After the French had lost there was a conference held in Geneva to decide what was to be done with French Indo-China and it was decided that Laos and Cambodia were to become independent countries whilst Vietnam would be split in half. The defeat of the French in 1954 again raised the threat of Communism spreading in the Far East. President Eisenhower was convinced that China were attempting to turn most of Asia Communist, Eisenhower referred to this idea as the domino theory. If Vietnam fell to Communism then Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma and possibly India would soon follow, just like a row of dominoes. The USA had to become increasingly involved in Vietnam because the French had lost and the USA was not prepared to give up and look weaker than Communism. When Vietnam was split into two it was divided into the North and the South. The North was run by the firm Communist Ho Chi Minh, who had the support of China, whilst the South was run by Ngo Dinh Diem, a strict anti-Communist, who attempted to turn South Vietnam into a republic with the help of the USA. The USA saw Ho Chi Minh as a threat to Southern Vietnam and they wished to overthrow him, however, Eisenhower could not attack because he had just finished the Korean War and no President could get away with starting two wars. Instead of attacking Vietnam, the USA provided even more financial aid; they could not leave the South because of the risk that the domino theory would become a reality.
In 1960, North Vietnam set up the National Liberation Front a.k.a. Vietcong. The Vietcong had three main objectives, they were: to unite the North and the South into one Communist country, to get rid of Diem and also to get rid of America. The American’s saw this as a declaration of war as the Vietcong were saying that they would attack the South. At this time the South was doing very badly, Diem was corrupt and hugely unpopular, an example of this was that people were prepared to burn themselves to death in protest against Diem’s rule. This in turn made the USA look bad as they too became unpopular as they were closely linked to Diem. The main problem with Diem’s unpopularity was that it made the American way of life look bad and therefore made more people support Communism. The USA was angry because they were backing Diem and he was failing them, over 30% of the South had been taken over by the Vietcong by this time. This increased support for Communism and the gradual take over of the South by Vietcong forced the Americans into a difficult position as there was now a great threat of them losing control of the South to Communism and this would lead to the domino effect. They had to make a decision as they were told that the current support that they were giving would not be enough; they had to decide whether to get their men out before they completely lose the South or whether to send troops in to try and take over Vietnam.
President Kennedy was the one who was supposed to make this decision and he was in favour of getting his troops out of Vietnam. President Kennedy realized that the fate of the South Vietnamese would not be decided by Americans but by the Vietnamese, Kennedy said that, “In the final analysis it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it.” many believe that Kennedy did not want to get heavily involved in Vietnam as his decision to carry out the invasion on Cuba, the Bay of Pigs incident, was such a disaster and he did not want another failure. However, Kennedy never got to make this decision as he was assassinated before he could enforce his decision (some say that the reason for his assassination was because he wanted to pull US troops out of Vietnam). His successor, Lyndon Johnson had a different view, “I am not going to be the President who saw Southeast Asia go the way China went.” and he ordered the army to put more troops in. His theory for this was that you do not sit around and wait for Communism to attack you but that you make the first move, this was known as his “bully” hypothesis. Another factor that made Johnson choose to send more troops in was the overthrow and death of Diem. The resulting power vacuum in South Vietnam made further American involvement in Vietnam almost certain.
The Americans could not just send their troops in without provocation and on the 2nd August 1964 they got what they wanted. The USS Maddox was an American destroyer monitoring North Vietnamese radio signals in the Gulf of Tonkin when 3 missiles were fired at it, 2 missed and the other didn’t explode. On 3rd August the USS Maddox was attacked again! However, this is what was told to the American public to justify the sending in of more troops to Vietnam. The reality is that in the first attack the Maddox fired first and the second attack never happened, it was just a manufactured incident to start a war.
The USA first became involved with Vietnam when China fell to the Communists in 1949 and there was a great fear of Communism spreading throughout the Far East. The Truman Doctrine claimed that the USA would support any countries that are being influenced by outside pressures to become Communist and the fall of China made the USA look weak, as their policy of containment was not working. At the time France was at war over French Indo-China so the USA provided financial aid to France so that they would win and prevent any further spread of Communism. When the French lost the USA had to become increasingly involved with Vietnam, as they could not leave because of the fear of Eisenhower’s domino theory becoming a reality. Events happening in Vietnam then lead to the USA having to decide whether to stay in Vietnam or not. President Kennedy chose to pull the US forces out of Vietnam, however he was killed before he could enforce this decision. His successor, LBJ, chose differently to Kennedy and ordered the sending in of ground troops to Vietnam. The reason why the USA became increasingly involved with the Vietnam was because of the perceived threat from the spread of Communism, all the time the USA were trying to contain the spread of Communism from the North to the South and their involvement increased because the threat of the South becoming Communist increased.
By David Alison 10DLM
