Vietnam Gets Split:In the early Cold War, Vietnam became split. Like Korea, the North became communist, while the South was not. The leader of the north was Ho Chi Minh, and he believed that Vietnamese people were being oppressed by the French, who had taken over the country, and that the people needed to make a change. The French lost control of the north, and the United states decided to help them out. The US decided that they would not send troops, and would only send " advisers" to help. It started off as a couple hundred. By 1962, that couple hundred grew to 10,000, and a year later it became 15,000 "advisers."
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Ngo Diem :The United States continued to send "advisors" to Vietnam. The advisors were there to assist the South Vietnamese army, ARVN, and ARVN ran all military operations. The leader of the south, Ngo Diem, wasn't a great leader. The CIA, alongside ARVN, organized an assassination of Diem. In 1963 he is killed. When Kennedy found out about the assassination, he flipped, because he had not authorized an assassination. At most he wanted to overthrow Diem, not kill him. However, Lyndon B. Johnson said, "He was corrupt and he ought to be killed, so we killed him."
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LBJ Takes Over : After Kennedy was assassinated, Lyndon B. Johnson took over. When he had to run for president again, his opponent was a man named Goldwater. Goldwater wanted to nuke Vietnam if necessary, but LBJ just wanted to stay involved in Vietnam, but never actually get into a war. By 1964, there were 21,000 "advisors."
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