Vietnam+Path+to+War

=VIETNAM - THE PATH TO WAR =

You all know that the United States was involved in a major military conflict in Vietnam 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 complete, well written paragraphs
 * contain the following terms - France, Ho Chi Minh, communism, Ngo Dinh Diem, military advisors, Gulf of Tonkin, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Rolling Thunder
 * 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]

In the 1930's, communist revolts led by Ho Chi Minh began. The French arrest Ho Chi Minh and he flees to China and the USSR. In the 1940's, Indochina, which includes Vietnam, is taken over by Japan in WWII. Ho Chi Minh leads a guerilla war against Japan and started to get some support from the US. After WWII is over and Japan is out of Vietnam, the French come back. Ho Chi MInh then forms the Vietminh party in order to liberate Vietnam; they declare independence in 1945. In 1954, the Vietminh successfully defeat the French in North Vietnam and establish a communist government in the north. In 1954, the US pushes for the nation to temporarily split by the Geneva Accords with free elections to be held in 1956 to unite the nation. The free elections never happen and in the late 1950's there is a civil war between the communist north and the US supported south.

American was very involved in Vietnam. To start off, President Harry Truman sent economic and military aid to France to help them keep their colonies in Indochina which includes Vietnam. President Dwight Eisenhower believed in the domino effect, if one country fell into communism, others would follow. Ngo Dihn Diem leads south Vietnam and won't hold free elections. When JFK takes office, he doesn't support Diem and supports an overthrow of him in 1963. JFK did not want to be soft on communism and by the time of his death, there were 16,000 military advisors in Vietnam. Presidnt Lyndon B. Johnson originally sends more military advisors over and commits the US more fully to the war in Vietnam.

On August 2, 1964 three northern Vietnamese PT boats supposedly fire at a US destroyer ship located in the international waters of Tonkin Gulf; the gulf is thirty miles off the coast of North Vietnam. This attack takes place after six months of covert US and Vietnamese naval operations. In 1965, operation "Rolling Thunder" was deployed. The operation sustained American bombing raids of North Vietnam; the bombings will last for three years. And also in 1965, the first American combat troops arrive in Vietnam to defend a US airfield at Danang. No marines were injured at that time.