Another piece I wrote, this one back in College.
BTW, my VERY liberal Prof. not only gave me an "A" on it, but had to concede that many of the misconceptions he had held for over a decade were totally inaccurate.
Vietnam: Americas War to Stem Communist Expansion
Following World War II, the Soviet Union, under Josef Stalin, and the government of China under Mao Tse-tung expanded their avowed policies of Communist expansionism throughout Southeast Asia. This policy eventually culminated itself in the invasion of South Korea in June of 1950 as well as increased support for the Communist led Vietminh forces in Vietnam, in a two pronged assault designed to firmly establish Communism in the region.
Ho Chi Minh, who had studied Communism as the Lenin Institute in Moscow from 1921 until 1935, and then continued his education in China, returned to Vietnam in May of 1941, to attend the 8th Plenum of the Indochinese Communist Party. One of the major results of this conference was the formation of the League for the Independence of Vietnam, more commonly known as the Vietminh.
Led by Ho Chi Minh, the Vietminh took great advantage of the fractured government of post WWII Vietnam to spread the teachings of Communism throughout Indochina. Many of the people of Vietnam, weary of the yoke of Colonial French rule, readily accepted these teachings. Many Vietnamese, however, chose not to accept Communist indoctrination, preferring instead to maintain their alliance with the French Government, and as a result of these divisions, two separate governments were formed. The Communist led Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DVR) issued its Declaration of Independence on September 2, 1945, while the pro-French people formed the Associated State of Vietnam (ASV) under the leadership of Bao Dai on March 8, 1949.
In an official recognition by the United States of the agreement between France and the ASV, the U.S. Secretary of State, Dean Acheson issued a statement on February 7, 1950, recognizing the ASV. In response to this, the Soviet and Chinese governments issued their own statements of recognition of the DSV, setting the stage for increased conflict in the region. As a result of an overtly Communist government emerging in the region, Mr. Acheson, on May 8, 1950, issued the “Extension of Military and Economic Aid” to the ASV. In this statement it was made quite clear the “The United States Government, convinced that neither national independence nor democratic evolution exist in any area dominated by Soviet imperialism, considers the situation to be such as to warrant its according economic aid and military equipment to the Associated States of Indochina and to France…,” openly avowing America’s policy of opposing Communism in Southeast Asia.
On January 28, 1951, President Harry S. Truman along with his cabinet, met with Prime Minister Pleven of France and his cabinet at the White House to discuss the current situation in Southeast Asia. The minutes of that meeting reveal that the French government had “adopted a policy of complete emancipation of the three Indochinese countries” and that they “had been transferring power to local Indochinese authorities as fast as they could.” Prime Minister Pleven also stated that these efforts were being thwarted by “the Communist-directed revolutionary movement” inspired by the governments of Russia and China. President Truman informed Mr. Pleven “that there was no present possibility of our recognizing the Peking regime…in China” and that “we will continue to use every means at our command to keep the Peking regime from being seated in the UN as a representative of China. To do so would add only one more vote to the Russian Bloc.”
By the middle of 1954, the French had lost their war against the Communist Vietminh and on July 20 of that year the “Agreement of the Cessation of Hostilities in Vietnam” was signed. Although the Geneva Accords theoretically ended the war between the French and the Vietminh, there was to be no peace in the region due to the continual violation of the Accords by the Vietminh. In his address to the American Friends of Vietnam on June 1, 1956, Walter S. Robertson, the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs, pointed out that even after the free elections in March of 1955 had overwhelmingly elected President Ngo Dinh Diem, the Communists continued to blatantly violate Sections 17, 19, and 24 of the Geneva Accords. These violations included allowing Chinese Communist military personnel to work on military projects in the north and the expansion of its military to no less than 20 Divisions, an increase of more than 200% since the Accords were signed. In response to this, the United States, in an effort to maintain some form of parity in the region, promised “to support a friendly non-Communist government in Vietnam and to help it diminish and eventually eradicate Communist subversion and influence.”
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in an address at Gettysburg College on April 4, 1959, stated that “Because of the proximity of Communist military formations in the north, Free Vietnam must maintain substantial numbers in cleaning out Communist guerillas, those remaining continue to be a disruptive influence in the nation’s life.” He further stated that, should South Vietnam fall to the Communists, more than 12 million people would lose their freedom and “the freedom of 150 million would be seriously endangered.” He then closed by saying that the United States had reached “the inescapable conclusion that our own national interests demand some help from us in sustaining in Vietnam” the moral, economic and “military strength necessary to its continued existence in freedom.”
By the end of 1961, the situation in Vietnam had deteriorated to the point that the introduction of forces under the “Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty” (SEATO) was being seriously considered. In a report to President John F. Kennedy on November 11, 1961, Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense, recommended, in order to prevent “the fall of South Vietnam to Communism,” the introduction of “United States and other SEATO forces may be necessary… .” Following that meeting, McNamara sent a memo to the Joint Chiefs of Staff requesting recommendations “concerning a command structure for RVN under which a senior military commander would assume responsibilities for all activities, including intelligence ops, related to the counter-insurgency effort” which was to become known as the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG).
In a memorandum from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Taylor and Secretary of Defense, McNamara to President Kennedy on October 2, 1963, it was noted that due to recent progress in the military campaigns and despite the continued political turmoil in Vietnam, it would be possible to start the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam. This memorandum recommended that the first 1000 troops would be withdrawn by the end of 1963 and that “a program be established to train Vietnamese so that essential functions now performed by U.S. personnel can be carried out by Vietnamese by the end of 1965” allowing for the withdrawal of “the bulk of U.S. personnel by that time.” This memorandum led to the issuance of National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) #263, which was signed by President Kennedy on October 11, 1963. It should be noted that in late 1963, there were only 16,300 U.S. military troops operating in advisory or support roles in Vietnam and that U.S. casualties only numbered 82 killed in action. These personnel had in fact only received permission to “return fire only if fired upon first” from President Kennedy in February of 1962.
With the ascendance of Lyndon Baines Johnson to the Presidency following the assassination of President Kennedy on November 22, 1963, President Johnson signed NSAM #273 on November 26, 1963. This memorandum, in theory, maintained the Kennedy position stated in NSAM #263. Unfortunately the reality of NSAM #273 was to accelerate our involvement in Vietnam, not due to any malice on the part of the Johnson administration, but rather as a result of the overthrow and assassination of President Diem on November 2, 1963, as well as the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August of 1964. The assassination of Diem resulted in two years of instability to the government of South Vietnam, and the Gulf of Tonkin incident exposed a paradigm shift in the Communist-backed Vietminh battle plans by engaging U.S. troops directly. This shift caused U.S. troop concentrations to be increased for actual combat operations rather than the supply and advise mission that we had been carrying out for almost a decade.
