សង្គ្រាមឥណ្ឌូចិនលើកទី១: ការចូលធ្វើអន្តរាគមន៍ពីបរទេស

ការចូលធ្វើអន្តរាគមន៍ពីបរទេស

Mutual Defense Assistance Act (1950–1954)
190px|thumb|Anti-communist Vietnamese refugees moving from a French LSM landing ship to the USS Montague during Operation Passage to Freedom in 1954.
At the beginning of the war, the U.S. was neutral in the conflict because of opposition to imperialism and consequently to help colonial empires regain their power and influence, because the Việt Minh had recently been their allies, and because most of its attention was focused on Europe where Winston Churchill argued an Iron Curtain had fallen.

Then the U.S. government gradually began supporting the French in their war effort, primarily through Mutual Defense Assistance Act, as a means of stabilizing the French Fourth Republic in which the French Communist Party was a significant political force. A dramatic shift occurred in American policy after the victory of Mao Zedong's Communist Party of China in the Chinese Civil War. By 1949, however, the United States became concerned about the spread of communism in Asia, particularly following the end of the Chinese Civil War, and began to strongly support the French as the two countries were bound by the Cold War Mutual Defense Programme. After the Moch–Marshall meeting of September 23, 1950, in Washington, the United States started to support the French Union effort politically, logistically and financially. Officially, US involvement did not include use of armed force. However, recently it has been discovered that undercover (CAT) -or not- US Air Force pilots flew to support the French during Operation Castor in November 1953. Two US pilots were killed in action during the siege of Dien Bien Phu the following year. These facts were declassified and made public more than 50 years after the events, in 2005 during the Légion d'honneur award ceremony by the French ambassador in Washington.

In May 1950, after the capture of Hainan island by Chinese Communist forces, U.S. President Harry S. Truman began covertly authorizing direct financial assistance to the French, and on June 27, 1950, after the outbreak of the Korean War, announced publicly that the U.S. was doing so. It was feared in Washington that if Ho were to win the war, with his ties to the Soviet Union, he would establish a puppet state with Moscow with the Soviets ultimately controlling Vietnamese affairs. The prospect of a communist dominated Southeast Asia was enough to spur the U.S. to support France, so that the spread of Soviet-allied communism could be contained.

On June 30, 1950, the first U.S. supplies for Indochina were delivered. In September, Truman sent the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) to Indochina to assist the French. Later, in 1954, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower explained the escalation risk, introducing what he referred to as the "domino principle", which eventually became the concept of Domino theory. During the Korean War, the conflict in Vietnam was also seen as part of a broader proxy war with China and the USSR in Asia.

US Navy assistance (1951–1954)
thumb|190px|Bois Belleau (aka [126]) transferred to France in 1953.
The  delivered Grumman F8F Bearcat fighter aircraft to Saigon on January 26, 1951.

On March 2 of that year, the United States Navy transferred the  (LST 490) to the French navy in Indochina in accordance with the MAAG-led MAP. Renamed RFS Vulcain  (A-656), she was used in Operation Hirondelle in 1953. The  carrier delivered Grumman F8F Bearcat aircraft to Saigon on March 26, 1951. During September 1953, the  (renamed Bois Belleau ) was lent to France and sent to French Indochina to replace the Arromanches . She was used to support delta defenders in the Halong Bay operation in May 1954. In August, she joined the Franco-American evacuation operation called "Passage to Freedom ".

The same month, the United States delivered additional aircraft, again using the USS Windham Bay .http://www.ina.fr/archivespourtous/index.php?vue=corpus&code=C0524208764# Indochina War: The "good offices" of the Americans (National Audiovisual Institute) On April 18, 1954, during the siege of Dien Bien Phu, the  delivered 25 Korean War AU-1 Corsair aircraft for use by the French Aeronavale in supporting the besieged garrison.

US Air Force assistance (1952–1954)
thumb|190px|A 1952 F4U-7 Corsair of the 14.F flotilla who fought at Dien Bien Phu.
A total of 94 F4U-7s were built for the Aeronavale in 1952, with the last of the batch, the final Corsair built, rolled out in December 1952. The F4U-7s were actually purchased by the U.S. Navy and passed on to the Aeronavale through the U.S. Military Assistance Program (MAP). They were supplemented by 25 ex-U.S.MC AU-1s (previously used in the Korean War) and moved from Yokosuka, Japan to Tourane Air Base (Da Nang), Vietnam in April 1952. US Air Force assistance followed in November 1953 when the French commander in Indochina, General Navarre, asked General McCarty, commander of the Combat Cargo Division, for 12 Fairchild C-119 for Operation Castor at Dien Bien Phu. The USAF also provided C-124 Globemasters to transport French paratroop reinforcements to Indochina.

On March 3, 1954, twelve C-119s of the 483rd Troop Carrier Wing ("Packet Rats") based at Ashiya, Japan, were painted with France's insignia and loaned to France with 24 CIA pilots for short term use. Maintenance was carried out by the US Air Force and airlift operations were commanded by McCarty.

Central Intelligence Agency covert operations (1954)
thumb|190px|France-marked USAF C-119 flown by CIA pilots over Dien Bien Phu in 1954.
Twenty four CIA (CAT) pilots supplied the French Union garrison during the siege of Dien Bien Phu by airlifting paratroopers, ammunition, artillery pieces, tons of barbed wire, medics and other military material. With the reducing DZ areas, night operations and anti-aircraft artillery assaults, many of the "packets" fell into Việt Minh hands. The 37 CIA pilots completed 682 airdrops under anti-aircraft fire between March 13 and May. 6 Two CAT pilots, Wallace Bufford and James B. McGovern, Jr. were killed in action when their Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar was shot down on May 6, 1954 . The ceasefire began on May 7 at 5:00 pm under Hanoi-based General Cogny's orders.  On February 25, 2005, the French ambassador to the United States, Jean-David Levitte, awarded the seven remaining CIA pilots with the Légion d'honneur.

Operation Passage to Freedom (1954)

In August 1954, in support to the French navy and the merchant navy, the U.S. Navy launched Operation Passage to Freedom and sent hundreds of ships, including USS Montague, in order to evacuate non-communist – especially Catholic Vietnamese refugees from North Vietnam following the July 20, 1954 armistice and partition of Vietnam. Around 450,000 Vietnamese civilians were transported from North to South during this period, with around one tenth of that number moving in the opposite direction.