American Intervention

Vietnam 1950s-60s

Why go to Vietnam?

• Domino Theory!!!• “You have a row of dominoes set up. You

knock the first one, and what will happen to the last one is a certainty, that it will go over very quickly”

» President Eisenhower 1954

• USA were worried by the growth of communism in South East Asia especially the growing influence of China.

“Propping Up the Domino”

• US leader of the Free World?• The popular view of the time that if the US

did not intervene then Communism would spread.

• Therefore the US had no alternative to support South Vietnam?

• Financial Aid• Military Aid• Military Advisors

Elections

• Under the Geneva agreements of 1954, a general election would be held before July 1956

• Why did this not happen?– Ho Chi Minh was sure he could win the

Election– The USA knew how popular Ho Chi Minh was

and knew he was likely to win

Problems in The South

• Active Communist guerrilla movements

• Very Strong nationalist side to these movements

• Strong opposition to the regimes like that of President Diem

• Vietnam was a domino on the verge of being knocked over

Why was the Diem Regime unpopular?

Diem was a rich catholic, unlike most who were poor and

Buddhist

Diem supported rich landowners and

persecuted Buddhists

While Ho Chi Minh gave out land to

poor farmers, Diem let landlords raise rent for peasants

Diem hunted down Vietminh supporters and executed them if they did not support

him

Diem did not represent the majority of Vietnamese people

Why did USA support Diem

• Eisenhower was determined not to let communism spread into South Vietnam

• Diem was strongly anti-communist• USA started a propaganda campaign against

North Vietnam.– It claimed the Vietminh and the Chinese were killing

innocent civilians– North Vietnamese were accused of killing thousands

of Vietnamese living in the North who were political opponents of Communism

• The USA had started a ‘psychological war’ against communism in Vietnam

Limited Intervention

• Increased during the Kennedy administration

• US Military advisors

• 1961 – 3,000 Military advisors

• 1962 – 11,000 Military advisors

• Slowly these advisors were drawn into conflict with the Viet Cong

What was the US advisors Role?

• Improve the Training of the South Vietnamese forces (ARVN) to counter the growing threat from the Viet Cong (US term for Vietnamese Communist)

What was the Vietcong's aim?

• Overthrow the corrupt and unfair Diem Government

• Reunite Vietnam under communism

• The Vietcong thought communism was the best solution for all of Vietnam

JFK and Vietnam

• Kennedy was not keen to send US combat troops to Vietnam (too heavily involved)

• Kennedy inherited a very unpopular policy called ‘strategic hamlets’

• Kennedy wanted to win ‘the hearts and minds’ of the Vietnamese people

• “We are not going to bungle into war”• Kennedy was heavily influenced by “The Guns

of August” book about the mistakes made by European leaders and Generals in WW1

Why would this be important for the US in Vietnam?

Strategic Hamlets

• Relocating villagers into fortified camps with enclosed ditches, barbed wire fences or sharp bamboo fences

• Guarded against Vietcong by local non-communists

• Villagers in theory would be helping and defending themselves

• Relocated peasants were forced to pay for the relocation and rebuilding of their homes

• Many South Vietnamese peasants seen it as no different from living in a form of prison

End of Diem

• Diem was not effective at ruling South Vietnam or dealing with the increasing problem of the Viet Cong.

• Diem could not unite Vietnam against Communism (he was not even succeeding in the South)

• Kennedy removed US protection for Diem in 1963 and South Vietnamese generals overthrew the Diem Regime – a Coup

• Diem and his brother were executed

Kennedy-LBJ

• After Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963 his Vice-president Lyndon B Johnson (LBJ) was sworn in as President

• Johnson was convinced the Soviets and the Chinese were behind the growing problems in Vietnam.

• He believed the Domino Theory was correct and losing Vietnam and the area would weaken the international position of USA

• Full Scale involvement

Assistance

• Robert McNamara• “The longest and the

most divisive war in American history might never have happened had Kennedy not been assassinated in Dallas on 22 November 1963”