People forget that Vietnam was once called “French-Indo-China” and that the Vietnam war was basically us cleaning up the French’s mess.
Of course Had Truman not stopped MacArthur in a purely politically motivated move after WWII. We might have gone into China, kicked some Commie butt, prevented the Korean War, and possibly even prevented the Vietnam war as well.
I Blame the French and Harry Truman for Vietnam.
Blame the French and Harry Truman for Vietnam.
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Ike (and Nixon) were of the opinion we wouldn’t do any better than the French in Vietnam and were opposed to sending anything more than a token amount of troops there as advisors.
Kennedy/Johnson ignored that advise and sent large numbers of American troops into Vietnam (something Nixon would not have done had he been elected in 1960.) By the time Nixon was elected in 1968 it was a full fledged war.
Ask people today who was to blame for Vietnam, most would blame it on Nixon (not Kennedy/Johnson.) The irony is if Nixon had been elected in 1960 (instead of the election being stolen by Kennedy) Nixon would not have sent troops into Vietnam, and THERE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN AN AMERICAN VIETNAME WAR!
Poor Nixon has gotten all the blame for other Kennedy’s/Johnson’s bad decisions.