During Eisenhower's presidency what were the arguments for and against US intervention in Vietnam? How much did Eisenhower escalate the war?

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During Eisenhower’s presidency what were the arguments for and against US intervention in Vietnam? How much did Eisenhower escalate the war?

During 1954 to 1965, America became increasingly involved in the affairs of Vietnam. This was due to many important reasons, the most important being that of America’s hatred of communism and the USA's need to contain it.
Throughout these years the US president Eisenhower could have withdrawn and stopped giving aid to South Vietnam and the French, but didn't, as the he and presidents after him wanted to maintain their stature and not let Communist countries get any edge over them.
From 1946 onwards the Vietminh, who were an organisation set-up and led by the patriotic communist Ho Chi Minh, fought heavily with the French. They fought with far more primitive weapons than the French who used modern powerful weapons supplied by the US. But where the Vietminh lost out on technology they made up with ferocity, patriotism and their tactics. They fought using Guerrilla warfare and this suited the environment and gave a major advantage to the Vietminh.
Eisenhower had made the USA become indirectly involved by funding the war for the French, but this was not enough for them. The French involvement in the ‘war’ was different to the US’s. The French wanted to keep their empire, whereas the American’s wanted to fight communism, and avoid any case of a ‘Domino theory’ happening. The American’s saw this conflict as a stand against the worldwide spread of communism and not as war between colonialists and Nationalists.

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The year 1954 was a major turning point, which brought the American’s very close to involvement of the conflict. The battle of Dien Bien Phu, in which the French were defeated by the Vietminh, caused the French to leave Indo-China. The Geneva peace agreement led to the temporary partition of Vietnam. This was to be temporary as the elections were to be held in1956 in which the Vietnamese could vote for their leader.
The Vietminh leader, Ho Chi Minh controlled North Vietnam and Bao Dai Controlled South Vietnam. Bao Dai was disliked in the south and many, even in the ...

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