uman and other American leaders, having no sympathy for French colonialism, favored Vietnamese independence. But expanding communist control of Eastern Europe and the triumph of the communists in China's civil was made France's war against Ho seem an anticommunist rather than a colonialist effort. When France agreed to a quansi-independent Vietnam under Emperor Bao Dai as an alternative to Ho's DRV, the United States decided to support the French position.
             The American conception of Vietnam as a cold war battleground largely ignored the struggle for social justice and national sovereignty occurring within the country. American attention focused primarily on Europe and on Asia beyond Vietnam. Aid to France in Indochina was a quid pro quo for French cooperation with America's plans for the defense of Europe through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. After China became a communist state in 1949, the stability of Japan became of paramount importance to Washington, and Japanese development required access to the markets and raw materials of Southeast Asia. The outbreak of war in Korea in 1950 served primarily to confirm Washington's belief that communist aggression posed a great danger to Asia . Subsequent charges that Truman had "lost" China and had settled for a stalemate in Korea caused succeeding presidents to fear the domestic political consequences if they "lost" Vietnam. This apprehension, an overestimation of American power, and an underestimation of Vietnamese communist strength locked all administrations from 1950 through the 1960s into a firm anticommunist stand in Vietnam.
             Because American policy makers failed to appreciate the amount of effort that would be required to exert influence on Vietnam's political and social structure, the course of American policy led to a steady escalation of U.S. involvement. Pres
             ...