1. Background to War
Vietnam had been a French colony since the 1800s…

2. But following World War I and II, the Vietnamese people fought harder and harder for independence
France retreated in 1954
From that rule
Ho Chi Minh, a nationalist who sympathized with communist ideas, led the Vietnamese independence movement
The US saw him as a communist, and thus, enemy
The Vietnamese kicked France’s but at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954….which led to the Geneva conference
Day of national independence celebrated on: 2 September 1945 (from France)
Hồ Chí Minh (Vietnamese pronunciation: [hô cǐ miɲ] (Vietnamese pronunciation: [hô̤ tɕǐmɪŋ] ( listen)); 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Tất Thành and Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister (1945–1955) and president (1945–1969) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). He was a key figure in the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945, as well as the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Viet Cong (NLF or VC) during the Vietnam War.
He led the Việt Minh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing the communist-governed Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating the French Union in 1954 at Điện Biên Phủ. He officially stepped down from power in 1955 due to health problems, but remained a highly visible figurehead and inspiration for Vietnamese fighting for his cause – a united, independent Vietnam – until his death. After the war, Saigon, the capital of Republic of Vietnam, was renamed Hồ Chí Minh City in his honor
Following World War I, under the name Nguyễn Ái Quốc ("Nguyễn the Patriot"), he petitioned for recognition of the civil rights of the Vietnamese people in French Indochina to the Western powers at the Versailles peace talks, but was ignored.[5] Citing the language and the spirit of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, Quốc petitioned U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to help remove the French from Vietnam and replace them with a new, nationalist government. Although he was unable to obtain consideration at Versailles, the failure further radicalized Nguyễn, while also making him a national hero of the anti-colonial movement at home in Vietnam.[6]
With the outcome of the Vietnam War still in question, Hồ Chí Minh died at 9:47 a.m. on the morning of 2 September 1969 from heart failure at his home in Hanoi, aged 79. His embalmed body is currently on display in a mausoleum in Ba Dinh Square in Hanoi despite his will requesting that he be cremated.[54] News of his death was withheld from the North Vietnamese public for nearly 48 hours due to it being the anniversary of the founding of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam

3. In 1954, an international conference divided Vietnam into 2 separate nations:
The Geneva conference
Met in Geneva, Switzerland
Representatives included Ho Chi Minh, Bao Dai, Cambodia, Laos, France, US, Soviet Union, China, and Britain met to discuss the status of Indo china

4. 1. North Vietnam was controlled by Ho Chi Minh. (radical communist and
1. North Vietnam was controlled by Ho Chi Minh (radical communist and head of independence movement)

5. 2. South Vietnam controlled by Ngo Dinh Diem (man favored by the U.S.)
He had been an official in the original Vietnamese government (under emperor Bao Dai)
He had lived in exile in the US
He became the president and declared South Vietnam a republic (which started US invovlement in Vietnam)
The war will last from 1955 to 1975

6. Elections to unify the country were supposed to be held 2 years later, but never were
“Containment” & “Domino theory”
1960—American “advisors” sent to South Vietnam
US feared Diem would be removed from power, so we refused to participate in the elections (on behalf of South Vietnam)
President Eisenhower pledged support to South Vietnam by sending 675 military advisors there
President Kennedy also wanted to stop the spread of communism by strengthening the South Vietnamese government
In 1963, Kennedy upped the number of military advisors to 16,000
Fear that the entire region would fall if communists won in Vietnam
Eisenhower pledged support 1960
Kennedy added 1961

7. PROBLEM: Diem became increasingly unpopular in South Vietnam
He lacked support in his own country
He imprisoned people who criticized his government
Filled governmetn positions with members of his own family
Took US money meant for economic improvement and used it to line the pockets of corrupt officials
He was a catholic in a largely buddhist country…and he insisted on all obeying religious Catholic laws
Monks started to burn themselves in protest
In Saigon, Buddhist monk Thích Quang Durc commits self-immolation to protest the oppression of Buddhists by the Ngo Dinh Diem administration
In South Vietnam, a country where the Buddhist majority was estimated to comprise between 70 and 90 percent of the population in 1963,[2][3][4][5][6] President Ngô Đình Diệm's pro-Catholic policies antagonized many Buddhists. A member of the Catholic minority, his government was biased towards Catholics in public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business favors and tax concessions.[7] Diem once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that he was a Buddhist, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted."[8] Many officers in the ARVN converted to Catholicism in the belief that their career prospects depended on it, and many were refused promotion if they did not do so.[8] Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias intended to repel Vietcong guerrillas was done so that weapons were only given to Catholics.[9] Some Catholic priests ran private armies,[10] and in some areas forced conversions, looting, shelling and demolition of pagodas occurred.[11] Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diem's regime.[12]
The Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country, and the "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to conduct public activities, was not repealed by Diem.[13] The land owned by the church was exempt from land reform,[14] and Catholics were also de facto exempt from the corvée labor that the government obliged all other citizens to perform; public spending was disproportionately distributed to Catholic majority villages. Under Diem, the Catholic Church enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and in 1959, he dedicated the country to the Virgin Mary.[15] The Vatican flag was regularly flown at major public events in South Vietnam.[16]
A rarely enforced 1958 law—known as Decree Number 10—was invoked in May 1963 to prohibit the display of religious flags. This disallowed the flying of the Buddhist flag on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. The application of the law caused indignation among Buddhists on the eve of the most important religious festival of the year, as a week earlier Catholics had been encouraged to display Vatican flags at a government-sponsored celebration for Diem's brother, Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc, the most senior Catholic cleric in the country.[17][18] On May 8, in Huế, a crowd of Buddhists protested against the ban on the Buddhist flag. The police and army broke up the demonstration by firing guns at and throwing grenades into the gathering, leaving eight dead.[19][20]
Diệm denied governmental responsibility for the incident. Instead, the president blamed the Vietcong for the event. Diệm’s Secretary of State Nguyen Dinh Thuan accused the Vietcong of exploiting Buddhist unrest
A campaign to that effect was personally directed by President Diem, his brother Nhu and Diem's sister-in-law, Ngu Le Xuan — the flamboyant Madame Nhu. They closed Buddhist schools and made random arrests of dissident Buddhist leaders. ARVN elite troops attacked a Buddhist demonstration, arresting hundreds. Then a Buddhist monk named Thich Quang Duc set fire to himself in protest on a crowded Saigon street. The Ngo brothers believed that the Buddhist uprising was Communist inspired, and Madame Nhu, often known as the Dragon Lady, notoriously said that she would enjoy seeing more barbecues of Buddhists
DRAGON LADY During her brother-in-law's presidency, Madame Nhu pushed for the passing of "morality laws" outlawing abortion, adultery, divorce, contraceptives, dance halls, beauty pageants, boxing matches, and animal fighting, and closed down the brothels and opium dens. She was widely mocked by the public who regarded her as a hypocrite[6], with older Vietnamese believing her décolleté gowns to be sexually suggestive, in addition to widespread rumors of her own infidelity. Her family received further scorn as her sister, Trần Lệ Chi, who was married to Nguyển Hữu Châu had a French lover named Etienne Oggeri, and critics alleged that Madame Nhu introduced the laws so that her sister's husband could not get a divorce. Since he was extremely wealthy, the Ngô family would have lost highly valuable assets
Madame Nhu publicly mocked Thích Quảng Đức, who performed a self-immolation on 11 June 1963, in a crowded Saigon street to protest against the shooting of Buddhists by Diệm's regime. Nhu labelled it a "barbecue" and stated, "Let them burn and we shall clap our hands."[37] She further offered to provide more fuel and matches for the Buddhists. Historian Howard Jones said that these comments "all but put the finishing touch on the Diệm regime". However, the history proved that what she said were correct. The self-immolations of all the Buddhist monks and nuns were arranged by the communist monks in the intention to overthow the governments

8. PROBLEM: The Vietcong (Communist guerillas in South Vietnam) were gaining more and more territory and loyalty in the South
They are pro north
They like Ho Chi Minh
Sometimes referred to as VCs

9. SOLUTION? Allow Diem to be overthrown in 1963
JFK told South Vietnamese military leaders that we would not object to Diem’s overthrow
So military leaders staged a coup in November They seized control of the government and assassinated Diem on Nov 2
Three weeks later, JFK is assassinated
Lyndon Johnson said “I am not going to be the President who saw Southeast Asia go the way China went” but he tried to limit escalation
The first coup effort against Diem originated in August 1963, when CIA officer Colonel Lucien Conein met secretly with a number of high-ranking South Vietnamese military officers, including Generals Duong Van Big Minh, Tran Van Don, Le Van Kim and Tran Thien Khiem. Conein was a veteran of the World War II Office of Strategic Services and was on good terms with Diem. It was his job to act as an intermediary between the plotters and the U.S. embassy. During the initial meeting, Minh spoke about assassinating both Diem and Nhu. When Ambassador Lodge learned of this he cabled Washington. Upon receiving the report of the clandestine meeting, Kennedy responded by declaring that there was no turning back.
In his discussions with the insurgent generals, Conein meanwhile told them that the United States could not be of any help during initial action of assuming power of state. It would be entirely their own action, win or lose. At the end of August the Kennedy administration sent another, more forceful message to the coup plotters, saying that the United States would support a coup if it had a good chance of succeeding, but it would not permit the participation of U.S. forces.
The arrest and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm, the president of South Vietnam, marked the culmination of a successful CIA-backed coup d’état led by General Dương Văn Minh in November On the morning of November 2, 1963, Diệm and his adviser, younger brother Ngô Đình Nhu, were arrested after the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) had been successful in a bloody overnight siege on Gia Long Palace in Saigon
The Ngô brothers soon agreed to surrender and were promised safe exile; after being arrested, they were instead executed in the back of an armoured personnel carrier by ARVN officers on the journey back to military headquarters at Tân Sơn Nhứt Air Base.
While no formal inquiry was conducted, the responsibility for the deaths of the Ngô brothers is commonly placed on Minh’s bodyguard, Captain Nguyễn Văn Nhung, and on Major Dương Hiếu Nghĩa, both of whom guarded the brothers during the trip. Minh’s army colleagues and US officials in Saigon agreed that Minh ordered the executions. They postulated various motives, including that the brothers had embarrassed Minh by fleeing the Gia Long Palace, and that the brothers were killed to prevent a later political comeback. The generals initially attempted to cover up the execution by suggesting that the brothers had committed suicide, but this was contradicted when photos of the Ngôs’ bloodied bodies surfaced in the media.
According to Lucien Conein, the US Army officer and CIA operative who was the American liaison with the coup, most of the officers, including Minh, wanted Diem to have an "honorable retirement" from office, followed by exile.[5] Not all of the senior officers attended the meeting, with Don having already left to make arrangements for the arrival of Diem and Nhu at JGS headquarters. General Nguyen Ngoc Le, a former police chief under Diem in the mid-1950s, strongly lobbied for Diem's execution. There was no formal vote taken at the meeting, and Le attracted only minority support. One general was reported to have said "To kill weeds, you must pull them up at the roots".[5] Conein reported that the generals had never indicated that assassination was in their minds, since an orderly transition of power was a high priority in achieving their ultimate aim of gaining international recognition.[6]
Minh and Don asked Conein to secure an American aircraft to take the brothers out of the country. Two days earlier, U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., had alerted Washington that such a request was likely and recommended Saigon as the departure point. This request put the Kennedy administration in a difficult position, as the provision of an airplane would publicly tie it to the coup. When Conein telephoned David Smith, the acting chief of the Saigon CIA station, there was a ten minute wait. The U.S. government would not allow the aircraft to land in any country, unless that state was willing to grant asylum to Diem. The United States did not want Diem and Nhu to form a government in exile and wanted them far away from Vietnam. Assistant Secretary of State Roger Hilsman had written in August that "under no circumstances should the Nhus be permitted to remain in Southeast Asia in close proximity to Vietnam because of the plots they will mount to try to regain power. If the generals decide to exile Diem, he should also be sent outside Southeast Asia."[7] He further went on to anticipate what he termed a "Götterdämmerung in the palace".[8]
After surrendering, Diem rang Lodge and spoke to the American envoy for the last time. Lodge did not report the conversation to Washington, so it was widely assumed that the pair last spoke on the previous afternoon when the coup was just starting. However, after Lodge died in 1985, his aide, Colonel Mike Dunn said that Lodge and Diem spoke for the last at around 07:00 of November 2 moments after Diem surrendered. When Diem called, Lodge "put [him] on hold" and then walked away. Upon his return, the ambassador offered Diem and Nhu asylum, but would not arrange for transportation to the Philippines until the next day.[9] This contradicted his earlier offer of asylum the previous day when he implored Diem to not resist the coup.[10] Dunn then offered to personally go to the brothers' hideout to escort him so that the generals could not kill him, but Lodge refused, saying, "We just can't get that involved."[9] Dunn said, "I was really astonished that we didn't do more for them."[11] Having refused to help the Ngo brothers to leave the country safely, Lodge later said after they had been shot, "What would we have done with them if they had lived?
Minh instead arrived to find that the brothers were not in the palace. In anticipation of a coup, they had ordered the construction of three separate tunnels leading from Gia Long to remote areas outside the palace. Around 20:00 on the night of the coup, with only the Presidential Guard to defend them against mutinous infantry and armor units, Diem and Nhu hurriedly packed American banknotes into a briefcase. They escaped through one of the tunnels with two loyalists]
Kennedy learned of the deaths on the following morning when National Security Council staffer Michael Forrestal rushed into the cabinet room with a telegram reporting the Ngo brothers' suicides. According to General Maxwell Taylor, "Kennedy leaped to his feet and rushed from the room with a look of shock and dismay on his face which I had never seen before."[20] Kennedy had planned that Diem would be safely exiled and Arthur Schlesinger recalled that the U.S. president was "somber and shaken".[20] Kennedy later penned a memo, lamenting that the assassination was "particularly abhorrent" and blaming himself for approving Cable 243,[20] which authorised Lodge to explore coup options in the wake of Nhu's attacks on the Buddhist pagodas.[20] Forrestal said that "It shook him personally...bothered him as a moral and religious matter. It shook his confidence, I think, in the kind of advice he was getting about South Vietnam."[21] When Kennedy was consoled by a friend who told him he need not feel sorry for the Ngo brothers on the grounds of despotism, Kennedy replied "No. They were in a difficult position. They did the best they could for their country."[21]
Kennedy's reaction did not draw sympathy from his entire administration. Some believed that he should not have supported the coup and that as coups were uncontrollable, assassination was always a possibility. Kennedy was sceptical about the story and suspected that a double assassination had taken place
He was killed by South Vietnamese generals who were working with the CIA assistant/laison…they killed him without specific order by the president (US/JFK) or the CIA opperative. The generals were not supposed to kill him
On 2 November 1963, Diệm and Nhu, were assassinated in a coup d'état led by General Dương Văn Minh(Armed Forces Council) with the understanding that the United States would not intervene. At the time of the assassinations, Madame Nhu was in Beverly Hills, California, traveling with her 18-year-old daughter, Ngô Đình Lệ Thủy.[62] Her other children were in Vietnam at the family retreat in Đà Lạt and she feared that they would meet the same fate as their father.[63] The children were not harmed by the generals and were flown out of the country into exile in Rome, where they were placed in the custody of their uncle, Archbishop Thục. Madame Nhu later flew to Rome to join them.[64]
In response to the killings of Diệm and Nhu, she immediately accused the United States, saying "Whoever has the Americans as allies does not need enemies",[65] and that "No coup can erupt without American incitement and backing".[62] She went on to predict a bleak future for Vietnam and said that, by being involved in the coup, the troubles of the United States in Vietnam were just beginning.[62] She called the deaths an "indelible stigma" against the Americans and said "My family has been treacherously killed with either official or unofficial blessing of the American government, I can predict to you now that the story is only at its beginning."[62] She invoked biblical analogies, saying "Judas has sold the Christ for thirty pieces of silver. The Ngô brothers have been sold for a few dollars."[62] When asked if she wanted asylum in the United States, she said, "I cannot stay in a country whose government stabbed me in the back. I believe all the devils in hell are against us."[66]
She died april 2011…lived in Europe (Paris)

10. More American advisors were sent to back the new South Vietnamese government in an effort to avoid a communist takeover
A new leader (Nguyen Van Thieu) eventually replaced Diem
After a series of South Vietnamese government leadership changes, following the assassination of President Diem, President Nguyen Van Thieu became the leader of South Vietnam
Nguyễn Văn Thiệu (English: /nəˈɡuːjɨn væn ˈtjuː/, Vietnamese: [ŋʷjə̌ˀn van tʰjə̂ˀw] ( listen); 5 April 1923 – 29 September 2001) was president of South Vietnam from He was a general in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), became head of a military junta, and then president after winning a fraudulent election. He established an authoritarian rule over South Vietnam until he resigned and left the nation a few days before the fall of Saigon and the ultimate communist victory.
Thiệu agreed to join the coup against Diệm in November 1963 in the midst of the Buddhist crisis, leading the siege on Gia Long Palace. Diệm was captured and executed and Thiệu made a general. Following Diệm’s demise, there was a series of short-lived juntas as coups occurred frequently. Thiệu gradually moved up the ranks of the junta by adopting a cautious approach while other officers around him defeated and sidelined one another. In 1965, stability came to South Vietnam when he became the figurehead head of state
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Over the next several years a steady stream of petty generals ruled in Saigon while the war intensified and American involvement grew substantially. Three weeks after the deaths of Diem and Nhu, President Kennedy himself was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, Despite the behind-the-scenes American involvement in the death of Ngo Dinh Diem, the Assassinations Report concluded by stating, The details of Diem's and Nhu's deaths are not known. None of the informed sources give any indication of direct or indirect involvement of the United States.
On May 11, 1961, the president ordered 400 U.S. Special Forces troops into Vietnam, along with an additional 100 military advisers to help train the South Vietnamese military. At the same time, Kennedy ordered the start of a clandestine war against Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces inside South Vietnam, as well as covert missions into North Vietnam by well-trained South Vietnamese troops. These actions elicited a protest from the Hanoi government, which charged that the United States was using South Vietnamese territory to prepare for an invasion of North Vietnam. That October, Kennedy issued an order that sent American military personnel into ground action near the Laotian border.
The initial steps in expanding American involvement in Vietnam caused a rift inside the Kennedy administration. Deputy Undersecretary of State U. Alexis Johnson called for American combat troops. Johnson was supported by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who asked the president to commit 40,000 ground troops to deal with the Viet Cong. Other proponents of committing American forces included administration adviser William Bundy, who urged an early and hard hitting American role in the war; and General Maxwell Taylor, the president's military aide and trusted adviser. Taylor traveled to Vietnam, where he held talks with Diem. Taylor then urged the commitment of 6,000 to 8,000 U.S. ground troops, but he also warned of possible casualties if they actually went into combat. At a news conference announcing the Taylor mission to Vietnam, the president called it an economic survey.
Despite those lofty goals, the war took its own course. By ,000 American troops were on the ground in South Vietnam advising and supporting ARVN units. Americans flew helicopter missions, taking fire and suffering 109 casualties in the process through that time.
By October 1963, more than 16,000 American troops were in Vietnam, and the casualties had mounted into the hundreds.