Why did Kennedy take out the troops from South Vietnam?
Kennedy’s advisers urged him to send 10,000 American troops to help South Vietnamese leader Diem defeat the attacks by the North Vietnamese army and the Viet Cong. Kennedy was not ready to send troops because of the recent Bay of Pigs fiasco. He could not understand why Diem, with 250,000 troops of his own could not defeat the 15,000 guerrillas of the North. He decided instead to send 3,000 Green Berets, US Army Special Forces experts to advise the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam). He slowly increased our military presence in Vietnam to 11,000 advisers by 1962. As the failure of Diem’s ability to govern became evident, Kennedy had decided to reduce the number of US troops in South Vietnam by 1963. Kennedy decided to support a coup d’etat by high ranking ARVN officers to get rid of Diem. Diem was assassinated but Kennedy was also assassinated a month later.
