eper and deeper into war with nationalist rebels in Vietnam, American support grew more and more overt. The Unites States committed $133 Million in aid to the French in 1950. By 1952, the Unites States was now bearing more than 40 percent of the cost of the war and had established a stake in the outcome. The Geneva Conference proved to be a key landmark in American involvement in Vietnam. The Americans still clung to the fantasy that the French could hold on militarily. In fact, France was not willing to sacrifice what was needed to keep Vietnam. Also, in what was to become a reoccurring theme, the United States was unwilling and unable to separate nationalistic from communist aspirations. What many Vietnamese saw as a struggle to kick out the French colonizers and regain independence, the policy makers in Washington saw a sinister plot emanating from the corridors of Moscow and Beijing. The only freedom that most Vietnamese wanted was not from Communism, about which they knew little and understood less, but from France and Communist-dominated though it was, the Vietnam was the only force in the country fighting for an independence which the France were persistently unwilling to grant. (p. 47) This was perhaps the most damaging assumption that Washington made and found difficult the change. The White House and the Pentagon saw Ho Chih Migh was nothing more than a puppet of China and the U.S.S.R. They felt he was merely a minion doing the bidding of his masters in Beijing. The U.S. repeatedly rejected overtures by Ito, whose main goal was to eject the French. As it became more apparent that the French would be unable to hold on, American strategy shifted in 1955. American policy makers decided to build their assumptions around Ngo Dinh Dien. President Eisenhower was steadfast in his support of Dian and felt that there was no other option. He never wavered in his conviction that the survival of an independent, non-communi...
