Bob Atkinson, the major problem with Southeast Asia during the late 1950s and early 1960s was....racism. Simple fact remains, if we treated Ho Chi Minh like the way we treated Tito of Yugoslavia, problems in that part of the world would have never happened. Both of these men were  politically identical. They were both nationalist first, communist second. But we gave Tito a break but branded Ho Chi Minh as a Red even although people of Vietnam often regarded China and Chinese as a greater threat. Ho Chi Minh won the national election that was respected by all Vietnamese outside of Viet-Catholics. But that election was rejected by the Eisenhower administration and supported by the Kennedy administration. Many historians agreed that if Ho Chi Minh was a white guy like Tito, US would have treated him differently and Yugoslavia being a strong neutral power with an anti-Soviet leaning despite of Tito being a communist, Vietnam could have played the same role in SE Asia against Red China.