Overall Learning Objectives
1. TO UNDERSTAND THE TWO PERVASIVE FALSE CLAIMS THAT HIDE THE REAL REASON FOR THE US-VIET NAM WAR, MISLEADING MANY VOTERS TO UNWITTINGLY SUPPORT SIMILAR FOREIGN POLICY THROUGH 2025.
2. TO DISCUSS THE EFFECTS OF THE GOV’T HAVING "DITCHED” THE PUBLIC FROM KNOWING REAL FACTS ABOUT FOREIGN POLICY. Understand that reason among six reasons for which the US public has failed to stop the nucleus of that destructive foreign poilcy from continuing worldwide.
3. FOR advanced high school classes, college classes, and adult forums and discussions, to APPLY VARIOUS ANALYTICAL LENSES TO A LARGE AMOUNT OF FACTS THAT ESTABLISH, TO A HIGH LEVEL OF PERSUASION, THAT THE REAL REASON FOR THE US-VIET NAM WAR WAS NOT TO FIGHT COMMUNISM, IT WAS TO CONTINUE THE 1865–1954 US BUSINESS IN VIET NAM THAT HAD BEEN ENABLED BY FORCE.
4. FOR advanced high school classes, college classes, and adult forums and discussions, discuss a May 30, 2025 impact on world knowledge of the truth that the US did an imperial invasion of Viet Nam, versus the insular destruction of truth within US borders, by US leaders’ false claims hiding the real reason for the US-Viet Nam War. In its April 30, 2025 celebration of its 1975 victory, Viet Nam stated that a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with the US is important, but that in the 1954–75 war, Viet Nam did defend against a US imperial invasion.
5. Understand how the famed Pentagon Papers (see below) (a) do not state the real reason for the war, and (b) misstate the duty of France to administer the south half of the single nation. For advanced high school classes, college classes, and adult forums and discussions, analyze the omissions and misstatements in the Pentagon Papers related to CIA drafting of some them while some CIA people were in the system of business expansion, often by force.
Teachers and discussion leaders are encouraged to use the following materials for leesson plans and further curriculum development.
Primary resources:
Roesch, B. (2025). Foreign Policy Fault Line 1619–2024, with US in Viet Nam 1865–1975.
Roesch, B. (2020).Corporate Tsunami in Countryside Paradise : 1875–1900 Origin of US War in Viet Nam.
US consul reports filed from Viet Nam 1889–1954. Declassified, available in US National Archives
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), website for high schools. NEH Vietnam War.
https://edsitement.neh.gov/vietnam-war-lesson-guide
Available in US through Interlibrary Loan:
Report on “Colonial Relationships.” Council on Foreign Relations (1946). “The Future Status of Indo-China as an Example of Postwar Colonial Relationships,” War and Peace Studies, T-B69. Council on Foreign Relations, The war and peace studies of the Council on ForRelations, 1939-1945.
Additional reports and memos among the 682 in the War and Peace Studies, 1939-1945.
https://briandroesch.substack.com/ Site title: Foreign Policy Fault Line to 2024 & Real Reason US-VN War
Learning Objective 1: To meet “guiding principles” of the National Council for the Social Studies which include: https://www.socialstudies.org/standards/c3
Inquiry is at the heart of social studies.
Social studies is composed of deep and enduring understandings, concepts, and skills from the disciplines. Social studies emphasizes skills and practices as preparation for democratic decision-making.
Learning Objective 2: Build analytical skills in reading for comparative meaning.
Learning Objective 4: Identify the false claims and the real reason for US-Viet Nam War.
A false claim asserts that a nation called “North Viet Nam” existed, which the US fought against. But no such nation ever existed. US leaders have never shown any document that created a “North Viet Nam,” because it has never been created. The 1954 Geneva Accords, Article 14(a) specifically gave France a temporary duty to administer the southern half, a south “regrouping zone” of the existing nation of Viet Nam. That existing nation was never changed. US ssoldiers occupied Sai Gon in 1954, but that was like a foreign power occuping New Orleans in the US. That would not change the US from being one country.
A false claim asserts that the US entered Viet Nam in 1954, presented as the US having a noble purpose to fight communism. But the US entered much earlier, during 1865–1954 for business expansion & resource use, enabled by French invasion violence.
Resources. a, US consul reports filed from Viet Nam 1889–1954. Other sources showing entry by 1865.
b. The two false claims dominate high school curriculum. For example, they appear in a leading website for high schools: National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).
https://edsitement.neh.gov/vietnam-war-lesson-guide
Learning Objective 5: Understand the extent of the false claims and their effect on US voters. The two false claims are pervasive in the US. They are in books, high school curriculum, colleges, universities, Youtube videos, and Wikipedia.
Learning activities. Examine various wordings of the two false claims, as they appear in nonfiction books in stores and libraries.
Examine the false claims in Youtube videos and Wikipedia on the origin ot the US-Viet Nam War.
Believing the false claim and thus supporting a false foreign policy into today, many people in the US exhibit what Un-American (2020), by Erik Edstrom, US veteran of Afghanistan combat, calls "lobotomized patriotism,"
FOR ONGOING LESSON PLANS, A TEACHER CURRICULUM GUIDE
Use the facts for regular high school classes, and the facts and Analytical Lenses for advanced high school classes, higher learning, and the public.
Teacher objectives for regular classes. To build lesson plans using the facts to establish the two false claims, the early US period, the non-existence of a “North Viet Nam,” how the US public was “ditched” from foreign policy facts, and the ongoing effects through 2024 of the public being misled by the false claims. tn this author’s 2025 book, these lenses and facts appear in detail on the false claim and its effect through 2024, . Origin of the false claim appears in the 2020 book.
Teacher objectives for advanced classes. To build lesson plans using the Analytical Lenses and Facts. This author’s 2020 book details the early period of the US in Viet Nam, the formation of a system for worldwide business, and the public being “ditched” from the facts. The 2025 book presents Analytical Lenses to examine in detail the real reson for the US-Viet Nam War and to compare it with assertions that US leaders had no imperial motive but were instead altruisticall fighting communism.
The Analytical Lenses for teaches include: Three-step Analysis for any nation or area (1) deletes thein this author’s 2025 book false claim of noble purpose in Viet Nam, thus ending its presumption that foreign policy today is noble, (2) illuminates real facts in to uncover the real US purpose, and (3) identifies Signature Techniques used against other nations, showing the common plan.
Each of 21 Facts in Chapter 8 individually makes it more likely that the real reason for the US-Viet Nam war was as stated above: US leaders attacked trying to continue the hidden early decades of business. Together, the 21 Facts are overwhelming evidence of that real reason.
Analytical Lens: A set of 21 Facts, with each individual fact being proof of the hidden, real reason for the US-Viet Nam War and its operation as the nucleus of false foreign policy today. Together, the 21 Facts provide overwhelming proof.
Selectdd facts from the 21 Facts are listed here. Teachers and groups discussing these matters may refer to this author’s two books for additional facts and discussion. For the connection today, his second book, Foreign Policy Fault Line. . . , presents many details that apply the Facts and Analytical Lenses. And, the author is available for consultation at roeschbd@gmail.com.
1. Starting in 1619, pre-US and US leaders built an economy partly depending on business expansion and use of resources by force, often gainst non-white people. This process has continued unabated during 1619–2024. Stolen from their lives in Africa, the first black slaves arrived in the US in 1619. By late in that century, a statute allowed dismemberment of a slave upon proper showing to the authorities. Brutality continued, with cotton picked by slaves becoming a key commodity in world trade that supported the US Industrial Revolution. But after the US Civil War, (a) from 18965 onward, brutality continued against black US citizens and (b) the US entered Viet Nam in 1865, enabled by brutality. The parallel pursuit of business expansion and use of resources abroad and in the US against non0white people has continued through 2024. Among many examples, the US military was expelled in 2024 from Niger for providing “security” for France as it paid 1/250th the value of uranium.
2. During the period 1865–1954, US businesses conducted business expansion and resource use in Viet Nam, enabled by French invasion murder. That activity amounted to theft, enabled by force. From 1889 onward, US consuls in Viet Nam sent regular reports to the US. Thousands of those reports have lain silent in the US National Archives. They are 100 percent proof of the occurrence of that hidden, early period. It was part of the process started in 1619.
3. In 1945, US leaders developed a lengthy series of reports targeting Viet Nam to be attacked to continue “Colonial Relationships” in a worldwide US system. Viet Nam was made a prime example for other nations not to try and break out of that system. This system was set up during 1939–45, 100 men of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) prepared, for the State Department, 682 reports and memos on economic control. The CFR consisted mostly of corporation people, many involved in decades of imperial resource control.
In this system, US leaders since 1945 have conducted or backed 100-plus coups, invasions, and destabilizations in the pursuit of business expansion, often by force.
4. Smoking guns. A 1943 smoking gun CFR memorandum calls to seize Viet Nam post-WWII to resume "Colonial Relationships."
A 1940 smoking gun memorandum calls "to secure the limitation of any exercise of sovereignty" where there is a threat to US "security and economic prosperity." [A claim to “American Exceptionalism” before the phrase was invented!]
5. “Ditched.” In the 1940s, CFR and State people said the whole project of the 682 papers would be “ditched” if the public found out that State was working with an outside group. So, they did not tell the public. To this day, US leaders make a false claim that hides the early business by force, the reports on attacking Viet Nam to keep it in “Colonial Relationships,” and the attack to make Viet Nam a prime example for other countries not to break ut of the US leaders’ system.
6. During 1953–54, US leaders started a coup attempt in Viet Nam and also did three coups against Brazil, Iran, Guatemala. Each was done to seize advantage for US corporations. Together, they are strong evidence that that was the real purpose of US foreign policy.
7. The business expansion by force motive originated before US leaders opposed communism, and it never abated. Fifty years before the 1917 Revolution in Russia, US business entered Viet Nan, enabled by brutality. US ships took rice, and by the 1880s Viet Nam suffered widespread malnutrition. The damage was known to US officials.
Being part of the method that started in 1619, the business in Viet Nam, enabled by violence, was a deep-seated method.
From the 1919 denial at Versailles of Viet Nam’s freedom, US leaders including John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles displayed open intent to keep Viet Nam as a colony, despite its repeated requests to end the invasion and have fair trade. Into the 1950s, the brothers persisted in the business expansion by force in Viet Nam. And, they represented Standard Oil’s Nelson Rockefeller. Standard Oil entered Viet Nam in the 1880s.
8 Pursuing “limitation of any exercise of sovereignty” where there is a threat to US “security and economic prosperity,” the NSC has done 100-plus coups, invasions, and destabilizations during 1945–2024. The total includes 26 or more coups and attempted coups during the 1945–75 US-Viet Nam War period. See, for example, coup list on William Blum webpage. An obvious part of those actions was the US-Viet Nam War.
9. The 1954 Geneva Accords gave France a duty to administer the southern half of the single nation of Viet Nam until elections in 1956. The Accords did not divide Viet Nam into two countries. No “North Viet Nam” has ever existed. No “South Viet Nam” existed until US leaders purported to create one in October 1955. But US leaders applied superpower pressure on France to depart. France departed in 1955. The US leaders’ pressure ended the French administration, thus breaking the operative provision of the 1954 Geneva Accords.
This pressure was identified and highlighted in 1967 by a Lawyers Committee on American Policy Towards Vietnam. That committee’s discussion is in Consultative Council. (1967). The Vietnam War and international law: The illegality of the United States military involvement (2d ed.). Flanders, N.J.: O’Hare Books, pp. 132, 139, 336. For teachers, students, and the public, this raises an area for disussion: In 2025, over 50 years after that action to break the Accords was identified during the war, US leaders still persist in the two false claims.
No other entity than France had a right to administer anything. But US leaders, illegally in Sai Gon, US illegally ordered “pacification” attacks. Thus US leaders started the US-Viet Nam War.
The US action was as if a nation invaded the US at New Orleans, putting soldiers in that city paid some collaborators, and claimed that made a “South Viet Nam” and a “North Viet Nam.” Over 90% of the US public would scoff. They would fight, defending the whole nation, the United States.
10. Upon the US defeat in 1975, the public did not know of the early imperial period, so the public did not blame US leaders for attacking to continue it in the Real Reason for the US-Viet Nam War. So, the NSC continued a Signature Technique of pursuing control for business expansion and access to resources, often by force. US leaders have backed coups in Africa but have “ditched” the US public from the facts. And—documented by authoritative US diplomats, writers, and academics—US leaders destabilized Eastern Europe after 1991 by extending NATO, then by backing two coups in Ukraine leading to civil war and the current Russian invasion. While Russia’s invasion is criminal, US leaders did the destabilization.
More Analytical Lenses
The Analytical lenses show that the false claim affects US foreign policy into today, A Three-step Analysis examines nine sample areas, such as Gaza. This lens removes the false claim of a noble effort in Viet Nam. In the new light, readers can examine facts that show the real purpose of US leaders.
A third lens is Signature Techniques that US leaders use worldwide. An overarching one is the 1619–2024 pursuit of US business expansion by force, often against non-white people. The hidden 1865–1954 period of US business expansion in Viet Nam, enabled by French force, occurred in that context. After France fell in defeat in 1954, US leaders attacked, trying to continue that business by force. That was the real reason for the US-Viet Nam War. That was in the overarching Signature Technique.
The vaunted Pentagon Papers on the reason for the war omit it, and they misstate France’s duty.
The Papers: (1) misstate the Geneva duty of France to administer, (2) the 1865–1954 US presence. (1) First, wording of Geneva Accords, Article 14(a): “Pending the general elections . . . the conduct of civil administration in each regrouping zone shall be in the hands of the party whose forces are to be regrouped there. . .” [meaning France in south zone].
But the Pentagon Papers says of Geneva, “And its GRANT OF VIETNAMESE TERRITORY above the seventeenth parallel to the communist Ho Chi Minh was a painful reminder . . . “. A. A Introduction: Post-Geneva. Expectations, p. 3. My comment: No GRANT was given. A grant is much different than temporary “conduct of civil administration" pending elections. Saying it was a grant is as if Geneva gave territory to someone. That never happened. The two parties, France and DRV were only to ADMINISTER, not own. And, no other party was even close to having anything granted.
The Pentagon Papers do say wording close to "administration": “France, the dominant Western power in the disputed area, and the Viet Minh were the designated executors of the Accords.” Book I, IIIB, p. B-1. But then the Papers discuss “State of Vietnam,” “South Vietnam” and Diem not agreeing with France running anything. And that the US backed those three. So, the Papers described a different process than Article 14(a) administration.
For, p. 40 end of this Section says: “Diem refused to associate South Vietnam openly with the ICC but did agree to· assume responsibility or its servicing if France would leave a small mission in Vietnam to fulf'ill French obligations. 158/ / DULLES LIKED THIS IDEA. HIS VIEW WAS: "WHILE WE SHOULD CERTAINLY TAKE NO POSITIVE STEP TO SPEED UP PRESENT PROCESS OF DECAY OF GENEVA ACCORDS, NEITHER SHOULD WE MAKE THE SLIGHTEST EFFORT TO INFUSE LIFE INTO THEM.”
(2) The Pentagon Papers do not mention the 1865–1954 US presence. The Pentagon Papers title says they cover 1945–67. They say nothing about the 1865–1954 US consuls & business in VN. Bk 2 does start 5 years before 1945: "1. A. U.S. Policy 1940–50.” They open with "I. Vietnam and the U.S., 1940-1950, p. A-3". This section does not mention the early period. It debates about communism and Pres. Roosevelt's anti-colonialism.
For Public to Regain Role of Guiding General Direction of Foreign Policy
Before World War II, the public participated in national debates on foreign policy. But In the 1940s, US leaders—setting up to attack Viet Nam as the prime example in a worldwide plan for economic control—said: “the whole plan would be ‘ditched’ if it became generally known that the State Department is working in collaboration with any outside group.” The public has remained “ditched” from its democratic role of guiding the general direction of foreign policy. Roesch, Brian D.. Corporate Tsunami in Countryside Paradise: 1875–1900 Origin of US War in Viet Nam, Chapter 17, Kindle Locations 1956–1972; Foreign Policy Fault Line, p. 147 (publication late April or early May 2025)
To regain the guidance role, voters could require the government to provide ample, truthful facts on foreign policy events and issues. This would require the government to partner with the public, rather than preventing the people from knowing. The public could set up, for example, a Voter Facts Commission. It could, for example, consist of five commissioners elected in the most recent presidential election, one from each of the five political parties whose members cast the most votes for president. Each commissioner would have an office and staff. Each commissioner would prepare a written report on foreign and domestic policy issues. From the five reports, the Commission would prepare and publish a written report for the public. Corporate Tsunami in Countryside Paradise: 1875–1900 Origin of US War in Viet Nam, pp. xxci, 42728, Kindle Locations 253, 4918–4984.
The Commission could require the government to provide information of the depth shown in Chapter 8 of Foreign Policy Fault Line. It demonstrates the real facts that show the real US purpose in nine nations and areas of ongoing foreign policy matters. Examples are Gaza, Africa, and climate change threatening future death to today’s young children.
Discussion Question. Should the Commission report provide equal space for each commissioner’s views? What are the pros and cons of equal space, versus more space for views of commissioners of the two major political parties, and less space for commissioners of the other three parties?
Discussion Question. Rather than a Voter Facts Commission, should voters require the U.S. Congress to provide the public with regular briefings of facts of the same depth, discussed above, that a Voter Facts Commission could require? Issues to discuss include:
How much control do voters have over their Congressional representatives?
How much are Congressional representatives responsive to major corporate donors, even as some major corporations have been behind the false foreign policy?
Should views of smaller political parties be presented> What about smaller parties that comment on life-and-death issues like global warming’s impending future death to increasingly higher numbers of today’s children, an issue on which the major political parties have reached political compromise even as no compromise is made by Nature as the global warming emergency increases?