> Just to answer Nick's question a little further:
>
> >  Was Ho Chi Minh a nationalist first or a Communist first?
>
> Amy Silva wrote the following in a student paper. I think the first two
> paragraphs summarize Ho's views (in 1945) very well and the third
America's
> involvement accurately. We simply blundered into the Vietnam war through a
> series of misunderstandings, mistakes, and misperceptions.
>
You have to put all this in the context of the times.  The Soviets were our
enemy.
They had just brutalized Hungary.  If Viet Nam fell into the Soviet orbit
who would
be next?  Thailand?  Malay?  Then Indonesia?  Could we then effectively
protect
Australia?  For better 0r worse the US had a containment policy which meant
bottom
line that we prevent the spread of Communism wherever it reared its ugly
head.
Remember when the press described Castro as an agragarian reformer?

Again I state that our Vietnamese policy may have been a blunder but the
motive
was straight forward - contain communism.

Nick D.

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