I need to align differing narratives of the events in the early part of the war. I'm going to make some uniform timelines of the different readings. Hopefully I can line up the timelines and see how different parties report the same events.
I'm starting with Burchett. His writing is full of detailed accounts by participants and those near to the action: rural Vietnamese, tribal people, NLF cadre and officials.
Cause and effect of violence in Viet Nam
- (Burchett,1) 1954-1961. From this narrative, the leadership of the resistance against the French followed to the letter the Geneva accords while the carryover of the French-installed government did not. The new US backed replacement government took full advantage with a campaign of terror. This caused renewed organizing and eventually a violent reaction.
TIMELINE 1. Events in and around SAIGON
TIMELINE 2. Events in the Central Highlands
TIMELINE 3. Events among the tribes of the Central Highlands
Burchett sums up the situation over these early years after the Geneva Accords:
The war in South Vietnam has no starting point in time and space because it never started. It never started because it never stopped. All that happened was that after the withdrawal of the 140,000 Viet Minh and cadres to the north, a one-sided war continued against an unarmed people. A large part of the same military machine built up to serve the French with U.S. arms and dollars, was turned loose over vast areas of South Vietnam to wipe out the political resistance the French had never been able to crush and thus suppress at birth any potential resistance to the reactionary policies Diem was committed to pursue. (p128)Geographic areas referred to in the timeline:
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