In 1954 the French army were at last defeated by the Vietminh at a place called Dien Bien Phu. This led to peace talks which were attended by representatives from North and South Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, USA, Great Britain, China, USSR and France. It was decided that Vietnam would be divided into two countries, North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The North, with its capitol Hanoi, would be controlled by the communist leader, Ho Chi Minh and the South, with its capitol Saigon, would be led by Ngo Dinh Diem, who was not a communist. The people were told that elections would take place to create one country but this did not happen. The North Vietnamese wanted the countries to be re-united as one country with a communist leader, but the USA and the South did not want this to happen. The USA continued to give military and economic aid to the South in an effort to stop the spread of communism.
Although Vietnam was over 9,000 miles away from the USA, the Americans were afraid that communists were taking over the world and that they should be stopped. The USA followed a policy of containment where they were not going to allow any more countries to turn communist and were going to ‘contain’ the expansion of communism. In 1954, President Eisenhower put forward the ‘Domino Theory’ where he believed that, as the countries of South East Asia were closely linked together that if one country fell to communism, then the others would also fall, like a row of dominos.
This is why the USA supported the leader of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem. He was not a communist but a catholic and he hated everything that communism stood for. Along with his brother, Nhu, he ruled South Vietnam as a dictator. He tried to find all the members of the Vietminh and get rid of them. He treated the Vietnamese peasants with contempt and had little respect for their Buddhist religion. One example of this was when a Buddhist protest about flying flags on Buddha’s birthday ended with South Vietnamese Civil Guards opening fire on the protesters. Although
Diem’s government was corrupt and ruthless, he still received backing from the USA.
In 1960 the National Liberation Front was formed in South Vietnam. Its aims were to remove Diem from power, get rid of the Americans and to reunite North and South Vietnam. They tried to do this by a series of guerrilla attacks where large scale confrontations were avoided. Instead, small scale attacks at night against US targets or setting booby traps was used. The National Liberation Front recruited supporters from among people who had ordinary jobs or even worked for the USA during the day, but became a guerrilla at night. As the Americans felt that they were surrounded by enemies and had no idea who they were, they increased the number of troops in Vietnam. At the same time, John F. Kennedy became President of the USA. He again increased the number of military advisors and helped to equip the army in South Vietnam.
In 1963 President Kennedy was assassinated and Lyndon B Johnson succeeded him. At the same time, Diem was overthrown by the South Vietnam army and was killed. This led to the spread of communism in the South. President Johnson did not think that the South Vietnamese government could keep the North Vietnamese out and he wanted a more aggressive war against communists. In 1964, two American ships that were gathering intelligence were attacked by North Vietnamese gunboats while they were in international waters. This became known as ‘The Tonkin Incident’ and the US government passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which gave the President a ‘blank check’ to fight a war against communism. In February 1965, ' Operation Rolling Thunder’ began, a campaign of bombing in North Vietnam. In March 1965 the first American troop landed in South Vietnam and by December of the same year, there were 150,000 troops in the country, ready for a war which would last for eight years.
The Americans became increasingly involved in Vietnam for a number of reasons. They were afraid that communists were going to take over the world and wanted to stop them. They had spent billions of dollars in an effort to stop communism, with over 500 million dollars being spent in Vietnam in the early stages of the fight against communism in that country. Once the Americans had shown support in South Vietnam, by sending money, equipment and troops, it would have been very difficult to just pull out of the fight. Also, once American troops began to be killed and injured by communists, the Americans had to fight back. I think that the most important reason for the increasing US involvement in Vietnam was the amount of money it had spent on fighting against Communism. If they had left Vietnam to sort out its own battles then it could have become a totally communist country. If this had happened, then the American people would have complained about the amount of money that had been spent fighting against communism, only for a country where a lot of money had been spent to come under communist rule.
