1957 in the Vietnam War total $207 million dollars of which $187 million would come from the United States. Seventy percent of the U.S. assistance was spent paying the salaries of South Vietnamese armed forces. An author in the prestigious American Journal Foreign Affairs said that "South Vietnam today is a quasi-police state characterized by arbitrary arrests and imprisonments, strict censorship of the press and the absence of an effective political opposition. The International Control Commission, formed to administer the Geneva Accords of 1954, said that neither North or South Vietnam had been in compliance with the agreement. A shot was fired which narrowly missed
Quagmire theory the world. In the same year, the First Indochina war commences. This war between the Vietminh and the French, concluded with the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, a decisive victory by the Vietminh. From the First Indochina War, two states emerged, the Communist ruled north and the south, split by the 17th parallel-agreed upon at the Geneva Convention in 1954. Soon after, in 1955, war breaks out between the north and south. The domino theory was a well-accepted theory during this time period, introduced by Dwight D. Eisenhower, states that if one country falls to communism, then the rest of