key Terms and Geography
This 320-kilometre network of underground passages provided sanctuary, command centres, and hospitals for the VC.
What are the Cu Chi Tunnels?
This political and military leader served as the Minister of Defence for the DRV from 1946 to 1980.
Who is General Vo Nguyen Giap?
This geographic feature was the primary source of rice production that the South refused to share with the North after 1954.
What is the Mekong River Delta?
This code name refers to the sustained U.S. bombing campaign over North Vietnam that began in February 1965.
hat is Operation Rolling Thunder?
This nation became a key international issue when the Pathet Lao allied with the Vietminh.
hat is Laos?
This complex network of paths through Laos and Cambodia was used to move supplies and men to the South.
What is the Ho Chi Minh Trail?
This disastrous program was abandoned in 1958 in favour of a more moderate Cooperativisation Plan.
What are the Agricultural Reform Tribunals?
This 1956 decree made it a capital offence to be a communist or associated with communist entities.
What is Ordinance 47?
This August 1964 congressional measure gave the US President power to take "all necessary measures" without a formal declaration of war.
What is the Tonkin Gulf Resolution?
This toxic herbicide used by the U.S. during Operation Ranch Hand caused severe multi-generational genetic consequences.
What is Agent Orange?
This political arm of the Viet Cong was established on 20 December 1960 as a broad anti-Diem coalition
What is the National Liberation Front (NLF)?
These two communist superpowers provided vital capital, technological aid, and food to the DRV.
What are the Soviet Union (USSR) and China?
This 1962 policy, run by Ngo Dinh Nhu, forced peasants into fortified villages surrounded by moats and barbed wire.
What is the Strategic Hamlets Policy?
This tactical metric used by General Westmoreland prioritised enemy casualties over territorial gains.
What is the kill ratio?
This March 1968 war crime involved the systematic murder of 347 to 504 unarmed civilians by Charlie Company.
What is the My Lai Massacre?
This strategic location was chosen by French General Navarre for a set-piece battle, underestimating Vietnamese nationalism.
What is Dien Bien Phu?
This core executive committee of the Lao Dong party held real policy-making power in the one-party northern dictatorship.
What is the Politburo?
This religious majority was alienated when Ngo Dinh Diem banned the flying of their religious flag on 8 May 1963.
Who are the Buddhists?
This 77-day conventional siege in 1968 was used by the NVA as a strategic feint to draw U.S. attention away from urban centers.
What is the Battle of Khe Sanh?
These highly publicised 1970 Australian protest marches demanded an end to conscription and total troop withdrawal.
What are the Moratorium marches?
This geopolitical theory asserted that the fall of South Vietnam would cause a rapid, successive communist takeover of South East Asia.
What is the Domino Theory?
This key official served as the Leader of the Workers Party from 1960 to 1986, actively promoting the southern insurgency.
Who is Le Duan?
This corrupt secret police network was led by Ngo Dinh Nhu to suppress domestic political opposition.
What is the Can Lao Party?
This major 1968 offensive shifted U.S. war aims from "winning" to "getting out with the minimum loss of face".
What is the Tet Offensive?
This Nixon policy doctrine aimed to make the ARVN self-reliant but resulted in military disasters like Operation Lam Son 719.
What is Vietnamisation?