| January 2 |  |
Editor says, what if John Paul Vann had brought the American Revolution to Vietnam?
US Ambassador - "Why, Monsieur Sully, do you always see the hole in the doughnut? ..."
French Journalist - "Because, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur, there is a hole in the doughnut".
Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the July 2011 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1963, joined in their historic struggle to liberate Vietnam from neo-colonial rule the first wave of American Advisers led by Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann enabled left-behind Viet Minh forces to score a decisive victory at Ap Bac.
Saving Uncle HoLocated just forty miles to the south west was the seat of Government in Saigon. This capital of intrigue, corruption and nepotism was callously mistreating the very people it was supposed to protect.
But it was at Ap Bac that the Viet Minh and their American allies first exposed the underlying weakness of the French-supported regime. Despite enjoying greater advantages which came in the form of French armored personnel carriers and helicopters, Loyalist commanders were deterred from pressing home their victory due to their reluctance to absorb casualties that could be detrimental to their military careers
But in a larger sense there was just no stopping the infectious spirit of '76, and before too long, they had Government forces on the run. And they kept running until the Viet Minh chased the regime and their money-counting French backers out of Saigon.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: American Heroes Source: Wikipedia Labels: Ap Bac, John Paul Vann, Vietnam, America, Ho Chi Minh. Editor says, in a Bright Shining Lie (1970) Neil Sheehan refers to an illuminating comment from Vann that "there is a revolution going in this country .. [and the] principles, goals, and desires of the other side are much closer to what Americans believe in than those of (Saigon)."
~ I take it that China didn't go hard-core Communist in this TL?
~ And that is how it all would have turned out had the North not been communist infested. In the end when I saw foods and good with made in
viet Nam I knew the U.S. had finally won the war.
~ Communist "infested"? Ask yourself: why did Ho Chi Minh have the support he did? In the 1950s, the U.S. actually had to prevent a free election which would have established unified Vietnamese government because the CIA concluded Ho would win. That speaks of a lot more popularity, even in the South, than an "infestation.
It appears that several thngs are different in this timeline. First, the French held on longer (how?); second, either the Viet Minh are not Communist ou the USA is a lot farther t the left than it was in our 1963. As for China, it may or may not have gone "hard-core Communist"; all we can really tell from the above is that it didn't involve itself directly in the conflict.
~ A very different Truman Doctrine: liberate post-colonies rather than contain the spread of Communism. May've worked even better.
~ A lot of people mix up cause and effect when considering the penetration of Soviet/Communist influence in a lot of anti-colonialist movements. Would the Hanoi government have been left-of-center? Yup, but if we backed them to the point where they would prefer to keep Uncle Sugar sweet and focused our effort on honest elections a lot of the bloodshed and dislocations could have been avoided.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
