Vietnam+the+Path+to+War


 * Vietnam the Path to War:**

The path to the war in Vietnam can be explained in many different ways. The war was originally between the **French** and the Vietnamese, but then the Americans got involved also. The battle of Dien Bien Phu was when the French got defeated by the Vietnmese, this then led to the Declaration of Independence for Vietnam. After the battle there was a conference held in Geneva, Switzerland. The decision at the conference was to draw a dividing line on the 17th parallel. The northern half was to be for the communist Vietnam, and the south was for the French, this would then lead to an election for either communism or a democracy and this would rule all of Vietnam. These elections were posponded by Ngo Dinh Diem. The leader in the north was **Ho Chi Minh** and the leader in the south was **Ngo Dinh Diem**. The United States supported the French and Ngo Dinh Diem, but since the elections were posponed Ho Chi Minh and Vit Minh decided to try and reunite the country which could lead to all communism. With that in mind Ngo Dinh Diem asked for military assistance and **military advisors** from the United States decided to help. Ngo Dinh Diem started to lose interest from the public and many didn't like his ways anymore. There was a plan to assisnate Diem which the US knew about, but decided to mind their own business and not help Diem, and in the end he died on November 1, 1963. While this was taking place a group from the 17th parallel started to form recuriting members from the north and members from the south. They were trying to reunite the country and bring them back together, but the United States saw them as being harmful communist. The ARVN tried to contain them and keep them back, but they still kept fighting and hoping. While they were becoming bigger many feared that if Vietnam fell to communism it might lead other countries to do the same, which would be very bad. They knew that communism had to be defeated in order to help spread democracy.



The the story behind the **Gulf of Tolkin** is that a US military ship the Maddox was attacked by North Vietnam, it was also said that they attacked again two days later. President Lyndon knew this would be bad and had to take action, Congress gave him permission to let him do anything just to protect South Vietnam and the US. But, there are always two sides to every story and that may seem real to lots of people the real story is that the Maddox was an operation for South Vietnam for support to attack into North Korea. Also, there was only one documented attack against the Maddox and not two. This event basically showed that the US was going to fight in the Vietnam war even though it wasn't a declared war.