In 1965, the US committed troops to South Vietnam and began bombing the North. The Pentagon's thinking was that to win in the South they had to bomb the North into submission – tacitly admitting they were losing the war against the Vietcong.

From his base in Phnom Penh, Wilfred Burchett made frequent trips to the South and North, often with French film producer and filmmaker Roger Pic. From the perspective of the North Vietnamese and the National Liberation Front, by taking the war to the North, the US had effectively re-united Vietnam and created a single front. Burchett was absolutely convinced the US would never be able to break the will of the Vietnamese people, and he believed they would inevitably lose the war. He stressed this point repeatedly in articles, books and films.

Vietnam North was one of several books in which he sought to answer the questions he poses in the Introduction: ‘How does an underdeveloped country of 17 million, with an overwhelmingly agricultural economy, envisage waging – and winning – a war against the richest, most highly industrialized, most militarily powerful country in the world? Why the confident smiles on the faces of Ho Chi Minh, Pham Van Dong, Vo Nguyen Giap and the others?’