US involvement in Vietnam

Before WW1 France was in charge of Vietnam ( or as it was previusly called, Indo-China) however during the first world was France was obviously busy fighing against Germany they therefor were ot focused on ruling Vietnam. The Japanese took over Vietnam and were cruel to the people of Vietnam, this resulted in a revolt from the vietnamese people and the rise of the Vietnhim (freedom fighters from the North.)

So after the war:

-France wanted to own Vietnam (again)

-Japan wanted to own Vietnam

-Vietnim didnt want Vietnam to be ruled by anyone

-After world war one France prioritised taking back controll of their previosly owned countries, one of these being Vietnam.

-The French fought the Vietnim to try and prevent the communism from neighbouring countries (China) spreading. The French suffered a major defeat, 8000 French troops were killed in the battle of Dien Bien Phu. During the two weeks of battle the French requested help from the USA however President Isonhower refused.

-The Geneva Accord brought about an 'end' to the First Indochina War. The agreement was reached at the end of the Geneva Conference.

-A ceasefire was signed and France agreed to withdraw its troops from the region. The accord was an agreement that North and South would TEMORARILY seperate.

-Planned elections were to take place in 2 years however the south didn't want this and they did not actually take place.

-The domino theory is the idea that if one counry falls to comunism then neghbouring countries will follow. 

-The theory evoked fear into the American government causing them to get involved in asian wars to prevent comunism from spreding.

-In the US' attempt to prevent North Vietnamese comunism from speading they decided to assist their president. The US, dring the 1950s under Isonhower, chose Ngo Dinh Diem as the south's new president. They wanted to find a strong minded, popular, respected, anti-comunist, cooperative leader however the US chose Diem despite the fact that he only suited one of the critera: he was anti-communist and that was enough for the US.

-In 1963 it became clear to the US that diem was a bad leader. Kennedy sent a CIA group with $40000 to overthrow Diem. Killing Diem were not his intentions however both Diem and his brother were shot.

-Before fully invoving themselves in the Vietnam war, America sent over military advisers to assist the south. American advisors began arriving in February to train the South Vietnamese army however as the size of the war increases the ammount of military advisors did too; by 1963 there were over 16000 advisers.

-In the 1960s Strategic Hamelts was introduced. This was the act of moving towns/villages under the threat of communism to areas at less risk in order to stop the spredding of comunism however this did not work at all it only created anger from the villagers who had been shipped from place to place.

-The Gulf of Tonkin incident happened on the 2nd of August 1964.

-The USS Maddox was (supposedly) hit by a North Vietnamese torpedo boat howver it did not explode, this caused US fighter planes to attack, sinking 1 torpedo boat and damaging 2 more.

-The USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy both report being hit despite having little to no evidence.

-Johnson orders an attack on the North and sets us the Gulf of Tonkin resolution meaning he can defend the US in which ever way he sees fit, this later results in military involvment from the US.