Vietnam War Begins
The US took military action in Vietnam in 1968, but things started escalating far before this date. In 1887 the French took over Vietnam. In the early 1940's Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh a communist revolutionary became very popular. He was very against the French control of Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh established the Viet Cong military and fought against the French. Dien Bien Phu was a decisive Vietnamese victory against the French in the 1950's. The US supported the French in the war, but only financially. In 1954 Vietnam gained its independence.
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Vietnam did not become totally communist under Ho Chi Minh. When Vietnam gained independence it was split down the middle at the 17th parallel. The north became communist, but the south did not. The south would come under the rule of Ngo Dinh Diem. Ngo Dinh Diem refused to hold elections in 1956 as he knew the south would choose Ho Chi Minh who was very popular. Ngo Dinh Diem tried to destroy all communists in the south. There was also a lot of religious tensions between Catholics and Buddhists.
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The US feared the domino theory would take hold of Vietnam where it would become entirely communist and then the other countries around it would follow. In 1961 President Kennedy sent advisers over to South Vietnam. Soon military advisers were sent over. These military advisers started to support and train ARVN a South Vietnamese insurgent group. In 1960 they US had sent over a couple hundred advisers this number began to rise dramatically as by 1964 there were 21,000 advisers in Vietnam.
The US also considered South Vietnamese leader Ngo Diem corrupt and a bad leader. In November 1963 the US had ARVN with the support of the CIA throw a coup and kill Ngo Diem. It was around this time that Lyndon B. Johnson became president after Kennedy's assassination. He would go on to win the election of 1964 against his running mate Goldwater who wanted to end the war in Vietnam by any means necessary. At this point the Viet Cong were fighting ARVN and beating them. LBJ did keep sending money and advisers to Vietnam, but did not want to send US troops over, instead he wanted to train south Vietnamese troops.
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