"If South Vietnam became a communist state, the whole of the non-communist world would be at risk. If South Vietnam fell, Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Philippines, New Zeland and Australia would follow"
In support of the USA's continuing endorsement of President Diem.
To help prevent South Vietnam becoming a communist state President Eisenhower sent a small group of 'Military advisors' in June 1954. The advisors were a mix of intelligence agents and American soldiers, their job was to persuade the population not to vote for the communists in the forthcoming elections. They used a variety of methods to try and achieve their aim, these included: distributing fake documents that claimed the government in North Vietnam were killing thousands of innocent people, and the hiring of mercenaries to perform acts of sabotage in North Vietnam, this was called operation 34A. The advisors were also there to promote President Diem, they did this by cleverly manipulating the facts about the South Vietnamese economy. The USA also gave South Vietnam approximately $270 million in aid, and helped to train the South Vietnamese army (ARVN) in modern fighting tactics
All this was not enough though as the population of South Vietnam still hated President Diem. One major was because he was catholic, the French catholic missionaries converted his ancestors to Christianity in the 17th Century and he was therefore educated in a French catholic school, this allowed him to have privileged jobs when the French were in command. Diem also gave Catholics positions of authority in his government, but as 70% of South Vietnam was Buddhist they found this offensive. Diem saw that the large Buddhist community could be a threat, so he passed anti-Buddhist laws to try and reduce the threat. This backfired, as it only served to further increase the hostility felt towards Diem by the Buddhists. After the killing of 9 Buddhists at a religious celebration, Buddhist monks began committing suicide by publicly by setting fire to themselves, this further proved to USA that Diem was not up to the job of protecting South Vietnam against communism.
Another major reason why Diem was unpopular and why the US felt he was no longer a proficient leader, was the continuing success of the NLF. The NLF or National Liberation Front was another armed resistance force directed against President Diem, and it was given aid by Ho Chi Minh and North Vietnam. The NLF's aim was the replacement of the Diem administration, with a government that "represented all social classes and religions". The NLF used the tactic of getting the poor South Vietnamese peasants on their side, they achieved this by taking land from the rich and giving it to the poor peasants. It proved to be extremely successful tactic as the peasants hated working for the landowners. The NLF also kept operatives in many villages to reassure the villagers, and to stop Diems forces 'liberating' the village. America's new president, President Kennedy, was concerned about the events in South Vietnam so he sent 100 more 'advisors', and gave South Vietnam the money to increase its army by an extra 20,000. In 1962 a new counter-tactic was commenced to try and stop the NLF gaining more support in the rural villages. It involved the moving of the peasants into new villages under the army's control, heavy defences were built around the villages, and guards protected them, it was called the 'strategic hamlet' programme. 'Strategic hamlet' was a total failure as the peasants hated being forced to move, and work for nothing, often NLF operatives were already in the village and simply moved with the others, it is likely that this programme actually increased the number of peasants joining the NLF. The NLF was winning the hearts and minds battle, and the USA realised this, so in mid-1963 they decided that Diem was no longer worth supporting. They came up with the plan of helping a military coup to overthrow Diem, and replace him with a more popular leader, this happened in November 1963. Soon after Kennedy himself was assassinated.
Kennedy's successor, President Johnson, was also a firm believer in the domino theory, he felt that if strongly that the USA should continue, and even increase, its involvement in Vietnam.
"If we quit Vietnam, tomorrow we'll be fighting in Hawaii and next week we'll have to fight in San Francisco"
He was advised that instead of sending troops into Vietnam, which would be extremely unpopular to the American people, the USA would bomb North Vietnam believing that the North Vietnamese would cut off supplies to NLF. Without these vital supplies the NLF would not be able to continue fighting in South Vietnam. But the USA could not simply start bombing, due to the international criticism they would face, Johnson therefore gave permission for a plan to be put into operation that would eventually allow the USA to bomb North Vietnam. Operation 34A was still continuing at this time, and now it was decided to send destroyers to acquire information on North Vietnamese naval defences. On the 2nd 1964 the US destroyer 'Maddox' was attacked by three North Vietnamese torpedo boats, the Maddox returned fire and sank one boat. The ship retreated but was soon ordered back, after reaching North Vietnamese waters the captain of the boat reported that he was under attack. Johnson finally had an excuse to bomb North Vietnam; he went on TV and told the America public that,
"Repeated acts of violence against the armed forces of the United States must be met not only with alert defence but a positive reply. That reply is being given as I speak tonight.
However the 'Maddox' captain had sent a second report, saying that he doubted the 'Maddox' was being attacked and that it was due to weather conditions and his crews paranoia. Johnson ignored this; the congress approved Johnson's decision, and passed what became know as the 'Gulf of Tonkin' resolution, this gave Johnson complete power to take any action against North Vietnam and the NLF. In 1965 the US began the operation 'Rolling Thunder', it involved frequent bombing of North Vietnam and NLF territory in South Vietnam with the objective of destroying North Vietnams economy, so they could no longer support the NLF. It was scheduled to last for 8 weeks, but it lasted for 3 years, 1 million bombs were dropped. The NLF's answer to this was to concentrate its attacks on the US air bases in South Vietnam. This presented a problem to the US, as the General in charge of US 'advisors' in Vietnam, General Westmoreland, had concluded that the 23,000 men there could not adequately defend the bases. Johnson took the only route he could, and on 8th March sent 3,500 US marines to South Vietnam.
In conclusion, the USA's increasing involvement Vietnam was due to fear, hatred and the attempt to contain communism. At first America were indirectly part of the war, they gave financial aid and equipment to the South Vietnamese. They increasingly became involved when the prospect of communism endangered their 'backyard'. The USA was dragged into a war by their complete and utter hatred of communism. The US thought the war was communism against nationalist, whereas in fact it was between colonialists and Nationalists. The later part of the war consisted of two Nationalist parties who both wanted power over Vietnam. America's tunnel vision saw the Vietminh led by a communist. This meant America would do anything they could to defeat the Vietminh and the NLF, and that aim dragged them feet first into a war they fought for the wrong reasons.
