Vietnam war and assassination of leaders

I heard an interesting discussion on the radio about the Vietnam war. The war started much earlier than we normally think and this as a war to free Vietnam from the French colonizer in the 1950s. Because the French had big losses, they asked the Americans for help. They helped financially and by giving weaponry and advise. But, after wrong advise, the French suffered a major defeat and negotiations started between France and Vietnam.


The result was that the country was split into a northern part under brutal communist rule and a southern part where the Americans supported a crazy local ruler. The result was that in both parts, people suffered very much because:
  • the north wanted to install a regime based on Stalin's rule in the Soviet Union and who is known for his aversion for human rights;
  • the south was ruled by a person who enriched himself at the expense of his own people, was Roman Catholic in a mainly Buddhist country but was also notoriously anti-communists so he enjoyed the support of the Americans against the communist North.

The regime of the north noticed that people in the south suffered and, although they maltreated the Vietnamese in their own part, it decided to help Southerners to survive in return for resistance against the southern regime that increased the persecution of people they thought to have communist sympathies. The result was more Vietnamese became (hidden) communists and anti-American. Thus, anger against the Americans continued to grow. In the end, the South-Vietnamese leader was assassinated on 02/11/1963 (with American agreement) but this was too late. It may have been so different if the Americans had protected the people against their own leaders and if they had brought prosperity instead of supporting a dictator with the wrong religion, often an important detail.

Interesting, only 20 days after the South-Vietnamese leader was killed, President Kennedy was assassinated. Many people still believe his assassination could not have been done by one person but needed the support of the CIA and/or FBI and/or the military, a number of different conspiracy theories exist. Still, it seems that President Kennedy was against a larger involvement of the U.S. army in Vietnam. Maybe that is why he too had to go as hawks in the army opposed more "winning over the hearts and minds" of the population. Kennedy's successor Lyndon B. Johnson seemed more in favour of a war in Vietnam that they thought may end within a year but only ended in 1975 after major anti-war protests by the American public. Thus, was President Kennedy murdered because he blocked a larger military involvement in Vietnam while the US army thought a war may end soon?
More to read about the Vietnam war on e.g. Wikipedia.

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