DBWI: Would Truman Have Gotten America Involved in Vietnam?

[Amadeus]

Similar to another recent thread of mine on Truman and Korea, I'd like to ask about how Truman might have handled Vietnam. In 1950 Dewey gave extensive aid and military advisers to the French in order to help them reclaim their colonies in Indochina. This effort failed as Vietnam defeated France in 1954. Yet Dewey began America's long involvement in Vietnam, which continued under his successors and eventually culminated in direct military intervention under LBJ. Would Truman have aided the French in their quest to retake Vietnam? Might the Vietnam War have never happened had Truman won in 1948?

 

[Colonel Zoidberg]

Boy oh boy did Dewey fuck up Asia. I mean, China goes red, and he just says, fuck it, they can have Korea now? He flat-out told the Republic of Korea, “you’re on your own.” And now all that’s left is the Kim family’s playground. Good thing Japan rearmed or they might end up being the Democratic People’s Happy Fun Free Beer Republic of Japan. And then the Thirty Years War in Vietnam that turned out to be all for two things - jack and shit.

Eisenhower figured it out in his second term. Too bad some idiot shot him and we were stuck with that brainless horned toad Kefauver for three years.

And by the time anyone could have figured it out, they were dead or out of office. Nixon? One-term wonder who fucked up Cuba. JFK? Addison’s got him in 1967 and Smathers went running in the other direction. Rockefeller? Too busy making money. McCarthy? Too busy trying to spread the wealth around. Reagan? Fucked up Iran and gutted the military for private contractors. It took Jerry Fucking Brown, President Moonbeam, to figure it out - I’m just glad John Hinckley Jr. was a lousy shot.