America's Involvement in the Vietnam WarVietnam is a period of American history that most of us would like to forget, but in reality, we must learn from it. Vietnam was a time when we didn't see the big picture, the situation was "viewed through the prism of Cold War politics." (MP:420) With the new “domino theory,” Americans feared for their security and that of the “free world.” If they didn't intervene, they would inevitably lose the world to communism. Many Americans believed that our involvement in Vietnam began around 1965 – the start of combat with the American boys. In reality, the engagement began much earlier, around 1945. The United States supported France and refused to recognize the Vietnamese nationalists as a real body. The leader of the Vietnamese nationalists was Ho Chi Mihn and he was known as a communist. Our reasons for supporting France more or less reflected our foreign policy: containment. After World War II, our main goal was to contain communism, as Truman shows. Doctrine. “Truman and his advisers, who viewed communism as a monolithic force, mistakenly believed that Ho took his orders from Moscow.” (AP:897) Because it believed Ho had a connection to communist Russia, the United States wanted to support the more democratic side. The Americans showed their support by helping more than 3/4 of the cost of France's war. In 1954, the French fortress of Dien Bien Phu finally fell to Ho's forces and France asked America to intervene. ...