Explain why the United States became increasingly involved in the war in Vietnam.

        America became politically involved with Vietnam in 1954 to stop the ‘domino theory’ from happening.  In the same year a peace conference was held in Geneva and it was decided that elections were to be held to decide who would govern Vietnam.  America stopped the elections from going ahead because Eisenhower was not confident that a non-communist would win, “80% of the population would have voted for the communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader.”  In 1955, the Americans helped install Ngo Dinh Diem as leader in the South of Vietnam.  Although he was corrupt, he was right wing and hated communism.  The Americans regarded his rule as frustrating, as he gave his family positions of authority and favoured the landowners.  Consequently, he was very unpopular.  The Secretary of Sate JF Dulles knew Diem was not ideal, “We knew of no one better”, but from the U.S.A’s point of view, communism had been prevented from spreading for the time being.  Diem was overthrown in 1963, but was replaced by equally corrupt governments.  No matter how corrupt these governments were, America still supported them billions of dollars.  This was because U.S.A saw the right wing rule of South Vietnam as the first step to eradicating communism in the South East of Asia.

        At this point, America was still involved with Vietnam because it needed to fund the South to fight against the Southern Communist rebels who were not happy with the government.  The Southern Communist rebels hated Diem because he favoured the rich and the Catholics whilst he heavily taxed the Buddhists and farmers. These peasants became known as the Viet Cong and were supported by the Vietminh in the North who wanted nationalism and for Vietnam to become Communist.  In 1962, American involvement dramatically increased as President Kennedy, who was keen to prove himself, sent in troops to fight the Viet Cong.  By 1962 there were 11,500 troops in Vietnam.  In 1963 President Kennedy was assassinated and was replaced by President Lyndon Johnson who was even more determined to stop the spread of Communism. In august 1964, North Vietnamese boats attacked American ships in the Gulf of Tonkin.  The U.S Congress were furious and wanted revenge on North Vietnam, so they passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which meant that at any time the President could launch full scale war.  Johnson was angry and wanted to crush communism once and for all in the South East of Asia. U.S involvement climaxed when in March 1965 when U.S troops arrived at Da Nang to combat the Viet Cong. This signified the start of a long and bloody war with the North Vietnamese.

The long-term factor for the U.S.A becoming increasingly involved was that it wanted to stop the spread of Communism.  The short-term factors that prolonged their presence were the defeats of their allies, France and then the democratic South.  After France was defeated, the U.S.A had to stay to set up a new government.  Their involvement increased when the new government under Diem was defeated because they had to send in their own troops to fight the Communists in order to stop Communism spreading.  Ultimately America became more and more involved because Communism was not being stopped and the U.S.A was going to stay until it had got what it wanted.