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In 1960, the oft-expressed optimism of the United States and the Government of South Vietnam that the Viet Cong were nearly defeated proved mistaken. Instead the Viet Cong became a growing threat and security forces attempted to cope with Viet Cong attacks, assassinations of local officials, and efforts to control villages and rural areas. Throughout the year, the U.S. struggled with the reality that much of the training it had provided to the South Vietnamese army (ARVN) during the previous five years had not been relevant to combating an insurgency. The U.S. changed its policy to allow the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) to begin providing anti-guerrilla training to ARVN and the paramilitary Civil Guard. President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam was faced with growing dissatisfaction with his government culminating in a coup d'état attempt by military officers in November. North Vietnam's support for the Viet Cong increased and in December the National Liberation Front (NLF) was created to carry on the struggle. Ostensibly a coalition of anti-Diem organizations, the NLF was largely under the control of North Vietnam's communist party. ==January== ; 4 January President Diem said to General Samuel Williams, the head of the MAAG in Saigon, that the counterinsurgency programs of his government had been successful and that "the Communists have now given up hope of controlling the countryside."〔Spector, Ronald L. ''United States Army in Vietnam: Advice and support: the early years, 1941-1960'' Washington: Superintendent of Documents, 1983, p. 335〕 ; 7 January General Williams said that "the internal security situation here now, although at times delicate, is better than it has been at any time in the last two or three years.〔Spector, pp. 334〕 ; 17 January – 26 February In what has been called "the start of the Vietnam War", the Viet Cong attacked and took temporary control of several districts in Kiến Hòa Province (now Bến Tre Province) in the Mekong Delta.〔Pringle, James, "Meanwhile: The quiet town where the Vietnam War began", ''The New York Times'', 223 March 2004〕 The Viet Cong set up "people's committees," and confiscated land from landlords and redistributed it to poor farmers. One of the leaders of the uprising was Madame Nguyễn Thị Định who led the all-female "Long Hair Army." Dinh was the secretary of the Bến Tre Communist Party and later a Viet Cong Major General.〔("Ben Tre Province" ), accessed 2 Dec 1963〕 Although the South Vietnamese army (ARVN) recaptured the villages, uprisings spread to many other areas of South Vietnam. The uprisings were spontaneous rather than reflecting the official policy of the Communist government in Hanoi which was that the Viet Cong's stance should be restrained and defensive, not offensive.〔Asselin, Pierre ''Hanoi's Road to the Vietnam War, 1954-1965'' Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013, p. 73〕 ; 26 January Two hundred Viet Cong guerrillas attacked the headquarters of the South Vietnamese 32nd regiment in Trang Sup village in Tây Ninh Province northeast of Saigon. The Viet Cong killed or wounded 66 soldiers and captured more than 500 weapons and a large quantity of ammunition. Later, a Viet Cong spokesman said that "the purpose of the attack was to launch the new phase of the conflict with a resounding victory and to show that the military defeat (the South Vietnamese Army ) was easy, not difficult." The attack shocked the Diệm government and its American advisers. An Embassy study group of the implications of the battle recommended that two divisions of the ARVN be trained in guerrilla warfare.〔Spector, p. 338〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「1960 in the Vietnam War」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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