The foreign ministers were called to the Geneva Convention to solve this on-going problem, after much negotiation they came to a conclusion that 1) Vietnam would be divided at the 17th parallel; 2) North Vietnam would be ruled by Ho Chi Minh; 3) South Vietnam was to be ruled by Ngo Dinh Diem, a strong opponent of Communism; 4) French troops would withdraw from Vietnam; 5) the Vietminh would withdraw from South Vietnam; 6) the Vietnamese could freely choose to live in the North or South of the country; 7) A general election would be held for the whole of Vietnam would be held before July, 1956, under the supervision of an international commission. Cambodia and Laos could become independent.
At the end of WWII the USA and USSR and become the main two superpowers. During the war, they were close allies and were fighting well together. Although the US never truly supported the USSR’s communist regime. America has always believed that Communism removes everyone’s born right too freedom. After the war, another ‘war’ erupted, this time a Cold War. This is a war of words and opinions, suggesting why another country is inferior etc. It was to be a war of Communist Russia and Capitalist America, the ongoing tension was now beginning to show. The Cold War was coming right from the end of World War II as Russia was angry at America for not informing them of the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Also the USA was angry at the USSR for setting up Communist Governments in Eastern Europe. Both countries began spending billions on weapons of mass destruction and spy missions to understand the others intentions.
The two nations could NOT trust each other, as they were sure that their political system was far superior than the others. The Truman doctrine was formed into the policy of containment. By the word containment it was suggested that Communism should at all costs be contained or better still, prevented. The USA felt it was their responsibility to stop more countries becoming Communist. The theory was that if you could contain Communism then it would eventually choke and collapse.
The USA had many plans that would help contain Communism, The Marshall Plan was one of them, created in 1947, this plan was created with the intent to ‘bribe’ countries into Capitalism therefore pushing out Communist ways. This plan was aimed across Europe due to the alarming news that Communist parties were increasing in popularity. To eradicate Communism, the USA had to focus nearer home, they imposed the same restrictions on the many ’home grown’ Communists. Over 3million Americans were investigated for their political beliefs, Hollywood writers and actors were investigated as they appeared to show Communist sympathies in their acting and writing. Senator Joseph McCarthy was the ’genius’ behind these totally unreliable accusations, he wanted publicity for the Republicans and saw the hysteria behind this delicate topic the perfect opportunity. Anyone who criticized his actions when he got to the White House was a Communist.
The very first test for America to contain Communism fell in June 1950. Communist North Korea along with Soviet support invaded democratic South Korea and in two months the North had seized most of South Korea. The USA realized that if they were to not intervene then South Korea would fall to Communism , Truman reacted immediately, sending supplies, warships and advisors to aid South Korea and tried to influence the UN to at. In 1950 the US sent troops into South Korea and pushed the North Koreans far into their borders. McArthur, who was in charge of the US troops wanted to carry on advancing into North Korea and remove Communism in one big push. The US government did not agree to the pleas and reached an agreement with the North and South.
The policy of containment was continued by President Eisenhower from 1953.
President Truman strongly opposed communism, he created the Truman Doctrine and agreed to the Marshall Plan. President Eisenhower had the same view on Communism; he was the president during the McCarthy era. He was elected to power in 1952, had a military background when he fought for the USA in WWII. He appointed Dulles as the Secretary of State, he believed that Communism was pure evil. Any threat from communism against any country would result in ‘massive retaliation’ from the US.
In 1959 another test came along, Cuba and Fiedel Castro. Castro had managed to overthrow an American backed Batista Government and seize all American businesses. America then responded by refusing to buy Cuban sugar. Castro began to look for another buyer and the USSR agreed a price. The relationship between Cuba and America declined dramatically. Now America had an enemy on its doorstep. A coup was organised by Kennedy, who wanted a quick end to the situation , but before the plan could take place Castro found out and immediately exiled Batista and his followers. This event was known as The Bay of Pigs incident. Cuba felt threatened so they created a Communist Government and asked the USSR for security. The USSR was more than happy to help. They sent short and long range nuclear weapons capable of hitting all the major cities in America. America was not going to tolerate the threat of nuclear war so the army blockaded the arrival of the weapons to Cuba. An agreement was reached, the missiles were to go back to Russia. America would end the blockade and never breach Cuba’s security again. The US Government realised how close a nuclear war had come, they now understood that a soft approach to Communism was unthinkable in the future. This was known as the Domino Theory and was promoted by his secretary of state John Foster Dulles. The idea behind the theory was that if one country was to fall to communism, soon after more would follow.
America had appointed Ngo Dinh Diem to set up the Republic of South Vietnam. America supported him because he was bitterly anti Communist and was prepared to treat Communists harshly and swiftly. But Diem was not going to be the puppet ruler that America had planned. He immediately made his mark on the Government by appointing his friends and supporters to the highest positions. He also refused to hold any elections which outraged the Vietnamese people. The USA wanted Diem to destroy the Vietcong. It hoped Diem would unite all the South Vietnamese people to become anti communist. A small team of intelligence officers and soldiers were sent to Saigon in 1954 to help Diem achieve Americas aims for Vietnam. A propaganda campaign had been planned to persuade to people in the South to not vote for the communists in the forthcoming elections to determine whether Vietnam should be united.
The team of ’advisors’ began training the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) in modern fighting tactics as it was becoming clear that anti Diem forces would resort to open warfare. Realising that the ARVN were unskilled at warfare it was suggested that America was to step in once again.
Much stayed the same when Kennedy was elected in 1960. In his first speech as president he stressed that he agreed with and aimed to follow Eisenhower’s policy of containing Communism and Diems South Vietnamese government. Although we could argue that Kennedy effectively ‘raised the stakes’ by stating that if anything he would be harder on the topic. Kennedy received conflicting advice from many different angles, although he chose to accept the advice from his military advisors. They had argued that a fairly small increase in military aid the United States could prevent an NLF victory in South Vietnam. As these terms broke the Geneva agreement they were kept from the public. It seems that Kennedy did not want to be perceived as weak, also the idea of another defeat would not be received well by America.
Kennedy had a plan to gain even more support, he decided to move Vietnamese peasants into new villages in areas under the control of the ARVN, this was known as the Strategic Hamlet Programme or ‘safe village policy’. This plan in fact backfired as many of the peasants were angry at being forced away from their homes and paddy fields. The opposition was growing, more and more protests took place. In 1963, Thich Quang Due, a sixty-six year old monk, sat down in the middle of a busy Saigon road and set himself on fire.
Kennedy was feeling the heat, Diem would never be able to unite the South Vietnamese against communism. Many attempts had already been made to remove Diem but Kennedy always instructed the CIA and US military to protect him. The time had come for a more popular leader in South Vietnam; Kennedy agreed to support a military mutiny from anti Diem Generals designed to finally remove him from power. On November 1st 1963 South Vietnamese troops surrounded Diem’s palace and eventually executed him and his brother. In eighteen months after Diem’s death ten different governments had passed through and failed to contain the hostile situation.
After the assassination of John F. Kennedy, his deputy, Lyndon B. Johnson became the new president of the United States. Johnson was a strong believer in the Domino Theory and believed that the defence of the USA was reliant on the National Liberation Front never gaining victory in South Vietnam.
Johnson did not want to appear soft on communism, his aim was to fight united with the South Vietnamese army for a non Communist Vietnam. He was under increasing pressure to commit fully to Vietnam as the Vietcong were gaining ground daily against an under strength American force and an in experienced South Vietnamese army. In 1964 there were 23,000 military advisors, nearly double the number that were fighting two years previous. This underlined Johnson’s determination to fully commit the US army if need be. Although he was cautious to send thousands more troops into a foreign war 11months before the presidential elections. “Just get me elected,” he told his military advisors, “and then you can have your war.”
In December 1964 and the early months of 1965, the Vietcong launched a number of damaging raids against American installations in the South. At Pleiko on the 7th February nine Americans were killed and 76 wounded. In response Johnson ordered the bombing of North Vietnam on the 2nd March.
Johnson and his Joint Chiefs of Staff devised a plan named Operation Plan 34 which involved sending in Asian mercenaries into North Vietnam to carry out acts of sabotage and the kidnapping or killing of communist officials. US destroyers would be sent in to increase Americas knowledge of Vietnams naval defences and on August 2, 1964, the US destroyer ‘Maddox’ was attacked by three North Vietnamese torpedo boats patrolling the Golf of Tonkin perimeter and sustained considerable damage although being able to sail safety to receive repairs to the hull. Finally a reason to retaliate with force, Johnson saw this as a long awaited reason to send thousands more combat troops into Vietnam. In retaliation to the bombing, Johnson had ordered the bombing of North Vietnam focusing on five main targets highlighted in previous months. Four North Vietnamese torpedo boat bases were hit along with an oil-storage depot.
The Congress later approved Johnson’s retaliation and passed what has become known as the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives agreed to a war and this gave Johnson an opportunity to escalate the offensive on North Vietnam.
Operation Rolling Thunder commenced after Johnson had won a landslide victory in the Presidential elections. This involved bombing North Vietnam on a regular basis, the aim was to destroy the North Vietnamese economy, break the will of the leadership and force her to stop helping Guerrilla warfare in the South. After losing more than a 1000 helicopters and 20 B-52 Bombers Johnson realised that he wasn’t going to win with persistent bombing. He now had to send in combat troops. A poll revealed that more than 80% of the American public approved the sending in of troops supported by air raids. On the 8th March 1964, 3,500 ’official’ US troops were sent in. Their initial orders were to block and destroy the Ho Chi Minh trail which was the main supply route for the Guerrilla war effort in the South.
In conclusion, there are many reasons why America lost the war against Vietnam. We have to look at a number of potential key dates to understand America’s mistakes. The cold war was an eye opener to America as they realised that communism was a serious threat. America may have got too involved in the war, although we can argue that if America had not gotten involved, the ARVN would have been powerless to prevent the invasion of South Vietnam. The presidents involved during this war era may have been influenced by ‘trigger happy’ members of state. Maybe America was confident they could stop Communism in Vietnam due to the success of their war effort in North Korea not too many years before. I feel America’s aims were unachievable; the troops that were fighting were not used to the terrain and climate. Whilst the Vietnamese army and their tactics were aimed at using the conditions to their advantage. Which gave the underdogs the upper hand. America had underestimated its opponent which led to America losing thousands of soldiers and losing the war.