Had Eisenhower allowed the elections as mandated by the Geneva Accords when the French were defeated to go forward in 1956 the people of the country would have voted to unify and Ho Chi Minh would have been elected President. Instead at the height of the Commie fear/McCarthy era in America Eisenhower simply appointed the Catholic and totally corrupt Diem family to power. Then in 1962 or so we assassinated him and began propping up a series of "elected" yet no less corrupt presidents that never gained the support of the people. Not saying that the VC were noble warriors at all but in wars terrible things happen just as happened in our Revolution when the "VC" of the day were our own revolutionaries. Ho Chi Minh was beloved by the Vietnamese of the North as well as the South and one way or another the result that came to pass was inevitable. We had no business being there other than pure hubris. It backfired big time. Viet Nam is a trading partner in spite of al the death/ destruction