The French colonized Vietnam in the mid-1800's and divided Vietnam into three parts. In response, numerous indigenous groups arose in Vietnam to resist the French. These nationalist groups competed with each other to determine who would become strong enough to overthrow the French and reunify the country.

Some Vietnamese nationalist groups sought help from other countries, but despite what the UN charter said, western countries were reluctant to get involved in what amounted to a war against France. As the cold war evolved this created opportunities for nationalist groups to get support from the communist bloc. In general, the Vietnamese were committed first to nationalism and communism arose only as one way to achieve nationalism.^[1]

In 1945, the resistance led by Ho Chi Minh came out on top amongst the resistance groups in the northern part of Vietnam, but it was not the end of the struggle against colonialism. The French put up a fight for almost another decade.

Anti-colonialism collides with anti-communism

The 1949 communist victory in China worried western nations who thought that communist groups would now take advantage of the fights against colonialism all over SE Asia (the domino theory). The US in particular was driven by that fear and had started supporting the French colonists financially in order to push back communism in Vietnam.

Canadian and US views diverged from the beginning: "unlike the United States government, Canadian officials were not disposed to fight communism per se, only illicit acts of interstate aggression." (Ross, 1984, p. 47)^[260] "With respect to Asia, Ottawa and Washington rarely saw eye to eye." (Ross, 1984, p.41)

Thus the seeds were sown for the two competing perspectives on the Vietnam war which defined the differences between US and Canada throughout:

• The self-determination view (Canada): it was a continuation of the fight against French colonialism. This could also be construed as a civil war, since Vietnamese proxies did much of the fighting for both France and the US. This also allows for multiple visions for the future of Vietnam, only one of which involved communism. "Civil war" is the official interpretation in Vietnam today.^[2]

• The anti-communist view (US): it was a war of western ideals against communism, where western ideals were to be imposed on the Vietnamese people by Western powers so that they would not choose communism. This perspective was "black and white": you were either with the Saigon regime or you were a communist.^[3] Stephen Harper brought this view to Canada in 2015 in an act of parliament.

Not all Americans believed that it was wise for the US to get involved in Vietnam because many believed, as Canada did, the the Vietnamese would inevitably win control of their own country, no matter what it took. The French commander in chief in Vietnam from 1945-47 put it most succinctly: “Anti-Communism will remain a useless tool in our hands as long as the problem of nationalism remains unsolved.” As quoted in (Fall, 1961, epigraph)^[400]

The "State of Vietnam"

The French managed their colony in Vietnam through Vietnamese proxies:

Through a policy of co-option, the former mandarin class became the administrative tool of the new regime. ... They became members of a privileged class, economically and culturally segregated from the mass of peasants. … In general, the gap between the French-educated urban Vietnamese and the mass of peasants was unbridgeable indeed. ... the colonial administration, with its policy of brutal harassment and co-option, managed to undermine the legitimacy of the emerging élite that lived on urban islands in the middle of an ocean of rural miseries. (Chi, 1980, pp. 22-23.)^[399]

In 1949, France made a token response to the UN charter and the international and domestic political pressures rising against colonialism. France created the "State of Vietnam", turned it over to their co-opted Vietnamese elite, and called it an "independent" state. France retained direct control over finance, foreign affairs and the military (Ross, 1984, p. 38). This is where the yellow flag with three red stripes originated.^[4]

The Vietnamese nationalist factions, not surprisingly, saw no difference between the State of Vietnam the French colonists. Nor was Canada convinced:

Once again we seem to have been maneuvered into the support of a regime whose only merit is that it is anti-communist and that is not a good enough way either to contain or defeat communism."(Canada HC Debates, 1950-03-07, pp. 556-7)^[228]

France pressed Canada to recognize the State of Vietnam but Canada refuses because it was not truly an independent state, because it was in control of only a small part of Vietnam, and because Canada did not want France to follow up with a request for assistance in Vietnam. (Canada LAC, 1950)^[218]

Formation of the State of Vietnam did not stop the fighting. The US, by 1954, was paying 80% of the French costs of staying in Vietnam. It was already an American war and it was already being fought for them by the co-opted Vietnamese elite who had much to gain by keeping themselves in power: "By the early 1950’s the bulk of the French Union Forces would be composed of native Vietnamese". (Ross, 1984, p. 37).

These factors meant that there was good justification for the Vietnamese to perceive the US effort as merely a continuation of French colonialism, even though the US motives were different from France's.^[5] As Canada understood things, neither was interested in observing the UN principle of self-determination for the Vietnamese.

In 1954 the Vietnamese nationalists decisively defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu in the north of Vietnam. This prompted the international community to get together in Geneva and draw a line in the sand.

In May of 1954, in preparation for the Geneva conference on settling the French fight in Vietnam, Canada's prime minister suspected that things were not heading toward self-determination for Vietnam. He expressed Canada's commitment to self-determination:

... the urge for national freedom and for social and economic reform, and not devotion to communism as such, is the mainspring of the greatest revolution of our time ... [a solution] must be divorced from anything that could be called colonialism and not designed to maintain regimes, colonial or national, that have little or no popular support. (Canada DFAIT, 1954).^[225]

Canada was satisfied with the Geneva agreement because it appeared to end, for the moment, the threat of the US starting a nuclear world war in Vietnam. Ross itemized Canada's interests in Vietnam as the Geneva conference was approaching, beginning the list with "minimizing the risk of escalation to nuclear warfare" (Ross, 1984, p. 64).

The agreement did not end French colonialism in Vietnam. Vietnam was divided into two: the north given to the victorious communist nationalists and the south to the State of Vietnam, which was still controlled by France but dependent on the US to stay in power.

The battle of Dienbienphu (1954) terminated French colonialism in Vietnam. Vietnam was divided again. The French colonial heritage was moved to the South in 1954 and transferred to the American-supported regime of Ngo Dinh Diem. The second Indochinese war had been lost before it started. (Chi, 1980, pp. 25.)^[399]

The only part of the agreement that was signed was the military disengagement agreement between the French military and Ho Cho Minh's military. There was no representative of the people of Vietnam and no signed political agreement. The French retained their control over the State of Vietnam and the French military (with it's US financing and Vietnamese proxies) remained in Vietnam. And so the nationalist fight against colonialism continued in the south as "the American War".

There were nationalist factions in the south that were not aligned with the communists. Not everyone opposed to the Saigon regime accepted the idea that communism was the way forward for Vietnam. There were many competing visions of a future for Vietnam without colonists. Ross noted:

French policy effectively created a small class of indigenous bureaucratic collaborators and their hangers-on who were allowed to staff a relatively powerless state apparatus.. French methods of governance - economic exploitation and political subjugation — effectively precluded the evolution of a progressive liberal middle class in Vietnam and drove self-respecting patriotic Vietnamese towards conspiracy, intrigue, and terror. (Ross, 1984. p. 35).

The Saigon regime chose not to legitimize themselves by seeking popular support. There was no tradition in Vietnam that would naturally lead them in that direction and they were used to profiting from their position as colonial lackeys. They played on the US fear of a communist takeover in SE Asia to get the US to support them in a war against the nationalists. It was in the interests of both the US and the leaders of the Saigon regime to portray the war as a two-sided war against themselves and "communists".

Eventually it was, as the communists gradually took over control of any competing factions and the growing US involvement enabled them to seek support from China and the USSR. The war became what the US had imagined it was.

At the Geneva conference Canada was "drafted" to serve on a impartial, non-military monitoring body that was supposed to see that the Geneva accords were observed (Canada LAC, 1954, p. 6.).^[223] Canada expected it to be a short assignment, but it lasted until 1973. With no enforcement powers, and the fact that the accords were not actually signed by the Vietnamese or American governments, that body was doomed to impotence. Ross devotes a whole chapter to the flaws in the agreement from Canada's perspective. (Ross, 1984, pp 67-92).

Canada's role on the ICSC did however, enable Canada to be present in Vietnam throughout the war and to travel around as an observer in both the north and the south. Canada used its presence to monitor its main interest: prevention of nuclear war.

This presence allowed Canada to observe that nature of the governments what were fighting in Vietnam. Ross noted: "[Canadian] staff working for ICSC observe the brutality of the communist regime and become dedicated anti-communists." (Ross, 1894, p. 93).^[260] As things unfolded, Canada's opinion of the other side was no more favorable.^[7]

Nevertheless, as the new situation in the south developed, Canada reiterated its commitment to self-determination over the fight against communism, at the same time hinting that the US had no chance of success:

... the viewpoint of Asians [is] that self-government is more important even than good government … many Asians fail to see as clearly as we do the gulf which divides communism from democracy. (Canada DFAIT, 1955).^[226]

This placed Canada in an awkward position with the US:

• Canada was not a neutral party in the battle against communist expansionism; Canada was clearly an ally of the US on that topic. That alliance did not extend to supporting the US in Vietnam because Canada did not see Vietnam as communist expansionism. This stance annoyed the Americans, but in taking this view, Canada was siding with European nations (Ross, 1985, p. 11).^[260]

• Canada's economy was tightly integrated with the US economy made it difficult for Canada to avoid supplying war material to the US. Two sensationalist books were devoted to the idea that Canada had more interests in Vietnam than the formal diplomatic posturing indicated.^[6] (Taylor, 1974)^[402] (Levant, 1986)^[197]

Canada handled this awkward relationship with the US through what has been called "quiet diplomacy". Canada let its opposition to the war be known in US diplomatic circles through private channels, while publicly not taking a strong position one way or the other.

Many observers had said from the beginning that the Saigon regime did not have a hope of success, because it was seen from the outset to represent the colonialism that the Vietnamese were fighting. The regime did little or nothing to change that perception.^[7]

As the war escalated the Canadian government became subject to domestic criticism for not taking a stand opposed to the war. On 4 February 1966 Martin told the Commons: "The United States is a party to the conflict in Viet Nam. Canada is not; and we have made it clear that Canada could not contemplate military involvement in Viet Nam except as a part of a United Nations peace keeping operation". (Ross, 1984, p. 298)

As the anti-war protests grew in both the US and Canada, Canada was criticized for not openly opposing the US involvement. Books were written about Canada's "complicity" in the war. There was one incident in 1967 where the quiet diplomacy leaked, and it made the US very angry that Canada appeared to be publicly opposing the US. This resulted in the prime minister issuing strongly worded instructions to his cabinet on precisely what Canada's policy was (Canada, LAC, 1967).^[57], and a press release followed.

The Canadian press was not so tactful. In response to a complaint from Senator Kennedy about Canada being neutral rather than supportive, A Macleans editorial declared:

A great many Canadians are not neutral at all about Vietnam. We think the United States is wrong, wrong, wrong -- wrong to be there in the first place, wrong to be backing a worthless military dictatorship, wrong to be killing so many people to so little purpose." (Macleans Editorial, 1966)^[398]

The pressure on Canada's government to protest the war diminished later: "After 1969 there was little reason for active criticism ... since the American administration was clearly committed to eventual disengagement from Indochina." (Ross, 1984, p23).

This awkwardness ended when the US withdrew in 1973. Read what happened next in the next article: 1973-1977 Canada and the fall of Saigon

In 2015 Canada abandoned all of its principles and passed a parliamentary act declaring that the Saigon regime was legitimate after all.^[8]