Explaining America's Involvement in the Vietnam War
Explaining America's Involvement in the Vietnam War
There are many speculations as to why the Americans entered the Vietnam War. American involvement was based upon a series of many choices made by five successive presidents during a span of 1945-1975. The decisions made by these leaders were based on one central motive, the need to stop the spread of Communism. When the U.S government marched into Vietnam, it was because it feared a growth of Communism in a region of close proximity to communist China. When the United States retaliated against the North Vietnam to uphold the Truman Doctrine, they ignored foreign policy of isolationism, with Communist threat in mind. The United States wanted to aid Southern Vietnam, the help was driven by a factor of communism, and a consistent theme with lives at stake. In 1945, A. Peter Dewey, a Truman administrator, was shot and killed while in Vietnam gathering information to report back to the White House. Ho Chi Minh claims it was “friendly fire and simply an accident” . Accidental or not, Dewey was America’s first casualty in Vietnam, but certainly not the last. Vietnam was on its way to become America’s only Thirty Year War. The United States became involved in the Vietnam War in various stages because it was dedicated to combat Communism.
North Vietnam was a Communist country, Proclaimed independent by Ho Chi Minh, a Communist. A Marxist, he believed in " National Communism " and during the war with the French, took refuge in northern Vietnam settling there with his fellow communist followers. He founded the Indochina Communist Party and the Viet Minh which was formed in 1941, seeking independence from French rule. Ho Chi Minh became the president of North Vietnam from 1945 to 1969 when North Vietnam was a poor area cut off from the agricultural benefit of South Vietnam, forced to ask for assistance from major Communist allies - the Soviet Union and China, who chose to aid North Vietnam before and during the war. This was the beginning of a communist involvement in Vietnam, a direct violation of the democracy the U.S stood for and respected.
For nearly forty years, Vietnam had not experienced settled peace. On September 2nd, 1945, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed independent from France, which gathered strong opposition. The French wanted to re-establish their rule in Vietnam, but were beaten at the battle of...