Chapter 13 Prelude to Escalation 166 NOTES 169 APPENDICES 175 A. USMC and VNMC Senior Officers, 1954–1964 175 B. Awards and Decorations, RVN, Through 1964 176 C. Glossary of Acronyms 178 D. Chronology 179 E. List of Reviewers 182 INDEX 184 PART I THE WATERSHED CHAPTER 1 Background to Military Assistance _The Geographic Setting--The People--Vietnam’s Recent History--Post-Geneva South Vietnam--The American Response_ _The Geographic Setting_ Hanging like a bulbous pendant from China’s southern border, the Southeast Asian land mass projects itself southward to within 100 miles of the equator. Often referred to as the Indochinese Peninsula, this land mass is contained by the Andaman Sea on the west, the Gulf of Siam on the south, and the South China Sea and the Tonkin Gulf on the east. Along with the extensive Indonesian island chain which lies to the immediate south, mainland Southeast Asia dominates the key water routes between the Pacific and the Indian Oceans. So positioned, the Indochinese Peninsula and the offshore islands resemble the Middle East in that they traditionally have been recognized as a “crossroads of commerce and history.”[1-1] Seven sovereign states currently make up the Indochinese Peninsula. Burma and Thailand occupy what is roughly the western two-thirds of the entire peninsula. To the south, the Moslem state of Malaysia occupies the southern third of the rugged, southward-reaching Malaysian Peninsula. East of Thailand lies Cambodia, which possesses a relatively abbreviated coastline on the Gulf of Siam, and Laos, a landlocked country. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), which borders to the north on China, and the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) form the eastern rim of the Indochinese Peninsula.