Vietnam was divided after their war against France: a democratic South under Ngo Dinh Diem and a communist North under Ho Chi Minh. When the South refused to hold unification elections, the United States became an ally and financially backed Southern Vietnam. Initially, President Lyndon Johnson was the main figure in involving the United States with Vietnam. According to Kennedy Hickman with About.com, his perception was to just prevent the spread of communist aggression. Due to the fact that this war was the longest American war on history, other Presidents (Kennedy and Nixon) were not only involved, but had the same vision.
The Viet Cong (guerillas led by the Communists) began to battle the South Vietnamese government. To help combat them, the United States trained the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and supplied military advisors. When the Northern Vietnamese attacked U. S. destroyers, President Johnson felt as though he had no choice but to organize a full-fledged attack. Digitalhistory.edu’s account for the American involvement also included the notion that we were overconfident in thinking that our troops could deter the communist takeover of our ally and that withdrawing from Vietnam would only create political criticism at home. However, the U. S. kept getting in deeper and they could not just admit failure or back out that easily. It would make the Democrats appear weak on their views against Communism and would lower our Presidents’ chances for re-election.
What we failed to see was the Communists willingness to lose many people in order to overthrow the South Vietnamese government. With the Communist’s Tet offensive attack, the Americans were no longer convinced that continuing with the war was worth the effort. When Nixon won the election, he started to withdraw troops and after the large-scaled bombings, a cease-fire agreement was signed, and America finally withdrew from South Vietnam.
http://www.about.com/
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/
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