Eisenhower drops dead in 1954, US goes to War in Southeast Asia

so I was doing some reading on Battle of Dien Bien Phu, it seems that a number of Powerful Americans wanted Eisenhower to use force to break the siege, Vice-President Nixon was for using US troops on the ground but Ike said not with out the British, the rest is history, but Ike was a man in very poor health a year latter he'd have a major Heart attack and in 1957 he had a stroke, so what if in 1954 while the cabinet debates action in Dien Bien Phu he drops dead (heart attack, stroke whatever), Nixon is President and makes the call to send US troops to Vietnam, how does that all turn out?
 
First of all, I'm nearly dead sure there was never a call to send US troops to break the siege. Even the most hard-line proponents of US intervention were only calling for the use of massive American air-power and not ground forces to relieve pressure on the French.
 
An american comitment to Indochina in 1954 helping the french expedictiory force wich at that poin weret 278.000 strong might lead to a more close relationship
between France and the USA and at least to a independant South Vietnam.To say nothing of the Patet lao.I honestly think that it would at least be better than go it alone 10 years latter.
 
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If that did occur, then I imagine it would be at least as bad as the Vietnam War in our timeline.

This is especially the case with a mere year between this and the end of the Korean War.

Imagine the havoc!

Would Kim Il Sung be tempted to try to take Seoul with the Yankee imperialists up to their eyeballs in tropical jungle madness?

France, with its imperialist leanings reinforced, becomes a very louche right hand of the Yankee running dogs.

How this impacts on Khrushchev, on the upcoming potential Suez Canal crisis, on domestic politics...

...hey presto, the Democratic Party, does it become the de facto "anti-war" party? It's hard to say. Does it become defined by Adlai Stevenson, does this leave any space for JFK to run "right" in a future contest, could LBJ make it to the top to muscle the party into supporting civil rights?
 
An american comitment to Indochina in 1954 helping the french expedictiory wich at that poin weret 278.000 strong might lead to a more close relationship
between France and the USA and at leasst to a independant South Vietnam.To say nothing of the Patet lao.I honestly think that it would at least be better than go it alone 10 years latter.


ahh, what you say makes sense.

okay, okay, I retract part of my post then
 
Modelcitizen,i am not saying that it would be better than OTL Vietnam war or event that the US would win,just that having a 278.000 strong and veteran force beside you helps.But as in the 1954 the North was partialy french ocupied the war would be diferent,if some crazy general decide to take lost frontier post of the RC4(That Khe,Lang song,Cao Bang and etc,the chinese might intervene because the US and France would be in their southern borders.I believe the USAF would at least bomb the Viet Bac region.
 
Can someone do a timeline about it?Foreign legion and US Marines fighting side by side is a very tough combination to beat.
 
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