in Vietnam. Later, Ho Chi Minh asked to set up an alliance with the United States, which was approved by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt with support from U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower. However, relations were strained following further events in French Indochina, including the death of OSS officer A. Peter Dewey, who was shot by Viet Minh fighters during the 1945 Vietnam uprising; the Viet Minh claimed they mistook Dewey for a French soldier, and Ho Chi Minh reportedly apologized to the U.S. and ordered a search for Dewey's body, though Vietnamese historian Trần Văn Giàu reported that Dewey's body was dumped in a nearby river and was never recovered. After Harry S. Truman, a fervent anti-communist, took power following Roosevelt's death, a U.S.-Vietnam alliance was never established. Vietnam War In the postcolonial wave following the end of World War II, the First Indochina War forced the French Fourth Republic out of French Indochina. In the 1954 Geneva Conference, French Indochina was dismantled and superseded by the independent states of North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. However, with the Cold War ongoing, the concern became political ideologies. Vietnam had been split into two opposing countries: North Vietnam, a communist country that fought the French and thus came into opposition with American ideals; and South Vietnam, a capitalist country that fought alongside the French and was generally in line with the U.S.' geopolitical outlook that communism had to be contained. The two countries were divided at the 17th parallel north, not unlike the 38th parallel north that divided North Korea and South Korea in the Korean War. The Geneva Conference provided that a general election be held by July 1956 to create a unified Vietnamese state, but they were not directly signed onto nor accepted by delegates of South Vietnam and the U.S., and South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem refused to allow elections. The U.S. supported South Vietnam, having already supported France during the First Indochina War. The U.S. sent American military advisors to train and assist the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, and spent massive amounts of money in efforts to modernize the country; however, this created tensions between the U.S. and North Vietnam. Tensions reached a breaking point following the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, when the U.S. accused the Vietnam People's Navy of attacking the USS Maddox and other United States Navy vessels on