text:
Viet Cong
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
"Vietcong" redirects here. For the video game, see Vietcong (video game). For the Canadian rock band formerly known as Viet Cong, see Preoccupations. For their self-titled album under the name, see Viet Cong (album).
Việt Cộng
Participant in the Vietnam War
The flag of the Viet Cong, adopted in 1960, is a variation on the flag of North Vietnam.[1]
Active
21 July 1954 – 2 July 1976
Ideology
Communism
Marxism–Leninism
Left-wing nationalism
Vietnamese nationalism
Ho Chi Minh Thought
Anti-imperialism
Anti-revisionism
Groups
National Liberation Front for Southern Vietnam
Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (PRG)
People's Liberation Armed Forces of South Vietnam (PLAF)
Alliance of National Democratic and Peace Forces
Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN)
Leaders
PLAF Commander
Nguyễn Hữu Xuyến (1961–63)
Trần Văn Trà (1963–67, 1973–75)
Hoàng Văn Thái (1967–73)
COSVN Party Secretary
Nguyễn Văn Linh (1961–64)
Nguyễn Chí Thanh (1964–67)
Phạm Hùng (1967–75)
NLF[2]
Nguyễn Hữu Thọ, chairman
Huỳnh Tấn Phát, vice-chairman[3]
Phung Van Cung, vice-chairman
Võ Chí Công, vice-chairman
PRG
Nguyễn Hữu Thọ, president
Huỳnh Tấn Phát, prime minister
Mme Nguyễn Thị Bình, foreign minister
Trần Nam Trung,[4] defense minister
Trương Như Tảng, justice minister[5]
Headquarters
Mimot (Memot), Cambodia (1966–72)
Lộc Ninh, South Vietnam (1972–75)
Area of operations
Indochina, with a focus on South Vietnam
Originated as
Viet Minh
Became
Vietnam Fatherland Front
Allies
North Vietnam, Soviet Union, China
Opponents
South Vietnam
United States
United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races (FULRO)
Battles and wars
See full list
The Việt Cộng (Vietnamese: [vîət kə̂wŋmˀ] ( listen)), also known as the National Liberation Front, was a communist political organization in South Vietnam with its own army – the People's Liberation Armed Forces of South Vietnam (PLAF) – in South Vietnam and Cambodia that fought against the United States and South Vietnamese governments during the Vietnam War, eventually emerging on the winning side. It had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized peasants in the territory it controlled. Many soldiers were recruited in South Vietnam, but others were attached to the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), the regular North Vietnamese army. During the war, communists and anti-war activists insisted the Việt Cộng was an insurgency indigenous to the South, while the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments portrayed the group as a tool of Hanoi. Although the terminology distinguishes northerners from the southerners, communist forces were under a single command structure set up in 1958.[6]
North Vietnam established the National Liberation Front on December 20, 1960, to foment insurgency in the South. Many of the Việt Cộng's core members were volunteer "regroupees", southern Việt Minh who had resettled in the North after the Geneva Accord (1954). Hanoi gave the regroupees military training and sent them back to the South along the Ho Chi Minh trail in the early 1960s. The NLF called for southern Vietnamese to "overthrow the camouflaged colonial regime of the American imperialists" and to make "efforts toward the peaceful unification". The PLAF's best-known action was the Tet Offensive, a gigantic assault on more than 100 South Vietnamese urban centers in 1968, including an attack on the U.S. embassy in Saigon. The offensive riveted the attention of the world's media for weeks, but also overextended the Việt Cộng. Later communist offensives were conducted predominantly by the North Vietnamese. The organization was dissolved in 1976 when North and South Vietnam were officially unified under a communist government.
Contents
[hide]
1 Names
2 History
2.1 Origin
2.2 Launches "armed struggle"
2.3 Logistics and equipment
2.4 Tet Offensive
2.5 Vietnamization
2.6 Fall of Saigon
3 Relationship with Hanoi
4 See also
5 Notes
6 References
7 Further reading
8 External links
Names
Guerrilla forces from North Vietnam's Vietcong movement cross a river in 1966 during the Vietnam War
The term Việt Cộng appeared in Saigon newspapers beginning in 1956.[7] It is a contraction of Việt Nam Cộng-sản (Vietnamese communist),[7] or alternatively Việt gian cộng sản ("Communist Traitor to Vietnam").[8] The earliest citation for Việt Cộng in English is from 1957.[9] American soldiers referred to the Việt Cộng as Victor Charlie or V-C. "Victor" and "Charlie" are both letters in the NATO phonetic alphabet. "Charlie" referred to communist forces in general, both Việt Cộng and North Vietnamese.
The official Vietnamese history gives the group's name as the Liberation Army of South Vietnam or the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam (NLFSV; Mặt trận Dân tộc Giải phóng miền Nam Việt Nam).[6][nb 1] Many writers shorten this to National Liberation Front (NLF).[nb 2] In 1969, the Việt Cộng created the "Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam" (Chính Phủ Cách Mạng Lâm Thời Cộng Hòa Miền Nam Việt Nam), abbreviated PRG.[nb 3] Although the NLF was not officially abolished until 1977, the Việt Cộng no longer used the name after PRG was created. Members generally referred to the Việt Cộng as "the Front" (Mặt trận).[7] Today's Vietnamese media most frequently refers to the group as the "People's Liberation Armed Forces of South Vietnam (PLAF)" (Quân Giải phóng Miền Nam Việt Nam).[10]
History
Origin
Soldiers and civilians took supplies south on the Ho Chi Minh trail (1959)
By the terms of the Geneva Accord (1954), which ended the Indochina War, France and the Việt Minh agreed to a truce and to a separation of forces. The Việt Minh had become the government of Democratic Republic of Vietnam since the Vietnamese 1946 general election, and military forces of the communists regrouped there. Military forces of the non-communists regrouped in South Vietnam, which became a separate state. Elections on reunification were scheduled for July 1956. A divided Vietnam angered Vietnamese nationalists, but it made the country less of a threat to China. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the past and Vietnam in the present did not and do not recognize the division of Vietnam into two countries. Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai negotiated the terms of the ceasefire with France and then imposed them on the Việt Minh.
About 90,000 Việt Minh were evacuated to the North while 5,000 to 10,000 cadre remained in the South, most of them with orders to refocus on political activity and agitation.[7] The Saigon-Cholon Peace Committee, the first Việt Cộng front, was founded in 1954 to provide leadership for this group.[7] Other front names used by the Việt Cộng in the 1950s implied that members were fighting for religious causes, for example, "Executive Committee of the Fatherland Front", which suggested affiliation with the Hòa Hảo sect, or "Vietnam-Cambodia Buddhist Association".[7] Front groups were favored by the Việt Cộng to such an extent that its real leadership remained shadowy until long after the war was over, prompting the expression "the faceless Việt Cộng".[7]
Situation of the Communist forces in South Vietnam in early 1964
Led by Ngô Đình Diệm, South Vietnam refused to sign the Geneva Accord. Arguing that a free election was impossible under the conditions that existed in communist-held territory, Diệm announced in July 1955 that the scheduled election on reunification would not be held. After subduing the Bình Xuyên organized crime gang in the Battle for Saigon in 1955, and the Hòa Hảo and other militant religious sects in early 1956, Diệm turned his attention to the Việt Cộng.[11] Within a few months, the Việt Cộng had been driven into remote swamps.[12] The success of this campaign inspired U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower to dub Diệm the "miracle man" when he visited the U.S. in May 1957.[12] France withdrew its last soldiers from Vietnam in April 1956.[13]
In March 1956, southern communist leader Lê Duẩn presented a plan to revive the insurgency entitled "The Road to the South" to the other members of the Politburo in Hanoi.[14] He argued adamantly that war with the United States was necessary to achieve unification.[15] But as China and the Soviets both opposed confrontation at this time, Lê Duẩn's plan was rejected and communists in the South were ordered to limit themselves to economic struggle.[14] Leadership divided into a "North first", or pro-Beijing, faction led by Trường Chinh, and a "South first" faction led by Lê Duẩn.
As the Sino-Soviet split widened in the following months, Hanoi began to play the two communist giants off against each other. The North Vietnamese leadership approved tentative measures to revive the southern insurgency in December 1956.[16] Lê Duẩn's blueprint for revolution in the South was approved in principle, but implementation was conditional on winning international support and on modernizing the army, which was expected to take at least until 1959.[17] President Hồ Chí Minh stressed that violence was still a last resort.[18] Nguyễn Hữu Xuyên was assigned military command in the South,[19] replacing Lê Duẩn, who was appointed North Vietnam's acting party boss. This represented a loss of power for Hồ, who preferred the more moderate Võ Nguyên Giáp, who was defense minister.[15]
This 23-year-old man, who had defected from the Communist forces and joined the South Vietnam Government side, was recaptured by the Việt Cộng and spent a month in a Việt Cộng internment camp, 1966.
An assassination campaign, referred to as "extermination of traitors" [20] or "armed propaganda" in communist literature, began in April 1957. Tales of sensational murder and mayhem soon crowded the headlines.[7] Seventeen civilians were killed by machine gun fire at a bar in Châu Đốc in July and in September a district chief was killed with his entire family on a main highway in broad daylight.[7] In October 1957, a series of bombs exploded in Saigon and left 13 Americans wounded.[7]
In a speech given on September 2, 1957, Hồ reiterated the "North first" line of economic struggle.[21] The launch of Sputnik in October boosted Soviet confidence and led to a reassessment of policy regarding Indochina, long treated as a Chinese sphere of influence. In November, Hồ traveled to Moscow with Lê Duẩn and gained approval for a more militant line.[22] In early 1958, Lê Duẩn met with the leaders of "Inter-zone V" (northern South Vietnam) and ordered the establishment of patrols and safe areas to provide logistical support for activity in the Mekong Delta and in urban areas.[22] In June 1958, the Việt Cộng created a command structure for the eastern Mekong Delta.[23] French scholar Bernard Fall published an influential article in July 1958 which analyzed the pattern of rising violence and concluded that a new war had begun.[7]
Launches "armed struggle"
The North Vietnamese Communist Party approved a "people's war" on the South at a session in January 1959 and this decision was confirmed by the Politburo in March.[13] In May 1959, Group 559 was established to maintain and upgrade the Ho Chi Minh trail, at this time a six-month mountain trek through Laos. About 500 of the "regroupees" of 1954 were sent south on the trail during its first year of operation.[24] The first arms delivery via the trail, a few dozen rifles, was completed in August 1959.[25]
Two regional command centers were merged to create the Central Office for South Vietnam (Trung ương Cục miền Nam), a unified communist party headquarters for the South.[13] COSVN was initially located in Tây Ninh Province near the Cambodian border. On July 8, the Việt Cộng killed two U.S. military advisors at Biên Hòa, the first American dead of the Vietnam War.[nb 4] The "2d Liberation Battalion" ambushed two companies of South Vietnamese soldiers in September 1959, the first large unit military action of the war.[7] This was considered the beginning of the "armed struggle" in communist accounts.[7] A series of uprisings beginning in the Mekong Delta province of Bến Tre in January 1960 created "liberated zones", models of Việt Cộng-style government. Propagandists celebrated their creation of battalions of "long-hair troops" (women).[26] The fiery declarations of 1959 were followed by a lull while Hanoi focused on events in Laos (1960–61).[27] Moscow favored reducing international tensions in 1960, as it was election year for the U.S. presidency.[nb 5] Despite this, 1960 was a year of unrest in South Vietnam, with pro-democracy demonstrations inspired by the South Korean student uprising that year and a failed military coup in November.[7]
Brinks Hotel, Saigon, following a Việt Cộng bombing on Dec. 24, 1964. Two American officers were killed.
To counter the accusation that North Vietnam was violating the Geneva Accord, the independence of the Việt Cộng was stressed in communist propaganda. The Việt Cộng created the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam in December 1960 at Tân Lập village in Tây Ninh as a "united front", or political branch intended to encourage the participation of non-communists.[28] The group's formation was announced by Radio Hanoi and its ten-point manifesto called for, "overthrow the disguised colonial regime of the imperialists and the dictatorial administration, and to form a national and democratic coalition administration."[7] Thọ, a lawyer and the NLF's "neutralist" chairman, was an isolated figure among cadres and soldiers. South Vietnam's Law 10/59, approved in May 1959, authorized the death penalty for crimes "against the security of the state" and featured prominently in Việt Cộng propaganda.[29] Violence between the Việt Cộng and government forces soon increased drastically from 180 clashes in January 1960 to 545 clashes in September.[30][31]
By 1960, the Sino-Soviet split was a public rivalry, making China more supportive of Hanoi's war effort.[32] For Chinese leader Mao Zedong, aid to North Vietnam was a way to enhance his "anti-imperialist" credentials for both domestic and international audiences.[33] About 40,000 communist soldiers infiltrated the South in 1961–63.[34] The Việt Cộng grew rapidly; an estimated 300,000 members were enrolled in "liberation associations" (affiliated groups) by early 1962.[7] The ratio of Việt Cộng to government soldiers jumped from 1:10 in 1961 to 1:5 a year later.[35]
A Việt Cộng prisoner captured in 1967 by the U.S. Army awaits interrogation.
The level of violence in the South jumped dramatically in the fall of 1961, from 50 guerrilla attacks in September to 150 in October.[36] U.S President John F. Kennedy decided in November 1961 to substantially increase American military aid to South Vietnam.[37] The USS Core arrived in Saigon with 35 helicopters in December 1961. By mid-1962, there were 12,000 U.S. military advisors in Vietnam.[38] The "special war" and "strategic hamlets" policies allowed Saigon to push back in 1962, but in 1963 the Việt Cộng regained the military initiative.[35] The Việt Cộng won its first military victory against South Vietnamese forces at Ấp Bắc in January 1963.
A landmark party meeting was held in December 1963, shortly after a military coup in Saigon in which Diệm was assassinated. North Vietnamese leaders debated the issue of "quick victory" vs "protracted war" (guerrilla warfare).[39] After this meeting, the communist side geared up for a maximum military effort and PAVN troop strength increased from 174,000 at the end of 1963 to 300,000 in 1964.[39] The Soviets cut aid in 1964 as an expression of annoyance with Hanoi's ties to China.[40][nb 6] Even as Hanoi embraced China's international line, it continued to follow the Soviet model of reliance on technical specialists and bureaucratic management, as opposed to mass mobilization.[40] The winter of 1964–1965 was a high-water mark for the Việt Cộng, with the Saigon government on the verge of collapse.[41] Soviet aid soared following a visit to Hanoi by Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin in February 1965.[42] Hanoi was soon receiving up-to-date surface-to-air missiles.[42] The U.S. would have 200,000 soldiers in South Vietnam by the end of the year.[43]
U.S. Air Force Douglas A-1E Skyraider drops a white phosphorus bomb on a Việt Cộng position in South Vietnam in 1966.
In January 1966, Australian troops uncovered a tunnel complex which had been used by COSVN.[44] Six thousand documents were captured, revealing the inner workings of the Việt Cộng. COSVN retreated to Mimot in Cambodia. As a result of an agreement with the Cambodian government made in 1966, weapons for the Việt Cộng were shipped to the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville and then trucked to Việt Cộng bases near the border along the "Sihanouk Trail", which replaced the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Many People's Liberation Armed Forces of South Vietnam (PLAF) units operated at night,[45] and employed terror as a standard tactic.[46] Rice procured at gunpoint sustained the Việt Cộng.[47] Squads were assigned monthly assassination quotas.[48] Government employees, especially village and district heads, were the most common targets. But there were a wide variety of targets, including clinics and medical personnel.[49] Notable Việt Cộng atrocities include the massacre of over 3,000 unarmed civilians at Huế, 48 killed in the bombing of My Canh floating restaurant in Saigon in June 1965[50] and a massacre of 252 Montagnards in the village of Đắk Sơn in December 1967 using flamethrowers.[51] Việt Cộng death squads assassinated at least 37,000 civilians in South Vietnam; the real figure was far higher since the data mostly cover 1967-72. They also waged a mass murder campaign against civilian hamlets and refugee camps; in the peak war years, nearly a third of all civilian deaths were the result of Việt Cộng atrocities.[52] Ami Pedahzur has written that "the overall volume and lethality of Vietcong terrorism rivals or exceeds all but a handful of terrorist campaigns waged over the last third of the twentieth century".[53]
Logistics and equipment
Main article: Viet Cong and PAVN logistics and equipment
Việt Cộng soldier stands beneath a Việt Cộng flag carrying his AK-47 rifle.
Tet Offensive
General Hoàng Văn Thái, Việt Cộng leader during the time the U.S army took part in the Vietnam War from 1967 to 1973, also Tet Offensive main leader. From 1973 to 1975, he returned to the North in charge of making plans leading to the fall of Saigon in 1975.
Major reversals in 1966 and 1967, as well as the growing American presence in Vietnam, inspired Hanoi to consult its allies and reassess strategy in April 1967. While Beijing urged a fight to the finish, Moscow suggested a negotiated settlement.[54] Convinced that 1968 could be the last chance for decisive victory, General Nguyễn Chí Thanh, suggested an all-out offensive against urban centers.[55][nb 7] He submitted a plan to Hanoi in May 1967.[55] After Thanh's death in July, Giáp was assigned to implement this plan, now known as the Tet Offensive. The Parrot's Beak, an area in Cambodia only 30 miles from Saigon, was prepared as a base of operations.[56] Funeral processions were used to smuggle weapons into Saigon.[56] Việt Cộng entered the cities concealed among civilians returning home for Tết.[56] The U.S. and South Vietnamese expected that an announced seven-day truce would be observed during Vietnam's main holiday.
A U.S. propaganda leaflet urges Việt Cộng to defect using the Chiêu Hồi Program.
At this point, there were about 500,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam,[43] as well as 900,000 allied forces.[56] General William Westmoreland, the U.S. commander, received reports of heavy troop movements and understood that an offensive was being planned, but his attention was focused on Khe Sanh, a remote U.S. base near the DMZ.[57] In January and February 1968, some 80,000 Việt Cộng struck more than 100 towns with orders to "crack the sky" and "shake the Earth."[58] The offensive included a commando raid on the U.S. Embassy in Saigon and a massacre at Huế of about 3,500 residents.[59] House-to-house fighting between Việt Cộng and South Vietnamese Rangers left much of Cholon, a section of Saigon, in ruins. The Việt Cộng used any available tactic to demoralize and intimidate the population, including the assassination of South Vietnamese commanders.[60] A photo by Eddie Adams showing the summary execution of a Việt Cộng in Saigon on February 1 became a symbol of the brutality of the war.[61] In an influential broadcast on February 27, newsman Walter Cronkite stated that the war was a "stalemate" and could be ended only by negotiation.[62]
The offensive was undertaken in the hope of triggering a general uprising, but urban Vietnamese did not respond as the Việt Cộng anticipated. About 75,000 communist soldiers were killed or wounded, according to Trần Văn Trà, commander of the "B-2" district, which consisted of southern South Vietnam.[63] "We did not base ourselves on scientific calculation or a careful weighing of all factors, but...on an illusion based on our subjective desires", Trà concluded.[64] Earle G. Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, estimated that Tet resulted in 40,000 communist dead[65] (compared to about 10,600 U.S. and South Vietnamese dead). "It is a major irony of the Vietnam War that our propaganda transformed this debacle into a brilliant victory. The truth was that Tet cost us half our forces. Our losses were so immense that we were unable to replace them with new recruits", said PRG Justice Minister Trương Như Tảng.[65] Tet had a profound psychological impact because South Vietnamese cities were otherwise safe areas during the war.[66] U.S. President Lyndon Johnson and Westmoreland argued that panicky news coverage gave the public the unfair perception that America had been defeated.[67]
Aside from some districts in the Mekong Delta, the Việt Cộng failed to create a governing apparatus in South Vietnam following Tet, according to an assessment of captured documents by the U.S. CIA.[68] The breakup of larger Việt Cộng units increased the effectiveness of the CIA's Phoenix Program (1967–72), which targeted individual leaders, as well as the Chiêu Hồi Program, which encouraged defections. By the end of 1969, there was little communist-held territory, or "liberated zones", in South Vietnam, according to the official communist military history.[69] There were no predominantly southern units left and 70 percent of communist troops in the South were northerners.[70]
The Việt Cộng created an urban front in 1968 called the Alliance of National, Democratic, and Peace Forces.[71] The group's manifesto called for an independent, non-aligned South Vietnam and stated that "national reunification cannot be achieved overnight."[71] In June 1969, the alliance merged with the NLF to form a "Provisional Revolutionary Government." (PRG)
Vietnamization
The Tet Offensive increased public discontent with American participation in the Vietnam War and led the U.S. to gradually withdraw combat forces and to shift responsibility to the South Vietnamese, a process called Vietnamization. Pushed into Cambodia, the Việt Cộng could no longer draw South Vietnamese recruits.[70] In May 1968, Trường Chinh urged "protracted war" in a speech that was published prominently in the official media, so the fortunes of his "North first" fraction may have revived at this time.[72] COSVN rejected this view as "lacking resolution and absolute determination."[73] The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 led to intense Sino-Soviet tension and to the withdrawal of Chinese forces from North Vietnam. Beginning in February 1970, Lê Duẩn's prominence in the official media increased, suggesting that he was again top leader and had regained the upper hand in his longstanding rivalry with Trường Chinh.[74] After the overthrow of Prince Sihanouk in March 1970, the Việt Cộng faced a hostile Cambodian government which authorized a U.S. offensive against its bases in April. However, the capture of the Plain of Jars and other territory in Laos, as well as five provinces in northeastern Cambodia, allowed the North Vietnamese to reopen the Ho Chi Minh trail.[75] Although 1970 was a much better year for the Việt Cộng than 1969,[75] it would never again be more than an adjunct to the PAVN. The 1972 Easter Offensive was a direct North Vietnamese attack across the DMZ between North and South.[76] Despite the Paris Peace Accords, signed by all parties in January 1973, fighting continued. In March, Trà was recalled to Hanoi for a series of meetings to hammer out a plan for an enormous offense against Saigon.[77]
Việt Cộng soldiers carry an injured American POW to a prisoner swap in 1972. The VC uniform was a floppy jungle hat, rubber sandals, and green fatigues without rank or insignia.[78]
Fall of Saigon
For the full article, see Fall of Saigon.
In response to the anti-war movement, the U.S. Congress passed the Case–Church Amendment to prohibit further U.S. military intervention in Vietnam in June 1973 and reduced aid to South Vietnam in August 1974.[79] With U.S. bombing ended, communist logistical preparations could be accelerated. An oil pipeline was built from North Vietnam to Việt Cộng headquarters in Lộc Ninh, about 75 miles northwest of Saigon. (COSVN was moved back to South Vietnam following the Easter Offensive.) The Ho Chi Minh Trail, beginning as a series of treacherous mountain tracks at the start of the war, was upgraded throughout the war, first into a road network driveable by trucks in the dry season, and finally, into paved, all-weather roads that could be used year-round, even during the monsoon.[80] Between the beginning of 1974 and April 1975, with now-excellent roads and no fear of air interdiction, the communists delivered nearly 365,000 tons of war matériel to battlefields, 2.6 times the total for the previous 13 years.[69]
The success of the 1973–74 dry season offensive convinced Hanoi to accelerate its timetable. When there was no U.S. response to a successful communist attack on Phước Bình in January 1975, South Vietnamese morale collapsed. The next major battle, at Buôn Ma Thuột in March, was a communist walkover. After the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, the PRG moved into government offices there. At the victory parade, Tạng noticed that the units formerly dominated by southerners were missing, replaced by northerners years earlier.[70] The bureaucracy of the Republic of Vietnam was uprooted and authority over the South was assigned to the PAVN. People considered tainted by association with the former South Vietnamese government were sent to reeducation camps, despite the protests of the non-communist PRG members including Tạng.[81] Without consulting the PRG, North Vietnamese leaders decided to rapidly dissolve the PRG at a party meeting in August 1975.[82] North and South were merged as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in July 1976 and the PRG was dissolved. The NLF was merged with the Vietnamese Fatherland Front in February 1977.[81]
Relationship with Hanoi
The alleged 1966 martyrdom of Việt Cộng soldier Nguyễn Văn Bé is much celebrated in Vietnam, despite the fact that he later turned up alive.[83]
Activists opposing American involvement in Vietnam said that the Việt Cộng was a nationalist insurgency indigenous to the South.[84] They claimed that the Việt Cộng was composed of several parties—the People's Revolutionary Party, the Democratic Party and the Radical Socialist Party[2]—and that NLF Chairman Nguyễn Hữu Thọ was not a communist.[85]
Anti-communists countered that the Việt Cộng was merely a front for Hanoi.[84] They said some statements issued by communist leaders in the 1980s and 1990s suggested that southern communist forces were influenced by Hanoi.[84] According to the memoirs of Trần Văn Trà, the Việt Cộng's top commander and PRG defense minister, he followed orders issued by the "Military Commission of the Party Central Committee" in Hanoi, which in turn implemented resolutions of the Politburo.[nb 8] Trà himself was deputy chief of staff for the PAVN before being assigned to the South.[86] The official Vietnamese history of the war states that "The Liberation Army of South Vietnam [Việt Cộng] is a part of the People's Army of Vietnam".[6]
See also
Viet Cong and PAVN strategy, organization and structure
Viet Cong and PAVN battle tactics
Kit Carson Scouts, former Việt Cộng who worked with U.S. Marines
Vietnam People's Army, the North Vietnamese army.
Notes
Jump up ^ Radio Hanoi called it the "National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam" in a January 1961 broadcast announcing the group's formation. In his memoirs, Võ Nguyên Giáp called the group the "South Vietnam National Liberation Front" ( Nguyên Giáp Võ, Russell Stetler (1970). The Military Art of People's War: Selected Writings of General Vo Nguyen Giap. pp. 206, 208, 210. ). See also the "Program of the National Liberation Front of South Viet-Nam". Archived from the original on 2010-06-26. (1967).
Jump up ^ The terminology "liberation front" is adapted from the earlier Greek and Algerian National Liberation Fronts.
Jump up ^ This also follows terminology used earlier by leftists in Greece (Provisional Democratic Government) and Algeria (Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic).
Jump up ^ Major Dale R. Buis and Master Sergeant Charles Ovnand, the first names to appear on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Jump up ^ This is sometimes referred to as the "Genoa Policy" and later inspired Khrushchev to take credit for Kennedy's election.( Lynn-Jones, Sean M.; Steven E. Miller; Stephen Van Evera (1989). Soviet Military Policy: An International Security Reader. p. 28. ISBN 0-262-62066-9. )
Jump up ^ There was also a U.S. presidential election in 1964.
Jump up ^ Disappointed with the results of the 1964 U.S. presidential election, the Kremlin did not try to influence the election of 1968. Desiring "businesslike" relations, the Kremlin favored incumbent Richard Nixon against left-wing challenger George McGovern in 1972. (Lynn-Jones, p. 29).
Jump up ^ Trà begins, "How did the B2 theater carry out the mission assigned it by the Military Commission of the Party Central Committee?" ( Trần Văn Trà (1982), Vietnam: History of the Bulwark B2 Theatre, archived from the original on 2011-06-02 )
References
Jump up ^ "National Liberation Front (Viet Cong)".
^ Jump up to: a b Burchett, Wilfred (1963): "Liberation Front: Formation of the NLF", The Furtive War, International Publishers, New York.
Jump up ^ Also general secretary.
Jump up ^ Possibly a pseudonym for Trần Văn Trà. "Man in the News: Lt.-Gen. Tran Van Tra". February 2, 1973. Archived from the original on August 23, 2009.
Jump up ^ Bolt, Dr. Ernest. "Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (1969–1975)". University of Richmond.
^ Jump up to: a b c Military History Institute of Vietnam,(2002) Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People's Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975, translated by Merle L. Pribbenow. University Press of Kansas. p. 68. ISBN 0-7006-1175-4.
^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p "Origins of the Insurgency in South Vietnam, 1954–1960". The Pentagon Papers. 1971. pp. 242–314.
Jump up ^ William S. Turley (2009). The second Indochina War: a concise political and military history. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. xiv. ISBN 978-0-7425-5526-6.
Jump up ^ "Viet Cong", Oxford English Dictionary
Jump up ^ See, for example, this story in Viet Nam News, the official English-language newspaper.
Jump up ^ Karnow, p. 238.
^ Jump up to: a b Karnow, p. 245.
^ Jump up to: a b c "The History Place — Vietnam War 1945–1960". Retrieved 2008-06-11.
^ Jump up to: a b Ang, Cheng Guan (2002). The Vietnam War from the Other Side. RoutledgeCurzon. p. 16. ISBN 0-7007-1615-7.
^ Jump up to: a b Ang, p. 21
Jump up ^ Olson, James; Randy Roberts (1991). "Where the Domino Fell: America and Vietnam, 1945–1990". New York: St. Martin's Press: 67. This decision was made at the 11th Plenary Session of the Lao Động Central Committee.
Jump up ^ Ang, p. 19
Jump up ^ Võ Nguyên Giáp. The Political and Military Line of Our Party. The Military Art. pp. 179–80.
Jump up ^ Ang, p. 20.
Jump up ^ McNamera, Robert S.; Blight, James G.; Brigham, Robert K. (1999). Argument Without End. PublicAffairs. p. 35. ISBN 1-891620-22-3.
Jump up ^ Ang, p. 23.
^ Jump up to: a b Ang, p. 24-25.
Jump up ^ Karnow, p. 693.
Jump up ^ Victory in Vietnam, p. xi.
Jump up ^ Prados, John, (2006) "The Road South: The Ho Chi Minh Trail", Rolling Thunder in a Gentle Land, editor By Andrew A. Wiest, Osprey Publishing, ISBN 1-84603-020-X.
Jump up ^ Gettleman, Marvin E.; Jane Franklin; Marilyn Young (1995). Vietnam and America. Grove Press. p. 187. ISBN 0-8021-3362-2.
Jump up ^ Ang, p. 7.
Jump up ^ Ang, p. 58.
Jump up ^ Gettleman, p. 156.
Jump up ^ Kelly, Francis John (1989) [1973]. History of Special Forces in Vietnam, 1961–1971. Washington, D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History. p. 4. CMH Pub 90-23.
Jump up ^ Nghia M. Vo Saigon: A History 2011 - Page 140 "... on December 19 to 20, 1960, Nguyễn Hữu Thọ, a Saigon lawyer, Trương Như Tảng, chief comptroller of a bank, Drs. Dương Quỳnh Hoa and Phùng Văn Cung, along with other dissidents, met with communists to form the National Liberation Front..."
Jump up ^ Zhai, Qiang (2000). China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975. p. 83. ISBN 0-8078-4842-5.
Jump up ^ Zhai, p. 5.
Jump up ^ Ang, p. 76.
^ Jump up to: a b Victory in Vietnam, p. xii.
Jump up ^ Ang, p. 113.
Jump up ^ Pribbenow, Merle (August 1999). "North Vietnam's Master Plan". Vietnam.
Jump up ^ Karnow, p.694
^ Jump up to: a b Ang, p. 74-75.
^ Jump up to: a b Zhai, p. 128.
Jump up ^ Victory in Vietnam, p. xiii.
^ Jump up to: a b Karnow, p. 427.
^ Jump up to: a b "1957–1975: The Vietnam War". libcom.
Jump up ^ "VC Tunnels". Digger History.
Jump up ^ Zumbro, Ralph (1986). Tank Sergeant. Presidio Press. pp. 27–28, 115. ISBN 978-0-517-07201-1. The Viet Cong were commonly referred to by the Vietnamese rural population as "night bandits" or the "night government".
Jump up ^ Zumbro, pp. 25, 33
Jump up ^ Zumbro, p. 32.
Jump up ^ U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, The Human Cost of Communism in Vietnam (1972), p.49.
Jump up ^ U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, The Human Cost of Communism in Vietnam (1972), p. 8.
Jump up ^ "The My Canh Restaurant bombing".
Jump up ^ Krohn, Charles, A., The Last Battalion: Controversies and Casualties of the Battle of Hue. pg. 30. Westport 1993.
Jones, C. Don, Massacre at Dak Son Archived 2014-11-29 at the Wayback Machine., United States Information Service, 1967
"On the Other Side: Terror as Policy". Time. December 5, 1969.
"The Massacre of Dak Son". Time. December 15, 1967. Pictures of Dak Son can be viewed here.
Jump up ^ Guenter Lewy, America in Vietnam, (Oxford University Press, 1978), pp272-3, 448-9.
Jump up ^ Pedahzur, Ami (2006), Root Causes of Suicide Terrorism: The Globalization of Martyrdom, Taylor & Francis, p.116.
Jump up ^ Ang, p. 115.
^ Jump up to: a b Ang, pp. 116–117.
^ Jump up to: a b c d Westmoreland, William. "The Year of Decision—1968". Gettleman, Marvin E (1995). Marvin E. Gettleman, Jane Franklin, Marilyn Young, eds. Vietnam and America. p. 345. ISBN 0-8021-3362-2. CS1 maint: Uses editors parameter (link)
Jump up ^ Westmoreland, p. 344 (editor's note).
Jump up ^ Dougan, Clark; Stephen Weiss (1983). Nineteen Sixty-Eight. Boston: Boston Publishing Company. pp. 8, 10. Missing or empty |title= (help)
Jump up ^ "The Massacre of Hue". Time. October 31, 1969.
Pike, Douglas. "Viet Cong Strategy of Terror". pp. 23–39.
Jump up ^ Kearny, Cresson H. (Maj) (1997). "Jungle Snafus...and Remedies". Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine: 327.
Jump up ^ Lee, Nathan (April 10, 2009). "A Dark Glimpse From Eddie Adams's Camera". New York Times.
Jump up ^ Walter Cronkite on the Tet Offensive
Jump up ^ Tran Van Tra. "Tet". in Warner, Jayne S. Warner (1993). Luu Doan Huynh, eds. The Vietnam War: Vietnamese and American Perspectives. Armonk NY: M.E. Sharpe. pp. 49–50. CS1 maint: Uses editors parameter (link) A map of the military districts can be found here.
Jump up ^ Tran Van Tra. "Comments on Tet '68".
^ Jump up to: a b "Vietnam Veterans for Academic Reform". Archived from the original on 2009-02-26.
Jump up ^ Crowell, Todd Crowell (October 29, 2006). "The Tet Offensive and Iraq".
Jump up ^ Aron, Paul (2005-11-07). Mysteries in History. p. 404. ISBN 1-85109-899-2.
Jump up ^ "Failure of the Viet Cong to establish liberation committees". Declassified CIA Documents on the Vietnam War. Created July 8, 1968. Declassified Feb. 22, 1991. Check date values in: |date= (help)
^ Jump up to: a b Whitcomb, Col Darrel (Summer 2003). "Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People's Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975 (book review)". Air & Space Power Journal.
^ Jump up to: a b c Porter, Gareth (1993). Vietnam: The Politics of Bureaucratic Socialism. p. 26. ISBN 978-0-8014-2168-6.
^ Jump up to: a b Porter, pp. 27–29
Jump up ^ Ang, p. 138.
Jump up ^ Ang, p. 139.
Jump up ^ Ang, p. 53.
^ Jump up to: a b Ang, p. 52.
Jump up ^ "The Viet Cong".
Jump up ^ Karnow, p. 673.
Jump up ^ Tran Van Tra. "Vietnam: History of the Bulwark B2 Theatre".
Jump up ^ Karnow,pp 644–645.
Jump up ^ Karnow. pp. 672–74.
^ Jump up to: a b Porter, p. 29
Jump up ^ Porter, p. 28.
Jump up ^ Friedman, SGM Herbert A. "The Strange Case of the Vietnamese 'Late Hero' Nguyen Van Be".
^ Jump up to: a b c Ruane, Kevin (1998), War and Revolution in Vietnam, 1930–75, p. 51, ISBN 1-85728-323-6
Jump up ^ Karnow, Stanley (1991). Vietnam: A history. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-670-84218-4. , p. 255.
Jump up ^ Bolt, Dr. Ernest. "Who is Tran Van Tra?".
Further reading
U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, The Human Cost of Communism in Vietnam (1972), part I, part II, part III, and part IV.
Marvin Gettleman, et al. Vietnam and America: A Documented History. Grove Press. 1995. ISBN 0-8021-3362-2. See especially Part VII: The Decisive Year.
Truong Nhu Tang. A Việt Cộng Memoir. Random House. ISBN 0-394-74309-1. 1985. See Chapter 7 on the forming of the Việt Cộng, and Chapter 21 on the communist take-over in 1975.
Frances Fitzgerald. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1972. ISBN 0-316-28423-8. See Chapter 4. "The National Liberation Front".
Douglas Valentine. The Phoenix Program. New York: William Morrow and Company. 1990. ISBN 0-688-09130-X.
Merle Pribbenow (translation). Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People's Army of Vietnam. University Press of Kansas. 2002 ISBN 0-7006-1175-4
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to National Liberation Front for South Vietnam.
Tet Offensive 1968, US Embassy & Saigon fighting. CBS News footage of the Tet Offensive.
Vietnam War – Hue Massacre 1968. A tribute to the dead of Huế by Trịnh Công Sơn, one of wartime Vietnam's most prominent composers.
The Wars for Vietnam: 1945–1975. Primary documents concerning the Vietnam War, including peace proposals, treaties, and platforms.
Digger History, VC Tunnels. At one point, Việt Cộng tunnels stretched from the Cambodia border to Saigon.
The Viet Cong 1965–1967 – part 1 and The Viet Cong 1965–1967 – part 2. What was it like to be a Việt Cộng? This recruiting video shows one perspective.
"Tiên vê Sài Gòn" (Forward to Saigon.) This propaganda video features singing Việt Cộng and newsreel footage from the 1975 offensive.
[hide]Vietnam War timeline
v
t
e
↓
Battle of Saigon
↓
Hòa Hảo defeated
↓
Viet Cong created
↓
Palace Bombing
↓
Gulf of Tonkin incident
↓
Battle of Đức Cơ
↓
Tet
Offensive
↓
Cambodian Campaign
↓
Operation Lam
Son 719
↓
Easter Offensive
↓
Paracel Islands
↓
Fall of Saigon
↓
Trần Văn Hương→
U.S.A. presidents: Dwight D. Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Lyndon B. Johnson
Richard Nixon
G. Ford
S. Vietnam presidents: Ngô Đình Diệm
Instability
Nguyễn Văn Thiệu
N. Vietnam presidents: Ho Chi Minh
Tôn Đức Thắng
│
1955
│
1956
│
1957
│
1958
│
1959
│
1960
│
1961
│
1962
│
1963
│
1964
│
1965
│
1966
│
1967
│
1968
│
1969
│
1970
│
1971
│
1972
│
1973
│
1974
│
1975
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
Authority control
WorldCat Identities
VIAF: 312738199
ISNI: 0000 0001 2171 0755
GND: 2036190-7
SUDOC: 02759811X
BNF: cb11960375t (data)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Viet_Cong&oldid=816574879"
Categories:
Viet Cong
Vietnamese independence movement
Communism in Vietnam
Defunct communist militant groups
Defunct political party alliances in Asia
Guerrilla organizations
History of South Vietnam
History of the Communist Party of Vietnam
Military units and formations of the Vietnam War
National liberation armies
Political party alliances in Vietnam
Popular fronts
Rebellions in Vietnam
Vietnamese nationalism
1954 establishments in South Vietnam
1976 disestablishments in Vietnam
Hidden categories:
Webarchive template wayback links
CS1 maint: Uses editors parameter
Pages with citations lacking titles
CS1 errors: dates
Wikipedia indefinitely semi-protected pages
Pages using deprecated image syntax
War faction articles using ambiguous parameters
Articles with hAudio microformats
Commons category with local link different than on Wikidata
Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers
Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers
Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers
Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers
Navigation menu
Personal tools
Not logged in
Talk
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Namespaces
Article
Talk
Variants
Views
Read
View source
View history
More
Search
Navigation
Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikipedia store
Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page
Tools
What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Wikidata item
Cite this page
Print/export
Create a book
Download as PDF
Printable version
In other projects
Wikimedia Commons
Languages
العربية
বাংলা
Bân-lâm-gú
Български
Boarisch
Brezhoneg
Català
Čeština
Cymraeg
Dansk
Deutsch
Eesti
Ελληνικά
Español
Esperanto
Euskara
فارسی
Français
Frysk
Galego
한국어
Hrvatski
Bahasa Indonesia
Italiano
עברית
ქართული
Kiswahili
Lietuvių
Magyar
Bahasa Melayu
Mirandés
Nederlands
日本語
Norsk
Norsk nynorsk
Polski
Português
Română
Русский
Scots
Shqip
Simple English
Slovenčina
Српски / srpski
Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски
Suomi
Svenska
Tagalog
ไทย
Türkçe
Українська
Tiếng Việt
粵語
中文
Edit links
This page was last edited on 22 December 2017, at 06:45.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Cookie statement
Mobile view
Enable previews

values: mw-page-base noprint

values: mw-head-base noprint

attrs: class id

values: firstHeading firstHeading en

values: siteSub noprint

values: jump-to-nav mw-jump

values:
note
hatnote navigation-not-searchable

value: big

values: Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam

values: Viet Cong's army-People's Liberation Armed Forces of South Vietnam (PLAF)

values:
/wiki/Vietnam_Fatherland_Front
mw-redirect
Vietnam Fatherland Front

values: United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races

values: Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

values:
/wiki/Professional_revolutionaries
mw-redirect
Professional revolutionaries

values:
/wiki/Vietnam_People%27s_Army
mw-redirect
Vietnam People's Army

values:
/wiki/Geneva_Conference_(1954)
mw-redirect
Geneva Conference (1954)

attrs: alt src width height class srcset data-file-width data-file-height

values:
/wiki/Geneva_Accord_(1954)
mw-redirect
Geneva Accord (1954)

values:
/wiki/Indochina_War
mw-redirect
Indochina War

values: Vietnamese 1946 general election (page does not exist)

values:
/wiki/Democratic_Republic_of_Vietnam
mw-redirect
Democratic Republic of Vietnam

values:
/wiki/Battle_for_Saigon
mw-redirect
Battle for Saigon

values:
/wiki/H%E1%BB%93_Ch%C3%AD_Minh
mw-redirect
Hồ Chí Minh

values:
/wiki/Bernard_Fall
mw-redirect
Bernard Fall

values:
/wiki/USS_Core_(CVE-13)
mw-redirect
USS Core (CVE-13)

values:
/wiki/Douglas_A-1E_Skyraider
mw-redirect
Douglas A-1E Skyraider

values:
/wiki/Montagnard_(Vietnam)
mw-redirect
Montagnard (Vietnam)

values:
/wiki/%C4%90%E1%BA%AFk_S%C6%A1n
mw-redirect
Đắk Sơn

values: Viet Cong and PAVN logistics and equipment

values:
/wiki/Chi%C3%AAu_H%E1%BB%93i
mw-redirect
Chiêu Hồi

values:
/wiki/U.S._Embassy_in_Saigon
mw-redirect
U.S. Embassy in Saigon

values:
/wiki/Earle_G._Wheeler
mw-redirect
Earle G. Wheeler

values:
/wiki/Lyndon_Johnson
mw-redirect
Lyndon Johnson

values: Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War

values:
/wiki/Battle_of_Ph%C6%B0%E1%BB%9Bc_Long
mw-redirect
Battle of Phước Long

values:
/wiki/Socialist_Republic_of_Vietnam
mw-redirect
Socialist Republic of Vietnam

attrs: alt src width height class data-file-width data-file-height

values: Viet Cong and PAVN strategy, organization and structure

values:
/wiki/Viet_Cong_and_PAVN_battle_tactics
mw-redirect
Viet Cong and PAVN battle tactics

values:
nofollow
external text
http://vietnam.vassar.edu/docnlf.html

values: Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic

values:
/wiki/Charles_Ovnand
mw-redirect
Charles Ovnand

values: -moz-column-width: 30em; -webkit-column-width: 30em; column-width: 30em; list-style-type: decimal;

values:
nofollow
external text
http://flagspot.net/flags/vn-vcong.html

values:
nofollow
external text
http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn

values: United States Army Center of Military History

values:
nofollow
external text
http://phulam.com/mycanh.htm

values: Category:CS1 maint: Uses editors parameter

values:
nofollow
external text
http://www.vietnampix.com/popvc.htm

values:
nofollow
external text
http://www.psywarrior.com/BeNguyen.html

values: Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam

values: commons:Category:National Liberation Front for South Vietnam

values: Template talk:Vietnam War graphical timeline

values: font-size:smaller; position:relative; line-height:3px; overflow:visible;left:-1em; top:-3.5em; z-index:999

values: line-height:1em; width:5em; line-height:1em !important;white-space:normal !important;

values: position:absolute; top:0px; width:100% margin-left:2.5%; margin-top:0; position:relative

values: font-size:smaller; position:relative; line-height:3px; overflow:visible;left:.8em; top:-2.5em; z-index:999

values: position:absolute; top:0px; width:100% margin-left:7.7999999999997%; margin-top:0; position:relative

values: position:absolute; top:0px; width:100% margin-left:20%; margin-top:0; position:relative

values: 1962 South Vietnamese Independence Palace bombing

values: position:absolute; top:0px; width:100% margin-left:35.8%; margin-top:0; position:relative

values: font-size:smaller; position:relative; line-height:3px; overflow:visible;left:.8em; top:-3.5em; z-index:999

values: position:absolute; top:0px; width:100% margin-left:48.200000000001%; margin-top:0; position:relative

values: position:absolute; top:0px; width:100% margin-left:58.200000000001%; margin-top:0; position:relative

values: position:absolute; top:0px; width:100% margin-left:65.8%; margin-top:0; position:relative

values: font-size:smaller; position:relative; line-height:3px; overflow:visible;left:-4em; top:-3.5em; z-index:999

values: position:absolute; top:0px; width:100% margin-left:77.4%; margin-top:0; position:relative

values: font-size:smaller; position:relative; line-height:3px; overflow:visible;left:-1em; top:-4em; z-index:999

values: position:absolute; top:0px; width:100% margin-left:81.6%; margin-top:0; position:relative

values: position:absolute; top:0px; width:100% margin-left:86.6%; margin-top:0; position:relative

values: font-size:smaller; position:relative; line-height:3px; overflow:visible;left:-3.8em; top:-3.2em; z-index:999

values: position:absolute; top:0px; width:100% margin-left:95.4%; margin-top:0; position:relative

values: font-size:smaller; position:relative; line-height:3px; overflow:visible;left:-3em; top:-2.5em; z-index:999

values: position:absolute; top:0px; width:100% margin-left:100%; margin-top:0; position:relative

values: font-size:smaller; position:relative; line-height:3px; overflow:visible;left:-9em; top:3em; z-index:999

values: width:100%; position:relative; left:-0.2em; top:0.8em; clear:both; height:2.5em

values: float:left; height:100%; text-align:center; overflow: hidden; background-color:transparent;width:30% -moz-box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;box-sizing: border-box;;float:right; height:100%; width:100%; border-right:1px solid #000; border-left:1px solid #000 position: relative; top:0em; font-size:0.9em

values: float:left; height:100%; text-align:center; overflow: hidden; background-color:transparent;width:14.6% -moz-box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;box-sizing: border-box;;float:right; height:100%; width:100%; border-right:1px solid #000 position: relative; top:0em; font-size:0.9em

values: float:left; height:100%; text-align:center; overflow: hidden; background-color:transparent;width:25.4% -moz-box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;box-sizing: border-box;;float:right; height:100%; width:100%; border-right:1px solid #000 position: relative; top:0em; font-size:0.9em

values: float:left; height:100%; text-align:center; overflow: hidden; background-color:transparent;width:25% -moz-box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;box-sizing: border-box;;float:right; height:100%; width:100%; border-right:1px solid #000 position: relative; top:0em; font-size:0.9em

values: float:left; height:100%; text-align:center; overflow: hidden; background-color:transparent;width:5% -moz-box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;box-sizing: border-box;;float:right; height:100%; width:100%; border-right:1px solid #000 position: relative; top:0em; font-size:0.9em

values: clear:both;width:100%; padding:0px; height:1.6em;border-top:1px solid #000;;background-color:#9FCCFC

values: float:left; height:100%; text-align:center; overflow: hidden; background-color:transparent;width:44.400000000001% -moz-box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;box-sizing: border-box;;float:right; height:100%; width:100%; border-right:1px solid #000; border-left:1px solid #000 position: relative; top:0em; font-size:0.9em

values: float:left; height:100%; text-align:center; overflow: hidden; background-color:white;width:7.9999999999995% -moz-box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;box-sizing: border-box;;float:right; height:100%; width:100%; border-right:1px solid #000 position: relative; top:0em; font-size:0.9em

values: float:left; height:100%; text-align:center; overflow: hidden; background-color:transparent;width:47.6% -moz-box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;box-sizing: border-box;;float:right; height:100%; width:100%; border-right:1px solid #000 position: relative; top:0em; font-size:0.9em

values: clear:both;width:100%; padding:0px; height:1.6em;border-top:1px solid #000;;background-color:#FFF28E

values: float:left; height:100%; text-align:center; overflow: hidden; background-color:transparent;width:73.6% -moz-box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;box-sizing: border-box;;float:right; height:100%; width:100%; border-right:1px solid #000; border-left:1px solid #000 position: relative; top:0em; font-size:0.9em

values: float:left; height:100%; text-align:center; overflow: hidden; background-color:transparent;width:26.4% -moz-box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;box-sizing: border-box;;float:right; height:100%; width:100%; border-right:1px solid #000 position: relative; top:0em; font-size:0.9em

values: clear:both;width:100%; padding:0px; height:1.6em;border-top:1px solid #000;;background-color:#ED8B8B

values: float:left;overflow:visible;width:5% font-size:86%; position:relative; left:-0.8em; overflow:visible; white-space:nowrap

values: float:left;overflow:visible;width:0% font-size:86%; position:relative; left:-0.8em; overflow:visible; white-space:nowrap

values: float:left;border:none;width:100% text-align:left; padding:1em; font-size:95%; margin:1em; background:transparent

values: border: solid none; padding: 0px; background-color: white; font-size:112%;

values: background: transparent; text-align: left; border: 1px solid silver; margin-top: 0.2em;

values: float:left; height:100%; width:0.1%; background-color:black; border-top:solid 1px black; border-bottom:solid 1px black; padding-top:0.75em;

values: float:left; height:100%; text-align:center; background-color:rgb(255,220,135); width:4.4557046979866%; border-top:solid 1px black; border-bottom:solid 1px black; padding-top:0.75em; font-size:1em

values: float:left; height:100%; text-align:center; background-color:rgb(255,220,135); width:5.7859060402685%; border-top:solid 1px black; border-bottom:solid 1px black; padding-top:0.75em; font-size:1em

values:
nofollow
external text
https://viaf.org/viaf/312738199

values:
nofollow
external text
http://isni.org/isni/0000000121710755

values:
nofollow
external text
https://d-nb.info/gnd/2036190-7

values:
nofollow
external text
https://www.idref.fr/02759811X

values: Category:Defunct communist militant groups

values: Category:Defunct political party alliances in Asia

values: Category:History of the Communist Party of Vietnam

values: Category:Military units and formations of the Vietnam War

values: Category:Political party alliances in Vietnam

values: Category:1954 establishments in South Vietnam

values: Category:1976 disestablishments in Vietnam

values: Category:Webarchive template wayback links

values: Category:Pages with citations lacking titles

values: Category:Wikipedia indefinitely semi-protected pages

values: Category:Pages using deprecated image syntax

values: Category:War faction articles using ambiguous parameters

values: Category:Articles with hAudio microformats

values: Category:Commons category with local link different than on Wikidata

values: Category:Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers

values: Category:Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers

values: Category:Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers

values: Category:Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers

values: Discussion about edits from this IP address [ctrl-alt-n]

values: A list of edits made from this IP address [ctrl-alt-y]

values: You are encouraged to create an account and log in; however, it is not mandatory

values: You're encouraged to log in; however, it's not mandatory. [ctrl-alt-o]

values:
/wiki/Viet_Cong
View the content page [ctrl-alt-c]
c

values: Discussion about the content page [ctrl-alt-t]

values: p-namespaces navigation vectorTabs p-namespaces-label

values:
p-variants
navigation
vectorMenu emptyPortlet
p-variants-label

values:
This page is protected.
You can view its source [ctrl-alt-e]

values: Past revisions of this page [ctrl-alt-h]

values: p-views navigation vectorTabs p-views-label

values:
p-cactions
navigation
vectorMenu emptyPortlet
p-cactions-label

values:
mw-wiki-logo
/wiki/Main_Page
Visit the main page

values:
/wiki/Main_Page
Visit the main page [ctrl-alt-z]
z

values: Featured content – the best of Wikipedia

values: Find background information on current events

values:
/wiki/Special:Random
Load a random article [ctrl-alt-x]
x

values: portal navigation p-navigation p-navigation-label

values: Guidance on how to use and edit Wikipedia

values: فيت كونغ – Arabic

values: ভিয়েত কং – Bangla

values: Lâm Oa̍t-lâm Kái-hòng Bîn-cho̍k Tīn-soàⁿ – Chinese (Min Nan)

values: Народен фронт за освобождение на Южен Виетнам – Bulgarian

values:
https://bar.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietcong
Vietcong – Bavarian
bar
bar
interlanguage-link-target

values: Talbenn Broadel Dieubidigezh Su Viêt Nam – Breton

values: Front Nacional d'Alliberament del Vietnam – Catalan

values: Národní fronta osvobození Jižního Vietnamu – Czech

values: Ffrynt Rhyddid Cenedlaethol De Fietnam – Welsh

values: Nationale front for befrielsen af Sydvietnam – Danish

values: Nationale Front für die Befreiung Südvietnams – German

values: Βιετκόνγκ – Greek

values: Frente Nacional de Liberación de Vietnam – Spanish

values: Sud-Vjetnama Nacia Liberiga Fronto – Esperanto

values: Hego Vietnamgo Askapenerako Nazio Frontea – Basque

values: ویت‌کنگ – Persian

values: Front national de libération du Sud Viêt Nam – French

values:
https://fy.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fjetkong
Fjetkong – Western Frisian
fy
fy
interlanguage-link-target

values:
https://gl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietcong
Vietcong – Galician
gl
gl
interlanguage-link-target

values: 남베트남 민족해방전선 – Korean

values: Fronta nacionalnog oslobođenja Južnog Vijetnama (FLN) – Croatian

values: Barisan Nasional untuk Pembebasan Vietnam Selatan – Indonesian

values:
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong
Viet Cong – Italian
it
it
interlanguage-link-target

values: וייטקונג – Hebrew

values: ვიეტ კონგი – Georgian

values: Umoja wa Kizalendo kwa Ukombozi wa Vietnam Kusini – Swahili

values: Dél-Vietnami Nemzeti Felszabadítási Front – Hungarian

values: Frente Nacional para la Lhibertaçon de l Bietname – Mirandese

values:
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietcong
Vietcong – Dutch
nl
nl
interlanguage-link-target

values: 南ベトナム解放民族戦線 – Japanese

values:
https://nn.wikipedia.org/wiki/FNL
FNL – Norwegian Nynorsk
nn
nn
interlanguage-link-target

values:
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wietkong
Wietkong – Polish
pl
pl
interlanguage-link-target

values: Frente Nacional para a Libertação do Vietname – Portuguese

values: Национальный фронт освобождения Южного Вьетнама – Russian

values:
https://sq.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietcong
Vietcong – Albanian
sq
sq
interlanguage-link-target

values: Národný front oslobodenia Južného Vietnamu – Slovak

values: Народни фронт за ослобођење Јужног Вијетнама – Serbian

values: Nacionalni front oslobođenja Južnog Vijetnama – Serbo-Croatian

values: Etelä-Vietnamin kansallinen vapautusrintama – Finnish

values:
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/FNL
FNL – Swedish
sv
sv
interlanguage-link-target

values:
https://tl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong
Viet Cong – Tagalog
tl
tl
interlanguage-link-target

values: แนวร่วมปลดปล่อยแห่งชาติเวียดนามใต้ – Thai

values: Vietnam Ulusal Kurtuluş Cephesi – Turkish

values: Mặt trận Dân tộc Giải phóng miền Nam Việt Nam – Vietnamese

values: 越南南方民族解放陣線 – Cantonese

values: 越南南方民族解放陣線 – Chinese

values: mediawiki ltr sitedir-ltr mw-hide-empty-elt ns-0 ns-subject page-Viet_Cong rootpage-Viet_Cong skin-vector action-view


text:
The Color of Water
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
For properties of the liquid, see Color of water.
The Color of Water
Author
James McBride
Cover artist
Honi Werner
Country
United States
Language
English
Genre
Memoir
Publisher
Penguin Group
Publication date
1996
Pages
301
ISBN
978-1-59448-192-5
The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother, is the autobiography and memoir of James McBride first published in 1995; it is also a tribute to his mother, whom he calls Mommy, or Ma. The chapters alternate between James McBride's descriptions of his early life and first-person accounts of his mother Ruth's life, mostly taking place before her son was born. McBride depicts the conflicting emotions that he endured as he struggled to discover who he truly was, as his mother narrates the hardships that she had to overcome as a white, Jewish woman who chose to marry a black man in 1942.
Contents
[hide]
1 Plot
2 Characters
2.1 Ruth's side of the family
2.2 James' side of the family
2.3 Other people
3 Setting
4 Symbols
4.1 Black Power
4.2 Ruth's bicycle
4.3 Ruth's mother's song: Love of Birds
5 Themes
6 Reception
7 References
Plot[edit]
In The Color of Water author James McBride writes both his autobiography and a tribute to the life of his mother, Ruth McBride. Ruth married Andrew Dennis McBride, a black man from North Carolina. James' childhood was spent in a chaotic household of twelve children who had neither the time nor the outlet to ponder questions of race and identity. Ruth did not want to discuss the painful details of her early family life when her abusive father Tateh lorded over her sweet-tempered and meek mother Mameh. Ruth had cut all ties with her Jewish family, as they had essentially disowned her when she married James' father.
After arriving in the United States when she was two years old, Ruth spent her early childhood traveling around the country with her family as her father sought employment as a rabbi. Tateh eventually gave up hope of making a living as a rabbi. He settled the family in Suffolk, Virginia, and opened a store in the mostly black section of town, where he overcharged his customers and expressed racist opinions. When Ruth was a child, Tateh sexually abused her and made harsh demands on her to work constantly in the family store. Tateh cheated on his wife, in an affair of which practically everyone in town was aware. Ruth's brother Sam left home at age fifteen, and soon after, Ruth too felt she must leave. She wanted to escape the oppressive environment of both her family and the South. She was also pregnant by Peter, her black boyfriend in Suffolk, and wanted to deal with the pregnancy away from her family. She took trips to New York to stay with relatives, and later moved permanently to Harlem. Ruth's family disowned her when she left, disgusted with her preference for marrying a black man instead of a Jewish man, her general failure to embrace Judaism, and her defiance of her father. Ruth promised her sister Dee-Dee that she would return to Suffolk, but she could not reconcile her family's desires for her life with her own desires for her life. She betrayed her promise to return for Dee-Dee, and her relationship with her sister suffered as a consequence. This separation from her family recurs throughout the memoir as a painful element in Ruth's life.
In Harlem, Ruth met Dennis, to whom she was immediately attracted. She married him, converted to Christianity, and became very involved with church activities. The couple experienced a certain degree of prejudice as a result of their interracial marriage. However, Ruth recalls these years of her life as her happiest ones. Dennis and Ruth opened the New Brown Memorial Church together in memory of Reverend Brown, their favorite preacher. They had several children, and eventually moved to accommodate their growing family. When Ruth became pregnant with Dennis's eighth child, James, Dennis fell ill with lung cancer, and died before James was born. Ruth mourned his death deeply and became desperate to find a means to support herself and her eight children. She approached her relatives for assistance, but they refused to have any sort of contact with her. Ruth met her second husband, Hunter Jordan, soon after. They married and eventually had four children together.
James weaves his own life story into his mother's story. Ruth's philosophies on race, religion, and work influence him greatly. Ruth always sent her children to the best schools, no matter the commute, to ensure they received the finest possible educations. She demanded respect and hard work from her children, and always treated them tenderly. She had an unwavering faith in God and strong moral convictions. To Ruth, issues of race and identity took secondary importance to moral beliefs. Ruth died at her home in Ewing, New Jersey on January 9, 2010.[1]
Characters[edit]
Ruth's side of the family[edit]
James: the narrator, her son
Ruth McBride Jordan: mother of 12 children and the second narrator
Hudis Shilsky aka Mameh: Ruth's mother. Despite being crippled on the left side of her body, still managed to be a loyal wife and good mother.
Fishel Shilsky aka Tateh: Ruth's father. Tateh was a terrible husband in many aspects such as fidelity and love. Fishel also happened to be a rabbi, who would get in bed with his daughters. He even mocked his own wife, Mameh, in public for being a cripple.
Gladys "Dee-dee" Shilsky: Ruth's sister. It is revealed that Dee-dee was the only sibling of Ruth's that was born in America. Often, Ruth would say that she was jealous of her because she didn't have to deal with the negative stigma towards Jews like Ruth did.
Sam Shilsky: Ruth's brother. He ran away from home at 15, no longer wanting to deal with Tateh. Ruth says that he died while fighting in the Second World War.
James' side of the family[edit]
Andrew Dennis McBride: the biological father of James, Ruth's first husband, a very caring father and pastor. Died of lung cancer.
Hunter Jordan: stepfather, Ruth's second husband, died after having a relapse of a stroke
From eldest to youngest (excluding James, who is the eighth child): Dennis, Rosetta, Billy, David, Helen, Richard, Dotty, Kathy, Judy, Hunter, and Henry: James' 11 siblings (Jacqueline "Jack": Andrew's daughter from a previous marriage)
Nash and Etta: his grandparents
Henry Walter, and Garland: uncles
Clemy: cousin from down south
Z and Maya: his nieces
Becky: sister-in-law
Karen aka Karone, Leander Bien, and Laurie Wesman: ex-girlfriends
Stephanie: current wife
Linwood Bob Hinson: cousin from North Carolina
Azure, and Jordan: James' children
Other people[edit]
Frances Moody: Ruth's very close childhood friend; only schoolmate who befriended Ruth; a Gentile
Peter: Ruth's first boyfriend. He also got her pregnant and Ruth later dumped him after she found out that he had gotten another girl pregnant.
Billy Smith: James' best friend
Big Richard: Jack's husband and James' friend[1]
Mrs. Ingram: Ruth's best friend as an adult
Israel Levy: old Jewish friend of Ruth's who allowed her father (rabbi) a permanent place
Rocky: the manager of the Barber Shop
C. Lawler Rogers and Hal Schiff: music teachers
David H. and Ann Fox Dawson: donors who helped James go to Europe concerning his aspiration for being a musician
Chicken Man: A friend of Big Richard's who teaches James all he knows about the streets and helps him turn his life around
Setting[edit]
Place: Suffolk, Virginia (Ruth's hometown); New York City (James McBride's home during most of his childhood); Wilmington, Delaware (James's family moved to Delaware in his teen years)
Time: James's life (the part of his life written about in The Color of Water): 1960-90 and Ruth's life (the part of her life written about): Started in 1920, emphasis on 1930s, '40s, and '50s
Symbols[edit]
Black Power[edit]
James spoke of the Civil Rights Movement which foreshadowed his decision to lean towards the African-American side of his bi-racial identity. Many of his older siblings had also chosen to only acknowledge that they were African-American.
Ruth's bicycle[edit]
This symbolized her constant need for movement in order to deal with her stress and depression and escapism.
Ruth's mother's song: Love of Birds[edit]
When Ruth's mother sang the song "Birdie, Birdie, Fly Away", she was referring to Ruth as the bird, able to move so swiftly and easily, while she referred to herself as the handicapped bird who deserved to be sacrificed and killed. This foreshadowed her death.
Themes[edit]
Past vs. Present; self-motivation; and the burden of secrets
Racism. Black-white relationships in the United States and how they were shaped by the civil rights/Black Power movements
Feeling comfortable with not only one's identity, but one's background and sense of self
Reception[edit]
The trade paper edition, published in February, 1998, was on the New York Times bestseller list for over 100 weeks (2 years),[2][3][4] won the 1997 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Literary Excellence, was an ALA Notable Book of the Year, The New York Women's Agenda's first book for "New York City Reads Together" and has sold more than 1.5 million copies.[5] It has been published in 16 languages and in more than 20 countries.[5]
References[edit]
^ Jump up to: a b Hevesi, Dennis (January 2010). "Ruth McBride Jordan, Subject of Son's Book 'Color of Water,' Dies at 88". New York Times. Retrieved 2010-01-28.
Jump up ^ Hevesi, Dennis (January 16, 2010). "Ruth McBride Jordan, Subject of Son's Book 'Color of Water,' Dies at 88". The New York Times.
Jump up ^ https://www.facebook.com/pages/James-McBride-Author-of-The-Color-of-Water/368857058498?v=info
Jump up ^ http://www.joi.org/books/reading/colorof%20water_print.htm
^ Jump up to: a b http://libwww.freelibrary.org/onebook/obop04/char04.cfm
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Color_of_Water&oldid=797516956"
Categories:
1997 books
African-American autobiographies
Hidden categories:
Use mdy dates from November 2013
Pages to import images to Wikidata
Navigation menu
Personal tools
Not logged in
Talk
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Namespaces
Article
Talk
Variants
Views
Read
Edit
View history
More
Search
Navigation
Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikipedia store
Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page
Tools
What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Wikidata item
Cite this page
Print/export
Create a book
Download as PDF
Printable version
Languages
中文
Edit links
This page was last edited on 27 August 2017, at 15:03.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Cookie statement
Mobile view
Enable previews

key: html

type: local

value: div

attrs: id class

values: mw-page-base noprint

values: mw-head-base noprint

value: a

value: i

attrs: id class lang

values: firstHeading firstHeading en

values: siteSub noprint

values: jump-to-nav mw-jump

attrs: href title

attrs: role class

values:
note
hatnote navigation-not-searchable

value: caption

value: img

attrs: alt src width height data-file-width data-file-height

attrs: href class

value: td

attrs: colspan style

value: tr

value: th

values:
/wiki/James_McBride_(musician)
mw-redirect
James McBride (musician)

values:
/wiki/Ewing,_New_Jersey
mw-redirect
Ewing, New Jersey

values: Edit section: Ruth's mother's song: Love of Birds

values:
reflist mw-references-wrap
list-style-type: decimal;

values: Category:Use mdy dates from November 2013

values: Category:Pages to import images to Wikidata

values: Discussion about edits from this IP address [ctrl-alt-n]

values: A list of edits made from this IP address [ctrl-alt-y]

values: You are encouraged to create an account and log in; however, it is not mandatory

values: You're encouraged to log in; however, it's not mandatory. [ctrl-alt-o]

values:
/wiki/The_Color_of_Water
View the content page [ctrl-alt-c]
c

values: Discussion about the content page [ctrl-alt-t]

values: p-namespaces navigation vectorTabs p-namespaces-label

values:
p-variants
navigation
vectorMenu emptyPortlet
p-variants-label

values: Past revisions of this page [ctrl-alt-h]

values: p-views navigation vectorTabs p-views-label

values:
p-cactions
navigation
vectorMenu emptyPortlet
p-cactions-label

values:
mw-wiki-logo
/wiki/Main_Page
Visit the main page

values:
/wiki/Main_Page
Visit the main page [ctrl-alt-z]
z

values: Featured content – the best of Wikipedia

values: Find background information on current events

values:
/wiki/Special:Random
Load a random article [ctrl-alt-x]
x

values: portal navigation p-navigation p-navigation-label

values: Guidance on how to use and edit Wikipedia

values: About the project, what you can do, where to find things

values: A list of recent changes in the wiki [ctrl-alt-r]

values: portal navigation p-interaction p-interaction-label

values: List of all English Wikipedia pages containing links to this page [ctrl-alt-j]

values: Recent changes in pages linked from this page [ctrl-alt-k]

values:
/wiki/Wikipedia:File_Upload_Wizard
Upload files [ctrl-alt-u]
u

values: A list of all special pages [ctrl-alt-q]

values: Permanent link to this revision of the page

values: Link to connected data repository item [ctrl-alt-g]

values: Printable version of this page [ctrl-alt-p]

values:
uls-settings-trigger
Language settings
0
button
true

values: /static/images/wikimedia-button-1.5x.png 1.5x, /static/images/wikimedia-button-2x.png 2x

values: /static/images/poweredby_mediawiki_132x47.png 1.5x, /static/images/poweredby_mediawiki_176x62.png 2x

values:
suggestions
display: none; font-size: 13px;

values: mediawiki ltr sitedir-ltr mw-hide-empty-elt ns-0 ns-subject page-The_Color_of_Water rootpage-The_Color_of_Water skin-vector action-view


text:
All-you-can-eat seats
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
All-you-can-eat buffet at Dodger Stadium
All-you-can-eat seats, also called all-inclusive sections, are blocks of seats in a Major League Baseball or Minor League Baseball park in which seat holders are entitled to unlimited hot dogs, nachos, popcorn, peanuts, soft drinks, and bottled water before and during a game. Typically located in less desirable areas of the ballpark, such as the bleachers and upper decks, all-you-can-eat (AYCE) seats are priced approximately 50% higher than seats in the same section, but are viewed by patrons as a bargain considering the added cost of ballpark food. The first AYCE section was introduced at Dodger Stadium in 2007. The trend spread to 19 of the 30 major league parks by 2010[1] and numerous minor league parks by 2012.[2] In 2008 AYCE seats were also inaugurated in numerous NBA and NHL arenas and at several NASCAR tracks.[3]
Contents
[hide]
1 History
2 Description
3 Popularity
4 References
5 Further reading
6 External links
History[edit]
The Los Angeles Dodgers introduced the first Major League Baseball AYCE section in April 2007 after conducting three pilots during the 2006 season.[4] Soon after, the Atlanta Braves, Baltimore Orioles, Kansas City Royals, and Texas Rangers converted their under-utilized seats to AYCE seats.[5] The concept spread to 13 Major League Baseball parks in 2008 and 19 parks in 2010.[1]
Major League Baseball teams offering all-you-can-eat seats include the Arizona Diamondbacks,[6] Atlanta Braves,[5] Baltimore Orioles,[5] Cincinnati Reds,[7] Detroit Tigers,[8] Houston Astros,[1] Kansas City Royals,[5] Los Angeles Dodgers,[4] Miami Marlins,[9] Minnesota Twins,[10] Pittsburgh Pirates,[9] San Diego Padres,[11] Tampa Bay Rays,[9] Texas Rangers,[5][10] and Toronto Blue Jays.[9]
Description[edit]
All-you-can-eat seats at Petco Park, 2009
The typical all-you-can-eat seat-holder at Turner Field consumes "3.35 hot dogs, one 20-ounce soda, one 7.9-ounce bag of peanuts, one 3-ounce order of nachos and 32 ounces of popcorn".
USA Today, March 7, 2008[12]
All-you-can-eat seats are typically located in "distant bleacher or upper-deck sections".[9] Seat prices are marked up approximately 50% over the regular price of seats in that section.[3]
The AYCE buffet generally operates from the time the stadium gates open until the beginning or end of the seventh inning.[13][14] Some parks put an hourly limit on it – for example, food service is open for two hours after the first pitch at San Diego Padres games[2][11] and until 9 p.m. at Minnesota Twins games.[10] The basic menu includes traditional ballpark food such as hot dogs, nachos, peanuts, popcorn, and soft drinks.[12][15] Some ballparks add other options, such as "veggie dogs" at Petco Park,[10] green salad, ice cream, and kosher and veggie dogs (by advance request) at Oriole Park at Camden Yards,[2] and "burgers, salads, peanut butter-filled pretzels and ice cream" at PNC Park.[2]
Some ballparks limit the amount of food an AYCE patron can take on each trip to the buffet.[9][12] At Dodger Stadium, AYCE patrons are limited to four hot dogs per visit, but can take as many soft drinks and bottles of water as they wish.[4][13] At Camden Yards, patrons may take up to two of each food item on each visit.[5][16] The lines move quickly, as no cash transactions are involved.[4][9]
At Dodger Stadium, AYCE ticket-holders enter and exit through a different gate than other ticket-holders and can access only the AYCE buffet and a set of restrooms.[17] At other ballparks, ticket-holders wear colored wristbands to identify themselves as AYCE patrons.[2][9] At Camden Yards, AYCE ticket-holders have their hand stamped.[16]
Popularity[edit]
View from the all-you-can-eat seats at Oriole Park at Camden Yards
All-you-can-eat seats have successfully boosted attendance in ballparks experiencing low turnouts, as well as increased occupancy of stadium sections that were previously under-used.[18] At Dodger Stadium, for example, before 2007 the right-field bleachers were opened only when the left-field bleachers sold out, or for group sales.[4] Following the conversion of the right-field bleachers into an AYCE section of 3,300 seats, occupancy zoomed to 85%.[2] The Arizona Diamondbacks boosted ticket sales by 70% when it created a left-field AYCE section in 2009, while the Houston Astros averaged 95% capacity in its AYCE section.[1]
From the patrons' point of view, AYCE seats are viewed as a bargain considering the added cost of ballpark food. After a few orders of hot dogs, nachos, and soft drinks, the AYCE seat pays for itself. The Atlanta Braves estimated that a typical AYCE patron in 2007 consumed 3.35 hot dogs, 20 ounces of soda, 7.9 ounces of peanuts; 3 ounces of nachos; and 32 ounces of popcorn.[2][12] AYCE seats have been described as a way to indulge in junk food "with baseball as a nominal backdrop", an opportunity to eat a cheap dinner with a baseball game thrown in, and a way to feed a family on a budget.[15] AYCE patrons have been known to engage in eating contests[1][3][12][15][18] and to sneak food home with them.[13]
References[edit]
^ Jump up to: a b c d e "Growing Trend: All-you-can-eat sections at big-league parks". Sports Illustrated. July 20, 2010. Retrieved July 14, 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g Williams, Doug (June 11, 2012). "All-you-can-eat sections sweep baseball". ESPN. Retrieved July 9, 2012.
^ Jump up to: a b c "Baseball Fans Get Never-Ending Ballpark Buffet, Much to the Dismay of Nutritionists". Fox News. Associated Press. March 21, 2008. Retrieved July 20, 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b c d e "Dodger Stadium's All-You-Can-Eat Seats Are a Popular Draw". The New York Times. Associated Press. May 27, 2007. Retrieved July 9, 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Cowherd, Kevin (August 13, 2007). "Faces Loaded". Baltimore Sun. Retrieved July 15, 2014.
Jump up ^ Bissonnette, Zac (April 1, 2009). "Arizona Diamondbacks offers $30 all-you-can eat tickets". Daily Finance. Retrieved July 15, 2014.
Jump up ^ "Cincinnati Reds add 'All You Can Eat' tickets, other amenities". Biz Journals. March 24, 2008. Retrieved July 15, 2014.
Jump up ^ "Detroit Tigers: All You Can Eat Seats (AYCE) 2010 Baseball Season". fatwallet.com. March 22, 2010. Retrieved July 15, 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h Migala, Dan (July 2, 2008). "Take Me Out to Dinner: All You Can Eat Sections Become Mainstays for MLB". The Migala Report. Retrieved July 20, 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b c d Campbell, Dave (August 5, 2009). "All-you-can-eat seats: Baseball fans pig out". Quad-City Times . Davenport, IA. Associated Press. Retrieved July 20, 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b Buzas, Katie (April 12, 2010). "All the Dogs You Can Eat". San Diego: KNSD-TV. Retrieved July 15, 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b c d e McCarthy, Michael (March 7, 2008). "Eating Away the Innings in Baseball's Cheap Seats". USA Today. Retrieved July 17, 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b c Lopez, Steve (June 3, 2009). "All-you-can-eat seats are almost more than can be stomached". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 15, 2014.
Jump up ^ Craig, Pat (April 10, 2008). "Oakland A's all-you-can-eat section can be a contest unto itself". Contra Costa Times. Retrieved July 20, 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b c Carman, Tim (May 1, 2012). "Where the empty calories just keep on coming". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 15, 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b "Left Field All-Inclusive Picnic Perch". Major League Baseball. 2014. Retrieved July 15, 2014.
Jump up ^ Paulus, Rick (May 18, 2011). "An MLB guide to all you can eat". ESPN. Retrieved July 9, 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b Wieder, Robert S. (March 12, 2008). "You get a great view of the game from the trough: All you can eat baseball seating". CalorieLab Calorie Counter News. Retrieved July 27, 2014.
Further reading[edit]
"An MLB guide to all you can eat" ESPN, May 18, 2011
"Where the empty calories just keep on coming" Washington Post, May 1, 2012
External links[edit]
External video
"All You Can Eat at Petco Park" (video)
"An Open Letter to Bud Selig Regarding MLB's 'All-You-Can-Eat' Tickets" from Ralph Nader and Ken Reed (2013)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=All-you-can-eat_seats&oldid=822324762"
Categories:
Major League Baseball venues
Serving and dining
Hidden categories:
Use mdy dates from August 2014
Navigation menu
Personal tools
Not logged in
Talk
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Namespaces
Article
Talk
Variants
Views
Read
Edit
View history
More
Search
Navigation
Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikipedia store
Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page
Tools
What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Wikidata item
Cite this page
Print/export
Create a book
Download as PDF
Printable version
Languages
Add links
This page was last edited on 25 January 2018, at 18:50.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Cookie statement
Mobile view
Enable previews

values: mw-page-base noprint

values: mw-head-base noprint

values: firstHeading firstHeading en

values: siteSub noprint

values: jump-to-nav mw-jump

attrs: href class title

attrs: class style

value: b

values:
/wiki/Hot_dogs
mw-redirect
Hot dogs

values: float: right; clear: right; margin: 0.5em 0 0.8em 1.4em; width:225px; padding: 10px; border: 1px solid #aaa; font-size: 88%; background-color: #F9F9F9;

values:
/wiki/Baltimore_Sun
mw-redirect
Baltimore Sun

values:
nofollow
external text
http://migalareport.com/node/303

values: -moz-column-width: 30em; -webkit-column-width: 30em; column-width: 30em; list-style-type: decimal;

values:
/wiki/Washington_Post
mw-redirect
Washington Post

attrs: alt src width height srcset data-file-width data-file-height

values: width:22em;float: right; clear: right; margin:0 0 1.0em 1.0em

values: Discussion about edits from this IP address [ctrl-alt-n]

values: A list of edits made from this IP address [ctrl-alt-y]

values: You are encouraged to create an account and log in; however, it is not mandatory

values: You're encouraged to log in; however, it's not mandatory. [ctrl-alt-o]

values:
/wiki/All-you-can-eat_seats
View the content page [ctrl-alt-c]
c

values: Discussion about the content page [ctrl-alt-t]

values: p-namespaces navigation vectorTabs p-namespaces-label

values:
p-variants
navigation
vectorMenu emptyPortlet
p-variants-label

values: Past revisions of this page [ctrl-alt-h]

values: p-views navigation vectorTabs p-views-label

values:
p-cactions
navigation
vectorMenu emptyPortlet
p-cactions-label

values:
mw-wiki-logo
/wiki/Main_Page
Visit the main page

values:
/wiki/Main_Page
Visit the main page [ctrl-alt-z]
z

values: Featured content – the best of Wikipedia

values: Find background information on current events

values:
/wiki/Special:Random
Load a random article [ctrl-alt-x]
x

values: portal navigation p-navigation p-navigation-label

values: mediawiki ltr sitedir-ltr mw-hide-empty-elt ns-0 ns-subject page-All-you-can-eat_seats rootpage-All-you-can-eat_seats skin-vector action-view