Vietnam War Destabilizing American Society

Unlike with other wars preceding it whom often brought together the citizens of the United States, the Vietnam War took on a role of destabilizing American society. Internal problems like racism and rising poverty that were once put on the backburner would appear as main topics of discussion that helped to further increase the already growing division in the nation. U.S. involvement and occasional interference in Indochina began with the French’s instance and desire to keep control of the region. The failing European superpower wanting to reconsolidate its power in South East Asia and the world after the end of the Second World War fought to take back what they believed was rightfully theirs after the Japanese had made their exit. As with a majority of colonies, the mistreatment and sometimes inhuman conditions that citizens of Indochina endured especially those in Vietnam led to protests and uprising against the few French men who controlled everything in their country and French
Following the War’s end, the Geneva Conference (April 26 – July 21, 1954) was held to settle not only the issues of Indochina but also the Korean War. The Conference produced the Geneva Accords which called for the temporary separation of Vietnam into two zones and a general election which needed to be held to reunify the nation. This election would never take place because the U.S. realizing how popular Ho Chi Minh was with the population of Vietnam feared that if he won the presidency Vietnam would be completely communism and neighboring Laos and Cambodia would also fall to communism, which would then give the Soviet even more puppet states. To avoid this from taking place, the U.S. propped up Anti-Communist Ngo Dinh Diem as the president of South Vietnam, claiming that he was the more “democratic” option although he was more of a dictator than anything