What did the United States fear would happen if it did not get involved in Vietnam?

Question

answers:
1) Diem would be assassinated.
2) The French would control the country.
3) Vietnam would invade China.
4) Communists would take over the country.

Answer 1

The fear was that

4) COMMUNISTS WOULD TAKE OVER THE WORLD.

d-u-m-b-a-s-s-e-s!

Answer 2

3

Answer 3

4. Before "regiem change" and "proactive retaliation" became the call of the charge, the US was all about idealogical warfare: democracy meant capitalism (how can one have a say in a country's direction and remain dirt poor) and capitalism meant trade. Business didn't own government back then, but the government knew that the more countries that fell to communism the more isolated we'd become until we were surrounded by the Reds. Turns out that thinking was a bit premature since communism failed in the face of human nature, but at the time it was quite real. And that's one to grow on.

Answer 4

The correct answer is number 4.

I will explain number 4 is correct after I explain why the rest of them are wrong.

So Vietnam was divided into two countries during the Geneva conference along the 17th parallel (Just as Korea was divided along the 38th parallel). Ho Chi Minh, a communist was in control of North Vietnam. Ngo Dinh Diem was in control of South Vietnam. He was U.S. backed and had lived in the U.S. for quite a while. Problem is, Diem was somewhat corrupt. He was so corrupt that his citizens hated him. If his citizens overthrew him, South Vietnam probably would have allowed itself to become a part of North Vietnam - under Ho Chi Minh and communism. Ho Chi Minh was pretty popular with most Vietnamese. Anyways, we don't want South Vietnam falling to communism so we allow Diem to be assasinated. We knew it was coming, yet we did not stop it. This rules out number 1.

The French were our allies. Vietnam and all of Indochina (the area Vietnam is ine) was a French colony. In fact, the French were fighting a pretty nasty war there before the U.S. did, although the U.S. was funding about 78% of THEIR war. We helped the French out in Vietnam because we wanted them to back us with our policy in Germany (Strong, unified, capitalist Germany). Therefore it was in our favor for France to control Vietnam because A, they would support us in Europe and B, Vietnam would not be communist.

We're not too worried about Vietnam invading China. China at this time is already communist, and had been for quite a while, so we wouldn't really care. Besides that fact, China was nuclear armed already at this time so there is no way whatsoever tiny little Vietnam would have ever invaded China - especially since Vietnam was backed by the Soviet Union, and although Chinese-Soviet relations were not so good at this time, they still would not want a war with China. If Soviet supported North Vietnam invaded China, that wouldnt look so good on the part of the Soviets.

The leaves number 4 as our correct answer.

We had this theory - the domino theory. If one country falls to communism, then all of its neighbors will as well (just like dominos). If Vietnam fell to communism then so too would countries such as Thailand, Cambodia (which was already sort of happening), Laos, ect. Eventually according to this logic the whole world would fall to communism. We needed to nip it in the bud before things got too ugly. If Communists took over all of Vietnam it was feared that communism would begin to spread out of control - we had already checked the communist North Korean invasion of South Korea several years prior. It wasn't about helping France get their colony back. It was about stopping the spread of communism.

This answer is somewhat oversimplified for our reasons for being in Vietnam, but that should adequately explain the question.

Answer 5

we were worried the Communists would take over. Back in those days we worried about the communists like old folks worry about regularity. Like Bush worries about the mideast getting out of control if we leave Iraq....as if Arabia, Iran, Libya, Egypt, Israel would just ignore the place and let it get out of control. Same sort of nonsense that time as now...all of it non-consequential