Despite slight improvements, U.S.-Soviet relations stayed tense and containment remained the cornerstone of U.S. policy. When Kennedy became president, he inherited Eisenhower’s commitment in Vietnam. Kennedy saw Vietnam in Cold War terms, but rather than practicing brinksmanship — threatening nuclear war to stop communism — Kennedy sought what at the time seemed a more intelligent and realistic approach. In 1961, he increased military aid to the South Vietnamese and expanded the role of U.S. Special Forces (“Green Berets”), who would train the South Vietnamese army in unconventional, small-group warfare tactics.

South Vietnam’s corrupt and repressive Diem regime, propped up by Eisenhower since 1954, was losing ground in spite of American aid. By 1961, Diem’s opponents, with backing from North Vietnam, had formed a revolutionary movement known as the National Liberation Front (NLF). NLF guerrilla forces — the Vietcong — found allies among peasants alienated by Diem’s “strategic hamlet” program, which had uprooted entire villages and moved villagers into barbed-wire compounds. Furthermore, Buddhists charged Diem, a Catholic, with religious persecution. Starting in May 1963, militant Buddhists staged dramatic demonstrations, including self-immolations recorded by reporters covering the activities of the 16,000 U.S. military personnel then in Vietnam.

These self-immolations, shown on television to an uneasy global audience, powerfully illustrated the dilemmas of American policy in Vietnam. To ensure a stable southern government and prevent victory for Ho Chi Minh and the North, the United States had to support Diem’s authoritarian regime. But the regime’s political repression of its opponents made Diem more unpopular. He was assassinated on November 3, 1963. Whether one supported U.S. involvement in Vietnam or not, the elemental paradox remained unchanged: in its efforts to win, the United States brought defeat ever closer.