GCSE History - Vietnam Coursework

1) Why did the USA become involved in Vietnam in the 1950's and 1960's? The USA became involved in Vietnam in 1949, under fear of communism spreading further into South East Asia as Mao Ze Dong had won a communist victory in China in the same year. The USA and USSR were the two most powerful nations in the world at this time and were both involved in a Cold War with each other. Each had opposed the way in which the other country was run, with USA being Capitalist and USSR being Communist. When the USSR exploded its own atom bomb in 1949, it became clear to the US that they were on equal level with the Soviet Union, as it appeared that they were no longer the only country with nuclear power. Every time a nation fell towards communism, the USSR became stronger, weakening the USA and other capitalist nations. Vietnam at this time was a French colony, which was occupied by the Japanese during World War Two. The Vietminh, which was an antiJapanese resistance lead by Ho Chi Minh, defeated the Japanese in 1945 and took over North Vietnam changing it into a communist state. This led to the return of the French at the end of World War Two and they tried to take Vietnam back. With China, who had just become communist, supporting the Vietminh, the USA felt they had to intervene and decided to 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 to the USSR, and in the South to USA. This allowed both countries to enforce the system they followed with USSR turning North Korea into a Communist country, and USA turning South Korea into a Capitalist country. In 1954 the French were heavily defeated at Dien Bien Phu by the Vietnamese therefore North Vietnam had no leadership. The Geneva Agreement in 1954 led to Indo-China being divided into four different countries: Loas, Cambodia, North Vietnam and South Vietnam. Free elections were then held in Vietnam disallowing any foreign nations to intervene. 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 easily swayed by the Americans and would be willing to do anything they asked of him, including help defeat communism. The Vietcong, which was a resistance movement in the south supporting the idea of communism, began to attack South Vietnam, which

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 over very quickly. They thought that if Vietnam would fall into the hands of communism, then other countries that used to belong to Indo-China would also follow suit, in the same way as a row of dominos. With the US determined not to let the Domino Theory take affect, they decided to increase involvement in Vietnam in order to fight back the spread of communism. The USA first got involved in Vietnam with financial aid. The USA sent money to France first to help fight against the Japanese. They then sent 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 to greatly fear the spread of communism and therefore prevented elections taking place as they felt that Ho Chi Minh in the North supporting communism would win. This is an example of political involvement. As well as financial aid, the USA started to increase their advisory involvement in South Vietnam sending in CIA advisors and weapons. Through sheer fear of communism, more money was sent to South Vietnam even though at the time the government was failing to prevent Communism and the Vietcong attacks. At this time, President Kennedy was in charge of the USA and spent $3 billion dollars in increasing American advisers in South Vietnam to 16,500. By 1962, 11,500 US troops were sent to Vietnam and this gradually increased to 23,000 in 1964. President John F Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and his successor was Lyndon Johnson. This was seen as a turning point in US involvement in Vietnam as Kennedy had provided financial and advisory involvement, where as Lyndon was seem to be more committed to stopping communism by military involvement and willing to involve the USA to a full-scale conflict in Vietnam. After US boats began to get attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin by opposing forces in July 1964, Johnson played down the attacks stating that it was nothing as there were no casualties or losses and did not do anything about it. At this time, US elections were being held in November and Johnsons Republic opposition to the presidency claimed that he was too soft on communism. This was badly damaging the reputation of Johnson so he went about creating another staged attack in the Gulf of Tonkin, where US boats were apparently being attacked, but said to be actually shooting at nothing. Hell, those dumb, stupid sailors were just shooting at flying fish Johnson said to an official. This lead the US congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin resolution on the 7th August 1964, which gave Lyndon the freedom and power to take all necessary

measures to prevent further aggression and achieve peace and security in Vietnam. This meant that Lyndon could take the USA into a total war in Vietnam, and lead to Operation Rolling Thunder to begin in 1965. This was a gigantic bombing raid in North Vietnam where 8 millions bombs fell to the ground killing thousands of people over 8 years. Military involvement increased further and by 1969, there were half a million US soldiers present in Vietnam. With all the military involvement in Vietnam, it shows the commitment the USA had in stopping Communism and the USSR from getting stronger, and giving them the one-up in the Cold War. Therefore the USA became involved in Vietnam to stop the spread in communism, and to stop the USSR from getting stronger as China had fallen into communism back 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.