7/27/2019 Why Did the Usa Become Involved in Vietnam in the 1950s and 1960s

1/3

GCSE History - Vietnam Coursework

1) Why did the USA become involved in Vietnam in the 1950's and1960's?

The USA became involved in Vietnam in 1949, under fear ofcommunism spreading further into South East Asia as Mao Ze Dong hadwon a communist victory in China in the same year. The USA and USSRwere the two most powerful nations in the world at this time and wereboth involved in a Cold War with each other. Each had opposed the way inwhich the other country was run, with USA being Capitalist and USSRbeing Communist. When the USSR exploded its own atom bomb in 1949, itbecame clear to the US that they were on equal level with the SovietUnion, as it appeared that they were no longer the only country with

nuclear power. Every time a nation fell towards communism, the USSRbecame stronger, weakening the USA and other capitalist nations.Vietnam at this time was a French colony, which was occupied by theJapanese during World War Two. The Vietminh, which was an anti-Japanese resistance lead by Ho Chi Minh, defeated the Japanese in 1945and took over North Vietnam changing it into a communist state. This ledto the return of the French at the end of World War Two and they triedto take Vietnam back. With China, who had just become communist,supporting the Vietminh, the USA felt they had to intervene and decidedto support France with Financial aid in order to enforce the containment

theory and the Truman Doctrine.After the Korean War, the Japanese had surrendered in the North tothe USSR, and in the South to USA. This allowed both countries toenforce the system they followed with USSR turning North Korea into aCommunist country, and USA turning South Korea into a Capitalistcountry. In 1954 the French were heavily defeated at Dien Bien Phu bythe Vietnamese therefore North Vietnam had no leadership. The GenevaAgreement in 1954 led to Indo-China being divided into four differentcountries: Loas, Cambodia, North Vietnam and South Vietnam. Freeelections were then held in Vietnam disallowing any foreign nations tointervene. The north was taken over by the Communists under the

leadership of Ho Chi Minh. The South was taken over by Ngo Dinh Diem,where the US helped him set up an anti-communist state. Diem was easilyswayed by the Americans and would be willing to do anything they askedof him, including help defeat communism.

The Vietcong, which was a resistance movement in the southsupporting the idea of communism, began to attack South Vietnam, which

7/27/2019 Why Did the Usa Become Involved in Vietnam in the 1950s and 1960s

2/3

led the US to come up with the Domino Theory by President Eisenhower.He said, You have a row of dominoes set up. You knock over the first one,and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go oververy quickly. They thought that if Vietnam would fall into the hands ofcommunism, then other countries that used to belong to Indo-China wouldalso follow suit, in the same way as a row of dominos. With the USdetermined not to let the Domino Theory take affect, they decided toincrease involvement in Vietnam in order to fight back the spread ofcommunism.

The USA first got involved in Vietnam with financial aid. The USAsent money to France first to help fight against the Japanese. They thensent money to South Vietnam in order to help fight back the Vietcong,which were also given a helping hand by China. In 1954, the USA began togreatly fear the spread of communism and therefore prevented elections

taking place as they felt that Ho Chi Minh in the North supportingcommunism would win. This is an example of political involvement. As wellas financial aid, the USA started to increase their advisory involvement inSouth Vietnam sending in CIA advisors and weapons. Through sheer fearof communism, more money was sent to South Vietnam even though at thetime the government was failing to prevent Communism and the Vietcongattacks. At this time, President Kennedy was in charge of the USA andspent $3 billion dollars in increasing American advisers in South Vietnamto 16,500. By 1962, 11,500 US troops were sent to Vietnam and thisgradually increased to 23,000 in 1964. President John F Kennedy wasassassinated in 1963, and his successor was Lyndon Johnson. This wasseen as a turning point in US involvement in Vietnam as Kennedy hadprovided financial and advisory involvement, where as Lyndon was seem tobe more committed to stopping communism by military involvement andwilling to involve the USA to a full-scale conflict in Vietnam.

After US boats began to get attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin byopposing forces in July 1964, Johnson played down the attacks statingthat it was nothing as there were no casualties or losses and did not doanything about it. At this time, US elections were being held in Novemberand Johnsons Republic opposition to the presidency claimed that he wastoo soft on communism. This was badly damaging the reputation of

Johnson so he went about creating another staged attack in the Gulf ofTonkin, where US boats were apparently being attacked, but said to beactually shooting at nothing. Hell, those dumb, stupid sailors were justshooting at flying fish Johnson said to an official. This lead the UScongress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin resolution on the 7 th August 1964,which gave Lyndon the freedom and power to take all necessary

7/27/2019 Why Did the Usa Become Involved in Vietnam in the 1950s and 1960s

3/3

measures to prevent further aggression and achieve peace and securityin Vietnam. This meant that Lyndon could take the USA into a total war inVietnam, and lead to Operation Rolling Thunder to begin in 1965. This wasa gigantic bombing raid in North Vietnam where 8 millions bombs fell tothe ground killing thousands of people over 8 years. Military involvementincreased further and by 1969, there were half a million US soldierspresent in Vietnam.

With all the military involvement in Vietnam, it shows the commitmentthe USA had in stopping Communism and the USSR from gettingstronger, and giving them the one-up in the Cold War. Therefore theUSA became involved in Vietnam to stop the spread in communism, and tostop the USSR from getting stronger as China had fallen into communismback in 1949. The USA did not want the Domino Theory to take affect,and firmly believed in maintaining Capitalism, so consequently had no

choice but to get involved in Vietnam.