Why was the vietnam war

The Paris Agreements of 27 January finally provided the United States with an opportunity to pull out from the conflict. Their South Vietnamese ally would stand alone for only tw o years before falling to the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese.

The fall of Saigon on 30 April marked the true end of the Vietnam War. Although publicly the war in the south was described as a civil war within South Vietnam, it was guided, equipped and reinforced by the communist leadership in Hanoi.

S—feared communist expansion throughout Southeast Asia. The Central Intelligence Agency CIA advised that was not the case—America had a strong military presence in the Pacific that would serve as a deterrent. A different feeling prevailed among many within the U. The communist takeover of China and subsequent war in Korea against North Korean and Chinese troops had focused a great deal of attention on Southeast Asia as a place to take a strong stand against the spread of communism.

Fitzgibbon, Jr. They were the only father-son pair to die in Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh had been educated in Paris. There is considerable debate over whether he was primarily nationalist or communist, but he was not especially anti-Western. Ho attempted to contact Eisenhower to discuss Vietnam but received no answer. That would have made any negotiation with Ho politically ticklish. A lingering question of the war is what might have happened if Eisenhower and Ho had arranged a meeting; possibly, an accord could have been reached, or possibly Ho was simply seeking to limit American involvement, in order to more easily depose the Diem government.

American involvement began to escalate under President John F. North Vietnam, had by then established a presence in Laos and developed the Ho Chi Minh Trail through that country in order to resupply and reinforce its forces in South Vietnam. Kennedy saw American efforts in Southeast Asia almost as a crusade and believed increasing the military advisor program, coupled with political reform in South Vietnam, would strengthen the south and bring peace.

Two U. The peasants resented being forced from their ancestral lands, and consolidating them gave the VC better targets. The program, which had been poorly managed, was abandoned after about two years, following the coup that deposed Diem. Marines landing at Da Nang area beach. Marine Corps.

Diem fell from favor with his American patrons, partly over disagreements in how to handle the war against the VC and partly because of his unpopular suppression of religious sects and anyone he feared threatened his regime.

He, in turn, called the Buddhists VC sympathizers. Two younger monks poured a mix of gasoline and jet fuel over him and, as the three had planned, set fire to him.

Seven more such immolations occurred that year. To make matters worse, Diem responded by sending troops to raid pagodas. The administration was caught by surprise, however, when Diem was murdered during the coup, which was led by General Duong Van Minh. This began a series of destabilizing changes in government leadership. That same month, Kennedy himself was assassinated in Dallas , Texas. His successor, Lyndon Baines Johnson, inherited the Vietnam situation.

His political party, the Democrats, had been blamed for China falling to communism; withdrawing from Vietnam could hurt them in the elections. On the other hand, Congress had never declared war and so the president was limited in what he could do in Southeast Asia. That changed in August The pilot of an F-8E Crusader did not see any ships in the area where the enemy was reported, and years later crew members said they never saw attacking craft.

Congress swiftly passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that removed most restrictions from the president in regards to Vietnam. Though a congressional investigative committee the previous year had warned that America could find itself slipping into in a morass that would require more and more military participation in Vietnam, Johnson began a steady escalation of the war, hoping to bring it to a quick conclusion.

Regional non-communist governments supported the Republic of Vietnam, the southern half of the divided country, believing its existence was a crucial bulwark against the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia was so important in the minds of America policymakers and their allies that the U. This designation provided a justification for U. Just as regional concerns about communism influenced support for South Vietnam, the Vietnam conflict also played into Cold War superpower rivalries, which, in turn, shaped superpower decision making.

As the U. The U. Hanoi leaders understood that they walked a tightrope between their two contentious benefactors, as North Vietnam received significant support from both countries.

North Vietnam also benefitted from trade with Eastern Europe through its inclusion in the Soviet sphere. Although authorities in both Vietnams tried to assert themselves and resist superpower control, the Cold War power struggle between the U. In the context of the Cold War power struggle, and in the context of U. Presidents from Truman through Johnson worried about American credibility. President Eisenhower had considered authorizing a U. Eisenhower considered the partition of Vietnam a victory for the U.

Like Korea, Vietnam was now only half communist, and the division of the country maintained the balance of power between the two spheres. Kennedy argued that if the U. That type of approach would just play into the hands of the communists, and in any case, Kennedy believed that the U. Kennedy employed the rhetoric of idealism to try to convince the American public that the U.

Historians still debate what Kennedy would have done regarding Vietnam had he lived beyond November The first major contingent of US Marines arrived in For the next ten years the USA's involvement increased. The elections were never held and the country remained divided: North Vietnam was a communist republic led by Ho Chi Minh.

South Vietnam was a capitalist republic led by Ngo Dinh Diem. Reason two - Civil war. Ho Chi Minh.