The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) by McMahon Robert J

Author:McMahon, Robert J. [McMahon, Robert J.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2003-03-26T16:00:00+00:00

Map IV. Africa in 1945.

Map V. Africa in 2000 (with dates of Independence).

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Indo-China also flared once more into a major hot spot. In South Vietnam, the American-backed regime of Ngo Dinh Diem was combating a broad-based insurgency directed by the National Liberation Front that, with strong support from communist North Vietnam, threatened its survival. In 1961–2, Kennedy significantly increased US military assistance to Diem, dispatching well over 10,000 US advisers in an effort to help crush the so-called ‘Viet Cong’ guerrillas, who, by then, controlled about half of the territory and population of South Vietnam. Meanwhile, the communist-led Pathet Lao in neighbouring Laos, with logistical support from North Vietnam and the Soviet Union, seemed on the verge of shooting their way to power in Vientiane. In December 1960, Eisenhower instructed president-elect Kennedy during a White House transition meeting that Laos was ‘the present key to the entire area of South East Asia’. He warned ominously that US combat troops might be needed in the near future to block a Pathet Lao victory.

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