The Roots of War

Vietnam's war with the United States did not begin in 1965 when American combat troops landed. It began in 1945 when Ho Chi Minh proclaimed Vietnamese independence from the steps of Hanoi's Ba Dinh Square, quoting the American Declaration of Independence. France refused to recognize Vietnamese independence and attempted to reimpose colonial rule.

Thirty years of warfare followed.

Ho Chi Minh was simultaneously a communist and a nationalist. He had sought American support against France in 1945 — the US had backed Vietnamese independence movements during WWII — but the Cold War changed everything. Truman could not support a communist movement, even a nationalist one.

The US began funding France's war, eventually paying 80% of its cost. When France lost at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the Geneva Accords temporarily divided Vietnam at the 17th parallel, promising nationwide elections in 1956.

The elections never happened. President Eisenhower's 'domino theory' held that if South Vietnam fell to communism, all of Southeast Asia would follow. The US backed Ngo Dinh Diem, a Catholic mandarin with no popular base, as South Vietnam's leader.

Diem canceled the elections — knowing Ho would win — and began suppressing political opposition brutally. The National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) formed to fight his government. Eisenhower sent military advisors.

President Kennedy inherited the problem and deepened it — 16,000 advisors by 1963, many in combat roles. Diem's Buddhist persecution triggered riots; his sister's reference to protesters as 'barbecuing bonzes' appalled Americans. The US acquiesced in a military coup; Diem was assassinated in November 1963, three weeks before Kennedy.

Lyndon Johnson, who knew little about Vietnam and cared less, found himself holding a deteriorating situation. In August 1964, a confused incident in the Gulf of Tonkin — a possible attack on a US destroyer, the second of which almost certainly never happened — gave Johnson the pretext he needed.

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed 98-2, authorizing the President to use military force. America's war in Vietnam had begun.