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"We were wrong, terribly wrong." wrote Robert McNamara about the US war against Vietnam. McNamara had been the Secretary of Defense under presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Altogether 7 presidents, Wilson, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johson, Nixon

and Ford would be involved in the bloody fiasco which claimed so many Vietnamese and American lives.

Ho Chi Minh was born in 1880. In 1913 Ho Chi Minh, father of Vietnam, worked in a Boston's Parker house Hotel as a baker.  From later in 1913 til 1919 Ho lived in the UK, and in France from 1919 til 1923. During the Versailles peace talks

after World War I, Ho who had been publishing a newspaper, led

an Indochina delegation petitioning for recognition of the right of

Vietnam to independence. The Vietnamese were ignored. Indochina

(indo means south) was a name assigned by colonizers. Ho wrote to President Woodrow Wilson asking help for the

Vietnamese people. Wilson in the US had been a notorious racist, ending President Theodore Roosevelt's beginning reforms re African Americans.  He would not even give Ho a meeting at Versailles.

Ho published that he did not like the use of English words

in French and opposed what he called Franglais (a combination of

French and English. That brought him to the attention of a Soviet

Communist who invited him to Russia. in 1925 and 1926 Ho lived in

Canton, China.  Ho could not return to Vietnam because he was known as a leader of the resistance and would have been arrested.

Throughout the 1930's he worked for Vietnamese independence

in different countries, and was finally able to return to Vietnam in 1941 because the French had been invaded in their country by Nazis.

 He had an agreement with President Roosevelt during

World War II that if the Vietnamese fought

to rid that country of the Japanese, the US in turn

would sponsor an end to colonial domination. But

Roosevelt died, and subsequent presidents Truman

and Eisenhower did not honor the contract.

France expanded its presence in Vietnam in 1945 and again controlled the country. The abdication of  Emperor Bảo Đại happened on 2 September 1945. Hồ Chí Minh then read the Declaration of Independence of Vietnam^. There was much resistance by the Vietnamese to continued French presence which would continue to build until 1954. One technique the Vietnamese used was 'to smoke

out  French positions, using straw bundled with chili pepper.' (Source: Wikipedia)

In 1954 both sides had increased their military. The French had 15,000 in the North near Laos while there were 50,000 Viet Minh troops led by the brilliant strategist General Vo Nguyen Gap.

In May of 1954 the battle of Dien Bien Phu was decided in favor

of the Vietnamese. As a result Vietnam was divided into North

and South. (Even today a similar division in Korea exists.)

Meanwhile Truman had until 1952 funded 80% of the French military

expenses as they fought to reestablish their colonial domination

of Vietnam.  (Source: a paper by the University of Virginia Miller

Center.)  Next came Eisenhower.

The Buffalo News wrote "Ike took a fatal turn, setting America on course for disaster. His administration forged the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), committing the United States to protect a South Vietnam that was not even supposed to exist. Ike boosted Ngo Dinh Diem into power, backed his refusal to hold the 1956 elections and then pumped massive aid into building a new nation around him." The News also reported that a Geneva

recommendation that Vietnam hold elections was supported publicly by Eisenhower but privately he sabotaged them, knowing the popular Ho would win them.

Historically Vietnam was abused by China but accepted aid from

China after 1949. The Vietnamese were much organized militarily

than the nonviolent Buddhist monks of Tibet who were overrun by

China in the 50's.

Kennedy followed Eisenhower. "Kennedy expanded military aid to the government of President Ngô Đình Diệm, increased the number of U.S. military advisors in South Vietnam, and reduced the pressure that had been exerted on Diệm during the Eisenhower Administration to reform his government and broaden his political base" Wikipedia

Lyndon Johnson was the first to send combat troops, on March 8 of 1965 dispatching 3500 Marines to Vietnam. Johnson continued his

escalation, and Nixon reached a peak of 543,000 in April of 1969.

After Nixon resigned, Ford too prosecuted the war which the US lost

in 1975.

A 1965 NY Times Sunday magazine article on

Ho Chi Minh convinced many Americans to join the peace movement's opposition

to the Vietnam War.

Ho died after a heart attack in 1969, at the age of 79. He would not

live to see the Vietnamese victory of 1975, but Vietnamese vehicles

announced his presence with the soldiers.

When the Vietnam veteran returned home, he began writing a defense of the US in Vietnam, but the more he read of the history of Vietnam the more he agreed with Secretary McNamara.  In defense of Kennedy, the president had told his inner circle that upon his reelection in 1964 he would withdrawn the US from Vietnam. It was one of several reasons he was assassinated.

Palm trees grow up through tank roofs. Time passes. Vietnamese

and American soldiers forgive each other. Even more advanced

are those who forgive themselves.

https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/educational-resources/kennedy-commitment

https://buffalonews.com/news/want-to-place-blame-for-vietnam-start-with-eisenhower/article_1e6bfcab-2fe1-5482-b79b-cdde83261032.html

https://nytimes.com  The Times Machine is a paid service

 which includes a 1965 article in its Sunday magazine, a biography

   of Ho Chi Minh.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?160224-1/ho-chi-minh-life

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ho-Chi-Minh

https://www.history.com/topics/france/battle-of-dien-bien-phu

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh#In_the_United_States

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_in_the_Vietnam_War