Anti Communism In Vietnam

Anti communism was the centrepiece of us foreign policy from 1941 but by the 1970s it was less important, and indochina was also.
By 1954 the us was paying 80% of the costs of the french war against the vite communsits. it saw communism as a global monolith, the vietnamese not as nationalists but as tools of the sino-soviet bloc. Vietnam was not important in itself but a place to 'draw the line', after china had been lost, otherwise like dominoes all seasia would go communist, and japan would turn to china as an ally. so said the us president, the us could not see that nationalism and cluss struggle brought communism to power in poor nations in 1954, the west succeeded in making laos and cambodia non0communist state at geneva, and following british suggestion "temporaily" divided VN. Even this was not acceptable to the us. They put into the south Diem, a fervant anti-communist, who refused the mandated 1956 unification re-election. By 1959 with us funding and weapons diem had arrested or killed 90% of communist cadre in SVN. At this time the nvn leadership sanctioned a resoultion in SVN. The use depicted this as NVN's "aggression" by communists
As the new NLF (set up dec 1960) won significant success, succesive presidents especialy JFK and LBJ escalated, arguing
After all, europe not SEasia was the main strategic arena and west europe the main area for US trade and investment. By the 1970s the US could see that china - The ussr were enemies, that communists were not monolthic and loss of VN would not produce falling dominoes. Us society was also changing, violent war was less acceptable and many academics believed that internal factors not external aggresion determied whether a country would turn communsit, and oustide indochina, no other asian countries had turned since 1954, despite communist sucess