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Ngo Din Diem’s government was unpopular with ordinary people in South Vietnam, and so it was no surprise when they began to give their support to an opposition organisation - the National Liberation Front, also known as the Vietcong.

• The Vietcong was aided and supplied by communist North Vietnam and its leader Ho Chi Minh.
• The Vietcong’s message of independence from foreign control and ending the concentration of land ownership among rich landlords made it popular with Vietnamese peasant farmers.
• Ngo Dinh Diem’s Strategic Hamlets policy had been introduced in 1962. It was meant to create ‘safe villages’, and was supposed to stop the Vietcong from getting their supplies and soldiers from villages. In practice, it meant destroying peasant villages near areas held by the Vietcong and forcefully relocating the people. This made him very unpopular with the ordinary people and may have increased support for the Vietcong.
• In 1959 Ho Chi Minh declared a war to overthrow the South Vietnamese government and unite Vietnam under communist rule with the support of the Vietcong.
• The Vietcong begin to fight a guerrilla war against the government of South Vietnam.