Why did the Americans become increasingly involved in the affairs of Vietnam

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Kirsty Singleton 11MG                                                                             Assignment 2, Question 1

Why did the Americans become increasingly involved in the affairs of Vietnam

between 1954 and 1969?

After the end of WWII the Americans with their Capitalism became bitterly opposed against the Soviet Union and their Communism in a rising ideological war.  This was because of broken wartime promises on both sides which led to both suspicion and hostility between the two super nations.  France, being an ally of the U.S. during WWII were meanwhile involved in the Indochina war as they tried to reclaim Vietnam.

When the French were defeated in Vietnam in 1954, almost eight years after they began the fighting, the Geneva Peace Convention took place.  It was agreed that the country(Vietnam) should be split into two, and that one half, the North, would go to the Communists, and that the South would go to the Saigon government.  It was also said to prevent a permanent partition elections would take place in 1956 for reunification.  The U.S. and the Saigon government both disagreed and the then U.S. president, Dwight Eisenhower sent out 'military advisors' to train the South Vietnamese troops as they were concerned that all of their previous efforts to prevent communism from spreading would be wasted if they allowed South Vietnam to fall to communism at this point.

  The 'Domino Effect' was one of the main worried of the Americans.  The theory pointed out that once one country fell to a certain power, then the surrounding countries were also likely to fall to the same power, and so on.  The Americans thought that if they allowed South Vietnam to fall to communism then the rest of Asia would follow, then Asia, then Europe.  It was Vice President Johnson who quoted 'The basic decision in Southeast Asia is here.  We must decide whether to help...or pull our defences back to San Francisco and "Fortress America" concept,' meaning that if the America's left North Vietnam to their own devices, the next thing the U.S. would be dealing with would be trying to prevent communism in their own country.

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  In 1954 Ngo Dinh Diem returned as Prime Minister for South Vietnam and in 1955 he declared South Vietnam a republic and refused to hold the 1956 elections that had been decided in Geneva, seven years earlier.  He was supported by the U.S. (who also completely ignored the Geneva Peace Convention) who were supposedly Democratic but only because apparently if the elections had gone ahead over 80% of the populous would've voted for Communist rule, which was what the U.S.  had been trying to prevent in the first place.  Throughout the following year, communists who had gone North ...

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