A study of the historical development of Vietnamese War.
This paper examines the political atmosphere in Vietnam that lead to the Vietnamese War, which begun in the 1960s. It analyzes the French colonial power in Indochina and its long history of conflict. The paper investigates the United States involvement in the conflict and their prior lack of political knowledge of the inner conflict in the region that caused the Vietnamese War. The author describes America’s long battle against the communists there and the immense loss still felt today over a war so far removed from everyday American life.
The French era in Vietnam started after some 900 years of self rule. American involvement in Vietnam started in the Eisenhower era and then shifted in the Kennedy era to become a full-fledged war by the time of the Johnson Administration. America did not seem to notice the changes in the early period. American involvement actually started in 1954 when the French were the ones caught in the Vietnamese quagmire. This beginning involved full awareness on the part of the American government that, as Eisenhower said, it would be a great tragedy for the United States to become involved in an all-out land war in Asia (Chafe 259). America sent aid to the French prior to 1954 at a time when the French were losing the war no one thought they could lose. Some said the French lost because the U.S. Administration was not fully committed to a policy of winning. Full American involvement was considered prior to 1954 and rejected, in part because Eisenhower did not believe that a military victory was possible given the political situation in the region. This was because the people supported the Viet Minh and identified Ho Chi Minh as the leader of their independence movement (Scheer 274-275).