The document outlines the increasing US involvement in Vietnam from supporting France's colonial rule in the 1940s-50s to defending South Vietnam from communism in the 1960s. It describes how the US backed France's reoccupation of Vietnam after WWII. The Vietminh resisted and gained control of North Vietnam by 1954 while the US-supported South was established. Attempts to reunify the country through elections failed, fueling the Vietcong insurgency in the South. As the South's government weakened in the early 1960s, the US role expanded under presidents Kennedy and Johnson through bombing campaigns and greater military commitment.

1. Moving Toward Conflict

3. US Supports France in Vietnam
• Nationalist Movements
– Protest French colonial rule
– Protest Japanese rule
during WWII
• Ho Chi Minh formed Vietminh
• Declared independence when
Japan was defeated

4. US Supports France in Vietnam
• French Indochina
War (1946-1954)
– France retook control
of South
– Vietminh controlled
North
– US Supported
France

5. US Supports France in Vietnam
• Domino Theory
– Eisenhower’s justification to fight in Vietnam
– If one nation falls to Communism, others will

6. US Supports France in Vietnam
• Vietminh take Dien
Bien Phu in 1954
• Geneva Accords
divide Vietnam
• Communist North and
Nationalist South
• Call for elections in
1956

7. The US Steps In
Ho Chi Minh
North
• Ngo Dinh Diem (South)
– Refused to hold elections
– Supported by US
– Corrupt regime
• Vietcong Form in Resistance to Diem
– Communist opposition group
– Supplied along Ho Chi Minh Trail
– Make Southern Vietnam unstable
Ngo Dinh Diem
South

8. The US Steps In
• JFK and Vietnam
– Supported Diem to fight Communism
– Diem government unstable and corrupt
– US removed Diem in 1963
• South grows unstable
• Increased influence of Vietcong

9. LBJ Expands the Conflict
• Tonkin Gulf
Resolution
– Response to incident
in Gulf of Tonkin
• North Vietnamese
ships fired on US ship
• LBJ responded by
bombing Vietnam

10. LBJ Expands the Conflict
– Resolution
Provisions
• Gave LBJ broad
military powers
• Launched Operation
Rolling Thunder