Politics in South Vietnam (aka the Republic of Vietnam) have long been overlooked in most English-language accounts of the Vietnam War, especially during the final years of the conflict. But the breakdown of the Saigon government’s legitimacy in the eyes of its own anti-Communist constituents during this period was decisive in determining the outcome of the war. This chapter explores the wave of anti-Communist solidarity that swept through South Vietnam’s cities and provincial towns following the 1968 Communist Tet Offensive. It analyzes the South Vietnamese state’s ambitious efforts to implement economic, agricultural, and political reforms. And it demonstrates that President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu’s bid to monopolize political power, following clashes with South Vietnam’s civilian parties and institutions, dealt a fatal blow to the establishment of legitimate anti-Communist government in the South. Thiệu’s autocratic turn betrayed the constitutional order on which the state’s authority was based, deflating post-Tet enthusiasm, accelerating American funding cuts, and precipitating South Vietnam’s collapse from within during the final Communist offensive in 1975. Drawing on newly available Vietnamese-language sources, the chapter examines the underappreciated impact of a diverse range of Vietnamese protagonists, who shaped the decisive political breakdown that brought the Vietnam War to its conclusion.

Hanoi entered into negotiations with Washington and Saigon in 1968–9, Chapter 4 explains, but merely to probe and sow division among its enemies. But then unsettling circumstances intervened, including the Sino-Soviet Border War of early 1969; the death a few months later of Ho Chi Minh, who, despite his lack of influence over communist decision-making, remained the venerable face of the Vietnamese struggle for reunification and independence and thus an important public relations tool; and, finally, Nixon’s decisions to “Vietnamize” the anticommunist war effort in the South and then to authorize incursions into Cambodia and Laos. The period 1969–71 was marked by uncertainty and indecisiveness as communist decision-makers reassessed their strategic priorities and placed greater emphasis on alternative modes of struggle. Concerned about potential diplomatic isolation and the loss of Soviet and Chinese support, Le Duan decided to go-for-broke once more. The 1972 Easter Offensive was an abject disaster. Hanoi then tried its luck at the bargaining table, resulting in the Paris peace agreement of 1973 and the suspension of the Fourth Civil War for Vietnam.

Chapter 4 relates the impact of the Americanization of the Fourth Civil War for Vietnam. Despite public claims to the contrary, Hanoi at that time had no desire to negotiate an end to the conflict; it was committed to “complete victory.” Nothing short of the surrender of its enemies was going to satisfy it. To meet that end, Le Duan’s regime relied heavily on political and material support from the Soviet Union and China, which was not always easy to obtain in light of the growing ideological dispute between the two. Mounting frustration with the course of the war eventually prompted Le Duan to order a major, months-long military campaign to break the stalemate and expedite victory: the Tet Offensive of 1968. Although it dealt the United States a major psychological blow, the three-staged offensive fell far short of meeting Le Duan’s own expectations. In fact, it energized the regime in Saigon and rallied the Southern population behind it to an unprecedented degree.

The United States pulled out the last of its combat troops from South Vietnam in March 1973. That ended the American War and completed the de-Americanization of the Fourth Civil War for Vietnam. Shortly after the signing of the Paris agreement, Hanoi resumed combat operations. The regime in Saigon, communist decision-makers publicly claimed, had failed to honor its side of the bargain, leaving them no choice. In 1974–5, Le Duan’s regime mounted yet another major campaign to bring about the collapse of its counterpart in the South. This time it calculated correctly, and its armies triumphed. Chapter 6 relates the rationale for Hanoi’s decision to proceed with the campaign, despite the possible resumption of US attacks against the North, and the reasons for its ultimate – and final – triumph on 30 April 1975.

Chapter 3 explains that Ho Chi Minh insisted on respecting the basic terms of the Geneva accords even as it became obvious that the rival regime headed by Ngo Dinh Diem in Saigon had no intention of doing the same. Ho’s passivity in the face of Diem’s actions shocked and dismayed some of his own followers, especially in the South. In 1959, Hanoi finally sanctioned insurgent activity below the Seventeenth Parallel, but under restricting guidelines because Ho feared provoking US intervention. His tentativeness alienated growing segments of partisans, including Le Duan, a rising star in the communist ranks. By 1963, the tension between Ho and other “doves,” on the one hand, and Le Duan and other “hawks,” who favored all-out war to “liberate” the South, on the other, had split the Vietnamese communist movement into two competing, rival wings. Following Diem’s overthrow in a coup abetted by the United States in early November 1963, Le Duan and his chief lieutenants staged a coup of their own in Hanoi. The new regime at once escalated hostilities in the South, resuming the Fourth Civil War for Vietnam and setting Hanoi on an irreversible collision course with the United States.

The epilogue explains that the resilience and stubbornness of Le Duan and other communist leaders hindered the country’s reconstruction and development after the Vietnamese Civil War finally ended. In the decade of life and leadership left for Le Duan, few positive changes took place in Vietnam. The 1978–9 incursion into Cambodia eliminated the Khmer Rouge threat, but the decade-long occupation of that country by Vietnamese forces that followed brought worldwide condemnation. Vietnam contained the Chinese incursion into its own territory in 1979, but anti-Chinese campaigns domestically prompted an exodus of tens of thousands of productive members of society. Through all this, Le Duan’s unwavering adherence to Stalinist principles of economic transformation hampered economic growth. His death in 1986 paved the way for Đổi mới, the “renovation” policy that introduced market reforms. It also set the stage for the normalization of diplomatic relations with the United States – and of life itself for average Vietnamese. Although Vietnam’s American War and Fourth Civil War have been over for nearly fifty years, the struggle for their memory continues.

Chapter 4 relates the impact of the Americanization of the Fourth Civil War for Vietnam. Despite public claims to the contrary, Hanoi at that time had no desire to negotiate an end to the conflict; it was committed to “complete victory.” Nothing short of the surrender of its enemies was going to satisfy it. To meet that end, Le Duan’s regime relied heavily on political and material support from the Soviet Union and China, which was not always easy to obtain in light of the growing ideological dispute between the two. Mounting frustration with the course of the war eventually prompted Le Duan to order a major, months-long military campaign to break the stalemate and expedite victory: the Tet Offensive of 1968. Although it dealt the United States a major psychological blow, the three-staged offensive fell far short of meeting Le Duan’s own expectations. In fact, it energized the regime in Saigon and rallied the Southern population behind it to an unprecedented degree.