Before 1954, Vietnam had been the colony of France. However the French were beaten in the Indo-Chinese war in 1954. In this war America was France’s allies and supplied the French financially. However the French still lost.
After this, according to the Geneva conference, Indo-China was split up into Laos, Cambodia and North and South Vietnam. They were split along the 17th parallel. The division was only meant to be temporary, however, North Vietnam was under the rule of Ho Chi Minh, a communist. South Vietnam was led by Ngo Dihn Dien, a very strong anti- communist. There was little chance that the two states would join together peacefully.
Ho Chi Minh was the leader of the Communist nationalist party or the Vietminh. He wanted Vietnam to become one country under communism.
Under Eisenhower, the USA aligned themselves with South Vietnam. This was due to the policies in the Truman doctrine. However, Diem’s government was very unpopular and corrupt. He was also a Catholic. Therefore he was unpopular among the Buddhists in the country. He didn’t do anything to help the poor in Vietnam so he was unpopular with them too. Soon there was increasing support for the Vietminh especially among the poor, Buddhist peasants in South Vietnam. A communist guerrilla party was born out of the supporters in South Vietnam called the National Liberation Front (NLF) and was known as the Vietcong.
To try and combat the rising support for the NLF, President Eisenhower sent into Vietnam, several hundred military advisors. This was America’s first actual involvement in Vietnam. He also sent military aid to South Vietnam.
When John F. Kennedy became president in 1961, he gradually increased the number of military advisors in Vietnam. In total there were 16 000 military advisors. They played a large part in helping South Vietnam defend against Vietcong attacks.
Kennedy’ s involvement on Vietnam was due to the pressure he was under to prevent Vietnam from turning communist. He had already let Cuba turn communist under Fidel Castro, and therefore he couldn’t let Vietnam also become communist. He had to show the world that he was able to cope and follow America’s policies on the containment of communism.
In 1963, the USA realised how unpopular Diem was. More and more people in the south were turning to the Vietcong. Often, whole villages would help shelter guerrilla members of the Vietcong. It was almost impossible to tell who was a member of the Vietcong and who wasn’t. The USA then realised that to win the war they would have to win the hearts and the minds of the people. They needed the support of the peasants in South Vietnam. To do this they encouraged the South Vietnamese army to overthrow Diem. Another pro-American, anti-communist leader soon replaced him.
President Kennedy was assassinated soon after the overthrow of Diem. He was replaced by Lyndon B. Johnson. His policies on Vietnam were quite different to Kennedy’s. He believed that the USA should have a much larger role in Vietnam to try and win the war. He used the alleged attack in the Gulf of Tonkin as an excuse to attack North Vietnam. He started to send many American combat troops into Vietnam while also providing much military aid. In 1964 there were 165000 troops in Vietnam and America was fighting much of the war for South Vietnam.
America’s initial involvement in Vietnam between 1954 and 1965 was due to its policies on the containment of Communism. This was stated in the Truman doctrine and because of this America became involved in a war which had little to do with them. The fear of the Domino theory taking place in Asia was another reason to why they got involved. There was also a lot of pressure to conform to the Truman doctrine after the failure to combat communism in other parts of the world like Cuba, China and Korea. They chose to fight this war to show they could tackle communism.
