in 1979 in his memoir White House Years: "We could not simply walk away from an enterprise involving two administrations, five allied countries, and thirty-one thousand dead as if we were switching a television channel."

Robert McNamara, the former defense sceretary for Presidents Kennedy and Johnson in 1961-1968 wrote two books in 1990s: In Retrospect; The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (1995) and Argument without end: in search of answers to the Vietnam tragedy (1999). the dangers of underestimating nationalism, of faulty evaluations, of asking the military to achieve more than weapons can deliver. McNamara said: "We were wrong, terribly wrong." U.S. misjudged the nature of the Cold War and the role Vietnam played in it. In a 1991 interview with Time, McNamara recalled, "We thought there was considerable evidence China intended to extend its hegemony across Southeast Asia and perhaps beyond." But he added, "I'm not at all sure now." Rusk disagreed: "This was a war about the balance of power in all of Southeast Asia," says Rostow. "We lost the battle in Vietnam, but we won the war in Southeast Asia."

 Did the Vietnam War, tragedy though it was, provide the time and security from the communist threat for Asia to develop its present independence and booming free-market prosperity? The argument on that is still ongoing. If the question is ever resolved, it will be done by historians, not by today's politicians and citizens. And the answer will come with a proviso: it will offer no guide to the future.

The war was not even about Vietnam, rahter fought to contain the expansion of communist power in Asia. U.S. commitment to South Vietnam was sealed in 1954 when Secretary of State John Foster Dulles went to Geneva for the nine-delegation conference on Indochina. If South Vietnam fell to communism, then other dominoes like Thailand, Malaysia, even Indonesia could be next. by challenging Chinese and Soviet aggression in Vietnam U.S. could win the unfolding Cold War. U.S. had to fight within tight, self-set limits, fearful that using too much force would prompt China to intervene.

The lessons of Korea, where the U.S. had last fought a limited war to keep a country divided, were very topical in Washington during the 1960s. "We had tried this approach before," wrote Dean Rusk, who was Secretary of State for most of the Vietnam years, "and it had worked; indeed we had to make it work to avoid slipping into general war." Recalls McGeorge Bundy, who served as National Security Adviser to Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson: "The image of our success in Korea was much in our minds."

President Johnson was unwilling to risk invading the North, blockading its coasts, threatening the existence of its government or even bombing close to its border with China. American commanders were ordered to keep the war on the ground in the South, and Washington was reduced to hoping its soldiers could kill North Vietnamese troops faster than Hanoi could move them onto the Southern battlefield.

U.S. would attempt to arrange a stalemate similar to the one it gained in Korea in 1953. "We had a plan of sorts," says Bundy. "Grind up the other guy's army until he would presumably not take it anymore, and then we would get a political settlement." Rusk wrote in his memoirs, "I thought North Vietnam would reach a point when it would be unwilling to continue making those terrible sacrifices" and negotiate a settlement. That point never arrived, as the U.S. was on the strategic defensive for the entire war.

Over 3 million Vietnamese including 1.1 million from North Vietnam.

U.S. Presidents have the freedom to pick their wars and fight them as they choose. U.S. could go into Somalia and Haiti knowing it would never involve 500,000 troops for years. U.S. can decide to pull its forces out on a fixed schedule without worrying about losing credibility or toppling dominoes.

Vietnam war was popular because U.S. had a clear goal in defending the South, it was convinced intervention was in the national interest. with a ratio of about 20 North Vietnamese killed for each American, decisive victory at first seemed possible. Military force ought to be an instrument of U.S. foreign policy and interests. The lesson of Vietnam is to forget about Vietnam.

IV. Normalization and Booming Economy

Vietnam normalized its relations with U.S. after two-decade standstill. With control over about half of the Spratly and Paracel Islands - whose ownership it disputes with China - as well as 3,444 kilometers of coastline at the center of the vital sea lanes through the South China Sea, which has rich fisheries and major petroleum and natural gas reserves. Vietnam's emerging oil industry exported 1.09 million barrels of crude to U.S. in March 2007. Sino-Vietnamese border treaty in 1999 has excluded 235-square-kilometer 289 disputed areas along some 450 of the 1,350 kilometers shared border. Vietnam and China fought a brief border war in 1979 with 75,000 casualties.

Vietnam has been eager to access to U.S. capital, technology and markets. The bilateral relations have warmed up rapidly. Washington and Hanoi established diplomatic ties in July 1995 during the Clinton administration. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen and President Clinton visited Hanoi respectively in March and November 2000. Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai toured Washington in June 2005, the first since 1975.  An agreement signed to make Vietnam join WTO in January 2007 as its 150th member. The 109th Congress passed a bill in December 2006 to approve legislati

Sống chậm là gì nhỉ, nó tốt hay xấu, tích cực hay tiêu cực? Tuỳ theo suy nghĩ của mỗi người.

Có ngưòi nói sống chậm  không tốt, nếu anh  không theo kịp với sự phát triển của Xã hội, điều đó có nghĩa anh đã bị chậm lại  phía sau. Nếu anh thấy mình không phù hợp với không gian ồn ào náo nhiệt,  với  sự " trôi" đến chóng mặt của dòng đời, điều đó có nghĩa anh chậm chạp trong suy nghĩ và  hành động! Trong cuộc sống, mọi người đua nhau đua nhau  phải nhanh hơn. Từ làm nhanh, đi nhanh, ăn nhanh... đến "sống nhanh", tất cả đều bị tiếng tích tắc của chiếc đồng hồ giục giã và gây sức ép. Tât nhiên theo cách nhìn này, cái gì chậm luôn  mang một nghĩa tiêu cực như: chậm hiểu, chậm chạp, chậm tiến,...

Có người nói sống chậm là tốt. Họ bảo rằng: Sống chậm là cả một sự cố gắng không mệt mỏi của người đó. Thử nghĩ mà xem, bạn có thể chạy 1000m không ngừng nghỉ, bạn có thể đi bộ xuyên nước nọ nước kia, nhưng bạn có thể ngồi mà không thay đổi tư thế một giờ không? Khi bạn ngồi, tôi chắc chắn bạn chỉ có thể tĩnh tâm trong khoảng một đến năm phút. Nếu bạn cứ ngồi thế tất cả những hình ảnh sẽ chạy qua, quay cuồng trong não bạn, thúc giục bạn đứng lên, cựa quậy...Có lẽ cái bản chẩt  của con người là "động". Chính vì thế mà chúng ta chỉ có các vị thánh sư mới có thể ngồi thiền và chậm rãi đến thế. Chúng ta đi chùa để làm gì? Phải chăng để được tĩnh lặng, được cảm cái không khí thanh tịnh, được thảnh thơi ngồi ngắm chiếc lá chao nghiêng, có được khoảng thời gian nghĩ về những gì đã đi qua và rồi hối tiếc sao ta lại để mọi thứ trôi qua nhanh thế...và để được nghĩ về nhiều điều nữa.

 Hãy sống chậm một nhịp, để thưởng thức cuộc sống. Có lẽ, trong cuộc đời của mỗi người, cái việc đáng làm là làm cho cuộc sống của mình bình an, hạnh phúc. Vậy, nó "đáng làm chậm rãi". Theo Tôi, sống chậm không có nghĩa bạn không theo kịp thời đại, mà nó có nghĩa  bạn đang  có khoảng thời gian quý giá để tĩnh tâm, để ở bên những người thân yêu sẻ chia và giành cho họ những khoảng thời gian quý giá nhất.

Nếu một ngày chuyện đó xảy ra thì sao??? Liệu có không nhỉ? Hnay Nó lại buồn, thật khó khăn. Nó thấy thất vọng, chán, và muốn từ bỏ. Mọi cái không đến từ những chuyện xung quanh, không đến từ những người xung quanh Nó, nhưng lại đến từ chính trong lòng Nó. Nó thấy đơn cô, thất vọng và cảm giác bị lừa dối, hay nhẹ nhàng hơn Nó thấy mình chỉ là sự lựa chọn thứ hai hay thứ 3, 4 gì đó. Nó không phải quan trọng nhất trong mắt người đó. Cũng đúng thôi, người đó còn nhiều việc phải làm, còn nhiều plan phải thực hiện, còn rất nhiều mục tiêu, còn rất nhiều điều sáng lạng trước mắt họ, còn Nó chỉ như là một Unit nhỏ trong cái Big plan của người đó mà thôi. Thật buồn phải không? Nó thật sự rất buồn, không hiểu sao thời gian này Nó lại buồn nhiều đến thế, Nó thấy mọi cái không đến đâu cả. mọi cái đều lơ mơ, mọi cái đều không, tất cả đều xa xăm và mù sương...
Chẳng thể tâm sự cùng ai, không thể share cùng ai, vì ai cũng nghĩ Nó đang rất hạnh phúc, đang rất vui vẻ. Có ai biết được Nó đang rất buồn không? Thật là... Chỉ muốn nói chuyện với ai đó để cảm thấy nhẹ nhàng hơn nhưng Nó không thể, Nó không cô độc bên Nó có gia đình có Mẹ yêu có anh chị em luôn giành tình yêu thương cho Nó. Chính vì thế Nó không thể nói Nó đang buồn được. Nhưng thực sự cảm giác giờ đây của Nó là thất vọng, chán và muốn làm chuyện gì đó để từ bỏ cái gì đó. Nhưng Nó biết Nó không làm thế được vì Nó đã giành tất cả tình yêu cho người đó rồi. Nhưng nếu cứ lơ mơ như thế này làm sao Nó chịu đựng được. Nó thật chán phải không?!!! Nó biết chỉ là cảm giác xuất hiện trong phút chốc thôi, chứ làm sao mà Nó làm được chuyện đó.Nếu Nó làm thế, thì đó là sai lầm lớn nhất trong cuộc đời Nó. Nó từ bỏ, coi như Nó mất hết tất cả.Nó rời xa, Nó coi như đặt dấu chấm hết cho cuộc đời Nó. Tất cả sẽ rời xa Nó khi Nó từ bỏ.
Nhưng Nó tin là sẽ không bao giờ làm chuyện đó. Nó biết lí do. Mong là khi khóc xong Nó sẽ thấy dễ chịu hơn, và cảm tháy vững vàng hơn trong cuộc sống, tin yêu hơn, chắc chắn là mạnh mẽ hơn.

 Hôm nay Ta bị cúm, mệt thật đấy! Lại là thứ 7 nữa chứ. thế mà vẫn phải đi làm, thiên hạ họ nghỉ ngơi ăn chơi 4 ngày ròng, mình vẫn lụi cụi đi làm như thường.
 Đúng là khi trong người không khỏe thì cái gì cũng không khỏe   Con tim yếu đuối lại lên tiếng kêu gào gọi anh về bên, lại cấn lắm một bờ vai để dựa, tính hay nhõng nhẽo lại đòi anh đưa đón... thế mà Anh lại ở xa, chỉ có thể động viên ta qua điện thoại, qua những dòng chữ trên mail. Thật là buồn, cảm giác cô đơn len lỏi vào lòng, chợt tự hỏi có khi nào Ta chán Anh không nhỉ???
 Ta biết Anh yêu Ta nhiều lắm, Anh lo lắng ngay cả khi Ta chỉ nói buồn vu vơ thôi, Anh không an tâm khi Ta đi một mình, Anh sợ Ta có anh chàng nào đó theo đuổi, khi mà Anh chỉ có thể bên Ta trong trái tim.  Không biết Ta là người thứ bao nhiêu anh yêu nữa, nhưng Ta biết Ta là người đầu tiên và duy nhất Anh giành nhiều tình yêu đến thế.
 Thời gian trôi thật chậm, Ta xa anh 3 tháng rồi đấy, còn 4 tháng nữa Ta mới được gặp Anh. Trời! sao mà lâu thế chứ. Thi thoảng Ta ghét Anh lắm, cứ đi học hoài, làm Ta ở nhà chờ chờ và chờ... Nhưng Ta thỏa thuận với Anh rồi, Ta chờ Anh đến cuối năm nay thôi, sau đó Ta ở đâu là Anh phải ở đó. Không cho Anh xa Ta nữa. Yêu mà, có ai muốn ở xa người mình yêu đâu. Ta cũng biết là Anh nhớ Ta nhiều lắm, hôm nào cũng điện thoại, hôm nào cũng online thế mà vẫn nhớ.hichichic... Các cụ bảo : nhớ gì như nhớ người yêu...như đứng đống lửa như ngồi đống than...hihihi...đúng thế chứ lị.
 Hôm nay Ta ốm, Ta muốn Anh đưa Ta đi làm, rồi chiều đón Ta về, cùng nhau đi dạo chút cho thoải mái, thế mà chỉ có ước muốn thế thôi chứ Anh đang ở cách xa Ta đến mấy trăm ngàn cây số. Nơi mà ở đó mặt trời đến sớm hơn 2h.
 Gấu yêu à, e nhớ Anh.

Nhanh thật, chưa j đã hết năm rồi, nhìn lại thấy mình chưa làm được j cho bản thân và gia đình. Gia đình nhỏ của riêng mình thì chưa có, đại gia đình lớn thì có Mẹ và các Anh chị. Ba mất cũng gần được hai năm rồi, buồn nhiều hơn vui. Chưa giúp j đc Mẹ, Ba mất nên TA ở nhà một thời gian khá dài, sau đó lại ra đi. Mẹ ở nhà một mình cô đơn buồn khóc. Đôi khi thấy mình có lỗi, nhưng làm thế nào được ???!!!

 Nhanh thật, thế là mình đã bước sang tuổi 26 rồi, 26 mùa xuân qua, 26 lần sinh nhật, hihi..thấy mình được j và mất j ? Được có mất cũng có. Cái mất nhất là sự vô tư của tuổi thơ, hihi...nếu TA không lớn lên là có vấn đề nhỉ.  Nhưng ơn trời nhờ phúc đức của Ông Bà, Cha Mẹ ta lớn lên bình yên.

 Nhanh thật, ngày tháng trôi đi vùn vụt, nháy mắt một cái là qua mùa hè, nháy cái nữa là mùa đông sang, rồi mọi người lại rục rịch chuẩn bị Tết khi ta chưa kịp nháy thêm cái thứ ba..hihi...sao mà nhanh thế, chưa kịp kiếm gì cho hành trang của mình thế mà đã đến lúc làm người lớn rồi, lo quá, lo quá...

 Trở lại với cái ban đầu, mình đã làm được j nhỉ, chẳng có j, giành thời gian cho Mẹ, thấy mình cũng khoẻ đấy chứ, nhà cách nơi làm việc hai trăm cây, thế mà cứ cách một chủ nhật TA lại nhảy ôtô về với Mẹ, ngủ một hay hai đêm với Mẹ rồi lại tất tả quay lên xe ra đi. Mẹ lại một mình mong chủ nhật tiếp theo...hic,,lần nào lên xe cũng khóc suốt đoạn đường ra, làm một cái mũ phớt đen đỏ chụp lên đầu ( cho có vẻ bí hiểm ) ngồi khóc vô tư, mặc kệ người ngồi bên cạnh, hic...thấy mình cũng lạ thật, ( trước kia không bao giờ như thế,bây giờ thì mặc kệ hết ) nhưng làm sao không khi thấy Mẹ đứng một mình nhìn theo xe. Ngày xưa là cả Ba và Mẹ đứng trông theo, nhưng giờ chỉ mình Mẹ.

 Mình làm được gi nữa nhỉ, thuyết phục Mẹ ra Hà Nội điều trị, Mẹ đi bệnh viện gần hai tháng. Điều trị cái bệnh đau xương của Mẹ, cũng đỡ được phần nào, thấy mình cũng người lớn nhỉ, ah mà còn giúp được cả dì mình nữa chứ, dì cũng đi điều trị như Mẹ, nhờ vào mối quan hệ của mình mà Mẹ và Dì được vào thẳng bv, chứ nếu không còn lâu mới vào đc cái bv đó.

Thêm nữa là kiếm được công việc làm tạm cũng ổn ổn chút, nhưng mình đang muốn chuyển chỗ làm, cái Cty này nó liên doanh với Hàn Quốc giờ giấc kinh khủng lém, hết giờ là khi kim phút chỉ đúng số 12 mới đc đứng giậy về..hichic..Nhưng năm nay chưa tìm đc chỗ nào một phần mình lười một phần vì  mình chưa đủ khả năng ( vì cũng bị loại ở vòng hai của hai cty rùi, hichic...kém quá ).

 Biết sống hơn một chút, Ta sống cùng Anh trai và chị dâu, mỗi người một tính cách, đôi khi cũng phải bíet dung hoà giữa các mối quan hệ. Nếu mình không hoà hợp với Chị dâu anh trai sẽ buồn nên cố gắng chút. Được cái Chị dâu TA hơi bị tốt nên hai chị e cũng chẳng có vấn đề gì.

 Học thêm được rất nhiều điều nữa, kể ra thì dài lắm, như biết yêu thương hơn, biết sống vì người khác hơn, biết nhường nhịn hơn, biết nhìn vào mặt tốt của mọi người, biết chia sẻ hơn,....và nhiều nhiều nữa. 

Ah, còn một điều nữa, đó là TA đã chọn được đường đi cho mình, cái này rất rất quan trọng với TA. Biết bỏ qua những ảo ảnh, những cái vô thực,hihi...cái này TA phải cảm ơn TA nhiều lắm. Chắc là Ta lớn rồi đó.

 Còn mất j nhỉ, mất có hội làm ở một chỗ rất tốt chỉ vì TA không lo đc cái hồ sơ ( TA muốn có hồ sơ phải xin ở quê mà ) một lý do rất lãng xẹt. Lúc đó mới đi làm nhưng có chỗ khác do ngưòi quen giới thiệu chỉ cần một buổi interview là ok, thế mà bỏ qua mất, đúng là ngốc ơi là ngốc..

 Mất thời gian để buồn, quá nhiều, nó tốt khi muốn lắng lại và suy nghĩ nhưng không tốt với một bạn trẻ như mình.

Mất tuổi trẻ, hahaha...cái này đúng rồi, ai mà chẳng phải lớn lên.

Mất số điện thoại của các bạn cùng lớp đại học, hichic..mấy đứa cưới mà mình chẳng biết. Chán

Công việc nhiều đi làm về nghe nhạc chút rồi đi ngủ, thấy mình bị thui chột kiến thức về XH, về phật học ( ngày xưa TA hay đọc về sách Phật mà ), về cả khả năng nói chuyện nữa. Đi làm chỉ làm. cắm cúi, làm không nhớ giờ giấc j, không biết trời hnay xấu hay đẹp, ơn trời cuối năm này đỡ bận hơn vì có bạn nữa làm cùng mình..

Hehehe...Cuối năm tổng kết cái, thấy mình cần phải học nhiều hơn nữa, yêu thương nhiều hơn nữa, chăm chỉ về với Mẹ, và sẽ thấm thía nhiều hơn cái gọi là tình yêu chờ đợi ( tình yêu của Ta đang ở xa mà ).

     Một năm mới đã lại đến, những niềm vui cũng đang đến, hạnh phúc lại về với chúng ta,mong sao cho loài người trên thế giới được sống trong bình yên và hạnh phúc. Ai ai cũng mong ước cho bản thân mình những điều tốt đẹp nhất, cũng chúc những người thân yêu những lời chúc hay nhất, trang trọng thành kính nhất. Và  trong sâu thẳm tâm hồn, họ luôn nghĩ đến những người đã đi xa bởi vì họ biết rằng ai cũng phải có nguồn cội...

 ... Nỗi đau mất mát giờ đã trở thành niềm thành kính thiêng liêng, họ không khóc nữa nước mắt nuốt vào trong, tất cả nỗi đau đó hiện lên bằng nén nhanh thơm thắp lên ban thờ mỗi khi họ nhớ về người đã khuất. Ai đó nói rằng thời gian có thể xoá nhoà mọi nỗi đau nhưng đó không phải là sự thật bởi không có gì có thể xoá nhoà được nỗi đau mà đó chẳng qua chỉ là sự nén lại trong thẳm  sâu của tâm hồn họ mà thôi...

 (Xem tiếp)

Ta rất ghét những ngày lễ...Ta ghét những lời chúc sáo rỗng...Ta lại càng ghét hơn khi nhận được những lời sáo rỗng đó.Ta yêu sự quan tâm và lòng chân thành.

...Phút chốc, tất cả đều tan đi những thoáng mộng giữa đời... Những tiều tụy chốn phong trần, buồn thương về năm tháng phôi pha, từng ảo ảnh phù hoa trong vận hội con người...nhòe tan...