Vietnam is about 9000 miles away from the USA, but what provoked the USA to determine to get involved in the civil war between the Vietnamese back in the 40's-70's far away from them? Why did they intervene in the Vietnam War between 1954 and 1963? Actually, the answer is very simple. They were afraid of the spreading of the communism and wanted to stop it before it was too late.
Militarily, following up by the defeat of French, the French was compelled to leave Vietnam which would leave a power void for Ho Chi Minh, a communist, to take over easily. In the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, 1954, 16,000 French troops were either killed or captured by the Viet Minh. It convinced the French government to leave Indochina as soon as possible. It was like handed the part of Vietnam which was under French's control to Communism, and the US would not allow it because of the Truman Doctrine--Containment. Also, the US was heavily involved in the French military financially, even the Viet Minh Supreme Commander, General Vo Nguyen Giap said during a interview in 1996, "We see the Dien Bien Phu victory as the victory [over] the French army and [over] the intervention of the Americans --because in the Dien Bien Phu campaign, 80 percent of the war expenditures were spent by the Americans...So the Dien Bien Phu defeat was a defeat for both the French and the Americans...When we received news of the Dien Bien Phu victory, everyone practically jumped up in the air, they were so happy about it." For both of the sake of containment and honor, the US intervened in that Civil War in 1954.
Internationally, the USA was very unhappy with the Geneva Agreement of 1954. It declared the ceasefire between the French and the Viet Minh, Laos and Cambodia became independent state and Vietnam was divided into north and south temporarily by the 17th parallel. An election would be held in two years which would unit the north and south again. The North was ruled by a communist and the south was ruled by a dictator. Between these two, the USA chose to support the dictator. However, the population of the North was already outnumbered the South's, and a lot of South Vietnamese supported Ho Chi Minh. The threat of Communism took over Vietnam increased dramatically. Thus, the US set its mind to help the South.
Politically, President Eisenhower issued the 'Domino Theory' in 1954, which showed why the US thought that Vietnam must not become a Communist country. Eisenhower said, "You
have a row of dominoes set up. You knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly." The first domino was S. Vietnam, then Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma and India. It was just like the dominos of the Korean War, Korea, Japan, Philippines. That was why the US determined to get involved, because it could not afford the first domino to fall. As the Secretary of Defense at that time, Robert McNamara, said during a interview in June 1996 , "[The domino theory] was the primary factor motivating the actions of both the Kennedy and the Johnson administrations, without any qualification. It was put forward by President Eisenhower in 1954, very succinctly: If the West loses control of Vietnam, the security of the West will be in danger. "The dominoes will fall," in Eisenhower's words...The loss of Vietnam would trigger the loss of Southeast Asia, and conceivably even the loss of India, and would strengthen the Chinese and the Soviet position across the world, weakening the security of Western Europe and weakening the security of North America. This was the way we viewed it." This clearly shows the reason why the US intervened in the War, it was because of the fear to the accretion of the Communism.
From the political, military and international views, they all showed that the reason why the US intervened in the Vietnam War was because it was afraid of the spreading of the Communism and wanted to put a stop to it, contain it.
Vo Nguyen Giap." CNN Cold War. 12 Dec. 2005 <http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/11/interviews/giap/>
Yelland. 12 Dec. 2005 <http://www.schoolhistory.co.uk/gcselinks/britishworld/vietnam/getinvolved.pdf>
"Robert McNamara." CNN Cold War. 12 Dec. 2005 <http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/11/interviews/mcnamara/>
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