Blame the French and IKE. IKE wouldn't send troops but was paying 75% of the France's war costs in Indo-China(as in U.S. tax payers). When that garrison in Dienbienphu was surrounded.....France asked for an air strike..... IKE decided against such...and the French finally surrendered after a long siege. They had been fighting that war since 1946.

I love Eisenhower....but the financing/aid we provided to set up the south(South Vietnam) circa 1955 ended up being passed down to three other Presidents.

Any tactical nuclear strike would have been so foolish. But if we would have gone in with the British(who wouldn't agree to such) back in 1954 during that siege....things may have been quite different.

Hell..it was just one year after the armistice was signed in Korea. A little tired of war at the time is my assumption as well as those tensions with China.