2 points
IIRC he had actually originally appealed to the US for help, and there’s a good chance he’d have gotten it too if France didn’t threaten to leave NATO and join the Societ bloc if America took any course of action besides helping them continue to suppress the Vietnamese.
2 points
It’s amazing how history works.
At the time, the West ‘losing China’ was a political hurricane. Stalin and Mao were seen as unstoppable and nuclear war was on everyone’s minds. France was seen as a vital part of the West’s alliance, and even the threat of them leaving was disastrous.
Hindsight is always 20/20.
