American Involvement in Vietnam.

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American Involvement in Vietnam                         Ian Soon

Introduction

The country of Vietnam is located on the South Eastern border of China. Vietnamese means non-Chinese people of the south.  Vietnam became a part of the Chinese Empire and after many years gained independence from China in 938 AD. The Vietnamese shared a lot in common with the Chinese with language religion and most aspects of life shared with her larger neighbour.

Vietnam was under the control of French without any disturbances until a rebellion in 1930. The Vietnamese people where stopped immediately by the French. But during this time many people began hating the French rule; one of those people was Ho Chi Minh. When France lost the war against the Germans and the Japanese decided to take over Vietnam. Minh saw this as a perfect opportunity to attack the country which he had been exiled from. After Ho Chi Minh received some backing from the newly formed communist China in 1949 the world started to become worried. Minh was previously was seen as a man fighting for the freedom of his country away from the French but now he was seen as siding the “evil” communists.

During 1946-54 a bitter war took place with thousands of civilian and military deaths, finally in 1954 a resolution was made. In the Geneva conference the major powers at that time agreed on a resolution in which Vietnam would be split into two parts North and South. The Americans pushed for Ngo Dinh Diem to take control, Diem being a pro-American and leader of South Vietnam and Ho Chi Min was regarded as the leader of the north.

US Involvement in Vietnam

The Americans agreed to the Geneva terms and in turn the nation was set to go up for elections in 2 years. The Americans were convinced that the Vietnamese were too surely to elect a communist government to rule over a re-united Vietnam.

President Eisenhower was very afraid of this personally he thought that possibly 80% of the nation would have voted for the communists. After placing Diem in power he was unwilling to be a “puppet” ruler over Vietnam. Much like the Soviets did in Eastern Europe the Americans had planned to influence Vietnam through Diem. He was seen by the people as different and not fitting into the mould of the typical Vietnamese. He was a Catholic one of the 10% of people in the country; they were given special privileges by the French and were very wealthy. He had little regard for the Buddhists and especially the peasants which he frowned upon. He never listened to the Americans wishes and made decisions; even though the Americans didn’t support him they felt that they had to leave him in.  

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The USA was scared about the spread of communism throughout
South East Asia. After the Korean War between 1950 and 53 the Americans had already lost 142,000 soldiers when trying to stop communism in South Korea. They felt if communism spread further south into Vietnam all their effort ion Korea would be wasted.

Many of the people weren’t happy about Diem and decided to create a “freedom” group called the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam. They created a movement against the pro American south and engaged in a guerrilla war against the South Vietnamese government. ...

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