by Michael Mercadante

Created on: April 23, 2009

The United States intervened in Vietnam under the pretense, real or mistaken, of attempting to limit the spread of communism, considered detrimental to the American way of life. In a 1949 interoffice memorandum, Raymond Fosdick (Consultant to the State Department) quotes Ambassador Charles Yost as saying that "a further major advance of Communism will be considered as, and will in fact be, a defeat for the United States, whether or not we are directly involved." This viewpoint reflects what Eisenhower would later name The Domino Theory, a political evaluation that, if a single nation in a particular region were to fall to communism, it would be similar to tapping the first domino in a chain, and the rest of the nations in that region would soon after fall as well.

Fosdick argues against American involvement in Vietnam by saying that "for the United States to support France in this attempt will cost us our standing and prestige in all of Southeast Asia" and that "it is never too late to change a mistaken policy".
Fosdick's analysis of the potential outcome of the situation turned out to be relatively accurate, but at the time few seemed to share his pessimistically cautious outlook. Rather, the major players of the administrations of Truman, Eisenhower, and Johnson mostly seemed to be wholly sucked in by the Domino Theory, as certainly the presidents themselves seemed to be.

With a practically fervent anti-communist paranoia, these three administrations couldn't help expanding and prolonging the war in Southeast Asia. Once Truman had sold the people on the threat Communism posed, it was harder for Eisenhower or Johnson to back down from that stance during their administrations. He did this with a speech that has become known as The Truman Doctrine, in which he said "if Greece should fall under the control of an armed minority (here implying the Communist revolutionaries), the effect upon its neighbor, Turkey, would be immediate and serious. Confusion and disorder might well spread throughout the entire Middle East".
Eisenhower and Johnson continued application of the Truman Doctrine throughout their administrations with the slow escalation of armed involvement in Southeast Asia. Both presidents seemed to pursue military-option-only policies regarding Vietnam, while McNamara seemed to be in favor of a combined military-political strategy, as he recommended to Johnson a policy approach to, in addition to military force, "open a dialogue with Hanoi, Peking, and

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