During and following the Vietnam War, initiated by the Kennedy and Johnson administrations due to a fear of the spread of communism into southeastern Asia, it is estimated that roughly 50,000 babies were born of American fathers and Vietnamese mothers. A large contingent of these children were either unwanted to the circumstances of their conception or unable to be cared for due to the lack of available resources and assistance in the war-torn country. Locally, these children were known as "children of the dust." Operation Babylift was established by the US government in an effort to bring over 3,300 children, many but not all of whom were abandoned, orphaned, or mixed-race leading to fears of their exploitation, to Western countries to be adopted with varying degrees of success. Non-governmental organizations attempted to alleviate the problem by setting up international adoptions and other rehoming methods but were largely ineffective. To this day, attempts are being made to link American veterans to children that they may have fathered during their time in Vietnam as well as children to their families in Vietnam.