The Vietnam War was the longest military conflict in U.S. history.

The hostilities in
Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia claimed the lives of more than 58,000 Americans. Another
304,000 were wounded. The Vietnam War was a military struggle fought in Vietnam
from 1959 to 1975, involving the North Vietnamese and the National Liberation Front
(NLF) in conflict with United States forces and the South Vietnamese army. From 1946
until 1954, the Vietnamese had struggled for their independence from France during the
First Indochina War. At the end of this war, the country was temporarily divided into
North and South Vietnam. North Vietnam came under the control of the Vietnamese
Communists who had opposed France and who aimed for a unified Vietnam under
Communist rule. The South was controlled by Vietnamese who had collaborated with the
French. In 1965 the United States sent in troops to prevent the South Vietnamese
government from collapsing. Ultimately, however, the United States failed to achieve its
goal, and in 1975 Vietnam was reunified under Communist control; in 1976 it officially
became the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. During the conflict, approximately 3 to 4
million Vietnamese on both sides were killed, in addition to another 1.5 to 2 million Lao
and Cambodians who were drawn into the war. and 58,159 U.S. soldiers.

Wilson ignores petition by Ho Chi Minh for help in creating Vietnam independent from
French rule and lead by nationalist government.

Roosevelt declines repeated requests from the French to assist France's attempts to
recolonize Vietnam.
In 1960 the new administration of President John F. Kennedy remained essentially
committed to the bi-partisan, anti-communist foreign policies inherited from the
administrations of Presidents Truman and Eisenhower. During 1961, his first year in
office, Kennedy found himself faced with a three-part crisis: The failure of the Bay of
Pigs invasion in Cuba; the construction of the Berlin Wall by the Soviets; and a
negotiated settlement between the pro-Western government of Laos and the Pathet Lao
communist movement. Fearing that another failure on the part of the U.S. to stop
communist expansion would fatally damage U.S. credibility with its allies, Kennedy
realized, "Now we have a problem in making our power credible... and Vietnam looks
like the place."[5] The commitment to defend South Vietnam was reaffirmed by Kennedy
on 11 May in National Security Action Memorandum 52 which became known as "The
Presidential Program for Vietnam". Its opening statement reads:

U.S. objectives and concept of operations [are] to prevent communist domination of

South Vietnam; to create in that country a viable and increasingly democratic society, and
to initiate, on an accelerated basis, a series of mutually supporting actions of a military,
political, economic, psychological, and covert character designed to achieve this
objective.[6]

Kennedy was intrigued by the idea of utilizing United States Army Special Forces for
counterinsurgency conflicts in Third World countries threatened by the new "wars of
national liberation". Originally intended for use behind front lines after a conventional
invasion of Europe, Kennedy believed that the guerrilla tactics employed by Special
Forces would be effective in the "brush fire" war in South Vietnam. He saw British
success in using such forces during the Malayan Emergency as a strategic template. Thus
in May 1961 Kennedy sent detachments of Green Berets to South Vietnam to train South
Vietnamese soldiers in guerrilla warfare.

The Diệm regime had been initially able to cope with the insurgency of the National
Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF, or derogatively, Viet Cong) in South
Vietnam with the aid of U.S. matériel and advisers, and, by 1962, seemed to be gaining
the upper hand. Senior U.S. military leaders received positive reports from the U.S.
commander, General Paul D. Harkins of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, or
MACV. By the following year, however, cracks began to appear in the façade of success.
In January a possible victory that was turned into a stunning defeat for government forces
at the Battle of Ap Bac caused consternation among both the military advisers in the field
and among politicians in Washington, D.C.

Diệm was already growing unpopular with many of his countrymen because of his
administration's nepotism, corruption, and its apparent bias in favor of the Catholic
minority—of which Diem was a part—at the expense of the Buddhist majority. This
contributed to the impression of Diem's rule as an extension of the French Colonial
regime. Promised land reforms were not instituted, and Diem's strategic hamlet program
for village self-defense (and government control) was a disaster. The Kennedy
administration grew increasingly frustrated with Diệm. In 1963, a crackdown by Diệm's
forces was launched against Buddhist monks protesting discriminatory practices and
demanding a political voice. Diem's repression of the protests sparked the so-called
Buddhist Revolt, during which self-immolations by several monks took place and which
were covered in the world press. The communists took full advantage of the situation and
fueled anti-Diem sentiment to create further instability.