Answers: The Vietnam War & Its Legacy
Vietnam has celebrated the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the country’s reunification. On April 30, 1975 Communist North Vietnamese troops stormed into South Vietnam’s presidential palace, amid chaotic scenes of evacuations from the U.S. embassy. The U.S. had withdrawn its forces in 1973 under the Paris Peace Accords and its ally South Vietnam crumbled in two years. Comparisons were made to Saigon in August 2021 when Kabul fell to the Taliban as U.S. forces pulled out of Afghanistan.
Vietnam’s official designation for April 30 is ‘The Liberation of the South and National Reunification Day’ but many of those who had to flee South Vietnam and resettle in the U.S. call it the ‘National Day of Resentment’. Millions of people fled Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia over two decades, many on rickety boats.
This year also marks the 30th anniversary of the resumption of diplomatic relations between Vietnam and the U.S. (July 11, 1995). In 2016 the U.S. lifted an arms embargo on Vietnam. Economic ties have flourished as Vietnam became a global manufacturing hub. But it's also one of the world's most trade-dependent economies. Exports to the U.S. accounted for 30 percent of its GDP in 2024, making it vulnerable to the Trump administration’s tariff plans.
Answers:
1) This country sent 325,000 troops to fight alongside the U.S. in Vietnam, which was more than the combined strength of all other U.S. allies. More than 5,000 soldiers were killed. U.S. aid and investment in return helped transform this country’s economy but its soldiers have faced allegations of carrying out massacres and sexual assaults in Vietnam. Which country?
South Korea. It was only in the mid-1970s that South Korea’s per capita output exceeded that of North Korea. The U.S. paid South Korean troops in Vietnam about 24 times more per day than they would have earned otherwise. Seoul also received massive American aid and investment. More here and here.
The Vietnam war was transformative for some of South Korea’s family-controlled conglomerates known as chaebol, who benefited from lucrative U.S. military procurement contracts. In recent years, South Korean investment has played a key role in Vietnam becoming a global manufacturing hub. Samsung is the biggest foreign investor and exporter in Vietnam.
Amid strong economic ties, the Vietnamese government has not pushed for an official apology from Seoul for wartime atrocities. But South Korean courts have ruled that a Vietnamese woman should be compensated for being shot and losing family members in a 1968 massacre. There’s also been a backlash in Vietnam against South Korean Netflix dramas Little Women and Squid Game 2 over their portrayal of Vietnam war veterans.
North Korea is estimated to have sent 1,000 soldiers to support North Vietnam. This included pilots who flew in combat. North Korea claimed to have shot down 26 American aircraft, while 14 of their air force personnel were killed. Pyongyang’s ongoing military support to Russia in its war against Ukraine has invited comparisons to South Korea’s role in Vietnam. More here and here.
2) On April 30, 1970 U.S. President Richard Nixon addressed the nation to announce that the American military had started ground operations in which country?
Cambodia. It was intended to disrupt what was known as the Ho Chi Minh trail via Cambodia, which was used to move forces and supplies from North Vietnam to South Vietnam. More here.
3) In 1993 two U.S. senators, both war veterans visited a prison in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi. In January 1994, their bill amendment that urged President Bill Clinton to lift the trade embargo against Vietnam was passed by the Senate. Clinton lifted the embargo on February 3, 1994. Who were the two senators, one Democrat and the other Republican who were later presidential candidates?
John Kerry and John McCain. Kerry served with the U.S. navy from 1966 to 1970, a period that included combat duty in Vietnam. He returned with war decorations as well as misgivings and joined the group Vietnam Veterans Against the War. In 1971 he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he later chaired from 2009 to 2013 as as a senator. Kerry’s complicated Vietnam history drew the ire of the conservative group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which ran ads questioning Kerry’s Vietnam record during his losing 2004 campaign against George W. Bush.
John McCain spent five-and-a-half years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. He was a prized prisoner as his father Admiral John S. McCain Jr. was at the time commander in chief of U.S. Pacific forces.
4) In 1963 religion and politics combined to cause a crisis in South Vietnam that saw mass protests, a self-immolation and a government crackdown. President Ngo Dinh Diem was assassinated in a CIA-backed coup in November 1963, an overthrow that ended the crisis only to deepen U.S. involvement in the war. What was the crisis that led to the coup known as?
5) Captain George — (later Rear Admiral) commanded the U.S. navy fleet during the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964. Clashes with North Vietnamese torpedo boats led to the escalation of the war, with President Lyndon Johnson ordering air strikes against North Vietnam. The commander’s estranged son became a cult rock singer. The son died in 1971 in Paris aged 27. Fill in the surname.
Morrison. Rear Admiral George Morrison’s son is Jim Morrison. The senior Morrison later commanded U.S. forces in the South Pacific from his headquarters in Guam. He coordinated the creation of a tent city in Guam in 1975 to accommodate hundreds of thousands of refugees from South Vietnam after the fall of Saigon. George Morrison broke his silence about his famous son in 2006, two years before his death. More here and here.
6) While the conflict is widely referred to as the Vietnam war, under what name is it known in Vietnam?
American war. The conflict is officially known in Vietnam as the ‘resistance war against America to save the country.’
7) Freelance journalist Seymour Hersh managed to speak to X at Fort Benning in the U.S. state of Georgia and obtained details of a classified charge sheet. Life and Look magazines refused to publish Hersh’s expose. A little-known news agency, the Dispatch News Service, ran the story on November 12, 1969 and several newspapers picked it up. Who is X and what did Seymour Hersh expose?
X is William Calley and Seymour Hersh exposed the then U.S. army lieutenant’s complicity in the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. More here, here and here.
8) Which iconic image was captured by Dutch photojournalist Hugh Van Es in Saigon on April 29, 1975?
The image of people scrambling to get into a helicopter on the roof of CIA-controlled building in Saigon. More here, here and here. Many accounts have incorrectly portrayed the location as the roof of the U.S. embassy.
9) Toxic chemical mixtures, notably Agent Orange were extensively sprayed by the U.S. over Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. These defoliants removed leaves from trees, turning guerrillas’ jungle hideouts into barren wasteland. But it was Britain in the 1950s which first used defoliants in a conflict. Where in Southeast Asia?
Malaya (now Malaysia). More here, here and here.
10) Who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 along with Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc Tho? (Le Duc Tho declined the prize)
Henry Kissinger. Le Duc Tho refused to accept the Nobel Prize, alleging that the American side had violated the Paris Peace Accords signed in January 1973 that led to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Vietnam. More here.
11) Air attacks by the U.S. from 1964 to 1973 made this country the most bombed country in the world, per capita. Which country?
Laos. More here, here and here. The largest paramilitary force ever assembled by the CIA took on the communist Pathet Lao, North Vietnam’s ally in a ‘secret war’ with massive U.S. aerial support. The ‘Pentagon Papers’ published in 1971 and a Congressional hearing the same year revealed the scale of the covert war. The same year, South Vietnamese forces backed by U.S. air support invaded Laos in a bid to blunt the Ho Chi Minh trail.
Pathet Lao seized the Laotian capital Vientiane in August 1975, nearly four months after Saigon fell to Vietnamese Communists. All three countries from the former French Indochina - Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos - were now led by Communists. The centuries-old monarchy was abolished in December 1975.
12) This language is spoken by a minority ethnic group of the same name who live in Laos, Thailand, China, Vietnam and Myanmar. But it does not have official status in any country. Many were forced to emigrate to the U.S. after the community backed the failed American military effort in Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 1970s and efforts are being made in the U.S. to preserve the language. Name the language/community.
Hmong. The ethnic group formed the bulk of the CIA-backed paramilitary force in Laos. More here. You can read more about the Hmong in my earlier quiz answers here on the Asian American Experience.
The Hmong community was prominently featured in Clint Eastwood’s 2008 film Gran Torino. Eastwood’s co-star Bee Vang has since been critical of the film. Another major moment for Hmong Americans was gymnast Sunisa Lee’s gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
13) At a press conference on April 7, 1954, then U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower said “Finally, you have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the "falling ——-" principle. You have a row of ——— set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly”. Fill in the missing word that influenced U.S. policy in Southeast Asia.
Domino. A year earlier in 1953 Eisenhower invoked what came to be known as the ‘domino theory’. He warned that if French-run Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) fell to communists, other Asian nations could follow suit. This was soon after an armistice was signed ending the Korean War.
Exactly a month after Eisenhower’s April 7, 1954 press conference, French forces surrendered to Viet Minh communist forces in Dien Bien Phu, ending the French colonial era in the region. The Geneva Accords in July temporarily partitioned Vietnam into a communist North and pro-western South but elections stipulated for 1956 were never held. The U.S. perspective on the elections that never took place here and here. Ho Chi Minh led Communist North Vietnam while Ngo Dinh Diem became president of U.S.-backed South Vietnam.
14) Which group seized power on April 17, 1975 toppling the pro-U.S. Lon Nol government (President Lon Nol himself fled the country on April 1)?
Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. More here. New leader Pol Pot started the calendar afresh from ‘Year Zero’ and forced hundreds of thousands of people from cities to rural areas to work in what he deemed a classless, agrarian society. The Khmer Rouge carried out one of the worst mass killings of the 20th century between 1975 and 1979.
15) Which country was invaded by Vietnam in December 1978? Vietnamese troops stayed on until 1989.
Cambodia. More here, here and here. In the war between two communist countries, Vietnam was backed by the Soviet Union and opposed by the Khmer Rouge’s top ally China.
16) Which country attacked Vietnam on February 17, 1979? The invading army struggled to make breakthroughs and pulled out in a month. Both Vietnam and the other country did not officially disclose casualties, though both claimed to have got the better of the exchanges.
China. More here, here, here, here and here. India’s then foreign minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee cut short his trip to China in protest over the Chinese invasion of Vietnam. Vajpayee’s trip was the highest-level Indian diplomatic visit to visit China after the two countries restored full ties in 1976.
17) The Left Front coalition led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was elected to power for the first time in India’s West Bengal state in 1977. Harrington Street, which housed the U.S. consulate in the regional capital Calcutta was renamed after whom? (to spite the U.S.)
Ho Chi Minh. Amar naam, tomar naam/ Vietnam, Vietnam (Your name, my name/ Vietnam, Vietnam) was a popular communist slogan in West Bengal.
Others have come up with similar tactics near embassies over the years. After the Islamic revolution of 1979, Winston Churchill Street in front of the British Embassy was renamed after Bobby Sands, an Irish Republican Army prisoner who starved himself to death in jail in the UK. In recent years, the U.S. renamed the street outside Russia's embassy complex after assassinated Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov. Several European cities have chosen pro-Ukraine themes to rename streets, squares and intersections in front of Russian missions.