Why did Kennedy send aid to Vietnam?

Answer 1

He added the Green Berets to the advisers already in Vietnam and provided the South Vietnames with helicopter support.

His plan (which also turned out to be Johnson's and Nixon's plan) was to keep us there until his second term, when he could disengage US forces but not have to suffer any political downside for it. Don't forget, Congressional Republicans, and others, would have freaked out at the thought of leaving with the Communists still there. Of course, they had no better idea of what to do there than anyone else. So, there was some political gamesmanship on all sides.

In the end, Kennedy was assassinated in his first term and Johnson inherited the mess. Johnson promptly engineered the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and really got us sucked in. But at least he had the political courage in the end not to seek another term, instead focusing on trying to work a deal to get us out of there.

rock on man!

Answer 2

He did because the USA wanted to get that important area to be a kind of bulwark (in figurated meaning and/or denotative sense, not architectural properly...) and so dominate the whole East of Asia and more easily the whole Oceania; he did not wonder the power of nationalist Vietnamese soldiers and governors, and he just acted always as a hypocrite, in fact wishing Vietnam to keep as an ally to the USA.

Answer 3

Possibly because he dreamt of making that country a US colony or exterior territory, so that the war(s) in that area could always be under US order and/or control.