Fire in the lake - Sovereign of discord

January 1961, South Vietnam: A month earlier, in Tay Ninh Province, bands of communist cadres, uprising peasants, and other armed groups formed the unified “National Liberation Front” insurgency against the Saigon Regime, an insurgency now more commonly known as the Viet Cong. After the passing of Resolution 15 in North Vietnam, assistance is flowing south, although the amount of assistance is hotly debated between Moderates and Militants of the Politburo in Hanoi.

The National Liberation Front’s opponent, the South Vietnamese government under President Ngo Dinh Diem, is intensely hunting both communist cadres and any enemies of the regime. In November of the previous year, Diem only narrowly outmaneuvered a coup by his own Airborne units and now faces rising violence in the countryside. A new US president, John F. Kennedy, assumes office facing a number of Cold War crises. There are currently 600 American personnel in South Vietnam, and the showdown is about to begin.