John F. Kennedy In Vietnam Essay Paper Example For Students

John F. Kennedy In Vietnam Essay Paper John F. Kennedy in VietnamJOHN F. KENNEDY IN VIETNAM There are many critical questions surrounding United States involvement in Vietnam. American entry to Vietnam was a series of many choices made by five successive presidents during these years of 1945-1975. The policies of John F. Kennedy during the years of 1961-1963 were ones of military action, diplomacy, and liberalism. Each of his decision was on its merits at the time the decision was made. The belief that Vietnam was a test of the Americas ability to defeat communists in Vietnam lay at the center of Kennedys policy. Kennedy promised in his inaugural address, Let every nation know.. .that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty. From the 1880s until World War II, France governed Vietnam as part of French Indochina, which also included Cambodia and Laos. The country was under the formal control of an emperor, Bao Dai. From 1946 until 1954, the Vietnamese struggled for their independence from France during the first Indochina War. At the end of this war, the country was temporarily divided into North and South Vietnam. North Vietnam came under the control of the Vietnamese Communists who had opposed France and aimed for a unified Vietnam under Communist rule. Vietnamese who had collaborated with the French controlled the South. For this reason the United States became involved in Vietnam because it believed that if all of the country fell under a Communist government, Communism would spread throughout Southeast Asia and further. This belief was known as the domino theory. The decision to enter Vietnam reflected Americas idea of its global role-U.S. could not recoil from world leadership. The U.S. government supported the South Vietnamese government. The U.S. government wanted to establish the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), which extended protection to South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos in case of Communist subversion. SEATO, which came into force in 1955, became the way which Washington justified its support for South Vietnam; this support eventually became direct involvement of U. S. troops. In 1955, the United States picked Ngo Dinh Diem to replace Bao Dai as head of the anti-Communist regime in South Vietnam. Eisenhower chose to support Ngo Dinh Diem. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born in Brookline, Mass., on May 29, 1917. Kennedy graduated from Harvard University in 1940 and joined the Navy the next year. After recovering from a war-aggravated spinal injury, Kennedy entered politics in 1946 and was elected to Congress. After a hard primary battle, Kennedy won the Democratic presidential nomination on the first ballot at the 1960 Los Angeles convention. With a majority of 118,574 votes, he won the election over Vice President Richard M. Nixon and became the first Roman Catholic president. Kennedy was inaugurated January 20, 1961. January 19, 1961 was President Eisenhower last full day in office. He met with President elect Kennedy to lay out pressing national issues he would have to face. Tensions between the United States and the USSR had mounted after World War II, resulting in the Cold War. JFK would have to deal with that problem. There was an intense discussion about Laos and Vietnam between Kennedy and Eisenhower. Another problem JFK had inherited was Diem from Eisenhower. Kennedys cabinet members were made up of many different thinkers. Dean Rusk, the Secretary of State believed that there was a communist plot to take over the world and it must be stopped. Walt Rostow, the presidential advisor believes that we should use military force to cut off supplies to the Vietcong, have large scale bombings of North Vietnam and accelerate modernization in South Vietnam. General Maxwell Taylor criticized Eisenhowers conventional training efforts. McGeorge Bundy, the NSC advisor wanted to attack the Vietcong and North Vietnam if necessary. George Ball believed that Diem regime was corrupt and to create democracy in Vietnam was impossible. How Democratic Is The American Constitution Essay But South Vietnamese troops are defeated by a much smaller Vietcong force despite U.S. assistance. In November 1, 1963, Ngo Diem regime came to an end when he died of and unclear cause. It is speculated that he was overthrown and then assassinated by ARVN leaders. US became responsible for the chaos afterward, which led to an increased commitment of US troops. By this time Kennedy was thinking ahead to the presidential campaign of 1964. Unfortunately Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, TX. Despite trauma of the assassination of the president the nation lied without him. Succeeding to the presidency after Kennedys assassination was Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson had inherited a more dangerous crisis than Eisenhower and Kennedy. And contrary to popular belief Johnson was not oblivious to Vietnam when he became president. LBJ inherited JFK plans and vowed to continue his policies. He also felt he had to take a forceful position on Vietnam so that other Communist countries would not think that the United States lacked purpose. Kennedy had begun to consider the possibility of withdrawal from Vietnam and had even ordered the removal of 1000 advisers shortly before he was assassinated, but Johnson increased the number of U. S. advisers to 27,000 by mid-1964. The Kennedy advisors viewed JFK as an effective leader of South Vietnam. Some opposition to JFK say he made some critical mistakes in regard to Vietnam. For example, he had a poor strategy. There were multiple options military could not decide how to win and they disagreed on what to do. In North Vietnam, there was no front line to stop the influx of supplies. The neutralization to stop supplies in Laos failed. And we definitely underestimated the enemy. North Vietnam more determined that we thought. There has been much speculation on what JFK would have done in Vietnam had he not been assassinated. Presidential aide Walt Rostow, says that Kennedy intend to withdrawal American military from Vietnam after 1964 election. Dean Rusk on the other hand believed Kennedy would have eventually brought US into war with Vietnam. Robert McNamera having reviewed everything believes that if JFK had lived, he would have pulled us out of Vietnam. Although many disagree with what McNamara says. And in the fiction movie JFK, by Oliver Stone his version of the Kennedy assassination was that Kennedy had already decided to pull out of Vietnam, and was killed for that reason. So would Kennedy have fallen into the Vietnam War as Johnson did? No one can be sure, and Kennedy supporters can certainly believe that he would have avoided Johnsons massive commitment -even though he had the same advisors as Johnson and the same desire to prevent a Communist takeover. We will never know for sure what President Kennedy intended to do in Vietnam. All the general public has to go on is speculation from close to JFK. Bibliography Bibliography Dudley, William. The Vietnam War: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1998. Gardner, Lloyd C. , and Ted Gittinger. Vietnam: The Early Decisions. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: The War Nobody Won. New York: The Viking Press, 1983. Kimball, Jeffery. To Reason Why. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990. Lomperis, Timothy. The War Everybody Lost and Won. 2nd ed. revised. Washington: D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Inc., 1993. McNamera, Robert. In Retrospect , The Tragedy in Vietnam. New York: Dell Publishing Group, 1996. Olson, James S. The Vietnam War. London: Greenwood Press, 1993. Rowe, John, and Rick Berg. The Vietnam War and American Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. Rust, William J. Kennedy in Vietnam. New York: U. S. News ; World Report, Inc., 1985. Schwab, Orrin. Defending the Free World: John F. Kennedy and the Vietnam War. London: Praeger Publishers, 1998.