Why did the United States get involved in the Vietnam War? Ask this question to a cross section of Americans, a housewife like Bobbie Lee Pendergrass who wrote a moving letter to President Kennedy looking for answers not about the death of her brother, but the reason why he fighting in Vietnam. Most Americans couldn’t even tell you where Vietnam was on a map much less why we sent so many soldiers to fight a civil war half way around the world because most Americans did not think that communism was not an immediate threat. The United States government’s reason was that they wanted to stop the spread of Communism and the expansion of nuclear weapons so they supported a military government in South Vietnam which was under the leadership of Ngo Dinh Diem who was not in favor of free elections because this might unify the country under communist rule. Looking back it is easy to say that the decision may have been wrong, but what is the pint now, except to learn from the mistakes made during the Vietnam War,The decision to aid Vietnam was a difficult one that all five Presidents struggled with but it was in 1961 when Kennedy sent a team to Vietnam to report on conditions in the South and to assess future American aid requirements (Rorak, 1,065). The problem was that this decision was like a snowball roiling down a hill, gaining size and momentum as it tore a path down the hill. While I agree with President Kennedy’s analysis that “this is their war and that they are the ones who have to win it or lose it” it does not spport the fact that the war lasted for MMM years. President Kennedy further states that, ”We can help them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisers, but t…
…e irreconcilable and the relative power balance is not in their view unfavorable to them (Johnson, 279).ReferencesRoark, James L. “Vietnam and the Limits of Power 1961-1975.” The American Promise: A History of the United States. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008. 1,062- 1,100. Print.Johnson, Michael. ” Document 29-1. President Kennedy Explains Why We Are in VietnamBobbie Lou Pendergrass, Letter to President John F. Kennedy, February 18, 1963President John F. Kennedy, Letter to Bobbie Lou Pendergrass, March 6, 1963″ Reading the American Past, Volume II: From 1865: Selected Historical Documents. 4 ed. Stuttgart, Germany: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009. 273-275. Print.Johnson, Michael. ” Document 29-2. A Secret Government Assessment of the Vietnam WarRobert S. McNamara, Actions Recommended for Vietnam, October 14, 1966”. Reading the Am
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