Before WWII, Vietnam, along with Cambodia and Laos, were a part of the French Empire (French Indochina). During World War II Vietnam was overrun by the Japanese. Ho Chi Minh helped to develop the country’s main anticolonial organization—the League for the Independence of Vietnam (the Viet Minh)–which began a guerrilla war against Japanese forces. Ho Chi Minh, along with the Viet Minh, aided the American war effort and in return received training, arms, and support from the U.S. Office of Strategic Services. When the Japanese retreated in 1945, Vietnam attempted to establish its own government led by Ho Chi Minh, but after the war France began its reclamation of Indochina with America’s financial support. 
In October 1946, the French announced their intentions to reclaim North Vietnam. In November 1946 they bombarded the port of Haiphong and killed 6,000 people. Despite Ho Chi Minh’s pleas for U.S. support, the U.S. saw Minh as a nationalist, but a communist nationalist. Therefore, the U.S. supported the French with the knowledge that France would be a necessary ally in the war against communism. U.S. involvement gradually increased until the U.S. was the major fiscal supporter of France’s war, providing them with 80% of their funds.
The French offered the people of the north “independence” and appointed Bao Dai as the new leader of the country. The Russians and Eastern Europe refused to recognize his rule and claimed Ho Chi Minh as the real ruler of Vietnam.
Although, France was receiving financial aid from America, they could not handle Viet Minh’s guerrilla tactics learned from Communist China (after Mao Zedong’s rise to power in 1949). In November 1953, the French sent men from their Parachute Regiment to Dien Bien Phu in the north. It was assumed the French would defeat the untrained Viet Minh guerrillas, but in 1954, the regiment was attacked by the North Vietnamese and surrendered. The French pulled out of Vietnam in the same month.
In April 1954, Vietnam was discussed at Geneva by the world’s powers and in July 1954 the country was split in two at the 17th parallel. Bao Dai was to lead the south and Ho Chi Minh was to lead the north. The meeting also decided on a future election to be held in 1956 in both North and South Vietnam to decide who would rule the entire country, but the election never took place and the split was permanent by 1956.
The Viet Minh trained guerrillas to infiltrate South Vietnam to speak for communism and to persuade those in South Vietnam to support Ho Chi Minh. Those sent from the North helped those in the south with farming and were helpful and courteous. Emperor Bao Dai was pressured by the U.S. to appoint Ngo Dinh Diem as South Vietnam’s leader. Diem was a devout Catholic. He ruled South Vietnam under a strict autocracy and alienated the majority of the population he ruled over because of his religious preference, but was anti-communism, and therefore received American support.
General Nguyen Giap
After the election failed to occur in 1956, the Viet Minh became more active militarily and their guerrillas, the Viet Cong, attacked soft targets in the south using a 1000 mile trail along the border with Laos, the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Viet Cong was trained by Giap who learned tactics from the Chinese communists. He introduced a “hearts and minds” policy long before Americans became militarily involved in Vietnam.
The U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War derived from the Cold War and the United States’ attitude toward communism. The U.S. feared the spread of communism in south-east Asia and therefore they provided aid, weapons, advice, and fighting units to Southern Vietnam. The USSR supported Ho Chi Minh and the communist effort by providing arms to China, who then armed the North Vietnamese.
In 1961 when John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th President, the U.S. had fewer than 1,000 military personnel in Vietnam who were technically listed as advisors and were primarily involved in the training and development of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. That number rose to more than 16,000 over the next two years.
The Kennedy administration pressured Diem to reform and settle with the Buddhist leaders, but to no avail. In response to rumors of Diem and Nhu’s approaches to Hanoi in order to reach a settlement, the Kennedy administration gave their support to a coup by a junta of generals.
On November 1, 1963, Diem was overthrown and he and his brother were killed. Three weeks after Diem’s assassination, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. On November 22, 1963 Lyndon Baines Johnson became the 36th President of the United States.
Sources:
C.N. Trueman. “The Causes Of The Vietnam War” historylearningsite.co.uk. The History Learning Site, 27 Mar 2015. 17 Dec 2015.
Young, Marilyn Blatt., John J. Fitzgerald, and A. Tom. Grunfeld. The Vietnam War: A History in Documents. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. Print.
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