involvement only deepened from there.īy the time American forces finally withdrew in 1973, about 2.7 million U.S. Johnson to commit combat troops and launch a massive bombing campaign, and U.S. In 1964, however, the so-called Gulf of Tonkin incident prompted President Lyndon B. Yet their support for South Vietnam never wavered, no matter who occupied the White House.Īfter a while, “no one thinks they’re going to win,” says James McAllister, a political science professor at Williams College, “but they’re damn sure a loss is not going to take place under their watch.”Īt first, the United States largely operated behind the scenes. officials eventually soured on Diem, tacitly approving a 1963 coup that resulted in his death. operated behind the scenes, but after 1964, it sent combat troops and became more deeply mired in the war. The United States got involved to prevent South Vietnam from falling into communist hands. Kennedy Jr., that Vietnam would be a “ bottomless military and political swamp.” Though prescient, the advice ultimately went unheeded.
In fact, French President Charles de Gaulle warned his U.S. When the Second Indochina War, or Vietnam War, as it’s known in the United States, began soon after, France stayed well away. In 1954, Ho’s forces won a decisive victory at Dien Bien Phu and succeeded in evicting the French once and for all. Most Vietnamese, however, opposed colonial rule, and a rebellion broke out led by communist and pro-independence leader Ho Chi Minh. “They were determined to go on holding it, both as a matter of national pride and because if they let one colony go loose, then the others might get ideas.” “The French had controlled Vietnam for a couple of generations,” explains Ed Moise, a professor of history at Clemson University and author of Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. Bombs ready to be loaded onto a French aircraft for the long drawn out Dien Bien Phu Battle of the Indochina War on April 10, 1954.Īfter World War II, France reoccupied Vietnam as part of its attempt to reclaim its prewar empire.
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