Hyman 1
Blake A. Hyman
April 27, 2015
History 2620
Professor Roberts
Vietnam: Understand the War
The Vietnam War was the most politicized, heavily debated war in American History.
This war would lead to a nation falling communism, the social fabric of America being torn
apart, post-WW2 security destabilization, and see some of the lowest ratings for support of the
American centralized Federal government in history. And yet with a current understanding of the
historical events that unfolded both domestically and abroad, America should have entered and
been involved both economically and militarily with South East Asian, the South Vietnamese
government, and the Vietnam War.
First the Domino theory. After the Yalta conference during World War 2, which was a
meeting between the leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union in
1945, the Democratic Capitalistic world received its first sample of what the threat of
Communism and Joseph Stalin might truly mean. Joseph Stalin’s expansionist ideals revealed to
Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill that they be removing one totalitarian threat (Hitler
and the Nazi) with another (Joseph Stalin and communism). To the Americans of the day,
communism called for total allegiance of ones, intellectual ideals, resources, and one’s life to
society and the government. Under these ideals competition is stifled, which means innovation
and new ideas is stifled. Whether the subject was music, economics, politics, of society as a
whole they all had to support communism. This meant to any individual living in a democratic
Hyman 2
nation like America that your entire way of life was undertreat and if allowed to spread would
threaten the liberties, rights, and free-market society that America had come to stand for. I
believe that when the American Leaders including Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon looked at the
geopolitical map of the World and saw China fall to communism in 1949, a region America
agreed to protect from outside influence, and Korea in 1953, the Domino Theory began to make
a lot of sense. This began the Cold War (series of proxy wars) which would plunge America into
Vietnam in a War to “contain” communism in the North from spreading through South East Asia
and Most importantly the Strait of Malacca.
In 1961 at the United Nations summit, Kennedy argue for these ideals as well as efforts
that should be taken to contain communism and increase involvement of the U.S. into South
Asian Affairs. In his speech, Kennedy begins speaking of the insurgency brought on by the
