Communism In The Vietnam War

After the horrors of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union became the only two major world powers with competing spheres of influence and ideologies in the Cold War. With new third world countries, the United States completed to spread capitalism while the Soviet Union promoted communism, through proxy wars. The United States was considering invention in Vietnam, as they feared Vietminh in the North, under the rule of Ho Chi Minh, were falling susceptible to communism and war was breaking out against French colonists. These conflicts of American foreign policy in the First Indochina War is seen in Graham Greene’s, The Quiet American, through the characters Thomas Fowler and Alden Pyle. Fowler, an English reporter, who although

As Soviet military power was increasing in the 1950s, the United States continued to fear countries being susceptible and falling to Soviet ideals. To further prevent the spread of communism, the U.S. National Security Council created NSC-68, advocating for containment to “prevent [the Soviet Union] from…[causing]... confusion in [American] economy, … culture … and body politic” (“NSC-68). After communist regime took hold in China and Korea, the United States saw it necessary to move to active containment to prevent all traces of communism in East Asia. The United States immediately felt they needed to intervene with anything linked with communism without full understanding of the political affairs in the country. A month before NSC-68 was created, The Nation, a left-wing political magazine, wrote an article revealing a different side to Vietnamese affairs than what the United States had been promoting. The Nation believes that “France could have made a satisfactory agreement with Ho”, but “by refusing to deal with the leftist leader it may have forfeited the chance of keeping his regime out of Soviet orbit” (“Puppets”). The Nation disagreed with the U.S. government's belief that Ho was trying to promote Soviet ideologies in Vietnam. In reality, Ho was receiving support from

In the 1954 Geneva Accords, it was agreed that Vietnam would be split at the 17th parallel, Ho in control of the North and Diem in the South, and after two years, Vietnam would have a nation-wide election. A year later, Diem, cancelled the 1956 election, but claimed “with the backing of the free world” he would “bring [Vietnam] independence and freedom” (“Elections”). Because he was from the Catholic minority and used of violent tactics, Diem’s regime was widely unpopular within Vietnam and would certainly lose any free election. The United States claimed to be spreading democracy in the East, however by supporting Diem with economic aid they were allowing him to implement an autocratic and corrupt regime. Fowler criticizes the United States were so desperate to maintain U.S. control in Vietnam they were willing to sacrificing their values for democracy for their own personal gain. Moreover, in The Quiet American, a bombing occurs in a marketplace in Saigon. When Fowler finds Pyle was part of it, he angered that Pyle would allow it happen during a time when he knew there would be women and children around. When Pyle discovered blood on his shoes, Fowler snakingly comments that Pyle has “Third Force and national democracy all over [his] shoe” (Greene 154). Pyle is so absorbed with spreading