By continuing to aid France the USA started to become more and more involved with the issues in Vietnam. The French needed to end the war as quickly as they could but even with massive financial support from the USA, they were defeated at Diem Bien Phu when the Vietminh put up huge resistance. France then decided to pull out. This lead to the USAs increasing involvement as France were no longer fighting the Vietminh so the USA had to take over to defeat communism to stop it spreading.
Peace talks were then held in Geneva and a peace agreement was set up, dividing Vietnam into two sections, the North and the South. North Vietnam was controlled by the Communist Vietminh and South Vietnam was declared independent and was backed by France and the USA. Vietnam was intended to be reunited after elections but the USA did not allow free elections throughout Vietnam in fear of it leading to a communist Victory. This links back to the cold war, and America fearing the spread of communism and by this point America had started to get increasingly involved. America’s involvement in Vietnam was mainly just to stop the spread of communism, and prevent what Eisenhower named “the domino theory” in l954. This was that of Vietnam turned communist, then the neighbouring countries (Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia and then Indonesia) would also fall to communism. South Vietnams new leader (Ngo Dinh Diem) was seen as a harsh, unpopular leader by the majority of south Vietnams population, yet the USA supported him as much as they could; because he was anti-communist. Now politically involving themselves with the war. The Ho Chi Minh trail was set up from 1950-1960, which was a way of transporting supplies from North To South (this was aid from China and Russia). By 1960 the National Liberation Front was set up, this was a Communist party with plans to overthrow Diem, remove the Americans from Vietnam and then re-unite Vietnam which was very bad news for the Americans, because Vietnam would be united as a communist nation.
In 1960 John F Kennedy became the new US president and he made sure that the American population knew that he was tough on communism, and would do everything in his power to stop the spread of it, to “contain” it. From 1961 Kennedy increased Americas political and financial involvement as he sent 10,000 American advisers into Vietnam to support both politically, and financially by helping with South Vietnamese people train and with equipment and weapons. This is where the USAs involvement starts to change from financial to military.
In 1963 Diems Government was overthrown, and Diem was killed. President Kennedy was assassinated shortly after this event. Kennedy was replaced with Lyndon Johnson who also had a tough outlook on Vietnam. He pledged “I am not going to lose Vietnam, South East Asia will not go to the way of China, our nations will does not match his will” and he started deploying the US navy off the Vietnamese coast on the look out for NLF soldiers. This was a significant change in personnel as this was the start of Americans Military involvement in Vietnam.
In August 1964 the North Vietnamese retaliated with an attack on an American destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin, which many historians argue is the spark for Americas military involvement. Although Lyndon Johnson has many secret plans to escalate war on North Vietnam this attack gave him the perfect excuse to go to war. The US Congress passed a resolution, which allowed Johnson to fight a war with the North Vietnamese and in doing so, stop the spread of communism, a decision that many Americans would later regret.
These events were important as USA now moved from a defensive strategy to a full blown offensive when in 1956, Operation Rolling Thunder. This was the one move that turned the US from an Advisory position/defensive strategy, to a full-blown offensive role.
To conclude, many people argue that there is one specific reason that the USA went to war with Vietnam, but I believe that it was a long chain of several reasons which all linked together for example, If there was no Cold War then there wouldn’t have been fear of communism to start with, and there may have been no war. The domino theory also played a huge part as this all stemmed from the fear of communism, and linked to the beginning spread of communism through Russia, Vietnam and China. Arguably when America started supporting the French financially, they were always prepared to stop communism in any way they could for once America had reached a certain level of involvement there would have been no way to stop the war from happening. I see the Gulf of Tonkin as the spark, the event that made the war in Vietnam a full scale military operation. If there was no formation of the Viet Minh then there may have been no spark to start the war 25 years larer
As I have explained all the reasons I have mentioned are all of equal importance, one would not have happened without the other and therefore there can’t be one overall reason why America entered the war, but I believe once America started to get involved there was no stopping what happened, happening.
Mike Hadfield