Reply #21: Vietnam goes as far back as Franklin Roosevelt

[Doomsayer13]

towards the end of WWII a major concern about the US administration and its allies was what was to be done about the colonies in Southeast Asia that had been taken over by the Japanese. FDR, an ardent anti-colonialist, initially tried to make France, who had prior control of Vietnam, grant an autonomous government to it's Southeast Asian colony. But France refused and claimed Vietnam in the same fashion as reclaiming lost property in a dispute and in the end, FDR consented to prolonged French control of Vietnam under the pretext that France would eventually give it up. French refusal to give Vietnam any sort of autonomy would lead to the French-Vietnam war which lasted from Truman's term through Eisenhower's term. Truman would implement the seeds of US involvment by helping France by paying for arms and also initiating the sending of US military advisors to Vietnam. Truman did this becuause of his hardline anti-communist line. Eisenhower took up Trumans banner and went further, by the time of the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, the US was picking up the tab for the entire French-Vietnamese war.

JFK was only a continuation of these policies, and everything came to its boiling point during the Johnson and Nixon terms.