The Vietnam war was started by a series between 1950 and 1965. In May 1950, President Harry S. Truman authorized a modest program of economic and military aid to the French. The French  were fighting to retain control of their Indochina colony, including Laos and Cambodia as well as Vietnam. The Vietnamese Nationalist army defeated France in the Battle of Dienbienphu in 1954. Due to there loss in the battle France was forced into the creation of the Communist Vietnam north. The americans were not happy about this arangement so they conducted psychological warfare against the North. In 1961 the president sent 400 soldiers to South Vienam to train there army. When Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, there were more than 16,000 U.S. military advisers in South Vietnam, and more than 100 Americans had been killed. In August 1964, he secured from Congress a functional declaration of war. This is how the Vietnam War was started.