[Robert DeLong]

I was in Japan, year was either 1960 or 1961, when one of our former neighbors stopped in to visit on his way to Vietnam. The president would have been either Eisenhower or Kennedy.

Eisenhower (1960) provided about 2 billion dollars and weapons, along with about 1,000 advisors to South Vietnam. Eisenhower was also the one that cut the nation in half, with Ho in control of the North and pro-Western leader Ngo Dinh Diem in control of the South.

Kennedy (1961) extended military aid and increased the number of advisors.

Johnson (1965) on March 8th, two battalions of U.S. Marines waded ashore on the beaches at Danang. Those 3,500 soldiers were the first combat troops the United States had dispatched to South Vietnam. By 1967 there were around 500,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam.

[ansel12]

Truman sent advisors to Vietnam in 1950, “By 1952, the
U.S. would bear roughly one-third of the cost of the war the French were fighting”

JFK sent 16,000 troops.