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china becomes a communist nation
Mao Zedong had taken power in China -
Period: to
15 most important events
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Quote from President Eisenhower
"You have a row of dominoes set up; you knock over the first one and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly." This domino theory was essentially the foundation of American policy in Vietnam for the next two decades. -
the U.S. became involved gradually
when President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent military advisers to train and arm the South Vietnamese Army in its fight against the Communists. -
President John F. Kennedy took office
he too saw Vietnam as a place to prove America's anti-communist resolve. "Now we have a problem in making our power credible, and Vietnam is the place," he said in a speech that year. -
Kennedy was assassinated
the number of American military advisers in Vietnam had risen from fewer thatn 700 to 16,000 , and the fighting had intensified. -
An American destroyer was attacked of the coast of North Vietnam
President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. It gave the President authority to "take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression." -
A War Fought on TV
Full-scale military intervention began with the arrival in Da Nang of the first U.S. combat troops. Johnson's war policy intiially enjoyed overwhelming popular support, and by the end of the year, more than 200,000 U.S. troops were in Vietnam--a number that would rise by the end of the decade to more than half a million. -
First Mass Anti-war movement
20,000 people in Washington, took place, and the protests grew in size and militancy. -
the war was going well and heading toward victory.
As Walt Rostow, Johnson's National Security Adviser, put it in 1967:"I see the light at the end of the tunnel." -
Vietnamiztion
president nixion succeeded johnson decided to extricate the U.S. from Vietnam. he and Kissinger began the process of Vietnamiztion: turning the fighting over to South Vietnamese troops, while withdrawing U.S. forces, whose numbers fell to 220,000 by the end of 1970 -
Paris Peace Accords
called for an end to fighting and for all foreign troops to be withdrawn from vietnam. -
Quote by Media Scholar Marshall McLuhan
"Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America but not on the Battlefields of Vietnam." -
The Fall of Saigon
The last helicopter lifted off the roof of the American embassy in Saigon on this morning. carrying evacuees to nearby U.S. warships, about 400 people--mostly South Vietnamese--were still waiting at the embassy, desparte to escape