9781422287590

14 Vietnam Veterans Memorial

ment. At a special peace meeting in 1954, an agreement was reached to split Vietnam into two parts, with two separate governments. North Vietnam had a Communist government headed by Ho Chi Minh. South Vietnam had a government led by Ngo Dinh Diem, who had spent his whole life fighting against Communism . Eventually, the two parts of the country were to be joined together following an election to decide whether the government of the North or the government of the South would rule all of Vietnam. But the leaders of South Vietnam refused to participate in the elections. They felt that the Communist government of North Vietnam would not permit fair elections. It didn’t take long for trouble to begin. Many people

in South Vietnam did not like Diem’s gov-

During the 1950s and early 1960s, the United States supported the government of South Vietnam, which was con- trolled by Ngo Dinh Diem. The leader of the North Vietnamese government, Ho Chi Minh (left), was a communist, and it was U.S. policy to oppose the spread of communism.