Cause of the Vietnam War

Much of Southeast Asia had been a French colony before the Second World War. The French had introduced French law, customs, and Roman Catholicism into Vietnam; these cultural cross-fertilizations can still be observed among Vietnamese immigrants in the United States. The Japanese had driven the French out during their conquest of Indochina, and Ho Chi Minh had fought a guerrilla war against them as an ally of the Western Allies.

After the war, Ho Chi Minh had wanted independence, but the USA allowed the French to return to their former colony. Ho Chi Minh began a guerrilla war against them as well. In 1954 the USA assumed the responsibility from France for protecting Vietnam south of the partition line drawn that year between Communist and ôfreeö territory. The American part would become known as South Vietnam, with its capital in Saigon. Ho Chi MinhÆs Communist government was centered in Hanoi, in what would be called North Vietnam.

The United States government has always insisted that it w

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cNamara relates that the U.S. commitment to South Vietnam grew gradually, with the reasons given for the growth slowly changed also. In 1961 Kennedy committed the U.S. to send 16,000 military advisors to Vietnam to train the South Vietnamese to defend themselves against aggression from the north. In October 1963, he announced that the U.S. expected the training to be complete by 1965, and that the U.S. would begin withdrawing troops by the end of 1963. And then, of course, the roof caved in. On November 1, 1963, President Diem of South Vietnam was assassinated in a coup. On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was assassinated, and Lyndon Johnson became President. During 1964 the government in Saigon underwent more coups and gradually disintegrated; by late in the year, the U.S. was in fact administering the country. In August, after North Vietnam attacked two American naval vessels, President Johnson was able to persuade Congress to pass the Tonkin Gulf Resolution; this, although not intended by Congress to be a declaration of war, Gave Johnson a way to legitimize escalating the war in Vietnam, which he promptly did, sending over eventually more than 550,000 U.S. service personnel. At the beginning of 1965, it was clear that the Sout
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1751
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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