Vietnam War Vs Cold War

The Vietnam War

The end of WWII didn’t end all conflicts around the world. There were many arguments and grudges afterwards, and some were between allies through WWII. The Cold War was one of these. It started right after WWII between some of the only countries that still had power: the U.S. and the Soviet Union, or the USSR. They had resources, people, money, and power while Europe was greatly damaged. The whole conflict started with the Soviet Union being communist and the U.S. being capitalist. The U.S. was afraid of communism spreading through Europe and the rest of the world, so we started “fighting” the USSR in many indirect ways. There were many differences in opinions between the two countries, and that led to many different conflicts,

We were supporting South Vietnam, a country that was in a war against North Vietnam. North Vietnam was being supported by the USSR to become communist. After WWII, Vietnam was split up into North and South. The North was ruled by a communist leader, Ho Chi Minh, while the South was ruled by Ngo Dinh Diem, who was somewhat supported by the U.S. He had a bit of a corrupt government, giving power to his family and arresting anyone that was communist. We helped South Vietnam with their government and sent them military aid and trainers in 1956. In 1957, a group called the Viet Cong started attacking South Vietnamese government and war officials because they were trying to make the North and South be independent again, but as communists. This group was communist, supporting the North, but when the border was closed between the north and the south, they had to stay in South Vietnam. They grouped together, and they were able to be hard, guerilla fighters for communism. The South didn’t want to become a communist country, and the U.S. didn’t want them to either. We continued to help and support the South, but we didn’t directly fight with our troops until later. While John F. Kennedy was president in 1963, the leader of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, was assassinated with his wife and his brother by his own military because he wasn’t the greatest leader. Duong Van Minh was a general that took over when Diem was killed. JFK

They were presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon. There was also President Harry S. Truman that made the Truman doctrine, but he was president before the Vietnam War began. The Truman Doctrine was very similar to other methods of containment, and it was that if we helped countries that were being influenced by communism, we could keep them from “falling” and stop the spread of it. President John F. Kennedy was the second president during the war, and he was the president when Ngo Dinh Diem was assassinated. He was thought to have known about the coup and even supported it. Also, we first sent troops to fight in Vietnam after what was believed to be an attack on two U.S. ships. It was in the Gulf of Tonkin, and two U.S. destroyers reported that they had been fired at by the North Vietnamese. Lyndon B. Johnson was the president of the U.S. during this, and he made the decision to engage in the war because of the report that could be faulty. He was the first president of the United States to really engage in the war. Lastly, President Richard M. Nixon was very important. He started Vietnamization in 1969, which was the act of slowly pulling U.S. troops out of Vietnam, leaving South Vietnam to fight on their