was to be a thirty year struggle. The Indochina ceasefire
             agreement (Geneva Accords) of July 21, 1954 led to the creation of
             seperate states in Laos and Cambodia, and the artificial division of
             Vietnam into two republics. In the North the Communist Viet Minh
             established the democratic of Vietnam, and in the south a random
             collection of non - Communist factions, led by Ngo Dinh Diem, formed
             the Republic of Vietnam. The general elections provided for by the
             agreement never took place, and the two states quickly drew apart.
             The United States immediatly threw its support behind the southern
             regime and extended military aid through a Military Assiezce
             Advisory Group (MAAG) under the command of Lt. General John W.
             American objectives in South Vietnam were reletively simple and
             remained so -- the establishment and preservation of a non - Communist
             government in South Vietnam. Initally, the most pressing problem
             was the weakness of the Saigon government and the danger of cival war
             between South Vietnam's armed religious and political factions. Diem,
             however, acting as a kind of benevolent dictator, managed to put a
             working government together, and O'Daniel's advisory group, about
             three or four hundred people, went to work creating a national army.
             Slowly, under the direction of O'Daniel and his successor in October
             1955, Lt. General Samuel T. Williams, the new army took shape. The
             primary mission of this 150,000 man force was to repel a North
             Vietnamese invasion across the Demilitarised zone that seperated North
             and South Vietnam. Diem and his American advisors thus organised and
             trained the new army for a Korean - style conflict, rather than
             for the unconventional guerrilla warfare that had characterised the
             earlier French - Viet Minh struggle. President Minh also maintained a
             subeztial paramilitary force almost as large as the regular army.
             This...