Vietnam War Timeline

Viet Minh troops under Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap overrun the French base at Dien Bien Phu. The stunning victory by Vietnamese forces brings an end to nearly a century of French colonial rule in Indochina.

The Saigon Military Mission, a covert operation to conduct psychological warfare and paramilitary activities in South Vietnam, is launched under the command of U.S. Air Force Col. Edward Lansdale. This marks the beginning of the Vietnam War. Many of the mission’s ongoing efforts are directed at supporting the regime of South Vietnamese Pres. Ngo Dinh Diem.

The Geneva Accords effectively divide Vietnam in two at the 17th parallel. Although the Accords explicitly state that the 17th parallel “should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary,” it is quickly afforded exactly that status.

Ngo Dinh Diem is assassinated by his own generals as part of a coup d’état that is carried out with the tacit support of U.S. officials. Ngo’s autocratic and violent excesses when dealing with South Vietnam’s majority Buddhist population led the U.S. to withdraw its patronage of him. At this point approximately 16,000 U.S. military personnel are in Vietnam, and 200 have been killed.

After commanders reported a North Vietnamese torpedo boat attack on the U.S. destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy in the Gulf of Tonkin, U.S. Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson submits the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution to Congress. The resolution authorizes the president to “take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States.” Although the captain of the Maddox urged caution, suggesting that the August 4 attack had been conjured from the imaginations of overeager or inexperienced sonar operators (an assessment that will ultimately prove correct), Congress overwhelmingly passes the resolution. Approximately 23,000 U.S. troops are in Vietnam, and roughly 400 have been killed.

A Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of Vietnam (PROVN), a study commissioned by the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Harold K. Johnson, is published. Its findings suggest that the strategy of attrition being pursued by U.S. commander Gen. William Westmoreland is counterproductive, and it recommends that more U.S. effort should be directed at ensuring the security and stability of South Vietnam’s rural population. At the time of its publication, PROVN is largely dismissed by U.S. commanders. There are approximately 185,000 U.S. service members in Vietnam, and more than 2,700 have been killed.

During the Vietnamese New Year holiday of Tet, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces begin an offensive that will eventually hurl some 85,000 troops against five major cities, dozens of military installations, and scores of towns and villages throughout South Vietnam. The attacks, which eschew the guerrilla tactics traditionally employed by North Vietnamese forces, play directly to American and South Vietnamese strengths. The North Vietnamese suffer casualty rates approaching 60 percent, and Westmoreland sees the Tet Offensive as a sign of desperation on the part of the North. This view is increasingly at odds with that of the American public. There are approximately 485,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam, and over 20,000 have been killed.

CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite, who has just returned from Vietnam, tells viewers, “It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past.” U.S. Pres. Lyndon Johnson is said to respond, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.”

As many as 500 unarmed villagers are killed by U.S. Army troops in the hamlet of My Lai. Groups of women, children, and elderly men are shot at close range by elements of Charlie Company of the 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Infantry Brigade. Attempts to cover up the massacre begin almost before the shooting stops, and only one American, Charlie Company’s 1st Platoon commander, Lieut. William Calley, will be found guilty of any crime in connection with My Lai. In November 1974 Calley will be released on parole after serving just three and a half years under house arrest.

Millions of people across the United States take to the streets to protest the continued U.S. involvement in Vietnam. The antiwar demonstrations represent the largest public protests in U.S. history to date.

Members of the Ohio National Guard open fire on unarmed college students at Kent State University, killing four and wounding nine. The incident catalyzes the growing antiwar movement. Roughly 335,000 U.S. troops are in Vietnam, and approximately 50,000 have been killed.

Representatives of South Vietnamese communist forces, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the United States conclude the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet-Nam in Paris. U.S. troops are to be withdrawn within 60 days and the 17th parallel will remain the dividing line until the country can be reunited by “peaceful means.”

The last U.S. military unit leaves Vietnam. In over a decade of fighting, some 58,000 U.S. troops have been killed. Vietnamese casualties include more than 200,000 South Vietnamese troops and more than 1,000,000 North Vietnamese soldiers and Viet Cong irregulars. Civilian deaths total as many as 2,000,000.

Shortly before 11:00 AM, the American Radio Service network begins to broadcast the prerecorded message that the temperature in Saigon is “105 degrees and rising” followed by a 30-second excerpt from the song “White Christmas.” This signals the start of Operation Frequent Wind, the emergency evacuation of Saigon. American personnel begin converging on more than a dozen assembly points throughout the city. Over the next 24 hours, some 7,000 Americans and South Vietnamese are flown to safety. The following morning, North Vietnamese troops enter downtown Saigon and the South Vietnamese government surrenders unconditionally.