In 1955 the Vietnam War began, a civil war between two competing philosophies. Several years after Vietnam's independence from France the Geneva Accords insisted free elections be held throughout Vietnam in 1956 under the supervision of an International Control Committee with an aim of reunifying North and South Vietnam under a single popular elected government. North Vietnam expecting to win because of the broad political organisation that it built up in both parts of Vietnam. Diem, who had solidified his control over South Vietnam, refused in 1956 to hold the scheduled elections. The United States supported his position. If the elections were to go ahead, and North Vietnam won, South Vietnam would fall into Communism. They feared Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma and down into the Subcontinents were surely to follow. President Kennedy and the U.S Secretary of State took very seriously. In response, North Vietnamese decided to unify the South...