Vietnam

1
Vietnam

• Timeline

2
1945

• President Harry Truman refuses the request of Ho
  Chi Minh to recognize a free and independent
  Vietnam because Minh was a Communist.

3
1954

• President Eisenhowers refusal to help the French
  forced them to surrender to the Vietminh at the
  Battle of Dien Bien Phu ending the French
  Indo-China War.

4
1956

• With the U.S. and South Vietnamese not signing
  the Geneva Accords, the creation of SEATO allowed
  the United States to send money and supplies to
  South Vietnam. Based on the American belief of
  the Domino Theory in South East Asia.

5
1961

• President Kennedy starts sending a total of
  16,000 U.S. Green Berets to South Vietnam to act
  as advisors to ARVN.

6
1962

• The first protest of American involvement in
  Vietnam is the Port Huron Statement issued by the
  Tom Hayden leader of The Students for a
  Democratic Society (SDS).

7
1963

• Dictatorial South Vietnamese Ngo Dinh Diem is
  assassinated by a military coup.

8
1964

• With the North Vietnamese attack on the U.S.S.
  Maddox the United States Congress passes the Gulf
  of Tonkin Resolution which gave the President a
  blank check in Vietnam.

9
1965

• The first group of draftee combat troops arrive
  in Vietnam.
• War protest escalates as students burn draft
  cards and others defected to Canada to avoid the
  draft.

10
1966

• General William Westmoreland announces his
  policies of escalation and attrition as a way of
  the U.S. to achieve victory in Vietnam.
• Such tactics included Search Destroy Missions,
  the use of Agent Orange and Napalm, and free-fire
  zones.

11
1967

• With the war in Vietnam escalating Senator
  William Fulbright starts conducting televised
  hearings to investigate his belief in a
  Credibility Gap.

12
1968

• During the TET New Years cease fire the Viet
  Cong launch an all out assault on every major
  city and military instillation in South Vietnam
  including the U.S. Embassy, Khe Sanh and Hue.

13
1968

• After Robert Kennedy was assassinated, violence
  erupts outside of Democratic National Convention
  as the party nominates Hubert Humphrey, a hawk,
  over the preferred dove candidates supported by
  the New Left.

14
1969

• With over 600,000 U.S. troops already in SVN,
  President Nixon starts his Vietnamization Policy
  by brining home over 25,000 troops in his second
  month in office.

15
1970

• The Invasion of Cambodia sparks a new wave of war
  protests on college campuses. At Kent State in
  Ohio 4 students are killed as the Ohio National
  Guard fires into the crowd of protesters.

16
1971

• Former Pentagon employee, Daniel Ellsburg, gives
  top secret documents to the press. These
  Pentagon Papers showed that President Johnson
  misled the American pubic regarding the early
  years in Vietnam.

17
1972-1973

• In 1972 President Nixon announces peace is at
  hand in Vietnam.
• In 1973 the U.S. The North Vietnamese sign the
  Paris Peace Accords.

18
1975

• With both sides violating the Paris Peace Accords
  the Communists are able to capture the South
  Vietnamese capital of Saigon, renaming it Ho Chi
  Minh City.

19
1982

• Vietnam Memorial Wall is dedicated in Washington
  D.C. to honor the 57,000 soldiers who fought and
  gave their lives in Vietnam.
• Designed by a Vietnamese woman, Maya Ying Lin.

20
Image of Vietnam