Vietnam+War+Summary

=**VIETNAM - THE PATH TO WAR **=

France controlled Vietnam from the late 1800's, the time of imperialism, until WWII. The country was part of the French colony, Indochina, which consisted of Cambodia and Laos. The Vietnamese people never cared for French rule much, and many groups of nationalists supported revolts against the French. In 1930 Ho Chi Minh, a revolutionary leader, brought three Communist groups together to from the Indochinese Communist Party. The ICP called for an independent nation, controlled by peasants and other workers. Japan took over Indochina in 1940. The ICP joined the Vietnamese nationalists and formed the Viet Minh. The Viet Minh trained soldiers to fight from Vietnam;s independence. When the Japanese surrendered to the Allies Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam's independence. France returned to regain control of Vietnam and war erupted between the nations. The U.S. entered the conflict as an ally of the French, they needed French support in opposing the Soviet Union in Europe and they wanted to contain communism. Truman and Eisenhower both used the domino theory to depict the need of support for anti Communists in Vietnam, if one country fell, nearby countries would fall too, and so on untill off of Asia followed.

The Viet Minh were victorious over the French, they had overrun French forces at Dien Bien Phu, in northwestern Vietnam. The French and the Viet Minh met for peace talks in Geneva, Switzerland. They agreed that Vietnam would be split into the North and South along the 17th parallel. It would only be temporary though, they agreed that an election would be held in 1956 for a single government to unify the country. Ho Chi Minh and the Communists controlled the North. Ngo Dinh Diem, and his anti-Communist took control of the south. Ho Chi Minh was very popular in the North, while Diem had very little support from the South. Diem did not allow national elections to unify the country because he knew that Ho Chi Minh would win.

Diem ran a very corrupt government in South Vietnam. Southern Communists sought to overthrow him and unify the whole nation under communism. Diem called the group the Viet Cong, for Vietnamese Communists. NorthVietnam supported the Viet Cong, it sent soldiers and supplies to aid their rebellion. Kennedy was sending military advisers and equipment to South Vietnam, but no troops. Diem refuses to change, so the Kennedy administration supports an overthrow of Diem. Three weeks later Kennedy was assassinated, his vice president, Lyndon Johnson took over.

Lyndon B. Johnson commits the U.S. a little bit more to the war in Vietnam. In 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin American ships on routine patrol were supposedly fired on by the North Vietnam for no good reason. Johnson went in front of Congress after this incident and asks for the ability to take all necessary measures to prevent further aggression. Congress near unanimously agreed and Johnson received enormous amounts of power, he can wage war on North Vietnam without war being declared, it was a blank check. With Operation Thunder the United States dropped many many bombs on North Vietnam, more bombs in fact than the ones dropped on Germany in WWII. Finally in 1965 3,500 marines were sent to Vietnam, with support of many Americans.