Vietnam is a nation that has historically been ruled by other countries. Ancient Vietnam was ruled by China. Later in the 1800s France took control and called it Indochina. Then in the 1900s, nationalism became important to the people and there was a desire for more self-governance, but they didn’t achieve this. In World War II, France was defeated by the Germans, and Japan took control of Indochina. After Japan lost in World War II, the French wanted to resume control of Indochina. But communist influence had already spread with the activity of Ho Chi Minh, a communist leader. Ho Chi Minh took the capital of Hanoi in 1945 and declared Vietnam an independent country. France would not accept this; they wanted Vietnam back. They drove Ho Chi Minh’s Communist forces into Northern Vietnam. They continued to try to rid the country of Communist rule, but couldn’t.
The French suffered a humiliating defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and then agreed to a cease fire. The agreement was written in a document called the Geneva Accords. In the agreement, it separated North and South Vietnam at the seventeenth parallel. It was only suppose to be temporary. The divided country was supposed to have elections that would eventually unite it as one. What actually resulted was a group of Vietnamese people in the North influenced by China and a group of Vietnamese people in the South influenced by the French.
The United States became concerned and thought that if the elections took place the communist party would have too much influence and Communism would spread throughout all of Southeast Asia. This was known as the domino theory. In 1955, the United States helped Ngo Dinh Diem take over the South and form the Government of the Republic of Vietnam (GVN or South Vietnam).
Ngo Dinh Diem was a strong anti-communist leader. However, his government proved to be corrupt and unpopular. Shortly after taking office, he claimed that the North was attacking the South. The conflict expanded, until in 1957, United States began to aid South Vietnam in defending their county.