Essay About Viet Minh And Vietnam War

Us Involvement in the Vietnam War
Us Involvement in the Vietnam War
United States Involvement in the Vietnam War
Source Based
Vietnam in South East Asia had always been a desirable country. Since
the 19th century, it was ruled by France and called Indo China. Apart
form one rebellion in 1930, France had total control of the country
until they surrendered to Germany in the Second World War in 1940.
Japan, Germanys ally, took control of Vietnam and the resources in
it, such as coal, rice, rubber, railways and roads. An anti-Japanese
resistance organisation, which was called the Viet Minh and led by Ho
Chi Minh, a communist, was formed. At the end of the war, the Viet
Minh controlled the North Vietnam and had ambitions to control the
rest. Japan had gone when they entered Hanoi in 1945 and declared
Vietnamese independence. When war broke out between France and Vietnam
in 1946 because the French wanted to regain control of Vietnam, the
Viet Cong, which was a communist-supporting group against the
Americans set up in the South of Vietnam, used guerrilla tactics
against the French. These involved hit and run raids and other tactics
that the French hadnt experienced before and made them almost
impossible to beat.
To begin with, the USA was sympathetic towards the Viet Minh because
they viewed the situation as Vietnam wanting to have independence and
they did not agree with countries having colonies anyway. However in
1949, when communists took over China and began to give help to Ho Chi
Minh, the USA became afraid that the Viet Minh were the puppets of
China. The Americans then became increasingly involved in Vietnam
because they hated communism and were very much afraid of a communist
spread. They feared the Domino effect, which meant that if Vietnam
fell to communism, they expected nearby countries such as Cambodia,
Laos, Thailand, Burma and India to become communist one after the
other, very quickly. The USA had a policy known as the Truman
Doctrine, which meant that they would send money, equipment and advice
to any country threatened by a communist take over. Therefore, they
provided Ngo Dinh Diem, who was helped to set up the anti-communist
Republic of South Vietnam, with $1.6 billion in the 1950s. The other
policy that the USA had was containment, which was to prevent
communism spreading any further than it already had done in Eastern
Europe. The USA stopped the proposed elections taking place in Vietnam
for fear that the communists would win, so Vietnam was divided into
North and South Vietnam in 1954. This communist victory over the
French led the Americans to believe that communists were taking over
the world and must be stopped.
Sources A to C show two peoples views towards America going into war
against North Vietnam and the Viet Cong. Source A is a speech made by
US President Johnson in April 1965, one month after the start of
Operation Rolling Thunder. He is justifying the reasons for going into
war against Vietnam, which are to keep the peace and freedom of the
people in South Vietnam. Its content can be trusted because, being the
President, he was directly involved in Vietnam so he knew what was
happening