What armed group was formed to fight against Diem (and later the Americans) in the South?

The Vietnam War

America Commits
1961 - 1964

1961

January 1961 - Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev pledges back up for "wars of national liberation" throughout the globe. His statement greatly encourages Communists in North Vietnam to escalate their armed struggle to unify Vietnam nether Ho Chi Minh.

Jan xx, 1961- John Fitzgerald Kennedy is inaugurated as the 35th U.South. President and declares "...we shall pay any price, bear any burden, run across any hardship, support whatever friend, oppose any foe, to insure the survival and the success of liberty." Privately, outgoing President Eisenhower tells him "I recall you're going to have to send troops..." to Southeast Asia.

The youthful Kennedy administration is inexperienced in matters regarding Southeast Asia. Kennedy'southward Secretary of Defense, 44-year-onetime Robert McNamara, along with civilian planners recruited from the bookish community, volition play a crucial role in deciding White Firm strategy for Vietnam over the next several years. Under their leadership, the U.s.a. will wage a limited war to force a political settlement.

Nonetheless, the U.S. will be opposed by an enemy defended to total military machine victory "...whatever the sacrifices, however long the struggle...until Vietnam is fully contained and reunified," as stated by Ho Chi Minh.

May 1961 - Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson visits President Diem in South Vietnam and hails the embattled leader as the 'Winston Churchill of Asia.'

May 1961 - President Kennedy sends 400 American Greenish Beret 'Special Advisors' to South Vietnam to train S Vietnamese soldiers in methods of 'counter-insurgency' in the fight against Viet Cong guerrillas.

The role of the Light-green Berets soon expands to include the establishment of Civilian Irregular Defense Groups (CIDG) made up of fierce mount men known equally the Montagnards. These groups establish a series of fortified camps strung out along the mountains to thwart infiltration by N Vietnamese.

Fall - The conflict widens as 26,000 Viet Cong launch several successful attacks on Southward Vietnamese troops. Diem then requests more than military aid from the Kennedy assistants.

October 1961 - To become a first-hand look at the deteriorating war machine state of affairs, meridian Kennedy aides, Maxwell Taylor and Walt Rostow, visit Vietnam. "If Vietnam goes, it will be exceedingly difficult to hold Southeast Asia," Taylor reports to the President and advises Kennedy to expand the number of U.S. war machine advisors and to transport 8000 combat soldiers.

Defence force Secretary McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommend instead a massive testify of force by sending six divisions (200,000 men) to Vietnam. However, the President decides against sending whatsoever combat troops.

October 24, 1961 - On the sixth anniversary of the Republic of South Vietnam, President Kennedy sends a letter to President Diem and pledges "the United States is determined to help Vietnam preserve its independence..."

President Kennedy so sends boosted armed services advisors along with American helicopter units to send and directly South Vietnamese troops in battle, thus involving Americans in combat operations. Kennedy justifies the expanding U.S. military office as a means "...to prevent a Communist takeover of Vietnam which is in accordance with a policy our authorities has followed since 1954." The number of military advisors sent by Kennedy will eventually surpass xvi,000.

December 1961 - Viet Cong guerrillas at present control much of the countryside in South Vietnam and frequently ambush Southward Vietnamese troops. The cost to America of maintaining South Vietnam's sagging 200,000 human being regular army and managing the overall disharmonize in Vietnam rises to a one thousand thousand dollars per day.

1962

Jan xi, 1962 - During his Land of the Union address, President Kennedy states, "Few generations in all of history accept been granted the role of being the great defender of freedom in its maximum 60 minutes of danger. This is our good fortune..."

January 15, 1962 - During a printing conference, President Kennedy is asked if any Americans in Vietnam are engaged in the fighting. "No," the President responds without further comment.

Feb 6, 1962 - MACV, the U.S. Military Assist Command for Vietnam, is formed. Information technology replaces MAAG-Vietnam, the War machine Aid Advisory Group which had been established in 1950.

February 27, 1962 - The presidential palace in Saigon is bombed past two renegade South Vietnamese pilots flying American-made Globe War II era fighter planes. President Diem and his brother Nhu escape unharmed. Diem attributes his survival to "divine protection."

March 1962 - Operation Sunrise begins the Strategic Hamlet resettlement program in which scattered rural populations in South Vietnam are uprooted from their ancestral farmlands and resettled into fortified villages defended by local militias. However, over fifty of the hamlets and are soon infiltrated and easily taken over by Viet Cong who impale or intimidate village leaders.

Every bit a issue, Diem orders bombing raids against suspected Viet Cong-controlled hamlets. The air strikes by the South Vietnamese Air Forcefulness are supported past U.S. pilots, who too acquit some of the bombings. Civilian causalities erode popular support for Diem and upshot in growing peasant hostility toward America, which is largely blamed for the unpopular resettlement program also every bit the bombings.

May 1962 - Viet Cong organize themselves into battalion-sized units operating in cardinal Vietnam.

May 1962 - Defense Secretary McNamara visits South Vietnam and reports "we are winning the war."

July 23, 1962 - The Annunciation on the Neutrality of Laos signed in Geneva past the U.South. and 13 other nations, prohibits U.Due south. invasion of portions of the Ho Chi Minh trail inside eastern Laos.

August ane, 1962 - President Kennedy signs the Foreign Assistance Act of 1962 which provides "...military assist to countries which are on the rim of the Communist world and under straight attack."

August 1962 - A U.S. Special Forces campsite is gear up at Khe Sanh to monitor North Vietnamese Ground forces (NVA) infiltration down the Ho Chi Minh trail.

1963

January 3, 1963 - A Viet Cong victory in the Battle of Ap Bac makes front end page news in America as 350 Viet Cong fighters defeat a large force of American-equipped Due south Vietnamese troops attempting to seize a radio transmitter. Three American helicopter crew members are killed.

The South Vietnamese Regular army is run by officers personally chosen by President Diem, not for their competence, but for their loyalty to him. Diem has instructed his officers to avoid causalities. Their primary mission, he has told them, is to protect him from any coups in Saigon.

May 1963 - Buddhists anarchism in Due south Vietnam subsequently they are denied the right to display religious flags during their celebration of Buddha's birthday. In Hue, South Vietnamese police force and regular army troops shoot at Buddhist demonstrators, resulting in the deaths of one woman and eight children.

Political pressure at present mounts on the Kennedy administration to disassociate itself from Diem's repressive, family-run regime. "Y'all are responsible for the present problem considering you lot back Diem and his government of ignoramuses," a leading Buddhist tells U.Southward. officials in Saigon.

June-Baronial - Buddhist demonstrations spread. Several Buddhist monks publicly burn themselves to death as an act of protest. The immolations are captured on film by news photographers and shock the American public equally well equally President Kennedy.

Diem responds to the deepening unrest by imposing martial law. Southward Vietnamese special forces, originally trained past the U.S. and now controlled past Diem's younger blood brother Nhu wage trigger-happy crackdowns against Buddhist sanctuaries in Saigon, Hue and other cities.

Nhu's crackdowns spark widespread anti-Diem demonstrations. Meanwhile, during an American Idiot box interview, Nhu's wife, the flamboyant Madame Nhu, coldly refers to the Buddhist immolations as a 'barbecue.' Equally the overall situation worsens, high level talks at the White House focus on the need to force Diem to reform.

July 4, 1963 - South Vietnamese General Tran Van Don, a Buddhist, contacts the CIA in Saigon about the possibility of staging a coup against Diem.

August 22, 1963 - The new U.S. ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge arrives in South Vietnam.

August 24, 1963 - A U.Southward. Country Department bulletin sent to Ambassador Lodge is interpreted by Lodge to indicate he should encourage the military coup against President Diem.

August 26, 1963 - Administrator Gild meets President Diem for the starting time time. Under instructions from President Kennedy, Lodge tells Diem to fire his brother, the much-hated Nhu, and to reform his authorities. But Diem arrogantly refuses fifty-fifty to discuss such matters with Lodge.

August 26, 1963 - President Kennedy and top aides begin three days of heated discussions over whether the U.Southward. should in fact support the armed services insurrection against Diem.

August 29, 1963 - Lodge sends a message to Washington stating "...there is no possibility, in my view, that the war can be won under a Diem administration." President Kennedy and so gives Lodge a free hand to manage the unfolding events in Saigon. However, the coup against Diem fizzles due to mistrust and suspicion within the ranks of the military conspirators.

September two, 1963 - During a Tv set news interview with Walter Cronkite, President Kennedy describes Diem as "out of touch with the people" and adds that Due south Vietnam's government might regain popular support "with changes in policy and perhaps in personnel."

As well during the interview, Kennedy comments on America'due south commitment to Vietnam "If we withdrew from Vietnam, the Communists would command Vietnam. Pretty soon, Thailand, Kingdom of cambodia, Laos, Malaya, would go..."

October 2, 1963 - President Kennedy sends Administrator Social club a mixed messaged that "no initiative should now be taken to give whatever encouragement to a coup" just that Lodge should "place and build contacts with possible leadership every bit and when information technology appears."

October 5, 1963 - Lodge informs President Kennedy that the coup against Diem appears to exist on again.

The rebel generals, led past Duong Van "Large" Minh, get-go enquire for assurances that U.South. assist to Southward Vietnam will keep after Diem's removal and that the U.S. will non interfere with the actual coup. This scenario suits the White House well, in that the generals will appear to interim on their own without whatever straight U.S. involvement. President Kennedy gives his approving. The CIA in Saigon and so signals the conspirators that the U.s.a. volition not interfere with the overthrow of President Diem.

October 25, 1963 - Prompted by concerns over public relations fallout if the coup fails, a worried White House seeks reassurances from Ambassador Gild that the coup will succeed.

October 28, 1963 - Administrator Social club reports a insurrection is "imminent."

October 29, 1963 - An increasingly nervous White House now instructs Order to postpone the coup. Lodge responds information technology can but exist stopped past betraying the conspirators to Diem.

November i, 1963 - Order has a routine meeting with Diem from 10 a.yard. until apex at the presidential palace, then departs. At 1:30 p.k., during the traditional siesta time, the insurrection begins equally mutinous troops roar into Saigon, surround the presidential palace, and also seize police force headquarters. Diem and his brother Nhu are trapped inside the palace and reject all appeals to give up. Diem telephones the insubordinate generals and attempts, only fails, to talk them out of the coup. Diem and then calls Lodge and asks "...what is the attitude of the U.s.a.?" Order responds "...it is four thirty a.m. in Washington, and the U.S. government cannot perhaps have a view." Gild then expresses concern for Diem's rubber, to which Diem responds "I am trying to restore order."

At eight p.one thousand., Diem and Nhu slip out of the presidential palace unnoticed and go to a safe firm in the suburbs that belongs to a wealthy Chinese merchant.

November two, 1963 - At 3 a.chiliad., one of Diem's aides betrays his location to the generals. The hunt for Diem and Nhu now begins. At half dozen a.thousand., Diem telephones the generals. Realizing the situation is hopeless, Diem and Nhu offering to surrender from within a Cosmic church building. Diem and Nhu are then taken into custody by insubordinate officers and placed in the back of an armored personnel carrier. While traveling to Saigon, the vehicle stops and Diem and Nhu are assassinated.

At the White House, a meeting is interrupted with the news of Diem's death. According to witnesses, President Kennedy'south face turns a ghostly shade of white and he immediately leaves the room. Subsequently, the President records in his private diary, "I feel that we must comport a good bargain of responsibility for it."

Saigon celebrates the downfall of Diem's regime. Only the coup results in a power vacuum in which a series of military and civilian governments seize control of South Vietnam, a country that becomes totally dependent on the Us for its existence. Viet Cong use the unstable political state of affairs to increase their hold over the rural population of Due south Vietnam to nearly 40 percent.

Nov 22, 1963 - President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas. Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as the 36th U.Southward. President. He is the fourth President coping with Vietnam and will oversee massive escalation of the war while utilizing many of the same policy advisors who served Kennedy.

Nov 24, 1963 - President Johnson declares he will not "lose Vietnam" during a meeting with Ambassador Lodge in Washington.

By year's end, there are 16,300 American military advisors in South Vietnam which received $500 million in U.S. assist during 1963.

1964

January 30, 1964 - Full general Minh is ousted from power in a bloodless coup led past General Nguyen Khanh who becomes the new leader of S Vietnam.

March 1964 - Secret U.S.-backed bombing raids begin against the Ho Chi Minh trail within Laos, conducted past mercenaries flying onetime American fighter planes.

March 6, 1964 - Defense Secretary McNamara visits South Vietnam and states that Gen. Khanh "has our admiration, our respect and our complete support..." and adds that, "Nosotros'll stay for every bit long as it takes. We shall provide any help is required to win the battle against the Communist insurgents."

Post-obit his visit, McNamara advises President Johnson to increment military aid to shore up the sagging South Vietnamese regular army. McNamara and other Johnson policy makers now go focused on the need to prevent a Communist victory in South Vietnam, believing it would damage the credibility of the U.S. globally. The war in Vietnam thus becomes a test of U.Southward. resolve in fighting Communism with America'southward prestige and President Johnson'due south reputation on the line.

The toll to America of maintaining South Vietnam'south army and managing the overall conflict in Vietnam at present rises to two one thousand thousand dollars per twenty-four hour period.

March 17, 1964 - The U.South. National Security Council recommends the bombing of North Vietnam. President Johnson approves only the planning phase by the Pentagon.

May - President Johnson'south aides begin work on a Congressional resolution supporting the President's state of war policy in Vietnam. The resolution is shelved temporarily due to lack of support in the Senate, but will later on exist used as the basis of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.

Summer - As 56,000 Viet Cong spread their successful guerrilla war throughout S Vietnam, they are reinforced past Northward Vietnamese Army (NVA) regulars pouring in via the Ho Chi Minh trail.

Responding to this escalation, President Johnson approves Operation Programme 34A, CIA-run covert operations using South Vietnamese commandos in speed boats to harass radar sites along the coastline of Northward Vietnam. The raids are supported by U.S. Navy warships in the Gulf of Tonkin including the destroyer U.S.Due south. Maddox which conducts electronic surveillance to pinpoint the radar locations.

July 1, 1964 - General Maxwell D. Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is appointed by President Johnson as the new U.South. ambassador to South Vietnam. During his one year tenure, Taylor will take to deal with 5 successive governments in politically unstable Due south Vietnam.

President Johnson besides appoints Lt. Gen William C. Westmoreland to exist the new U.South. military commander in Vietnam. Westmoreland is a West Point graduate and a highly busy veteran of World War Two and Korea.

July 16-17 - Senator Barry Goldwater is chosen as the Republican nominee for president at the Republican National Convention in San Francisco. During his acceptance spoken communication Goldwater declares, "Extremism in the defense force of liberty is no vice."

Goldwater is an arch conservative and virulent anti-Communist whose campaign rhetoric will impact coming White House decisions concerning Vietnam. Above all, Johnson's aides practise not want the President to appear to be 'soft on Communism' and thus risk losing the November presidential election. But at the same time, they also want the President to avoid being labeled a 'state of war monger' apropos Vietnam.

July 31, 1964 - In the Gulf of Tonkin, as office of Operation Plan 34A, South Vietnamese commandos in unmarked speed boats raid two Northward Vietnamese armed forces bases located on islands just off the coast. In the vicinity is the destroyer U.Due south.S. Maddox.

Baronial ii, 1964 - Three North Vietnamese patrol boats attack the American destroyer The statesS. Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin ten miles off the coast of Northward Vietnam. They burn down three torpedoes and motorcar-guns, simply but a unmarried machine-gun round actually strikes the Maddox with no causalities. U.S. Navy fighters from the carrier Ticonderoga, led by Commander James Stockdale, set on the patrol boats, sinking i and dissentious the other two.

At the White Business firm, it is Sunday morning time (twelve hours behind Vietnam time). President Johnson, reacting cautiously to reports of the incident, decides against retaliation. Instead, he sends a diplomatic message to Hanoi alert of "grave consequences" from any farther "unprovoked" attacks. Johnson and then orders the Maddox to resume operations in the Gulf of Tonkin in the same vicinity where the attack had occurred. Meanwhile, the Joints Chiefs of Staff put U.South. combat troops on alert and likewise select targets in N Vietnam for a possible bombing raid, should the need arise.

Baronial 3, 1964 - The Maddox, joined past a 2d destroyer U.Southward.South. C. Turner Joy begin a series of vigorous zigzags in the Gulf of Tonkin sailing to inside viii miles of North Vietnam'southward coast, while at the same fourth dimension, Southward Vietnamese commandos in speed boats harass Due north Vietnamese defenses along the coastline. By nightfall, thunderstorms roll in, affecting the accurateness of electronic instruments on the destroyers. Crew members reading their instruments believe they take come under torpedo attack from Northward Vietnamese patrol boats. Both destroyers open fire on numerous apparent targets just in that location are no actual sightings of any attacking boats.

August four, 1964 - Although immediate doubts arise concerning the validity of the second attack, the Articulation Chiefs of Staff strongly recommend a retaliatory bombing raid against North Vietnam.

Printing reports in America profoundly embellish the second assault with spectacular eyewitness accounts although no journalists had been on board the destroyers.

At the White House, President Johnson decides to retaliate. Thus, the beginning bombing of North Vietnam by the United States occurs as oil facilities and naval targets are attacked without alarm by 64 U.S. Navy fighter bombers. "Our response for the present volition exist limited and fitting," President Johnson tells Americans during a midnight TV appearance, an 60 minutes after the assail began. "We Americans know, although others announced to forget, the adventure of spreading conflict. We notwithstanding seek no wider state of war."

Two Navy jets are shot down during the bombing raids, resulting in the first American prisoner of war, Lt. Everett Alvarez of San Jose, California, who is taken to an internment center in Hanoi, later dubbed the "Hanoi Hilton" by the well-nigh 6 hundred American airmen who become POWs.

August 5, 1964 - Opinion polls point 85 percentage of Americans support President Johnson's bombing decision. Numerous newspaper editorials as well come out in back up of the President.

Johnson's aides, including Defense Secretarial assistant McNamara, now lobby Congress to pass a White House resolution that will give the President a gratis hand in Vietnam.

August half-dozen, 1964 - During a meeting in the Senate, McNamara is confronted by Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon who had been tipped off by someone in the Pentagon that the Maddox had in fact been involved in the South Vietnamese commando raids against North Vietnam and thus was not the victim of an "unprovoked" attack. McNamara responds that the U.South. Navy "...played absolutely no part in, was not associated with, was not aware of, any South Vietnamese actions, if there were whatever..."

Baronial 7, 1964 - In response to the ii incidents involving the Maddox and Turner Joy, the U.S. Congress, at the bidding of President Johnson, overwhelmingly passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution put forward past the White House allowing the President "to accept all necessary steps, including the use of armed force" to foreclose further attacks against U.Southward. forces. The Resolution, passed unanimously in the House and 98-2 in the Senate, grants enormous power to President Johnson to wage an undeclared war in Vietnam from the White House.

The just Senators voting confronting the Resolution are Wayne Morse, and Ernest Gruening of Alaska who said "all Vietnam is non worth the life of a single American boy."

Baronial 21, 1964 - In Saigon, students and Buddhist militants begin a series of escalating protests against Full general Khanh's military government. As a outcome, Khanh resigns as sole leader in favor of a triumvirate that includes himself, Gen. Minh and Gen. Khiem. The streets of Saigon presently atomize into chaos and mob violence amid the government's gross instability.

August 26, 1964 - President Johnson is nominated at the Democratic National Convention.

During his campaign he declares "Nosotros are not most to send American boys nine or ten k miles away from domicile to practice what Asian boys ought to exist doing for themselves."

September 7, 1964 - President Johnson assembles his top aides at the White House to ponder the futurity course of activeness in Vietnam.

September thirteen, 1964 - Two disgruntled S Vietnamese generals phase an unsuccessful insurrection in Saigon.

October xiv, 1964 - Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev is ousted from power, replaced by Leonid Brezhnev as leader of the United statesSouthward.R.

Oct 16, 1964 - Communist china tests its first Diminutive Flop. China, by this time, has also massed troops along its border with Vietnam, responding to U.Due south. escalation.

November ane, 1964 - The outset set on past Viet Cong against Americans in Vietnam occurs at Bien Hoa air base, 12 miles north of Saigon. A pre-dawn mortar assault kills five Americans, two South Vietnamese, and wounds most a hundred others. President Johnson dismisses all recommendations for a retaliatory air strike against North Vietnam.

November 3, 1964 - With 61 percent of the pop vote, Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson is re-elected as President of the United States in a land-slide victory, the biggest to engagement in U.S. history, defeating Republican Barry Goldwater by 16 million votes. The Democrats as well achieve big majorities in both the U.S. Business firm and Senate.

December 1964 - 10,000 NVA soldiers get in in the Cardinal Highlands of South Vietnam via the Ho Chi Minh trail, conveying sophisticated weapons provided by Communist china and the Soviet Matrimony. They shore up Viet Cong battalions with the weapons and as well provide experienced soldiers as leaders.

December one, 1964 - At the White House, President Johnson'south top aides, including Secretarial assistant of State Dean Rusk, National Security Counselor McGeorge Bundy, and Defense Secretary McNamara, recommend a policy of gradual escalation of U.S. war machine involvement in Vietnam.

December xx, 1964 - Another military insurrection occurs in Saigon by the S Vietnamese army. This fourth dimension Gen. Khanh and immature officers, led by Nguyen Cao Ky and Nguyen Van Thieu, oust older generals including Gen. Minh from the government and seize control.

December 21, 1964 - An angry Ambassador Taylor summons the immature officers to the U.S. embassy then scolds them similar schoolboys over the continuing instability and endless intrigues plaguing South Vietnam'southward government. Americans, he had already warned them, are "tired of coups."

Taylor's behavior greatly offends the young officers. Gen. Khanh retaliates past lashing out in the press against Taylor and the U.South., stating that America is reverting to "colonialism" in its treatment of South Vietnam.

Dec 24, 1964 - Viet Cong terrorists set off a car bomb explosion at the Brinks Hotel, an American officers' residence in downtown Saigon. The bomb is timed to detonate at v:45 p.g., during 'happy hour' in the bar. Two Americans are killed and 58 wounded. President Johnson dismisses all recommendations for a retaliatory air strike against Northward Vietnam.

By year'due south stop, the number of American military advisors in Southward Vietnam is 23,000. In that location are at present an estimated 170,000 Viet Cong/NVA fighters in the 'People'south Revolutionary Army' which has begun waging coordinated battalion-sized attacks against South Vietnamese troops in villages around Saigon.

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