Vietnam+War-+IL

The **Vietnam War**, also known as the **Second Indochina War**, the **Vietnam Conflict** or the **American War.** The United States entered the war to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam as part of their wider strategy of containment. Military advisors arrived beginning in 1950. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with U.S. troop levels tripling in 1961 and tripling again in 1962. On 2 September 1945, Ho Chi Minh, the leader of the Viet Minh, declared the independent Democratic of Vietnam before a crowd of 500,000 in Hanoi.