In march 12, 1947 with the truman doctrine and the newly introduced policy of containment usa decided to award itself with status of policeman of the world giving themselves a permission to intervene anywhere in the world when they consider it is neccessary. This was the policy that allowed them to interpose in vietnam.
Vietnamese people under the leadership of ho chi mihn, founder of viet minh defeated french at diem bien phu who had controll over whole indochina (thailand, vietnam, combodia, laos). Although usa was sending aid to french they didn't help much because president eisenhower has just been elected to end the korean war therefore he didn't want to involve usa in another conflict. However after french defeat and the devision of vietnam into north which was communist and south usa started to realize the danger of communism spreading into asia and saw vietnam as a puppet in hands of ussr and china.
Propaganda leaflet urging the defection of NLF and...
English: Ho Chi Minh trail from the very begining ...
Viet Cong soldiers carry a litter with injured Ame...in convinction that responsibility for the 'domino effect' will be theirs if they won't do anything. in 1954 usa prevented the re-uniting free elections from taking place, foreboding uniting vietnam under communist goverment. this time they showed their resilient attitude, considering their disapproval with ussr, not holding free elections in their sattelites. nevertheless there were no elections and usa picked up anti-communist diem to become a president of south vietnam. This decision led to many protest especially from buddhist monks since diem was ignorat to their religion and culture, he himself being christian. during his reign he forbade any elections and set members of his family into important positions. his corruption and way of controling south vietnam was the reason for more and more people joining the national front for the liberation of south vietnam, the viet cong. although usa didn't agree with his governance...