Increased Involvement in Vietnam Under President Kennedy, 1961- 1963 (Edexcel GCSE History): Revision Note

Summary

Although the United States did not send combat troops to Vietnam whilst John Kennedy was President, American involvement in Vietnam increased during his presidency. The number of American advisors grew enormously and he supported several new strategies to defeat the Vietcong. They were not successful and the popularity of the Vietcong increased whilst that of South Vietnam’s President Diem plummeted. In 1963, Diem was murdered by his generals.

Kennedy & counter-insurgency tactics

• Like Eisenhower, President Kennedy was a firm believer in the domino theory 

  • He had only narrowly won the 1960 presidential election and was eager to appear to be ‘tough on communism’ to voters

• Kennedy saw that the Vietcong (VC) were growing in influence and over half of South Vietnam was under their control at the start of 1961

• As a result, he introduced several new policies and counter-insurgency tactics which included:

  • Increasing the number of US military advisers from 700 to 16,000 by the end of 1963

  • Authorised the launching of Operation Ranch Hand which sprayed chemicals such as Agent Orange on the jungle to destroy the VC crops and hiding places

  • Commissioned a report on the feasibility of using US combat troops in Vietnam

  • Supporting the ‘Strategic Hamlet Program’

The Strategic Hamlet Program, 1962

• One of the major problems faced by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) was identifying who was a member of the VC

  • They wore no uniforms and most of the land controlled by the VC was rural farmland and jungle

  • The ARVN were never sure who was a villager and who was a VC guerilla fighter

• To solve this problem, they rounded up all of the people who lived in isolated villages and forced them to live in ‘Strategic Hamlets’

  • Anyone not living in a hamlet would then be assumed to be a member of the VC

• The Strategic Hamlet Program was deeply unpopular with the Vietnamese villagers who did not want to leave their ancestral homes

  • The hamlets were supposed to be equipped with basic hospitals and schools and provide security from being threatened by the VC

  • However, they were poorly equipped and supplied and the program led to many villagers starving to death

• The Strategic Hamlet Program caused villagers who had previously stayed out of the conflict to join the VC

  • Membership of the VC tripled between 1962 and 1964

The overthrow of Diem, 1963

• Under Diem’s leadership, the war against the VC was going badly

  • Not only this, he continued to persecute Buddhist monks and refused to make peace with them

  • When Diem’s troops opened fire on a Buddhist procession in May 1963, nine monks lay dead and it sparked outrage

• Kennedy knew how unpopular Diem was and no longer believed Diem intended to install a democratic government

  • The American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) encouraged the ARVN generals to remove Diem from power

  •  In November 1963 the generals assassinated Diem