The War in Vietnam: late 1960s and early 1970s anti-Vietnam war protests, social and political background notes
by James K. Sayre
America was deeply involved with waging a neo-colonial war of imperialism in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. The French had withdrawn from Vietnam in 1956, but the Americans decided that they had to fight "international communism" although they were unwilling to directly attack the two large communist powers, Red China and the Soviet Union. This American war was not supported by the British, the French or any other European governments. Lyndon Baines Johnson, who became President after the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, inititated a strong escalation of the American involvement in Vietnam in 1965. These actions were approved by almost every U. S. Senator after the phony Johnson Admistration reports of North Vietnamese ships firing upon U. S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of Vietnam. Things went downhill rapidly after that. : Background sketch
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