ench. The United States wanted to stop communism. Kennedy sent troops to aid Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam. After JFK was assassinated Lyndon B. Johnson came into office. North Vietnamese patrol boats attacked a United States destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam on August 1, 1964. Johnson warned them “: grave consequences” if any further aggression. Three days later there was a second attack. Johnson was faced with the decision to let the communist win or have massive United States involvement. He said, “ we are not going to take this laying down.” In result he made air strikes on North Vietnam. The war was even more useless than the Korea war and it was twice as long and twice as many casualties. In 1969 Richard Nixon took office. He withdrew the troops from Vietnam because it was a death trap for the American men sent to fight. The results of the war could not benefit the United States except stop the spread of communism. Nixon made a pursuit of dtente. It is a form of containment but a different form. It was intended to be a realistic strategy for a time, because of isolation at home; the Untied States was no longer in a position to compete with the Soviets as they were in post-Vietnam days. The Soviets were still a malign power capable of using their powers to gain influence. Nixon was made peace with China, which was a great benefit to the United States because they were very hostile with the Soviet Union. Nixon was excellent dealing with foreign affairs however, he was extremely paranoid. The CIA had a tight security policy and was strict against leaks and informers. He resigned in 1974, when his vice-president Gerald Ford took office. Fords time in office was short because he was never elected and filled out the remainder of Nixon’s term. He lacked a clear program and did very little to get the American economy back on the road to recover.Jimmy Carter had a new approach to...
