How accurate is it to say that Eisenhower and Kennedy must share responsibility for the escalation of US involvement in south east Asia in the years 1954-1963? Both Eisenhower and Kennedy played a part towards the escalation of US involvement in south east Asia in the years 1954-1963, especially there military involvement, but it was Kennedy that holds the most responsibility for the escalation of US involvement in South east Asia between the years 1954-1963. Eisenhower supported Diem and decided to send 1500 personnel to south Vietnam to help with the was effort this was a huge decision to have such a large involvement in the war in Vietnam especially as Eisenhower mostly regarded Vietnam as a side show. It could be said that these actions by Eisenhower were the reason why Kennedy then decided to get so involved with Vietnam as the US could not be seen as weak and by withdrawing support they would have been, and so Kennedy almost had no choice but to increase the support the US gave to Vietnam because of Eisenhower's decisions. One of the main reason's why Eisenhower decided to increase the involvement of the US in South east Asia was because France was threatening that if he did not send more troops to support the French in Dien Bien then French troops would pull out of indo china.
The French were not involved in this war but a played a role in how and why it started. After World War II the French had control of Vietnam, The French rule was harsh and once Ho Chi Minh came to rule he tried for independence from French and as this happened communism came about. The U.S.A was worried about the spread of communism in Asia and believed that they too should have a democratic government. What sparked the interest of the United States was the “Domino Theory” which meant that the goal of communism was
firepower and technology, the North Vietnamese forces were successful in fighting a protracted, guerrilla-style conflict. American fortunes changed for the worse with the Tet Offensive in 1968, in which major South Vietnam cities were attacked. Historians disagree on the literal success of the offensive, but it proved to be a huge boost for North Vietnamese morale, and had the opposite effect on the South Vietnamese and U.S. forces. Serious negotiations to end the war began after U.S. President Lyndon Johnson’s decision not to seek re-election in 1968. Contacts between North Vietnam and the United States in Paris in 1968 were expanded in 1969 to include South Vietnam and the NLF.
As it resulted with MacArthur being relived from duty due to the arguing between him and Truman. MacArthur wanted to attack the Chinese with Atomic Bombs but Truman denied his proposal. The problem for Truman was that he was very popular in America and it was a very emotional return to America for his speech. Why does the term balance of terror effectively describe the Cold War during the 1950s? The focus after the Korean war was the nuclear arms race and to stop the spread of communism mainly.
Approximately ten years after World War II, America took the lead in rehabilitating Europe, restoring, Japan, and facing down Communist expansion (Greece, Turkey, Berlin, and Korea). This was not the case in Indochina (area of South East Asia), because the American relationship was beginning to fray. Americans began to questions their values and why they were being applied in Vietnam. This led to a gap in the American’s beliefs of their national experience and the geopolitics of containing communism. America took actions that did not coincide with its original intent.
The rise of McCarthyism, a period in which Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy accused many Americans of being communists, directly reflected these fears. In any other emotional atmosphere, McCarthy's accusations would be dismissed as ridiculous, as they were supported by little or no hard evidence. In the hysterical times, however, the "witch hunt" continued for several years. The success of McCarthyism echoed the hysteria that Communists had infiltrated the American government, and communists were a danger to America's superior way of life. The fear of communists was compounded by the arms race, in which the United States and the Soviet Union competed with each other to become the more technologically advanced nation and to process the
The United States sent France about $2½ billion in military equipment, but the Vietnamese defeated the French in 1954. Then Vietnam was divided into North and South Vietnam. United States aid to France and later to non-Communist South Vietnam was based on a policy of President Harry S. Truman. He had declared that the United States must help any nation threatened by Communists. Truman's policy was adopted by the next three Presidents -- Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson.
-Two events convinced the Truman administration to help France—the fall of China to communism, and the outbreak of the Korean War. -When Eisenhower took office in 1953, he continued to support the French military campaign against the Vietminh. -By 1954, the U.S. was paying roughly ¾ of France’s war costs. -During a news conference that year, Eisenhower defended the U.S. policy in Vietnam by stressing what became known as the domino theory—the belief that if Vietnam fell to communism, so too would other nations of Southeast Asia. B.
One policy that is an example of this is the Truman Doctrine put into action by President Harry Truman on March 12, 1947. The doctrine established that America would provide economic, political, and military aid to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces (Truman). With this doctrine America helped the Greek and Turkish governments out of the economic crisis that they had fallen into. The following year on April 3 of 1948 the Marshall Plan was enacted by the United States of America. It was part of European Recovery Program, an American initiative to aid Europe and Asia, in which the United States gave Thirteen billion dollars were allocated in economic support to help rebuild the European economies after the end of World War II.
Although however, this strained their relationship between the USSR from having conflicting national interests, this economic concept could be said to have been a huge tension between the USSR and America, as it excluded Russia, alienating them by spreading their capitalist ideologies and all the while ignoring their need for help in rebuilding themselves. Truman based his entire strategy of containment on George Kennan’s analysis of communism. Kennan implied the entire problem is the ideology, and the leaders who believe in it. The American hostility to communism therefore played a huge role in the shaping of the Cold War and showing the divide between the superpowers and highlighting the personalities and conflicting interests between