Viet Cong Insurgency in South Vietnam 1956-1965

With American military advisory assistance, Premier Ngo Dinh Diem (1901-63) of South Vietnam (proclaimed as an independent republic after the French Indochina War of 1946-54) gained control of the army. When Diem refused to hold general elections in 1956 as promised, North Vietnam directed Viet Cong rebels (communist South Vietnamese insurgents) to begin a campaign of guerrilla warfare and terrorism to overthrow South Vietnam's regime. Diem's US-trained army proved generally ineffective against the tactics of the Viet Cong, who established the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam. US military aid increased in an effort to wipe out the Viet Cong; South Vietnam's "strategic hamlet program" was started in 1962 to resettle peasants in defended towns against the Viet Cong.

References

Dictionary of Wars, 523-4.

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