President Eisenhower and his Secretary of State took an anti-Communist line in South Vietnam because they were enforcing their pledge to fight communism, the Truman Doctrine. The USA was involved in Vietnam before 1954, when they were supplying the French colonial rulers with money for weapons and training whilst fighting the Vietnamese. The ‘Domino Theory’ was the theory that once Vietnam turned communist, so would the surrounding countries such as Laos and Cambodia. The USA supported the overthrow of Bao Dai in South Vietnam in 1955 because he wasn’t anti-Communist enough. The new government of Ngo Dinh Diem became so unpopular because they were being corrupt. Friends and family of Diem held all the powerful government positions, he was anti-Buddhist and the majority of Vietnam was Buddhist, and he kept the countries taxes to high, making the peasants even poorer. He was basically not Democratic enough. Diem was willing to introduce strategic hamlets into South Vietnam so that communist activity could not develop. Known areas of communism sympathy were spread out, to disallow the spread of these beliefs. Communist peasants formed the National Liberation Front
The events in Laos worried the Americans because it proved their ‘Domino Theory’. The war in Vietnam had roused communism thoughts in Laos. The Viet Cong Guerillas in South Vietnam were getting their support from the Vietnamese peasants. Kennedy sent an increasing number of advisers to help Diem because they needed to win back the support of the South Vietnamese. Diem needed to improve his image because the Viet Cong were winning the war. American was particularly keen to take a tough stand in Vietnam after their failure in Cuba, because they could not let Russia think they had the upper hand. If Vietnam turned Communist, then the Russians would have enough power to take on the world. Kennedy agreed to a CIA plan to remove Diem from power because he was turning his own people against the democratic beliefs of the South with his harsh policies. They did not support the government, and were beginning to turn towards the communist beliefs. America had to halt this process, to try and save as much support for Democracy as possible. The Viet Cong were so powerful in South Vietnam because they had turned against their Democratic government and now supported the Viet Cong.
By 1963, it looked like the Vietcong were going to defeat the combined forces of the USA and South Vietnam. This was highly embarrassing to America, and they needed to attack the Vietcong. The USA claimed that the Vietcong attacked their ships, but the Vietcong did not admit to this, whereas they had admitted all of their previous attacks, because they were proud of them. The Ho Chi Minh trail was a series of routes that the Viet Cong supplied arms to their fighters in the South. This meant that the South Vietnamese guerillas could attack the Southern democrats easier. The peasants of South Vietnam suffered in the war, when bombs containing Agent Orange and Napalm accidentally hit them. These gases burnt all their skin off, caused cancer, and hundreds of fatalities. On the Vietnamese holiday, Tet, the Vietcong launched a surprise attack on the Americans in South Vietnam. The Americans and the South Vietnamese retaliated and fought back. This part of the war was heavily televised in America, and the public saw the brutality being used by the South Vietnamese against the captured Viet Cong. What they saw, and the fact that this is what their country was supporting, horrified the American public. The Battle of Khe Sahn was an attack on an American military base that lasted for one week. In this one week 10,000 Vietnamese, mostly Northern were killed, whereas only 500 American soldiers were killed. What made it worse, was that 2 months later the base was abandoned, so the battle and all the Vietnamese deaths were pointless. This made the opinion of the American public change, making them realise how pointless the whole was. Johnson called a halt to the bombing in 1968, because he was attending the Paris peace negotiations. The pressure and conditions of the war turned them American soldiers into brutes. They raped innocent Vietnamese women and carried out mass murders and massacres, such as Mai Lai. The North Vietnamese censored their news about the war to their citizens. This was so bad news did not lower morale and stop them fighting at their full potential. Anyone reporting Viet Cong defeats or losses was arrested. The government of North Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh persuaded the population of North Vietnam to support the war effort by telling them of US soldiers raping and massacring other Vietnamese citizens. By spreading bad propaganda about the Americans and South Vietnam, they persuaded the North Vietnamese to support their cause.
President Nixon rejected the Truman Doctrine because the USA decided to talk to the USSR (Russia) about being more friendly towards each other. Vietnamisation is what the Americans called the gradual withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. In 1970 the US invaded Cambodia, as it was a good base to attack North Vietnam from. They were only there for 4 weeks. In 1971, Laos turned communist. It seemed like a random choice, but Laos was a very similar, poor country like Vietnam, with a small percentage of the population owning a very large percentage of the wealth. In 1970-1971, whilst the peace protests were in full swing, four teenagers were shot at Kent State University, and Nixon called these protestors ‘bums’. Meaning that they should not be lazing around protesting, but should be out in Vietnam fighting for their country. Linebacker 1 and Linebacker 2 were bombing campaigns against Vietnam. The US did not withdraw from Vietnam with honour, the tried to sneak out with as few people noticing their defeat as possible. After the US withdrawal from the South, they were attacked and taken over by the Communist North. The Vietnam War damaged US standing in the eyes of its citizens and the rest of the world, because it showed everyone that they not as merciful, and powerful as they claimed to be. The view of the war as shown in US films is not very accurate at all, because they are biased. An American film would show the film as they thought it was and not how it actually was. The casualties of the war do not have the opportunity to their side of the war. Their voices were never heard, and their views were never listened to.