Item COLD WAR 29/5 - Transcript of interview with General Vo Nguyen Giap, 1996

Typescript transcript of interview with Vietnamese Gen Vo Nguyen Giap, relating to the Vietnamese victory over the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, 1954; the Geneva peace conference between Vietnamese and French delegations to end the Indo-China War, 1954; the partition of Vietnam on the seventeenth parallel of latitude, 1954; the creation of the Viet Cong to oppose the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem, President of the Republic of Vietnam, 1960; the conflict in South Vietnam between President Diem's armed forces and the Viet Cong, 1960-1963; the creation of the Ho Chi Minh Trail as a supply line between North and South Vietnam, May 1959; the first deployment of US ground forces to Vietnam, 1965; the economic and military support given to North Vietnam by the USSR and the People's Republic of China, 1965-1975; the official visit by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai to Hanoi, North Vietnam, 1964; the belief that the Vietnam War was a proxy conflict between the superpowers, 1965-1975; the rumour that John Foster Dulles, US Secretary of State, 1953-1959, offered France US atomic bombs to use in Indo-China following the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, 1954; speculation on the possible use of US nuclear weapons in Vietnam, 1965-1975; the Battle of Khe Sanh, Jan-Apr 1968; the importance of the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the North Vietnamese war effort, 1959-1975; the Battles of Thanh mountain, Van Tuong and Na Trang, [1965]; the US bombing of North Vietnam, Mar 1965-Nov 1968, and 1972; the Tet offensive, Jan-Feb 1968; the Vietnamese victory against the USA and South Vietnamese forces in the Vietnam War, 1975; Giap's opinion of US Presidents Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1963-1969, and Richard Milhous Nixon, 1969-1974, and of Robert Strange McNamara, US Secretary of Defense, 1961-1968, and Dr Henry Alfred Kissinger, US Secretary of State, 1973-1977; the impact of the Vietnam War on the future foreign policy of the USA, 1975-1996. 38pp (two versions)