Before the WarWhen the United States was fighting their civil war, France was colonizing Indochina. Countries that would later be called, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. France wanted to harvest these countries natural resources, to support their economy.
After World War I, Ho Chi Minh formed a nationalist movement. Ho was against the French being in his homeland. When the Japanese invaded Vietnam, Ho created the Viet Minh. The Viet Minh was known as the liberation movement. During World War II the Viet Minh was able to hold back the Japanese advances. Ho paraphrased the United States Declaration of Independence and proclaimed the new nation called Vietnam. Having Western countries refused to recognize this new country. Also from this France was very determined to reclaim all its territories after World War II. The United States was allies with France during World War II and now faced a hard decision to make. For America sympathized for other countries getting independence. Supporting the Viet Minh was not a possible for the fear of communism spreading. President Truman chose to help France in reclaiming its colonies. The United States lost $1 billion per year from this. The war between the French and Vietnamese lasted from 1945 to 1954. The French troops left after some of their soldiers were taken as prisoners leaving the country in two zones at the 17th parallel. |
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The tension erupts into warAfter the French and Vietnamese conflict the United States pulled out, but kept giving funds to the South. Leading to the North being lead by Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi was created the capital. Ngo Dinh Diem was the leader of the South and its capital was Saigon.
The South feared that Ho Chi Minh would become full leader of the country if there was elections. So the South denied these elections to take place. When Kennedy came into office he sent "advisers" (really troops) to train the South. Each year the "advisers" increased drastically, an example is from1962 there were 10,000, which increased to 21,000 by the year 1964. Ho Chi Minh turned North Vietnam into a communist country, which created fear in the United States because of the domino theory. He then created the Viet Cong to overthrow the South to have the whole country under his rule. From the tension that was built up, the United States saw how Diem was a corrupt leader. In November 1963, the CIA approved the ARVN (south military) to assassinate Diem. However this lead to political struggles in the South, also Kennedy never wanted to have Diem killed because of this very reason. Two weeks after the assassination of Diem, Kennedy was assassinated. Leaving the war to the new United States President, Lyndon B. Johnson's hands. |