US involvement in Vietnam

 Before World War Two Vietnam had been part of the French Empire. During World War Two it had been invaded by Japan. Ho Chi Minh was the leader of the Vietminh, a resistance army which fought for Vietnamese independence.

Ho Chi Minh helped to rescue downed American pilots and gathered intelligence on the Japenese for the American OSS. Ho worked closely with the American intelligence community during WW2 and his views were well known to them. They knew that his primary concern was Vietnamese independence. 

The Battle of Dien Bien Phu was the decisive engagement in the first Indochina War (1946–54). After French forces occupied the Dien Bien Phu valley in late 1953, Viet Minh commander Vo Nguyen Giap amassed troops and placed heavy artillery in caves of the mountains overlooking the French camp. Boosted by Chinese aid, Giap mounted assaults on the opposition’s strong points beginning in March 1954, eliminating use of the French airfield. Viet Minh forces overran the base in early May, prompting the French government to seek an end to the fighting .

The shock and agony of the dramatic loss of a garrison of around fourteen thousand men allowed French prime minister Pierre Mendes to muster enough parliamentary support to sign the Geneva Accords of July 1954, which essentially ended the French presence in Indochina.

1954- A conference among several nations including the US in Geneva, Switzerland that tried to settle outstanding issues from the korean war and restoring peace in Indochina.

• In this conference, the geneva accords were made, the main elements of this were that : Vietnam would be divided in half (north + south) along the 17th parallel, Vietminh would control North and the State of Vietnam would control South, there would be a general election in S + N to decide which Vietnam would govern the whole country.

• The geneva accords got france out of Vietnam but didn't prevent an escalation of disagreement between free and communist, they only hastened american involvement in Vietnam.

This was the idea that if one key nation in a region fell to control of communism ,that others would follow like toppling dominoes. The US was very against this idea and the theory was used by many American leaders to justify American intervention in the Vietnam War.

Ngo Dinh Diem was president of South Vietnam from 1954-1963.

• Diem was brutal and very unpopular, his election was a sham, he claimed 605,000 votes in Saigon but only 450,000 people were allowed to vote.

The US didn't care and backed him up regardless of his harshness because he was AntiCommunist and they didn't want communism to spread.

The Us provided material and military aid to Diem and JFK sent in "advisers" to South Vietnam but they were really more troops.

In 1963, Kennedy decided Diem was a bad leader and couldn't unite the south against communism. Kennedy agreed to the CIA operation that overthrew Diem's government and Diem was shot dead.

Diem's government and the CIA designed strategic hamlets to try and stop Viet Cong from wiining over vcillagers in the south.

If the government felt a village was in 'danger' it would be relocated to a fortified camp with barbed wire to prevent villagers leaving. These didn't work very well as the US couldn't determine who was and who wasn't a member of the Viet Cong.

Eisenhower sent in military advisors as an attempt to 'help' Diem's army. They helped train the SV army and gave financial aid to help support the government. So many were sent over though that it was more like a takeover of the army as the US advisors were now in full control.

Gulf of Tolkin- August 2nd- 4th 1964

On august 2nd a US warship reported being hit by a NV torpedo boat- hit but didn't explode and the americans returned fire.

on 4th august the same US warship and one other reported that they were hit again by torpedo boats. There were no sailors or fighter pilots that saw any evidence of the attack. Johnson ordered airforce attack anyway on NV gunboat bases.

The public were told that the ships were definitely attacked and they were outraged. Johnson then proposed the gulf of tolkin resolution which gave him the power to defend US forces and SV in whatever way he thought best - congress passed this.