WHY DID AMERICA GET INVOLVED IN VIETNAM IN THE 1950’s AND 1960’s?
In order to understand America’s involvement in Vietnam it is necessary to comprehend the depth of their obsession with stopping the spread of Communism. This lead them to assist France in their struggle to uphold their empire in Indochina of which Vietnam was a part.
The reason that America has developed such a hatred for Communism as the 20th century progressed is that they became enemies with the most powerful Communist country in the world, Russia. Being the most powerful capitalist country in the world America felt it was in their interest to prevent further spread of Communism around the world. This confrontation became known as The Cold War. In 1949, the Cold war spread to Asia, as China became a Communist country, followed by a Communist threat in Korea soon before the Vietnam war started. America failed to prevent Korea becoming Communist and lost 30,000 men in the process.
During the Cold War President Truman of the USA devised a plan called the Truman Doctrine, based on the concept of containment. This basically meant that America would support and defend any countries that were under threat from Communist take-over so as to ‘contain’ Communism. This was originally a plan to defend Europe from any possible subversion, or invasion by Russia during the Cold War, but can also be applied to any other possible Communist take-overs around the world. John Foster Dulles, President Johnson’s Secretary of State, believed that if any Pro-Western countries were over thrown by Communism, their neighbouring countries would soon follow suit and be toppled like a domino. This was named the Domino Theory, and surprisingly was widely believed in the USA even though the biggest ‘domino’ of all, China, had become Communist, leaving its neighbours under no threat. The US were not only worried about Communism outside their own country. They were in fact very paranoid about Communism in the US. Senator Joseph McCarthy was responsible for completely ridding the USA of Communism. He made it his duty to make America see Communists as the enemy within, and to seek out all Communists and Communist sympathisers in the USA. Once found they would most probably lose there jobs and never become employed again.
