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Published: Oct 02, 2024
The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, began in November 1955 as North Vietnam, with logistical support of the communist China and the Soviet Union, launched a campaign to impose a communist government on South Vietnam by instigating and supporting a revolution. The United States’ government as the result, felt the moral obligation to get involved in the conflict to bring in peace and justice in Southeast Asia by fighting along the South Vietnamese against the communist regime that was being enforced upon them by North Vietnam. Considering the longevity of the war and its complexity, many US presidents were involved in the war and each, had contributed to the fate of this fight for justice. This paper will discuss and analyze the reasons for American involvement in the war as well as the way it was viewed in Vietnam and from the American public, under president Eisenhower through the Nixon administration.
The US involvement in the war began slowly in the mid 1950s under the US president and commander in chief Dwight D. Eisenhower, who sent economic aid and military equipment to assist the people of South Vietnam in their effort to prevent a communist takeover. The US government felt that defending South Vietnam from the communist regime was necessary for its stability and human rights in the world. However, the United State purpose behind its devoted involvement in the war was still unclear to the public. Why would the US be so devoted to help another country and have nothing in return? Was the question many people wanted an answer for.
In response, the US government rationalized their will to support South Vietnam under the Geneva conference of 1954, which was intended to unify Vietnam and discuss the possibilities to restore peace in Indochina. However, one of the agreements separated Vietnam into two regions, a northern region to be governed by the Viêt Minh and a southern region to be governed by the State of Vietnam.
The United States was not happy with the spread of the communist regime as the north was imposing their ideologies on the South of Vietnam. The US, under president Eisenhower, decided to show support to Ngo Dinh Diem, who was president of the council of minister of Vietnam and provided him with the necessary weapons to dissolve communism. in 1959, a document issued by US secretary of State to the American friends of Vietnam, talked about the US policy with respect to Vietnam and how important Ngo Dinh Diem was their democracy “… the dedication, courage, and resourcefulness of president Diem himself. In him, his country found a truly worthy leader…the free world owes him a debt of gratitude for his determined stand at that fateful hour.”1 After some critical analysis of the sources available for this paper, we can argue that, the US strategy was to show their involvement in the war, was somehow masked behind Ngo Dinh Diem. In other words, the US didn’t publicly announce at first that they would do everything in their power to directly stop communism in Vietnam, instead they said that they believed in Ngo Dinh Diem plans (which were also against communism) and will endorse him when necessary.
Meanwhile, the American people needed reassurance that the war in Vietnam would not drastically affect their lives. President Eisenhower delivered a speech at Gettysburg college convocation to talk about the importance of understanding. The president wanted the American people take an educated stance in regards of the US involvement in the war: “We need to
understand our country’s purpose and role in strengthening the world’s free nations…freedom and human dignity threatened by atheistic dictatorship”2, said the president during his speech as he claimed that America, the most powerful nation on earth has the responsibility to help other regions in the world to achieve their own democracy. The “godly” mission hypothetically, as we see president Eisenhower using words like “atheistic dictatorship” when referring to the communist regime of Vietnam that he believed were, unethical and immoral.
Fact based motives were not part of the speech delivered by Eisenhower. Instead, he used emotions as a way to appeal empathy form the American people. Describing the unfortune situation south Vietnam and how it could potentially correlate to bad times in America as well “The loss of South Viet-Nam would set in motion a crumbling process that could, as in progressed, have grave consequences for us and for freedom.” During the war.
John F. Kennedy, 35th U.S. president was the second president to deal with the Vietnam war affairs. He sent 16,000 military personnel to Vietnam as combat advisers and also offered his support to Ngo Dinh Diem who by then, became the president of South Vietnam to fight against communist takeover in his country3. The United States remained devoted to the cause of peace with the primary purpose to help the South Vietnamese people to maintain their independence.
To do so, President Kennedy tactic was to seek to persuade the communists to give up their attempts to force and subversion while assisting south Vietnam with equipment and advisers. Nothing less, nothing more.
In the CBs Television News broadcast program hosted by Walter Cronkite, the US president John Kennedy did make it clear that his goals regarding the war was similar to those of his predecessor when asked about the difficulties America had solving the conflict in Vietnam.
John Kennedy’s plans to end to war resembled the one Eisenhower had, with the exception that, he didn’t consider it as the “American war” as a result, his involvement into it was more constrained “In the final analysis, it is their war, they are the ones who have to win it or lose it… all we can do is help, and we are making it very clear.”4 Said president Kennedy.
Despite the American public demanding the US withdrawal from the war. President Kennedy and other experts, including Dean Rusk, the US secretary of state at that time, believed that a withdrawal would be a mistake. Unlike president Eisenhower, Dean Rusk provided the American people with a little bit more factual motives to pursue the war in Vietnam through his speech “The Stake in Viet-Nam- This is no time to quit” before the Economic club of New York in 1963.
Dean Dusk made some correlations between the Geneva accord, the United States involvement in the war, and the Northern Vietnam reasons for attacking the Southern part of the country. “communist aggression against south Viet-Nam is, of course intimately related to the refusal of the communists to give full support to the Geneva accord on Laos.”5 Dean Rusk also defended the American involvement in the war by explaining to the public that Vietnam is a “new” nation that’s still structuring itself as a democratic state: “let us recall that we are talking about a nation which has been responsible for its own affairs for less than a decade” said Rusk as he went even further and talked about the political affairs and the inexperience of the south Vietnamese government, which justified their need for assistance from America according to Dean Dusk, U.S. Secretary of State.
The third US administration to deal with the Vietnam war, was under president Lyndon B. Johnson, who decide to send American combat forces to South Vietnam and fight in the war. The
US was thereby, directly involved in the Vietnam war after the Tonkin Gulf incident in which president Johnson claimed that North Vietnamese forces had attacked U.S. naval vessels operating in international waters in the gulf of Tonkin. Like president Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson had also addressed on the delicate topic of war and other public concerns in front of an academic audience at the Johns Hopkins University: Peace without conquest, in 1965.
The president owed the Americans people further explanation for his decision to accelerate military actions upon North Vietnamese communist regime. First, Johnson wanted to make it clear that he picked up from what his predecessors had left, and he had to make readjustment accordingly to the current situations when necessary. This was an intent to keep striving for what the president before him had helped build over so many years, “we are there because we have a promise to keep. Since 1954 every American President has offered support to the people of South Viet-Nam…I intend to keep that promise.”6 Said Lyndon Johnson.
In additional, the United States didn’t want to withdraw from the war because they knew that if they do so, the trust that their Europeans allies and other countries had for them will never be the same. The U.S. didn’t want to put its international relations in jeopardy by withdrawing from the war before it ends: “…to leave Viet-Nam to its fate would shake the confidence of all these people in the value of an American commitment and in the value of America’s word.”7 Unlike his predecessors, President Johnson’s policies were all about the offensive. No more time for long talks and agreements. Let’s get straight to it! “I wish it were possible to convince others with words of what we now find it necessary to say with guns and planes.”8 Said Lyndon Johnson. He also wanted to make it clear that the United States wasn’t seeking for anything for
itself but only that the people of Viet-Nam be allowed to guide their own country in their own way.
The Dream of World Order was the outcome the Johnson’s administration was hoping from the war. The way Johnson’s turned the delicate subject of officially declaring war to a foreign country into an ethical decision for the sake of the world was quite clever. In his speech he used strong words like “dream, love or hope” to make people understand that he was initially not for the idea of war but, it was the best and the only option to immediately bring peace and order in the world.
The U.S. President Richard Nixon was the last one to deal with the War in Vietnam. His policies were more confused on how to end the war and not so much on helping South Vietnamese to gain back their freedom from the communists like his predecessors did. However, precipitating a withdrawal from the war was not an option for him neither. Instead, he had a strategic approach in order to end the war that he called “Vietnamization” which was the US policy under Richard Nixon of withdrawing its troops and transferring the responsibility and direction of the war effort back to the government of South Vietnam.
Unlike his most recent predecessor, former president Lyndon Johnson who was all about the offensive, Richard Nixon first plan was to negotiate with the other side and find agreements to end war. He had consistently attempted to reach out to the opposite side (North Vietnam, the Soviet Union, and China) and move forward at a conference table toward a resolution of the tragic war but, every time, no common grounds were found in his quest for peace. “Hanoi (the capital of North Vietnam) has refused even to discuss our proposals. They demand our unconditional acceptance of their terms…”9 as the president addressed his attempts for peace to
the public.
9 Address to the nation on the war in the Vietnam, Nov. 3, 1969.
As a result, President Nixon introduced the new strategy he was willing to put into effect in order to end the war regardless of what happens on the negotiating front. New U.S. foreign policies. The policy involved providing South Vietnamese with the necessary equipment in order to strengthen their defense system so that they could protect themselves when the US leaves.
This was to be done by substantially increase the training and equipment of South Vietnamese forces in a way that, as South Vietnamese forces become stronger, the rate of American withdrawal can become greater10. On April 1970, president Richard Nixon, addressed to the nation on progress toward peace in Vietnam following his policy of Vietnamization. Despite the fact that no progress had still taken place on the negotiating front at that time, many Americans troops deployed in Vietnam had returned home and the conflicts in Vietnam were slowly coming to an end.
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