In the 1600’s France established a small colony in India and began to trade with Vietnam.  Catholic missionaries also traveled to Vietnam to try to better the lives of the people and convert them to Christianity.  While trade with Vietnam was not successful for the French, missionary work was as many Vietnamese became Christians over the next 250 years.  Christians, though, were not always treated well and some were killed.  In the mid-1800’s the French returned to protect Christians and to seize some land, and by 1861 they controlled Saigon and several other parts of Vietnam.  With control of critical farmland the French were able to control the rice crop and they starved their opponents.  Fighting continued until 1874 when France took control of all of Vietnam.  Thirteen years later, in 1887, France controlled all of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia and called the region French-Indochina.

Under French rule, peasants were oppressed, literacy declined dramatically, and addiction to opium became widespread.  Buddhists and peasants fought with the French, but to no avail.  Meanwhile, in 1900, 10-year old Nguyen Sinh Cung watched with contempt and dreamed of someday changing the way his people would be treated.

In 1941, Japan easily overthrew the French during World War II and they too ruled Vietnam in oppressive ways.  During the war, the Vietnamese would help the Americans and the Allies by protecting their downed pilots, passing along important information, and by generally making life difficult for the Japanese.  At the end of the war, Nguyen Sinh Cung, now known as Ho Chi Minh, declared Vietnam’s independence from France and all other nations.  Borrowing a line from our Declaration of Independence, Ho Chi Minh wrote,  "All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."  Ho Chi Minh believed his country earned its freedom from the French and all other outside rule.  Even before World War II had ended Franklin Roosevelt agreed with Ho Chi Minh, however, the French and British did not.  Roosevelt died and the French tried to retake control of their colony.

Within a few years, war broke out between the two nations, and with the United States fearing the spread of Communism at that time, they gave significant aid to France.  Fighting between the two countries was fierce and it was very difficult for the French to adjust to the terrain of Vietnam and to fight a guerrilla war.  Eventually, in 1954, the French made a final stand at Dien Bien Phu, in northwest Vietnam.  They believed they could lure the Vietnamese into a traditional battle and with superior firepower they would crush the Vietnamese.  Continuing guerrilla tactics, bombing landing areas to prevent supplies from being flown in to the French, willing to accept huge losses of troops, and having the fortune of capturing materiel that was air dropped in the wrong areas led to an overwhelming victory by the Vietnamese.

The French surrendered but still controlled much of southern Vietnam.  The people in the south wanted their independence too, but they did not want to live under Communist rule.  Many in the south were Catholics and feared they would be killed by the Communists.

The French agreed to peace talks in Geneva in 1954.  After several months of contentious discussions, the Chinese pushed Ho Chi Minh to accept a division of Vietnam at the 17th parallel.  Ho did not want the nation divided, but he agreed so long as there would be elections held in 1956 to allow the people to decide their future.  The United States and the leaders of what was to become South Vietnam feared the elections would be corrupt, so they did not sign the agreement.

In North Vietnam landowners were being killed and peasants were promised small sections of land.  People, mostly Catholic, fled to the South by the thousands in search of safety.  But in the South, Communists who would later be known as Viet Cong were already in place and had started uprisings against the government of South Vietnam.

Recognizing the 1956 vote was going to be corrupt and the Communists would be declared the rulers over all of Vietnam, South Vietnam’s President Ngo Dinh Diem, canceled the election.  A political victory now impossible, Ho Chi Minh set about to achieve a military one.