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1941
Communist activist Ho Chi Minh secretly returns to Vietnam after 30 years in exile and organizes a nationalist organization known as the Viet Minh (Vietnam Independence League). After Japanese troops occupy Vietnam during World War II, the U.S. military intelligence agency Office of Strategic Services (OSS) allies with Ho Chi Minh and his Viet Minh guerrillas to harass Japanese troops in the jungles and to help rescue downed American pilots. -
1946
The Truman Doctrine is issued, promising U.S. support for armed opposition to communists across the globe. -
Period: to
1946- 1954
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu was the decisive engagement in the first Indochina War. After French forces occupied the Dien Bien Phu valley in late 1953, Viet Minh commander Vo Nguyen Giap amassed troops and placed heavy artillery in caves of the mountains overlooking the French camp. Helped by Chinese aid, Giap mounted assaults on the opposition’s strong points beginning in March 1954, eliminating use of the French airfield. -
Early 1950's
The domino theory was a Cold War policy that suggested a communist government in one nation would quickly lead to communist takeovers in neighboring states, each falling like a perfectly aligned row of dominos. In Southeast Asia, the U.S. government used the now-discredited domino theory to justify its involvement in the Vietnam War and its support for a non-communist dictator in South Vietnam. -
June 1950
The Korean War begins in June with a devastating attack by the Communist North on South Korea. -
November 1950
In November, as U.S. forces approach the North Korean border with China, the Chinese Army enters the war and forces U.S. troops into full retreat -
March 1951
Communists from Thailand, Laos, and North Vietnam meet. As a result an agreement is reached where the Vietminh are allowed to use areas in Laos along the border with Vietnam for the staging of equipment and men in their war against the French. During the later American war this will become part of the “Ho Chi Minh” Trail. -
1954 (Geneva Accrods)
Following intensive negotiations, beginning in 1954, the day after the fall of the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu, agreements were finally signed on July 21 between the French and Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian representatives. -
1954 (Geneva Accrods) Part 2
The principal provisions were for a cease-fire line along the 17th parallel (effectively dividing Vietnam in two); 300 days for each side to withdraw its troops to its side of the line; and communist troops and guerrillas to evacuate Laos and Cambodia, where free elections would be held in 1955 and where French troops could be stationed if the Laotian or Cambodian governments should so request. -
March 1964
Lyndon Johnson, though, was in a position to deal with, rather than pontificate about, the situation in South Vietnam. He sought to deter China’s ambitions and secure the American objective of creating a non-Communist country in that part of the world -
March 6, 1964
France recognizes the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as a free state within the Indochinese Federation and French Union. Rejecting this as a phony independence the Viet Minh initiate the eight-year First Indochina War in December with attacks on French troops in the North.
