Vietnam, Protest, and Counterculture 449backed it with $400 million in aid. Navarre, however, blundered terribly. To
secure access to the Red River delta and cut enemy supply routes into Laos,
Navarre established a base at an isolated mountain valley near the Laotian
border in northwest Vietnam [like putting his troops in a “soup bowl” with
the enemy standing above it]. It was Dien Bien Phu, and it was destined to
become one of the more memorable battle scenes in the 20th Century. The
Viet Minh, as protracted war would dictate, waited, and finally struck on
March 13th, 1954. Giap initially tried to overrun French positions on the
perimeter, but lost about 2000 Viet Minh in the first few days of battle alone.
At that point, the commander became patient, digging in and operating out
of trenches while raining artillery on the French in the valley below. In time,
French forces began to take heavy casualties, and the airfield at Dien Bien Phu
became inoperable. By April, the Viet Minh were successfully assaulting fire
bases along the perimeter as Giap’s strategy of “steady attack and steady
advance” was paying off. The commander pressed the attack throughout April
and the French, taking heavy losses and short on supplies, were in dire straits.
On May 6th, 1954, Dien Bien Phu fell. Ho Chi Minh, it once more seemed,
was primed to become president of an independent Vietnam.
The Americans Take Over
As in 1945, Ho Chi Minh was ready to be recognized as the leader of the
independent country of Vietnam, but, again, Vietnamese sovereignty would be
ripped away from it by the western powers. Just as the Viet Minh and its sup-
porters were celebrating victory over the French, major nations like the U.S.,
Soviet Union, and China were meeting at Geneva to discuss East-West polit-
ical relations, and the Viet Minh representative, Pham Van Dong, expected
DRVN independence to be ratified. But the Americans could not tolerate a
nationalist-Communist government in Vietnam so instead–with little protest
from supposed Communist allies in Russia or China–came up with a plan to
cut Vietnam in half and only give Ho a partial victory. Instead of Vietnam
being a unified country, the Geneva Accords created a partition line at the
17th parallel, an area about halfway up the peninsula near the city of Hué,
with the area above the 17th parallel to be run by Ho and the DRVN, and
the area below that line to be run by a government established by the U.S.
That part of Vietnam, below the 17th parallel, would become an invented