Vietnam, Protest, and Counterculture 4454.6 million tons of bombs on Vietnam and another 2 million tons on Cambodia
and Laos. American forces sprayed over 11 million gallons of Agent Orange,
an herbicide containing dioxin, a cancer-causing agent, and dropped over
400,000 tons of napalm. The impact of such warfare was immense: over 9000,
or about 60 percent, of southern hamlets were destroyed, as were 25 million
acres of farm- land and 12 million acres of forest. American bombs created
about 25 million craters, many still containing active bombs today. Most
tragically, the Vietnamese suffered about 2 million deaths in the war, the
Cambodians and Laotians had about 300,000 killed, and a greater number was
wounded. And by 1975, there were 15 million refugees in Indochina and
nearby countries. All in a nation roughly the size of New Mexico.
The First Indochina War
After denying Ho’s declaration of an independent Vietnam and restoring con-
trol [see chapter 6], primarily in the southern part of Vietnam called
Cochinchina, the French resumed their policies of heavily taxing the Vietnamese
and making those who could not pay do public work on roads, bridges and
other such infrastructure to pay off their debts. In the central and northern
regions of Vietnam–Annam and Tonkin–the Viet Minh were more popular and
were able to challenge the French for administrative control. France, however,
continued to act like the imperial power it had been since the 1860s and
conflict with the Viet Minh for control over the entire country was inevitable.
Ho Chi Minh had to try to create stability in a badly underdeveloped country
that had been wiped out by the Japanese occupation in the war and had suf-
fered about a million deaths from a famine in 1944-45. The DRVN leader,
though hated by the American government as a “communist,” took a moder-
ate approach to respond to the crisis at home but not frighten off foreign
observers.
Ho abolished certain taxes and removed restrictions on the transport of
rice from the southern to northern regions. He also announced an austerity
program, encouraging an already-hungry people to fast, but also increasing
cultivation and banning the distillation of liquor to save grains for food. Most
importantly, Ho began a “land to the tiller” program in the DRVN in which
he seized property from French and Japanese holders and their collaborators
for redistribution. But, to gather public support and assure other nations, the