The Vietnam War (1954-1975) was, and continues to be, a contentious issue around the world. Many analysts of the war attribute it to Lyndon B. Johnson, who was president of America from 1963 until 1969, because under his administration, the American Army became involved in combat in Vietnam. Although there were many facets that lead Johnson to make his decision and there were three other presidents, in power during the course of America’s involvement in Vietnam, who also played key roles, it was Johnson who made the decision to escalate US intervention in Vietnam. The war in Vietnam began as a civil war which dated back long into Vietnamese history. Although it was a communist revolution, it was first and foremost a people’s war, in which the people of South Vietnam were revolting against the right-wing dictatorship of their government. The Vietnam War was the second of the two Indochina Wars, where the first was fought and lost by France. American intervention, because of the policy of containing communism, had already begun during the First Indochina War, under President Eisenhower. Although Eisenhower had refused to commit US troops to the war, he supplied military support to the French. And when they lost the war, he continued to supply aid to the anti-communist government in Saigon, the capital of the South Vietnam. The end of the First Indochina War resulted in the Geneva Conference of 1954 between France and the Viet Minh, who decided to split Vietnam in to the communist North and the pro-western South. This therefore recognised North Vietnam, known as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), as an independent state. However, an insurgency in the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), led by the National Liberation Front (... ... middle of paper ... ...with America, safely. US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, as well as Nixon’s successor, President Gerald Ford were placed in a situation where they had to continue to aid Saigon in order to prolong its fall for long enough to evacuate. Thus the war came to an end in 1975, and Vietnam was unified a year later. The Vietnam War was a difficult experience both for the US military as well as its foreign policy. It was unique geographically, ethnically, politically, militarily and diplomatically. Although Johnson inherited a difficult problem from his predecessors, he did step into a trap essentially of his own making. His decision to go to war was reached from hard thought-out reasoning but he did not factor in the environment in Vietnam or the opinion of the American public, resulting in a disastrous war, for the Empire of Liberty, that lasted for over two decades.
The Vietnam War was a war over communism that started in 1950, when Ho Chi Minh, the national leader of Vietnam, introduced a communist government into North Vietnam. In 1954 it was decided to split the country at the 17th parallel, and was ruled under opposing governments, Bao Dai leading the south and Ho Chi Mihn the north. North Vietnam went to war with South Vietnam with the north being supported by Russia and China, as they were also Communist countries, and the south being supported by Britain and the USA.
Only in the Vietnam War was the United States’ participation criticized. This is such a gigantic change from prior wars that it bears study as to why it happened, and better yet, should have it happened. This paper will discuss the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War, by asking the simple question, Should have the United States’ gotten involved in the first place? This paper will prove that, in fact, America should not have gotten involved in the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War took place between 1947- 1975.
The Vietnam War was the longest war in America's history of involvement. Twenty years of hell, land mines, cross-fire, and death. Vietnam was divided by the Geneva Accord. The north being communist run by Ho Chi Minh. The south being anti-Communist run by Ngo Dinh Diem. Before Vietnam was separated, it was run by France. France had ruled most of Indochina since the late 1800s. The Vietnamese were unhappy with the way the French were controlling, therefore, many of them took refuge in China. When in China, they began to follow the lead of Ho Chi Minh, who wanted to model the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence as that of the U.S. version. In the 1940s, Japan had taken over Vietnam which upset Ho Chi Minh and his revolutionaries when they had returned a year later.
This book would be an excellent source for anyone wanting to understand this period of the entrance into the Vietnam War. It is a great look into the character of each of the participants. It also would benefit those who are studying and learning how to develop strategy and policy for future wars that the United States may involve itself in. Works Cited McMaster, H. R. Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.
During the Lyndon Baines Johnson presidential administration, both those policy makers who supported America’s involvement in Vietnam and those who opposed the war were part of the “containment generation.” They had reached political maturity during World War II and the early years of the Cold War and had experienced the intense anticommunism of the McCarthy era of the early 1950s. These leaders understood and applied the lessons of American nationalism, which had the primary message that the U.S. was the dominating nation that had to embrace its responsibility to aid and improve nations in America’s image. Therefore, when they saw that there was a threat of the spread of communism to areas of Southeast Asia, a majority of the politicians were in favor of the war, which was the most costly U.S. foreign policy intervention during the Cold War. President Johnson and others considered Vietnam a crucial Cold war battleground where an American loss would trigger dire domestic and international repercussions. This view led him to decide to enter the Vietnam War, which was a condemnable action considering that there were intensifying domestic issues that he neglected because he was engrossed in the Vietnam situation. Anti-War protesters, a few politicians, and even the South Vietnamese all pointed out that this war was immoral and was resulting in destruction. Ultimately, Johnson’s decision resulted in a huge price paid on America’s part for its determination to prevent the spread of communism through this war and in the deaths of more 50,000 in an overseas war that was extremely difficult to win and that deepened divisions at home.
President Richard Nixon once said "No event in America history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam war. Was misreported then it is misremembered now" (Nixon). The Vietnam War was one the longest wars in the world. It starred around 1940's When Ho Chi Minh raised to power. The war didn't just affect Vietnam, it effected the whole world. The United States joined the war around 1960's and ended in 1975. Both the Vietnam War and play Macbeth exhibits the theme of Patriotism. Newly elected president Nixon declared in 1969 that the United states would continue the involvement in the Vietnam War in order to "Help end the conflict and secure peace with honor for the United States" (Nixon). Most Americans thought the Vietnam War as a phenomenon of the 1960's when the US combat troops arrived in Vietnam. The Vietnamese people thought that the conflict started long before that when the Communist-dominated Viet-Minh who was led by the veteran revolutionary Ho Chi Minh, seized power in Hanoi from when he defeated the Japanese at the end of World War Two. After no negotiation returned from Ho Chi Minh full scale war broke out in December 1946. President Washington efforts to intimidated Hanoi failed, Communist leaders were then convinced that the Saigon Region was near to collapse and, North Vietnam stepped up infiltration and ordered a major effort to seek final victory in the south. but when Vie-Cong forces attacked a US camp at Pleiku in early February 1965. Johnson responded with in air-strike called Operation Rolling Thunder this convinced to enter the Vietnam War. The war has been considered a defeat to the United States. But In fact, the issues is not quite clear-cut. As where both Cambodia and Loas were placed under communist rule ...
In 1965, Lyndon Johnson, with solid support from the American public, made the decision to deploy combat troops to Vietnam, a small country in Southeast Asia (Vietnam War Timeline). This was done with the intention of halting the takeover of South Vietnam by communist North Vietnam. The rise of communist North Vietnam and their attempted control over South Vietnam made the United States feel that they must intervene.
North and South Vietnam were at war, the North side promoting communism (with the help from the Soviet Union) and the South side was not. Wanting to contain communism, America got involved (as well the United Nations) and help South Vietnam fight back. This war took a toll on everyone involved economically and politically. For millions have died, and millions of dollars were used to aid this war. At some point people started to realize that the war in Vietnam was pointless. Even Americans were starting to see America involvement as a waste of valuable resources and lives. By 1975, U.S. pulled out of Vietnam, and with no support from America, South Vietnam was defeated by the North. This allowed Vietnam to reunify and become a communist
The Vietnam war was, like many other wars, a bloody and brutal fight. Vietnam used to be a territory of France until 1954 when they surrendered because they outnumbered in a battle. The Geneva Conference was then held to discuss the end of the war and due to that, North and South vietnam were split up because of the different leaders. China, the Soviet Union, and other communist countries were supportive of the North while the United States and anti-communist allies were supportive of the South. The leader for the North side was communist Ho Chi Minh and the South was ruled by anti-communist Ngo Dinh Diem. Ngo Dinh Diem starts off as prime minister in 1954 but eventually becomes president in 1955. The United States and others wanted to avoid the
Lyndon B. Johnson was the successor of John Kennedy (1964). He wasn’t into fighting the Vietnamese war though he feared that he would be considered to be soft on communism which was going to be seen as a weakness, and jeopardize the congressional support for his domestic plans. But this changed after the North Vietnamese gunboats made 2 attempts against U.S ships, and congress passed the gulf of Tonkin resolution that empowered the president to repel any armed attacks against the forces of the U.S and to prevent further aggression giving Johnson the unlimited power to make military decisions.
The America’s Vietnam War in Indochina was predominantly spiralled by the tensions between two opposing ideologies, Communism and Democracy. The phrases of the American’s intervention in the conflict of Vietnam can be duly conveyed in three main stages – initiation, escalation and withdrawal. In 1959, the gradual intensification of the military conflict between North and South Vietnam gave rise to the growing frustration in North Vietnam as the US intervention and defiance of the 1954 Geneva Accords proceeds to refuse any reun...
Stanley Karnow suggested in The Vietnam War: A History, that advisors to the president hold equal responsibility for the escalation of the war. The two most relevant presidents throughout this period were Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, this essay explores four prominent advisors of this period that were behind some of the most important decisions that led the U.S war efforts.
The South East Asian country Vietnam became a Cold War battleground for the Second Indochina war which involved both the US and Russia’s interests. Once again it was the Capitalist struggle against Communism. The Vietnam War was a direct result of the USSR’s and China’s communist presence and pressure. America feared a chain reaction was occurring among the other Asian countries that made them change to communism one by one. America wanted to prevent this from occurring and that is why they were so quick to help the South combat the Communist North. In the end however, their attempts were fruitless for they were unable to overthrow or prevent the spread of communism through all of Vietnam.
The American’s involvement in the Vietnam War took a huge death toll as well as a huge financial toll. Many believed that our involvement was unnecessary and waste of the money and lives lost (Romo, Zastro, Miller). But, with the harsh French ruling the Vietnam had, and soon shared control over Vietnam with Japan, some Vietnamese got tired of that and wanted to declare it a free country. Of course, that thought wouldn’t come easy to all, and a fight starts to break. With the U.S. nervous about the possible spread of communism to other countries surrounding and eventually making way to the Americas, the United States were soon involved in the Vietnam war that ended up lasting 16 years long.
Initially, the Viet Minh considered that collaborating with the United States was necessary to achieve independence. However, the United States contributed to the French war effort. After the French withdrawal, Vietnam separated into two different states. It was assumed that these two states would make a referendum in order to achieve their reunification or their definitive separation. But this referendum never happened and the Second Indochina War, also known as the Vietnam War, began. In this war, as Robert Nixon said in his Address to the Nation of November 3, 1969, “President Eisenhower sent economic aid and military equipment to assist the people of South Vietnam in its efforts to prevent a Communist takeover. Seven years ago, President Kennedy sent 16,000 military personnel to Vietnam as combat advisers. Four years ago, President Johnson sent American combat forces to South Vietnam”. In other words, this means that many governments, including Eisenhower’s one, participated in this dispute. Nevertheless, Nixon – as well as Eisenhower – considered the intervention of the United States in this war necessary to defeat global communism. This is observable in the following statement in the previously mentioned Nixon’s speech: “For the South Vietnamese, our precipitate withdrawal would inevitably allow the Communists to repeat the massacres which followed their takeover in the North 15