Vietnam was then split into the communist north and the capitalist south. The president of southern Vietnam was President Diem who was very corrupt and was hated by the people of South Vietnam. There was supposed to be free elections held in South Vietnam but the USA stopped them because they thought that Ho Chi Mihn, the communist leader, would win the elections because Diem was so disliked by the people. As the elections were being stopped, the Viet Mihn were making guerrilla attacks and ambushes on soldiers in South Vietnam. The Truman Doctrine now came into play so the USA sent soldiers and equipment to help train the southern Vietnamese troops but they were slowly getting beaten by the Viet Mihn as they were much more experienced overall.
Back in the USA in 1960, John F Kennedy had just been elected President and was due to come to power in 1961. Kennedy took a very anti-communist role to the people of the USA because they thought that he would be weak and soft on communism. When Kennedy came to power, he was already engulfed in his promises to the citizens and if he was not strong in fighting the communist leaders he would have been attacked by the media. When Kennedy came to power Khrushchev said that the 3rd world would be a struggle between the USA and the USSR particularly Vietnam, and that the USSR would give aid to North Vietnam.
In 1959 Fidel Castro was appointed President of Cuba and he declared it a communist country and a Soviet ally. In 1961 the Bay of Pigs incident occurred in which the USA trained Cuban exiles to overthrow Castro and send them back into Cuba, but it failed and Kennedy looked like a fool. The media said that he had already failed in his attempts to overthrow communism so Kennedy was eager to stop communism in Vietnam.
In October 1961, a US General was sent to Vietnam to evaluate the military situation. When he arrived there was already 2000 military advisers there, but the general suggested sending another 8000-10000 more. The US secretary of defence, Robert McNamara, suggested sending 200000 more advisers but by the end of 1962 there were only 11000 US advisers in Vietnam, exactly what the General had suggested. The USAF pilots began transporting soldiers and weaponry for the southern Vietnamese people and in 1962 Kennedy authorised the use of Napalm and Agent Orange. The US then came up with the idea of strategic hamlets and fortified villages which uninvolved peasants were put in to stop the villages from helping the Viet Cong.
The USA started to think President Diem was a bad role model for President. Most of the population of southern Vietnam were Buddhist but the upper class were Catholics. On Buddha’s birthday Diem banned the flying of Buddhist flags but the Buddhists protested and 7 people were shot in the southern Vietnamese army. The USA then turned against Diem and he was shot dead. Three weeks later Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
The Vice President Lyndan Johnson then took power and despite the US’ help, the southern Vietnamese were still losing in the war, so Johnson was advised to start bombing North Vietnam. Before the bombing could begin, they need to know the positions of where the North Vietnamese were. So the USS Maddox was sent to the Gulf of Tonkin to monitor the radar and radio transmissions, on the 2nd of August, the Maddox was attacked by the northern Vietnamese. Two torpedoes missed the Maddox and one failed to detonate but the USA exaggerated the attack, said that they were under attack for the next 2 days and claimed that the North Vietnamese had upped the war. Johnson then got Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on 7th of August which gave Johnson the power to do whatever he wanted in Vietnam. So he took the war to a higher level. In November ’64 there was a general election and Johnson won.
In December 1964 the southern Vietnamese army sent 2 of its most experienced battalions of soldiers out to fight the Viet Cong and both battalions were ambushed and killed. So the US became very pessimistic about the southern Vietnamese army. In February 1965 the Viet Cong attacked US air bases and destroyed 10 helicopters, killed 8men and injured more than 100. Before February 1965 the bombing of North Vietnam was only minor but Johnson launched operation Rolling Thunder in 1965, this meant that the US began to carpet bomb North Vietnam with B-52 bombers. In March 1965 Johnson sent another 3500 men out to Vietnam to protect air bases because the war had been stepped up. By the end of 1965 there were over 200000 American troops in Vietnam.
In conclusion to this question, I think America became involved because they wanted to stop the spread of communism and communism altogether.
By Marcus Giannandrea 10M
