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• Ngo Dinh Diem was appointed Premier of South Vietnam on July 7, 1954, by Emperor Bao Dai, prior to the Geneva Conference's conclusion.
• Diem faced different and more difficult problems than the north after the Geneva Accords were signed.

South Vietnam in 1954

• Great chaos and confusion existed, with the government's authority barely extending beyond Saigon and major cities.
• Most of the countryside and many provincial capitals were controlled by Viet Minh fighters, private armies, and bandits.
• Nearly one million refugees needed to be absorbed.
• The new state of South Vietnam lacked unity, being a disparate mix of cities, towns, regions, religions, and tribes, all pressured by 15 years of war.

US Involvement Context

• The USA emerged from World War II as the world's leading power.
• President Eisenhower in April 1954, evoked the domino theory, suggesting that the fall of one nation to communism would lead to the swift collapse of others.
• Senator John F. Kennedy, in June 1956, argued Vietnam was the cornerstone of the Free World in Southeast Asia, including Burma, Thailand, India, Japan, the Philippines, Laos, and Cambodia.
• Kennedy stated that their security would be threatened if communism overflowed into Vietnam.
• Vietnam represents a proving ground for democracy in Asia and an alternative to Communist dictatorship.
• America has a responsibility and determination in Asia and should assist Vietnam, as it helped shape its future.
• Kennedy stated that if Vietnam falls to communism, political anarchy, or poverty, the United States would be held responsible, and its prestige in Asia would decline.
• America's stake in Vietnam involves American lives and dollars, and its key position in Southeast Asia makes US security inevitably tied to any new outbreak of trouble.

US Mission

• The idea of the US building democracy around the world was a standard in American politics in the 1950s.
• Democracy, combining electoral processes with private ownership and civil liberties, was the offering of the United States to the Third World.
• Democracy provided the moral basis and practical methods against Communism.
• American officials saw lip service to democracy as necessary to sell overseas commitments to the American people.

American Foreign Policy Post-1945

• Characterized by a commitment to creating an integrated, capitalist world framework.
• The US acted not just to defend against threats but to create a controllable global order that would allow political destinies to evolve in a way beneficial to American goals and interests.
• The regulation of the world was seen as both a luxury and a necessity afforded by US power, fulfilling an international responsibility and mission.

Truman Doctrine

• In March 1947, President Truman announced that the USA would support free peoples resisting subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressures.
• It was a response to the growing threat of communism in Europe and particularly in Greece.
• The doctrine committed the USA to protecting smaller, endangered nations against the monolithic enemy of communism.
• Events such as the Berlin Blockade (1948), the fall of China to communism (1949), the Soviet nuclear test (1949), the Korean War (1950-53), and the Cuban missile crisis (1962) reinforced the belief that America was the watchdog of the free world.
• These threats, wars, incidents, and the tension between the Soviet Union and the USA were known as the Cold War.
• America began supplying aid to South Vietnam within this atmosphere of international tension and distrust.