kes to be used to save the French at Dienbienphu. After Vietnam was partitioned into a communist north and non-communist south by the Geneva Conference in July 1954, the United States effectively sponsored and subsidized the non-communist South Vietnamese government led by President Ngo Dinh Diem. In referring to Western fears in the 1950s, Gaddis said "in Southeast Asia, then, there was some basis for Western fears of an orchestrated campaign, directed from Moscow and Beijing, aimed at exploiting anti-colonial grievances" (163).
Partial Escalation (1961-1963). President John Kennedy (1961-1963) hesitantly and in fits and starts increased the scale of American military and economic aid to South Vietnam and counterinsurgency efforts. JFK expanded the number of American in country military advisors from 900 in 1960 to 16,300 by the time of his assassination in November 1963. (Edmonds xix). He did so because, according to Shaplen, by 1961 "security in the countryside had become a serious problem and the government was
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