pathtowar

=VIETNAM - THE PATH TO WAR =

You all know that the United States was involved in a major military conflict during the Cold War ... but why? What was America's "path to war"? Using the resources below and Creating America, your task this evening is to write a description in YOUR OWN WORDS of the causes of American involvement in Southeast Asia. Pretend you are writing it as a summary for on online encyclopedia or textbook. Your description should ...


 * be between two and four paragraphs
 * contain the following terms - France, Ho Chi Minh, communism, Ngo Dinh Diem, military advisors, Gulf of Tonkin
 * be IN YOUR OWN WORDS (remember, it's easy to check this online)
 * contain two images THAT RELATE TO YOUR WRITING
 * Should end with the first Marines landing in Vietnam in 1965

Need some help? How about ... //Creating America// [|Into Vietnam (Overview)] from ABC-CLIO [|**Vietnam War** - the **Causes**] [|Timeline of the Vietnam War] [|Vietnam Online Timeline]

The War in Vietnam was a terrible conflict, which raged on for many years. What caused America to get involved in this war? We can trace the start of the war back to WWII. When the US tried to stop Japan from expanding into Southeast Asia, it brought about involvement with Vietnam. To help end the expansion of Japanese power, the United States gave sums of money Ho Chi Minh, a communist leader, and his group of Japanese Gorilla Fighters. **Ho Chi Minh** gained control of large areas in Northern Vietnam. Japan surrendered in WWII and took their troops out of Vietnam, giving Vietnam a chance against their French rulers. Ho Chi Minh then wrote a Declaration of Independence, much like that of the USA’s, finally declared Vietnam’s independence.We had many problems in our own country on top of all this. President Truman was concerned about the Soviet Union’s growing power and spreading communism. It became Truman’s #1 goal to stop the spread of **communism**. **France ** became an ally of the USA, because of its mainly democratic views. What France wanted was to take back their colonies in Southeast Asia, including Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh started asking for help from the USA but Truman didn't respond. Ho Chi Minh then turned to other communist powers for assistance. When a communist leader took over China, the US began acknowledging the spreading communist powers in Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, the French were fighting the Vietnamese to redeem their power over them. The US gave economic support to their new French allies in order to stop Vietnam from becoming totally consumed by communism. Dwight D. Eisenhower became President, he and his **military advisers** were mainly was concerned about the “domino theory”. He thought that if Vietnam became communist, that the rest of Southeast Asia would follow. Vietnam became divided at the 17th parallel in order to stop the French from getting involved. The Vietnamese people were going to elect a new leader, but the US didn't let the election take place. The government was worried that a communist leader would get elected. The US started to support Southern Vietnam **Ngo Dinh Diem **. Mainly, South Vietnam was not communist. But there were many people that were pro-communism called the Nation Liberation Front, and they wanted to overthrow Ngo Dinh Diem. With the help of North Vietnam, the NLF held violent attacks. The leader of the Soviet Union said that he would support all groups that were in favor of spreading communism. Now, America was extremely terrified that communism was taking over the world. JFK noticed that South Vietnam was the only one in favor of not spreading of communism, so he sent troops over to Vietnam to teach them how to fight. North Korea got really discontented with the USA favoring the South, and Diem nearly lost all his support. The USA overthrew him from power. A new leader was appointed to South Vietnam in hopes of building a stronger & better government. Suddenly, a Northern Vietnamese boat torpedoed a US destroyer in the **Gulf of Tonkin **. They reported another attack two weeks after. President Johnson sent out planes and planned to initiate an air-raid on North Vietnam. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave him the right to do whatever necessary to stop attacks on the US. The North Vietnamese continued to attack Americans; one of these attacks killed 8 Americans. Even with a new leader in South Vietnam, they were not getting any stronger. Johnson agreed to the original plan of an air-raid over North Vietnam and called it “Operation Rolling Thunder.” The goal of this was to push the North to consider peace, but that never happened. The South Vietnamese militia continued to fail, so the US government sent in more troops and marines in 1965.