The War Of The Vietnam War

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“In July 1965, Lyndon Johnson chose to Americanize the war in Vietnam.” Although Johnson chose to enter America into the war, there were events previous that caused America to enter and take over the war. The South Vietnamese were losing the war against Communism – giving Johnson all the more reason to enter the war, and allowing strong American forces to help stop communism. There were other contributing factors leading up to the entrance of the war; America helped assist the French in the war, Johnson’s politics, the Tonkin Gulf Incident, and the 1954 Geneva Conference. President Johnson stated, “For 10 years three American Presidents-President Eisenhower, President Kennedy, and your present President--and the American people have been actively concerned with threats to the peace and security of the peoples of southeast Asia from the Communist government of North Viet-Nam.”
President Harry Truman authorized economic and military aid to the French who were fighting to regain control of Laos and Cambodia along with Vietnam. The United States refused to accept the agreement the French had made to the creation of communist Vietnam North and South. President Eisenhower dispatched military advisors to train South Vietnamese Army and the CIA to conduct psychological warfare against the North.
In 1961 John F. Kennedy secretly sent in 400 Special Operations Force trained soldiers – known as Green Berets -- taught South Vietnamese how to fight against the communist Guerillas in South Vietnam. On September 2, 1963, in an interview Kennedy said, “We need to send our men as advisors, but they have to win it, the people of Vietnam against the Communist, we’re prepared to continue to assist them.” After Kennedy’s assassination, Lyndon Johns...

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...n was the one who took the blame for the war, while Truman and Eisenhower got away “unscathed”. Stephen E. Ambrose thinks differently though. He said “One of Ike 's greatest accomplishments was staying out of Vietnam…” He goes on to say that his “hard headed military reasoning” kept them out of the war, during his presidency. It is also pointed out in Cuddy’s essay that it may have been Johnsons “flawed personality, and his key policy decisions” Americanized the war. Given what is known about how Johnson handled the war, this observation could be true. Cuddy goes on to say that Eisenhower had a clean break from the war with Ho Chi Minh’s “forces shattered French power at Diem Biem Phu.” Either way you chose to look at it, America did enter the war. Some thoughts and stratiges may not have been thought out like they should, but it is history and you cant change it now.

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