Vietnam Chronology

1
Vietnam Chronology

• AMST 3100 The 1960s
• Rutledge

2
1945-54

• Indochina War
• Americans support the French with weapons and
  money
• Ho Chi Minh effectively fights a guerrilla war

3
1954

• French lose at battle of Dien Bien Phu
• Geneva Accords
• Vietnam to be temporarily divided into 2 regions,
  North and South.
• National referendum to be held in 2 years to
  resolve how to unify the country. All likelihood
  was that Ho Chi Minh would have emerged as the
  leader of all of Vietnam by 1956.
• U.S. installs a puppet dictator, Ngo Dinh Diem,
  and proceeds in nation-building to create a
  permanent South Vietnam, despite the Geneva
  Accords.

4
1954-63

• Viet Cong form in the South to resist U.S. nation
  building.
• Diem claims electoral victory in South Vietnam in
  1956 in a rigged election that violated the
  Geneva Accords. No national referendum was ever
  held in 1956.
• Diem fails to provide significant reforms while
  favoring Catholics over Buddhists.
• Diems brother brutally represses political
  dissent, and Diem is highly unpopular.

5
1960-63

• JFK elected. Proceeds to increase advisors in
  Vietnam while trying to keep his options open.
  16,000 advisors by 63.
• S.Vietnamese Buddhist monks burn themselves in
  protest of Diems pro-Catholic policies. Much
  world coverage.
• Diem regime is overthrown in 63 and Diem is
  assassinated. South Vietnam is in chaos.
• JFK is assassinated in 63, leaving Vietnam
  policy in chaos.

6
1964

• LBJ rejects any exit strategy and commits to win
  in Vietnam.
• Gulf of Tonkin incident leads to Congressional
  resolution giving LBJ a green light to escalate
  the war.
• LBJ increases advisors in S. Vietnam to 20,000.

7
1965

• First combat troops arrive.
• Troop numbers increase to 175,000.
• Operation Rolling Thunder.
• Sustained and massive air bombings.
• The draft is escalated (draft age was 19), thus
  politicizing the war and aggravating the youth
  culture.
• First major war protest occurs, with 15,000
  attending.

8
1966

• Troop strength increased to 380,000.
• First B-52 raids on North Vietnam.
• Heaviest air bombings of the war.
• U.S. commercial media coverage is biased toward
  LBJs spin on the war.
• U.S. uses conventional military strategy against
  an enemy using a guerrilla strategy.
• U.S. is failing to win over the hearts and minds
  of the indigenous population of South Vietnam.
  GIs cannot tell friend from foe.

9
1967

• U.S. troop strength reaches 500,000.
• Massive anti-war demonstrations, yet LBJ ignores
  them, committed to a victory he has yet to
  clearly define.
• M. L. King, Jr comes out against the war.
• U.S. commercial media coverage is still slanted
  toward LBJs spin. Most Americans still support
  the war.
• 9,342 troops killed this year.
• Little sign of progress toward victory.

10
1968

• Tet offensive in January exposes a credibility
  gap for LBJ and the generals.
• The turning point in the war. Americans
  reconsider.
• McCarthy and RFK antiwar platform.
• Massive antiwar protests.
• Walter Cronkite/media shift toward antiwar.
• LBJ announces he will not run in March.
• MLK assassinated in April.
• RFK assassinated in June.
• Troop strength increased to 530,000. Gen.
  Westmorland wants more troops.
• My Lai massacre.
• Nixon, a hawk, is elected.

11
1969

• Nixon secretly bombs Cambodia.
• Nixon begins troop withdrawal in his
  Vietnamization policy.
• Troop numbers down to 475,000.
• March on Washington (250,000 strong).
• Ho Chi Minh dies.
• Antiwar counterculture is increasingly
  radicalized. More radical militants are emerging,
  despite being a tiny minority.

12
1970

• Nixon invades Cambodia, arousing the antiwar
  counterculture from a brief lull.
• 4 dead in Ohio Kent State.
• Troop strength decreases to 284,000.
• Nixons Peace with Honor policies fail to make
  any significant difference and the war is
  prolonged. Hawks have difficulty explaining what
  peace with honor means in a war that has failed
  to win over the hearts and minds of the
  Vietnamese.

13
1971

• Nixon invades Laos.
• Nixons military strategy is to hit the enemy
  hard with air power to try to bring them to peace
  talks. He is frustrated the North Vietnamese
  dont play along.
• Troop strength down to 160,000.

14
1972

• Nixon visits China, accepting an invitation by
  China to open up diplomatic ties. The Cold War
  becomes less frightening as the U.S. engages in
  diplomacy with both the USSR and China. This is
  perhaps Nixons most significant foreign policy
  achievement.
• U.S. mines Haiphong harbor.
• Nixon is increasingly bombing North Vietnam to
  get them to the peace talks.
• Secret peace talks begin.
• By now, only 20 GIs are killed each week.

15
1973

• Peace agreement is finally reached. The Paris
  Peace Accords, carried out by negotiators Henry
  Kissinger and Le Duc Tho
• Recognized the 1954 Geneva Accords that
  established all of Vietnam as one country (a
  symbolic victory for the nationalists because the
  U.S. had earlier defined the war as Northern
  aggression against South Vietnam).
• Established a temporary peace to allow the U.S.
  to withdraw from Vietnam.
• Allowed for the release of U.S. prisoners of war.

16
1975

• Last of U.S. troops leave Saigon as the communist
  nationalists enter the city in triumph.

17
AMST 3100
End