History of

• Western intervention in Vietnam started centuries before the Vietnam War. In 1627, two aristocratic ruling families, the Nguyen Lords of the South, and the Trinh Lords of the North, began a war over Nguyens' refusal to send taxes to Hanoi and submit to rule by the Trinh. While this conflict ultimately ended in a stalemate, the Nguyen continued to try to conquer parts of neighboring countries in an effort to get more land. Constant war and alleged corruption in the government led to a popular revolt led by the Tay Son brothers and the Trinh saw their chance to move in and defeat the Nguyen once and for all. In 1784, in his quest to defeat the Trinh, Nguyen Anh prevailed upon a French missionary to seek help for his cause from Louis XVI. Though he agreed, the French Revolution derailed this plan, and help did not come from the French until 1788. Nguyen Anh eventually defeated both the Trinh and the Tay Son, and the Nguyen dynasty was founded by him in 1802.
  
  While Westerners had always enjoyed good relations with Nguyen Anh, his successors perceived them as a threat. Trade slowed, Christians were persecuted and Catholicism was suppressed. In 1858, Napoleon III sent troops to Da Nang. From then on, the French expanded their control over Vietnam and neighboring countries. By 1898, "French Indochina" included all of Vietnam, plus Laos and Cambodia.
  
  

Evolution

• French involvement ended with the Geneva Accord.
  
  As in other colonies, nationalist revolutionaries tried to overthrow the foreign power. After communist revolutions in Russia and China, some Vietnamese nationalists adopted a Marxist ideology. The French worked to suppress these movements, imprisoning and executing some of their leaders. During World War II, the Japanese occupied Vietnam, and millions of Vietnamese starved to death. It was during the Japanese occupation that Ho Chih Minh organized Vietnamese independence groups into the Viet Minh front, and their opposition to the Japanese earned them the support of the United States and the Allies. When the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, the Viet Minh took advantage of the power vacuum, and Ho Chih Minh assumed control and declared Vietnam an independent nation. The French tried to regain control of the country, and attempted to restore former figurehead emperor Bo Dai as the head of state. Chinese communists began aiding the Viet Minh and in 1954 they attacked French bases at Dien Bien Phu. The French soon surrendered, and the Geneva Accord was signed in July of that year. This accord ended France's rule in Vietnam and divided Vietnam into two states, with a pending referendum on unification. The Viet Minh took over North Vietnam, with South Vietnam under the control of Bo Dai and then Ngo Dinh Diem.
  
  

Significance

• The United States watched this with trepidation. The North's Ho Chih Minh was a charismatic and popular leader, despite the Viet Minh's purges of supposed party enemies. With the Cold War in full swing, America did not want to see Vietnam become another communist country. At the time, the U.S. government subscribed to the domino theory, the idea that if one country became communist, all of its neighboring countries would then become susceptible to communism as well. The United States began supporting South Vietnam's government. Though the Geneva Accord required elections to be held on the question of unification, only France and the Viet Minh had signed the agreement, and the United States and Ngo Dinh Diem refused to abide by its mandates. Diem was a Roman Catholic and virulent anti-communist, and he cracked down on any perceived leftists, private militias and non-Christian religious sects. Far from being a democratic capitalist leader, Diem proved to be a standard autocrat, complete with human rights abuses and rigged elections. Southern communists, against Ho Chih Minh's advice, began a low-level insurgency in South Vietnam in 1956, hoping to capitalize on the populace's growing distrust for Diem. This escalated into assassinations of national and local leaders, until most of South Vietnam's rural areas were under communist control.
  
  

Misconceptions

• The United States apparently overestimated the Viet Minh's involvement in this violence. While the North did provide support to the revolutionaries in the South, Diem's policies had alienated much of the population, and the resulting anger and desperation contributed heavily to attacks against the government and its supporters.
  
  After a meeting between Kennedy and Khrushchev in 1961 ended in disagreement, Cold War strategists suggested to Kennedy that the Russians would use Southeast Asia to test America's commitment to its stated policy of containment. Kennedy began sending "advisors" to Vietnam, a euphemism for Green Berets and other Special Forces personnel who were quietly engaging in guerrilla warfare against the communists. He later sent helicopters and formed a joint U.S.-Vietnamese Air Force. The belief in a so-called "International Communist conspiracy" and the domino theory contributed to the actions of Kennedy and subsequent presidents who further escalated the war. It was later revealed in the Pentagon Papers that even the CIA didn't believe in the domino theory, and while communist governments certainly helped each other in their struggles against the West, the idea that they all secretly conspired to turn the entire world communist now appears to be a significant exaggeration.
  
  

Effects

• Air strike on North Vietnam.
  
  The Vietnam War's "official" start was with the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964. On August 2, the USS Maddox fired on several torpedo boats that had been following it on an intelligence mission. It was then reported that on August 4, the Maddox and the Turner Joy were both attacked by North Vietnamese vessels. This led to air strikes by the U.S., and the authorization by Congress of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave President Lyndon Johnson the power to launch military action in Southeast Asia without having to declare war. It was revealed in documents declassified in 2005 that the August 4th attack never happened.