By 1967, the United States was deeply mired in the war in Vietnam. In the immediate aftermath of World War II and until 1954, the Americans had supported French attempts to hold on to their colonial possessions in Indochina. When that failed, they opposed the creation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, led by the nationalist and communist Ho Chi Minh in the north of the country, and supported the brutal corrupt regimes of Ngo Dinh Diem and subsequent leaders in the south. The United States subscribed to the so-called domino theory that allowing communism to flourish in one Southeast Asian country would inevitably lead adjacent nations to ‘fall over’ into communism.