Beginning of U.S. Involvement

Vietnam was originally a French problem. In the mid-19th century, Indochina was a French colonial possession-and during World War II, Japanese occupiers encouraged Vietnamese nationalists to drive the French out. At the end of the war, Ho Chi Minh (the leader of the northern Communist faction) began agitating for independence, causing France to turn to the U.S. for aid.

The initial stages of the Vietnam War coincided with the start of the Cold War. In the atmosphere of distrust after World War II, U.S. leaders saw Vietnam as a proxy battle of the Cold War, assuming that Ho Chi Minh's brand of Communism marched in lockstep with the U.S.S.R.'s. As a result, America funneled an increasing amount of military and economic aid to the French, with increasingly disappointing results

Vietnam was partitioned in 1954. After the defeat of the French in the battle of Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam was (supposedly temporarily) divided in half. The top half, north of the "17th Parallel," became a Communist state, while the lower half remained non-Communist (though far from democratic). From this point on, these areas were what people referred to as "North Vietnam" and "South Vietnam."

The U.S. supported Ngo Dinh Diem. After Vietnam's partition, the U.S. was desperate for a strong leader who would prevent the southern half of the country from falling into Ho Chi Minh's hands. It settled on the Vietnamese nationalist Ngo Dinh Diem, whose opposition to Communism was (in the end) outweighed by his paranoia and aloofness. Under his watch, the Communists succeeded in infiltrating South Vietnam, establishing the National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam (NLF).

The U.S. stepped (slowly) into the breach. By mid-1964, the U.S. had over 20,000 military "advisers" in South Vietnam-not soldiers, but experts who (it was hoped) would whip the South Vietnamese army into fighting shape. Gradually, over the next few years, America allowed itself to be pulled deeper and deeper into an increasingly bloody war, eventually committing over a half-million soldiers to the region by 1969.


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