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Vietnam War Vs Cold War

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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, …show more content…

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 …show more content…

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

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Vietnam Fact Sheet Harry S. Truman, president from 1949 to 1953, helped the French in 1946 by sending them 160 million dollars. The Vietnamese ended up defeating the French at Dien Bien Phu, thus causing the Geneva Accord to divide north and south Vietnam at the 17th parallel. This division created a North Vietnam with a communist government, and a South Vietnam with a somewhat democratic government. In the 1950s, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was president, there was an idea or belief that stated that if one land in a region came under the influence of communism, then surrounding countries would follow and do the same.

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As Johnson’s presidency ended, the Republican Party won and representing President Richard Nixon. On 1973, the United States Air Forced received an orders from President Nixon to decimate the industrial and military target in North Vietnam. As the North Vietnamese attended the Paris Peace Talks the United States granted their promising words of stopping the bomb. Few months later, President Nixon delivered a speech to the nation stating that United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the Viet Cong were at peace because of signing the Paris Peace Accords. On the brighter side, the accords was a victory to the United States and South Vietnam which it was known as the V-Day.

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The Vietnam war had been nicknamed ‘Johnson’s war’, which automatically put Nixon at an advantage over Humphrey, who was Johnson’s Vice President and still supported the war. This influenced Nixon’s election as many democrats turned away from Humphrey and used Nixon as an anti-war alternative. Humphrey’s stance led Nixon’s popularity to increase nationwide as, although relatively anti-civil rights, Nixon appealed to Afro-Americans like Martin Luther King, who had clashed with Johnson over the war. Nixon’s anti-war policies caused him to gain support from many unlikely areas of the USA, along with those in the silent majority that he originally targeted, leading him to be elected as President in

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On March 8th 1965, America entered the Vietnam war. The United States entered the war in an effort to prevent the spread of communist beliefs. On May 30th, 1970, President Richard Nixon declared that the South Vietnamese army, along with American troops were going to invade the country of Cambodia. This was to disrupt North Vietnamese supply lines. The news of the invasion struck people with anger and fear throughout America.

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Now, In my opinion the 36th President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson had the most significant role in The Vietnam War because when he assumed the presidency, he inherited the escalating crisis in Vietnam. Lyndon B Johnson failed to see the importance of the war, and actually escalated it even more. Despite promises

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Johnson would step in to fill the void in the presidency. Ironically, this was mere after Kennedy approved the coup of South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem that saw his death. The coup took place because of the clear lack of support for his government, again a step to defend the small nation from falling to communist ideology. Johnson took the presidency and was tasked with escalating the war, avoid involvement and surrender the country to communism. Johnson would choose the former until he was replaced by Richard Nixon in 1969.

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President Johnson made the Vietnam War his own by manipulating information, and the media to get congress to help support him in fighting the war. He didn’t want to go to war with Vietnam, but he felt that if the U.S. did not help South Vietnam, it would be a failure on him to have let Vietnam become a communist country. He was determined to keep the North Vietnamese communists from taking control over the government of South Vietnam. He feared that if America did not do anything to help contain communism, that it would spread throughout the world. This was also known as the “Domino Theory,” in which President Johnson strongly believed in.

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Laisha Avendano APUSH 3-12-17 Period 04 Short Answer Rewrite Richard Nixon played the most significant role in the Vietnam War because out of all the presidents who served during the Vietnam War, Nixon ended it by taking troops out of Vietnam. The Vietnam War (1955-75) was a war against North Vietnam and South Vietnam. North Vietnam believed in communism, the belief that the government should be controlled by the government and people are treated the same, while the South did not believe in communism. The United States did not want communism to spread which is why they went to go help South Vietnam. During this war, there were four presidents (including Nixon) who were in term all addressing the war.

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Lyndon B. Johnson was president during the Vietnam War and did nothing to keep us out of

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As Vietnamization took place, the United States military would withdraw 150,000 from South Vietnam within a year (Dean 73). Simultaneously, he was supplying the Southern Vietnamese people with military support and even helping with their government. When Nixon helped politically, he “expand[ed] its political base in rural areas… offered U.S. assistance to help South Vietnamese officials organize local elections and implement social reforms and economic development initiatives” (History.com Staff 1). While Vietnamization was taking place a treaty titled The Paris Peace Accords was negotiated between all of

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As we discussed in class, Nixon ended the war by pulling troops from South Vietnam, which led to the Fall of Saigon, where many innocent people were left behind and taken by North Vietnam. The US spent billions of dollars on the Vietnam War, just to lose. The US could have used that money to benefit its citizens. It also left a lot of innocent South Vietnamese citizens, who helped the US, behind. Many of those people could have been saved, but they weren’t.

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The US first started getting involved with Vietnam in 1960 under President Truman to prevent communism taking over all of Vietnam and would not end its involvement until 1973 under President Nixon. In the beginning of his term, Johnson approved NSAM 273 “which directed the U.S. government to assist the people and Government of South Vietnam to win their contest against the externally directed and supported Communist conspiracy" and NSAM 288 which increased US involvement (Germany, “Lyndon B. Johnson”). Johnson officially authorized the US entering the Vietnam war in 1965 where “its legacy was 58,220 American soldiers dead, a huge drain on the nation’s finances, social polarisation and the tarnishing of the reputation of the United States” (White, “Why did Lyndon”). Towards the end of the term he reflected “I knew from the start that I was bound to be crucified either way I moved” saying that he was torn between leaving the Great Society or letting communism take over Vietnam (White, “ Why did Lyndon”).

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The Vietnam war was preceded by a very turbulent time in our history with problems here in the states such as racism, women’s rights, and a president being shot. But in Vietnam they were going through a civil war, which they had done before, but not to this extent, this time they got the U.S.S.R. involved. It was communist Russia and North Vietnam against South Vietnam. The U.S. started to get

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There are many different views on the Vietnam War (1945-1975) and to this day America’s involvement is contentious. Source 1 clearly shows the fear the US had over America potentially falling to the ‘domino theory’. America’s fear of communism had increased after World War Two once it began spreading worldwide through Eastern Europe, Africa, Cuba and East Asia. This fear is what would lead to America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. America claimed they would help South Vietnam put an end to the ‘dangerous conditions’ the war was causing.

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224 Words | 1 Pages

The Cold War did occur after WWII between the United States and The Soviet Union at the time of President Ronald Reagan administration. The Soviet union and its government had the ideology of spreading communism around the world. The United States was against communism and this why the country went to war with Vietnam. "Containment" was the ultimate goal by the U.S. to preventing communism from happen worldwide. My perception of the Cold War and the War on Terror is due to the lack of the United States government to understanding other countries language, culture and way of life.

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