During this difficult period, the communists returned to protracted guerrilla warfare and political struggle. Morale declined among communist sympathizers and Saigon government supporters alike. In elections held in South Vietnam in September 1967, former generals Nguyen Van Thieu and Nguyen Cao Ky were elected president and vice president, respectively. Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, pledged to honor Kennedy’s commitments but hoped to keep U.S. involvement in Vietnam to a minimum. After North Vietnamese forces allegedly attacked U.S. Navy ships in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964, however, Johnson was given carte blanche in the form of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and began to send U.S. troops to Vietnam.
The government they set up was failing so in 1965 the United States send in troops to prevent collapse of it. The horrible tactics of the Diem government eventually led to opposition within South Vietnam. Ngo Dinh diem’s government represented a minority of Vietnamese who were mostly businessmen, Roman Catholics, large landowners, and others who had fought with the French against the Vietnamese. The United States first tried to help the Southern Vietnamese government with military advisers and financial assistance, but more involvement was needed to keep it from collapsing. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave President Johnson permission to escalate the war in Vietnam.
1.The United States was very reluctant to intervene in both World Wars. With the global nature of World War 2, the U.S. became interested in global politics. After WWII, the Soviet leadership refused to introduce free elections despite promising to. In Asia, China fell to the Communists in 1949, and the Korean War raged on for 3 years. After major losses by French forces in Vietnam, U.S. became involved in trying to ensure the success of the non-communist South Vietnamese government.
• It has its roots in the Truman doctrine and its goal of containing communism. • Vietnam was a major zone of cold war tension after it defeated the French colonialists and created a new government in the north. • President Kennedy and Johnson thought it was a barrier to the spread of communism throughout the regions, perhaps the world. • Secretary of defense Robert McNamara warned Johnson that failure in Vietnam would result in a “complete shift of world power” with the “prestige and integrity” of the US severely damaged. This lead Johnson to continue with the fight.
The United States and the South Vietnamese army tried to stop them but failed. The Vietnam War was actually the second phase of fighting in Vietnam. During the first phase, which began in 1946, the Vietnamese fought France for control of Vietnam. At that time, Vietnam was part of the colony of French Indochina. The United States sent France about $2½ billion in military equipment, but the Vietnamese defeated the French in 1954.
Therfreo he ordered immediatiely to have bombing raids agisnt military installations in North Vietnam and ordered his troops to land. However, the enemy matched every incrase in Amreican firepower with more men and more wiliness in the art of guerilla warfare. The South Vietnamese had become spectators in this war and incraisgly became Americanized. The corrupt government succeeded ecahc otheri n Siagon, but American still had fiath in calling them a democratic ally and the spokesperson in Wahsington defeded this axction as America’s commitment to the treayt pledges to resist communist encroachment. The Gulf of Tonkkin Resoultion gave U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson authorization, without a formal declaration of war by Congress, for the use of military forces in Southeast Asia.
He did all this in order to persuade people to show charity and compassion to all religions. Diem, and his government’s reaction to this was to arrest thousands of Buddhist monks. Many monks disappeared and Diem’s government was blamed. For these, and many other reasons, “Kennedy became convinced that Diem could never unite South Vietnam against Communism and he agreed that the CIA should initiate a program to overthrow him. A CIA operative, Lucien Conein, provided some Vietnamese generals with $40,000 to overthrow Diem with the added guarantee that the United States would not protect the South Vietnamese leader.
1 The USA was deeply hostile towards the Soviet Union and fearing a spread of communism, adopted a policy of containment. 4 In Vietnam the target of containment was Ho Chi Minh and the Vietminh front he had created in 1941. Ho and his chief lieutenants were communists with long-standing connections to the Soviet Union. 5 Hoping to halt a takeover by the communist North Vietnamese (led by Ho Chi Minh) 6, US officials chose to support the anti-Communist prime minister of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem1,. As opposed to the other superpower, America got directly involved, sending not only financial aid1 but actively participating in the military effort.
The Khmer rouge eradicated the educated class and killed between 1.5 to 2 million civilians. · Their success was short lived and they were removed from power in 1979 · Conclusion (250 words) · The Khmer Rouge aimed to create an egalitarian society with a single, equal working class, and were successful during their 4 year rule of Cambodia. The Khmer rouge was successful in their goal, having eradicated the educated class, but were removed from power in 1979 · The leaders of the Khmer Rouge are currently undergoing trials for war crimes, and future researches could gain much insight on this group by studying the trials. Annotated Reference List Cambodia - the Killing Fields. (n.d.).
During World War II the Japanese occupied Vietnam and disarmed the French. With the vacuum caused by the defeat of Japan, an opportunity arose for the Communists to declare the "independence" of Vietnam in 1945. No nation recognized the new regime and the French returned and swept it away, with remnants hiding in the mountains. The United States backed France and its puppet emperor Bao Dai. Ho Chi Minh began a campaign to fight a weakened France and seize independence through force.