Group One Worksheet: Vietnam Conflict

1. Explain the policy of "containment" adopted by the Truman administration and followed by subsequent US presidents. How did US actions in the following situations follow that policy?
   
   
   • Intervention in Korea
     
   • Support of Chinese Nationalist forces
     
   • Military and economic aid for French in Indochina
     
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. From the point of view of Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, explain the nature and importance of the Communist threat in Indochina in the 1950s and 1960s. Again from their viewpoint, why were the following actions and ideas of these two presidents useful in understanding and countering the Communist threat?
   
   
   • the domino theory
     
   • the comparison of communist aggression to Hitler's aggression in the 1930s
     
   • support of Ngo Dinh Diem as the new president of South Vietnam
     
   • supporting the cancellation of the UN-mandated national elections in 1956
     
   • supplying the new South Vietnamese army with advisors, weapons, and training.
     
   • supplying US pilots, planes, and helicopters to assist in anti-Vietcong operations.
     
   • funding the "strategic hamlet" program to relocate villagers to more modern, more easily protected villages.