Tabitha Brown
Everest University
Heather Geisler
6-29-13
“Beginning in the 1950s, maintaining a non-Communist South Vietnam became crucial in American efforts to contain communism” Goldfield (2010). “Communism is a very attractive theory, particularly for the poor masses of a developing country” Kallie Szczepanski (2010). “Communism is a system of government, like democracy or dictatorship. “The main point about it is that (in theory) everyone is equal; there is no single person of small groups of people who rule the others” Goldfield (2010).” There are also no social classes like the working classes, aristocracy etc. ” Goldfield (2010). ” It has been demonstrated that this system cannot work and usually becomes a dictatorship” Goldfield (2010). “In the beginning in 1949, fear of domestic Communists gripped America. The country spent most of the 1950s under the influence of a Red Scare, led by the virulently anti-communist Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy saw Communists everywhere in America, and encouraged a witch hunt-like atmosphere of hysteria and distrust” Kallie Szczepanski (2010).
“Following World War II country after country in Eastern Europe had fallen under Communist rule, as had China, and the trend was spreading to other nations in Latin America, Africa and Asia as well. The US felt that it was losing the Cold War, and needed to "contain" Communism” Goldfield (2010). “It was against this backdrop, then, that the first military advisors were sent to help the French battle the Communists of Northern Vietnam in 1950. (That same year the Korean War began, pitting Communist North Korean and Chinese forces against the US and its U.N. allies)” Goldfield (2010). The France was fighting in Vietnam to keep control of their colonial power. They were not worried about communism.
What was the nation's justification for its actions in South Vietnam in the 1950s and its determination to abide by the outcome of free elections there only if