Vietnam War
The French eventually pulled out of Vietnam and, the United states began it's involvement in the country and fought a war lasted more than 15 years. The United States entered the war to stop the spread of communism in South-East Asia because American leaders feared that commuist forces would gain control of Vietnam. Vietnam had been split in half in 1954, after fighting a war to gain independence from France then Vietnamese communists gained control of North Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh was the leader of the North Vietnamese communists. South Vietnam had a non-communist government but this government was weak and corrupt. But the United States supported it. Many people in South Vietnam rebelled against their government. They backed efforts of the north to unify the country. Millions of people, civilians not soldiers, died in the Vietnam War so about 10 million homeless Vietnamese refugees. and left hundreds of thousands of orphans. In 1976 the South was officially reunited with the North in a new Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Under the leadership of Le Duan, party chief since the death of Ho Chi Minh in 1969, Communist leaders in Hanoi adopted an ambitious plan to bring about the creation of an advanced Communist society.