South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam was a country in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of the Cold War after the 1954 division of Vietnam. It first received international recognition in 1949 as the State of Vietnam within the French Union, with its capital at Saigon, before becoming a republic in 1955. South Vietnam was bordered by North Vietnam to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and Thailand across the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest. Its sovereignty was recognized by the United States and 87 other nations, though it failed to gain admission into the United Nations as a result of a Soviet veto in 1957. It was succeeded by the Republic of South Vietnam in 1975. In 1976, the Republic of South Vietnam and North Vietnam merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Hồ Chí Minh, colloquially known as Uncle Ho or just Uncle (Bác), and by other aliases and sobriquets, was a Vietnamese communist revolutionary, nationalist, and politician. He served as Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from 1945 to 1955, and as President from 1945 until his death in 1969. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist, he was the Chairman and First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Vietnam, the predecessor of the current Communist Party of Vietnam.
The Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam, was formed on June 8, 1969, by North Vietnam as a purportedly independent shadow government that opposed the government of the Republic of Vietnam under President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu and then as a de facto country after the Fall of Saigon with the name Republic of South Vietnam from 30 April 1975 to 2 July 1976. Delegates of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, as well as several smaller groups, participated in its creation.
Canada did not officially participate in the Vietnam War. However, it contributed to peacekeeping forces in 1973 to help enforce the Paris Peace Accords.
The Geneva Conference was a conference that was intended to settle outstanding issues resulting from the Korean War and the First Indochina War and involved several nations. It took place in Geneva, Switzerland, from 26 April to 20 July 1954. The part of the conference on the Korean question ended without adopting any declarations or proposals and so is generally considered less relevant. The Geneva Accords that dealt with the dismantling of French Indochina proved to have long-lasting repercussions, however. The crumbling of the French colonial empire in Southeast Asia led to the formation of the states of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the State of Vietnam, the Kingdom of Cambodia, and the Kingdom of Laos. Three agreements about French Indochina, covering Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, were signed on 21 July 1954 and took effect two days later.
The Paris Peace Accords, officially the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet Nam, was a peace agreement signed on January 27, 1973, to establish peace in Vietnam and end the Vietnam War. The agreement was signed by the governments of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam ; the Republic of Vietnam ; the United States; and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (PRG), which represented South Vietnamese communists. US ground forces had begun to withdraw from Vietnam in 1969, and had suffered from deteriorating morale during the withdrawal. By the beginning of 1972 those that remained had very little involvement in combat. The last American infantry battalions withdrew in August 1972. Most air and naval forces, and most advisers, also were gone from South Vietnam by that time, though air and naval forces not based in South Vietnam were still playing a large role in the war. The Paris Agreement removed the remaining US forces. Direct U.S. military intervention was ended, and fighting between the three remaining powers temporarily stopped for less than a day. The agreement was not ratified by the U.S. Senate.
The International Control Commission, was an international force established in 1954. More formally called the International Commission for Supervision and Control, the organisation was actually organised as three separate but interconnected bodies, one for each territory within the former French Indochina, being treated as a single state having two temporary administrations: the ICSC for Vietnam; the ICSC for Laos; and the ICSC for Cambodia.
This is a timeline of the main events of the Cold War, a state of political and military tension after World War II between powers in the Western Bloc and powers in the Eastern Bloc.
United States involvement in the Vietnam War began shortly after the end of World War II in Asia, first in an extremely limited capacity and escalating over a period of 20 years. The U.S. military presence peaked in April 1969, with 543,000 American combat troops stationed in Vietnam. By the conclusion of the United States's involvement in 1973, over 3.1 million Americans had been stationed in Vietnam.
In 1960 an International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties was held in Moscow. It was preceded by a conference of 12 Communist and Workers Parties of Socialist countries held in Moscow November 1957 and the Bucharest Conference of Representatives of Communist and Workers Parties in June 1960. Issues discussed at these meetings are associated with the Sino-Soviet split.
North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, was a socialist state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1945 to 1976, with formal sovereignty being fully recognized in 1954. A member of the Eastern Bloc, it opposed the French-backed State of Vietnam and later the Western-allied Republic of Vietnam. North Vietnam emerged victorious over South Vietnam in 1975 and ceased to exist the following year when it unified with the south to become the current Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
1973 in the Vietnam War began with a peace agreement, the Paris Peace Accords, signed by the United States and South Vietnam on one side of the Vietnam War and communist North Vietnam and the insurgent Viet Cong on the other. Although honored in some respects, the peace agreement was violated by both North and South Vietnam as the struggle for power and control of territory in South Vietnam continued. North Vietnam released all American prisoners of war and the United States completed its military withdrawal from South Vietnam.
The Second United Nations Emergency Force was established by United Nations General Assembly, in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 340 (1973), to supervise the ceasefire between Egyptian and Israeli forces at the end of Yom Kippur War, and following of the agreement of 18 January 1974 and 4 September 1975, to supervise the redeployment of Egyptian and Israeli forces and to man and control the buffer zones established under those agreements. The force was withdrawn in July 1979.
The International Commission of Control and Supervision Medal is a service medal awarded to personnel from the four countries that made up the International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICCS). The ICCS was established by the Paris Peace Accords in 1973 to supervise the cease-fire, the withdrawal of troops, the dismantlement of military bases, the activity at ports of entry, and the return of captured military personnel and foreign civilians in Vietnam. It was to report on the implementation, or violation, of the Peace Agreement and Protocols. Initially made up of personnel from Canada, Hungary, Indonesia, and Poland, the Canadians withdrew in July 1973 being replaced by personnel from Iran. The work of the ICCS continued until the April 1975 Fall of Saigon.
The International Commission for Supervision and Control Medal is an international service medal awarded to personnel from the three countries that made up the International Commission for Supervision and Control (ICSC). The ICSC was born from the Geneva Agreements of 1954 which ended the First Indochina War. The medal was awarded for 90 days cumulative service with the ICSC between 1954 and 1974.
The Vinh wiretap was an American espionage operation of the Vietnam War. From 7 December 1972 through early May 1973, CIA telephone intercepts of North Vietnamese military communications were supplied to American diplomat Henry Kissinger. As border phone lines were well watched, the decision was made to tap a military multiplex line in the Vietnamese heartland near Vinh. The CIA used a black helicopter to set a clandestine wiretap to eavesdrop on Paris Peace Talks discussions and other intelligence.
Poland–Vietnam relations are the current and historical relations between Poland and Vietnam. Poland has an embassy in Hanoi and Vietnam has an embassy in Warsaw.
The US foreign policy during the presidency of Richard Nixon (1969–1974) focused on reducing the dangers of the Cold War among the Soviet Union and China. President Richard Nixon's policy sought on détente with both nations, which were hostile to the U.S. and to each other in the wake of the Sino-Soviet split. He moved away from the traditional American policy of containment of communism, hoping each side would seek American favor. Nixon's 1972 visit to China ushered in a new era of U.S.-China relations and effectively removed China as a Cold War foe. The Nixon administration signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union and organized a conference that led to the signing of the Helsinki Accords after Nixon left office.
The United States foreign policy during the 1974–1977 presidency of Gerald Ford was marked by efforts to de-escalate the Cold War. Ford focused on maintaining stability and promoting détente with the Soviet Union. One of Ford's key foreign policy achievements was the signing of the Helsinki Accords in 1975. The accords were a series of agreements between the US, Soviet Union, and other European countries that aimed to promote human rights, economic cooperation, and peaceful relations between East and West. Ford met with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev several times, and the two countries signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks in 1979, which aimed to limit the number of nuclear weapons held by the two superpowers.
The Vietnam War involved many countries across the world. North Vietnam received support from the Eastern Bloc, while South Vietnam was generally supported by nations of the Western Bloc.
