When did the United States officially pull out of Vietnam?
History of the United States (1964–1980)
The growing Watergate scandal was a major disaster for Nixon, eroding his political support in public opinion and in Washington. However he did manage to secure large-scale funding for South Vietnam, much of which was wasted. The United States withdrew its troops from Vietnam before the Paris Peace Accords in 1973. However, Watergate resulted in significant Democrat gains in the 1974 midterm elections and when the new 94th Congress convened the following January, it immediately voted to terminate all aid to South Vietnam in addition to passing a bill forbidding all further US military intervention in Southeast Asia. President Ford was against this, but as Congress had a veto-proof majority, he was forced to accept. South Vietnam rapidly collapsed as the North invaded it in force, and Saigon fell to the NVA on April 30, 1975. Later nearly one million Vietnamese managed to flee to the U.S. as refugees. The impact on the U.S. was muted, with few political recriminations, but it did leave a "Vietnam Syndrome" that cautioned against further military interventions anywhere else. Nixon (and his next two successors Ford and Carter) had dropped the containment policy and were not willing to intervene anywhere.
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (), also known as the Second Indochina War, and in Vietnam as the Resistance War Against America () or simply the American War, was a conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975, with U.S. involvement ending in 1973. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and the government of South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese army was supported by the Soviet Union, China, and other communist allies; the South Vietnamese army was supported by the United States, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, Thailand and other anti-communist allies. The war is considered a Cold War-era proxy war by some US perspectives. The war would last approximately 19 years and would also form the Laotian Civil War as well as the Cambodian Civil War, which resulted in all three countries becoming communist states in 1975.
Presidency of John F. Kennedy
By November 1963, there were 16,000 American military personnel in South Vietnam, up from Eisenhower's 900 advisors. In the aftermath of the aborted coup in September 1963, the Kennedy administration reevaluated its policies in South Vietnam. Kennedy rejected both the full-scale deployment of ground soldiers, but also rejected the total withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country. Historians disagree on whether the U.S. military presence in Vietnam would have escalated had Kennedy survived and been re-elected in 1964. Fueling the debate are statements made by Secretary of Defense McNamara in the film "The Fog of War" that Kennedy was strongly considering pulling out of Vietnam after the 1964 election. The film also contains a tape recording of Lyndon Johnson stating that Kennedy was planning to withdraw, a position that Johnson disagreed with. Kennedy had signed National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 263, dated October 11, which ordered the withdrawal of 1,000 military personnel by the end of the year. Such an action would have been a policy reversal, but Kennedy was moving in a less hawkish direction since his acclaimed speech about world peace at American University on June 10, 1963.
United States assistance to Vietnam
Washington and Hanoi gradually began to normalize relations in the early 1990s, following Vietnam's withdrawal from Cambodia and improvements in Hanoi's cooperation on the issue of American prisoners of war (POWs) and missing-in-action (MIA) personnel in Vietnam. Economic assistance was resumed in 1991, when the administration of George H. W. Bush announced plans to send $1.3 million to fit disabled Vietnamese with artificial limbs.19 The announcement came days after Washington and Hanoi agreed to open an office in Vietnam to resolve outstanding MIA cases. In subsequent years, annual aid flows were generally small and limited to disaster assistance and humanitarian programs—such as prosthetics and aid to orphans—to ameliorate the effects of the war.
United States assistance to Vietnam
For much of the Cold War, aid to North Vietnam and most other communist
countries was prohibited. (Aid was prohibited under section 620(f) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, among
other statutes.) The United States provided significant military and
economic assistance to its ally, South Vietnam, particularly after the U.S. became
overtly involved in inter-Vietnamese hostilities in 1965. In 1973, following the
conclusion of a Paris Peace Agreement that brought an end to U.S. military
involvement in Vietnam, Congress began cutting Nixon Administration requests for
military and economic assistance to South Vietnam. President Richard Nixon's
pledge to provide reconstruction aid to North Vietnam also proved unpopular in
Congress, particularly after the collapse of the North-South cease-fire negotiated in
Paris.
Republic of Vietnam Navy
In early 1969, President Richard M. Nixon formally adopted the policy of "Vietnamization". The naval part, called ACTOV ("Accelerated Turnover to the Vietnamese"), involved the phased transfer to Vietnam of the U.S. river and coastal fleet, as well as operational command over various operations. In mid-1969, the VNN took sole responsibility for river assault operations when the U.S. Mobile Riverine Force stood down and transferred 64 riverine assault craft to the VNN. By the end of 1970, the U.S. Navy ceased all operations throughout South Vietnam, having transferred a total of 293 river patrol boats and 224 riverine assault craft to the VNN.
5th Special Forces Group (United States)
Fearing the growing threat of the Viet Cong insurgency to the South Vietnamese government, President John F. Kennedy began activating special forces units in anticipation of their insurgency combat expertise in 1961. The 5th Special Forces Group was among those units activated in 1961, and while attending training at the Special Warfare Center, Kennedy visited the units and personally approved the distinctive Special Force's Green Beret. The 5th SFG was first deployed as a battlefield advisory group for the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). By February 1965, it was deployed as a mainstay battle force once the war was in full swing. They used unconventional and conventional warfare, and were some of the last soldiers the United States pulled out of Vietnam.
Paris Peace Accords
However, as U.S. casualties had mounted throughout the conflict since 1965, American domestic support for the war had deteriorated, and by the fall of 1972 there was major pressure on the Nixon administration to withdraw from the war. Consequently, the U.S. brought great diplomatic pressure upon their South Vietnamese ally to sign the peace treaty even if the concessions Thiệu wanted could not be achieved. Nixon pledged to provide continued substantial aid to South Vietnam, and given his recent landslide victory in the presidential election, it seemed possible that he would be able to follow through on that pledge. To demonstrate his seriousness to Thiệu, Nixon ordered the heavy Operation Linebacker II bombings of North Vietnam in December 1972. Nixon also attempted to bolster South Vietnam's military forces by ordering that large quantities of U.S. military material and equipment be given to South Vietnam from May to December 1972 under Operations Enhance and Enhance Plus. These operations were also designed to keep North Vietnam at the negotiating table and to prevent them from abandoning negotiations and seeking total victory. When the North Vietnamese government agreed to resume "technical" discussions with the United States, Nixon ordered a halt to bombings north of the 20th parallel on December 30. With the U.S. committed to disengagement (and after threats from Nixon that South Vietnam would be abandoned if he did not agree), Thiệu had little choice but to accede.
Edmund Muskie
During 1967 the popular sentiment in the U.S. was anti-war, which prompted Muskie to visit Vietnam to inform his political stance in 1968. Prior to his visiting the country, he debated with a congressman on a pro-war platform. After the trip, he became a leading voice for the movement and entered into the ongoing debate by speaking at the year's Democratic Convention. His speech was followed by "tens of thousands of protestors surrounded the convention and violent clashes with police carried on for five days." He wrote to Johnson personally asserting his position on the Vietnam War. He made the case that the U.S. ought to withdraw from Vietnam as quickly as possible. Months later, he wrote to the president again urging him to end the bombing of North Vietnam. During the same year, he traveled with other Senators to the Republic of South Vietnam to validate their elections.
United States–Vietnam relations
Although Washington's advisory role was essentially political, United States policy makers determined that the effort to erect a non-communist state in Vietnam was vital to the security of the region and would be buttressed by military means, if necessary, to inhibit any would-be aggressor. Defending Vietnam's security against aggression from the North and from southern-based communist insurgency was a mission Washington initially perceived as requiring only combat support elements and advisers to South Vietnamese military units. The situation, however, rapidly deteriorated, and in 1965, at a time when increasing numbers of North Vietnamese-trained soldiers were moving in South Vietnam, the first increment of United States combat forces was introduced into the South and sustained bombing of military targets in North Vietnam was undertaken. Nearly eight more years of conflict occurred before the intense involvement of the United States ended in 1973.
Sigma war games
French President Charles de Gaulle called for the United States withdrawal from Vietnam in September 1966.
Role of the United States in the Vietnam War
In 1971 the U.S. authorized the ARVN to carry out an offensive operation aimed at cutting the Ho Chi Minh Trail in southeastern Laos. Besides attacking the PAVN logistical system (which would buy time for the U.S. withdrawal) the incursion would be a significant test of Vietnamization. Backed by U.S. air and artillery support (American troops were forbidden to enter Laos), the ARVN moved across the border along Route 9, utilizing the abandoned Marine outpost of Khe Sanh as a jumping-off point. At first, the incursion went well, but unlike the Cambodian operation of 1970, the PAVN decided to stand and fight, finally mustering around 60,000 men on the battlefield.
History of the United States Merchant Marine
During the Vietnam War, ships crewed by civilian seamen carried 95 percent of the supplies used by our Armed Forces. Many of these ships sailed into combat zones under fire. In fact, the SS "Mayaguez" incident involved the capture of mariners from the American merchant ship SS Mayaguez. The crisis began on May 12, 1975, when Khmer Rouge naval forces operating former U.S. Navy "Swift Boats" seized the American container ship SS "Mayagüez" in recognized international sea lanes claimed as territorial waters by Cambodia and removed its crew for questioning. Surveillance by P-3 Orion aircraft indicated that the ship was then moved to and anchored at Koh Tang, an island approximately off the southern coast of Cambodia near that country's shared border with Vietnam. Tragically, the ship's crew whose seizure had prompted the US attack had been released in good health, unknown to the US Marines or the US command of the operation, before the Marines attacked. The incident marked the last official battle of the United States involvement in the Vietnam War.
List of Polish-American Medal of Honor recipients
The Vietnam War was a military conflict between the Communist-supported Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the United States-supported Republic of Vietnam. It started in 1959 and concluded April 30, 1975 with the defeat and failure of the United States foreign policy in Vietnam.
1973 in the Vietnam War
The Case–Church Amendment approved by the U.S. Congress and signed into law prohibited further U.S. military activity in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia after 15 August 1973. This ended direct U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War, although the U.S. continued to provide military equipment and economic support to the South Vietnamese government.
National Security Action Memorandum 273
The immediate response of the U.S. government to its sudden realization that the political and military situation in South Vietnam was not good was to expand the U.S.'s role in the Vietnam War. NSAM 273 had defined the "central object" of the U.S. "to assist the people and Government [of South Vietnam] to win their contest against the externally directed and supported Communist conspiracy." Escalating the U.S. objectives, on January 22, 1964, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sent McNamara a memo declaring "victory" to be the U.S. objective and recommending that the U.S. "put aside many of the self-imposed restrictions which now limit our efforts and undertake bolder actions which may embody greater risks." On 30 January another "coup d'etat" in Saigon emphasized to the U.S. policy makers the instability of the South Vietnamese government. Disarray in Saigon was accompanied by policy wars in Washington between the Departments of State and Defense and within the Department of Defense. A series of decisions on Mar. 8, 1965 to escalate U.S. involvement in Vietnam was the end result.
Vietnam War
On 7 April, three North Vietnamese divisions attacked Xuân Lộc, 40 miles (64 km) east of Saigon. For two bloody weeks, severe fighting raged as the ARVN defenders made a last stand to try to block the North Vietnamese advance. On 21 April, however, the exhausted garrison was ordered to withdraw towards Saigon. An embittered and tearful president Thieu resigned on the same day, declaring that the United States had betrayed South Vietnam. In a scathing attack, he suggested U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had tricked him into signing the Paris peace agreement two years earlier, promising military aid that failed to materialize. Having transferred power to Trần Văn Hương, he left for Taiwan on 25 April.
United States–Vietnam relations
Within a few months of the Sixth National Party Congress, however, Hanoi began to send conflicting signals to Washington. In mid-1987 the Vietnamese government, having determined that cooperation had gained few concessions from the United States, reverted to its pre-1978 position linking the aid and MIA issues. The resumption of its hardline stand, however, was brief. A meeting between Vietnamese leaders and President Reagan's special envoy on MIAs, General John W. Vessey, in August 1987 yielded significant gains for both sides. In exchange for greater Vietnamese cooperation on resolving the MIA issue, the United States agreed officially to encourage charitable assistance for Vietnam. Although the agreement fell short of Hanoi's requests for economic aid or war reparations, it marked the first time that the United States had offered anything in return for Vietnamese assistance in accounting for the MIAs and was an important step toward an eventual reconciliation between the two countries.
United States news media and the Vietnam War
On 3 November 1969, President Richard M. Nixon made a televised speech laying out his policy toward Vietnam. He promised to continue to support the South Vietnamese government (through Vietnamization) and held out a plan for the withdrawal of American combat troops. This "silent majority" speech, not the Tet Offensive, marked the real watershed of the American involvement. In it, Nixon permanently altered the nature of the issue. "No longer was the question "whether" the United States was going to get out, but rather "how" and "how fast"." Nixon's policy toward the media was to reduce as far as possible the American public's interest in and knowledge of the war in Vietnam. He began by sharply limiting the press's access to information within Vietnam itself.
United States–Vietnam relations
United States–Vietnam relations refers to international relations between the United States of America and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. After a 20-year hiatus of severed ties, then-U.S. President Bill Clinton announced the formal normalization of diplomatic relations between the United States of America and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam on July 11, 1995. Subsequent to President Clinton's normalization announcement, in August 1995, both countries upgraded their Liaison Offices opened during January 1995 to Embassy status, with the United States later opening a consulate general in Ho Chi Minh City, while Vietnam opened a consulate in San Francisco, California.
USS Blue Ridge (LCC-19)
The final descent of the Republic of South Vietnam: 
"On the evening of 20 April, ... conducted a successful withdrawal from Xuan Loe, ... Overshadowing the military consequences of this withdrawal were the political consequences. ... The following day, President Thieu resigned ... Vice President Tran Van Huong. the president's constitutional successor, replaced Thieu. His term lasted a week. ... the National Assembly designated General Duong Van "Big" Minh to replace Tran Van Huong as President of the Republic of Vietnam.' ... On the evening of 28 April, with Saigon nearly surrounded, General Minh took the oath of office. ... within minutes of the ceremony, a flight of captured South Vietnamese A-37s bombed Tan Son Nhut. ... convinced the new leaders of the republic that they had but two choices: negotiate or capitulate. ... Ambassador Martin returned to the Embassy and made his decision ... and called Secretary of State Kissinger, he officially relinquished control of the evacuation of South Vietnam. In less than 20 minutes, it became a military operation. At 1051 29 April 1975, USSAG passed the word to execute Frequent Wind's Option IV. ... General Minh. ... told his soldiers to lay down their arms. On 30 ApriI 1975. the Republic of Vietnam ceased to exist. "
United States–Vietnam relations
In the United States, the issue of normalizing relations with Vietnam was complicated by Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia in December 1978, the continuing plight of Vietnamese refugees, and the unresolved MIA issue. In 1987, under President Ronald Reagan, the United States continued to enforce the trade embargo imposed on Hanoi in 1975 and barred normal ties as long as Vietnamese troops occupied Cambodia. Any efforts to improve relations remained closely tied to United States willingness to honor its 1973 aid commitment to Vietnam and to Hanoi's failure to account for the whereabouts of more than 2,400 MIAs in Indochina. From the signing of the Paris agreements in 1973 until mid-1978, the Vietnamese had routinely stressed the linkage between the aid and MIA issues. Beginning in mid-1978, however, Hanoi dropped its insistence that the MIA and aid questions be resolved as a precondition for normalization and stopped linking the MIA question to other unresolved matters between the two countries. Vietnamese leaders contrasted their restraint on the MIA issue with its alleged political exploitation by the United States as a condition for normal relations. As additional signs of goodwill, Hanoi permitted the joint United States-Vietnamese excavation of a B-52 crash site in 1985 and returned the remains of a number of United States servicemen between 1985 and 1987. Vietnamese spokesmen also claimed during this period to have a two-year plan to resolve the MIA question but failed to reveal details.
List of Puerto Ricans missing in action in the Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN, or North Vietnam) and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, or South Vietnam), which eventually involved their respective allies. In 1959, the United States sent military advisors to train the South Vietnamese Army. By 1965, there were 25,000 military advisors in South Vietnam.." The United States participation in the war continued to escalate until April 30, 1975 when the United States officially declared the war over. During the Vietnam War, an estimated 48,000 Puerto Ricans served in the four branches of the armed forces. Of a total of 345 Puerto Ricans who died in combat, 18 were listed as MIA's. They were all members of the Army with the exceptions of First Lieutenant Jose Hector Ortiz who was the only Puerto Rican MIA member of the United States Air Force and PFC Jose R. Sanchez who was a member of the United States Marine Corps. Of the 18 Puerto Rican MIA's, PFC. Humberto Acosta-Rosario is the only one whose body has never been recovered and is currently still listed as Missing In Action. Friendly forces captured documents from the Vietnam People's Army 7th Infantry Division dated August 23, 1968. The documents were analyzed by US intelligence agencies. The reports documented that Humberto Acosta-Rosario was in fact captured by NVA forces during the battle near the Ben Cui Rubber Plantation. However, the US military chose not to upgrade his status to Prisoner of War.
List of Medal of Honor recipients for the Vietnam War
The Vietnam War, (also known as the Second Indochina War, Vietnam Conflict, and in Vietnam as the American War), took place from 1955 to 1975. The war was fought between the Communist-supported Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the United States-supported Republic of Vietnam, beginning with the presence of a small number of US military advisors in 1955 and escalating into direct US involvement in a ground war in 1965. US combat forces were withdrawn in early 1973 pursuant to the Paris Peace Accords, but the war continued concluding with the Fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975.
South Vietnam
After promising not to do so during the 1964 election campaign, in 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson decided to send in much larger numbers of combat troops, and conflict steadily escalated. The NLF ceased to be an effective fighting organization after the Tet Offensive in 1968 and the war was largely taken over by regular army units of North Vietnam. Following American withdrawal from the war in 1973, the South Vietnamese government continued fighting until its unconditional surrender to the Viet Cong on 30 April 1975, the day of the surrender of Saigon. North Vietnam controlled South Vietnam under military occupation, while the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam, which had been proclaimed in June 1969 by the NLF, became the nominal government. The North Vietnamese quickly moved to marginalise non-communist members of the PRG and integrate South Vietnam into the communist North. The unified Socialist Republic of Vietnam was declared on 2 July 1976. The Embassy of the Republic of Vietnam in Washington donated 527 reels of South Vietnamese-produced film to the Library of Congress during the embassy's closure following the Fall of Saigon, which are in the Library to this day.
United States news media and the Vietnam War
Many Americans felt betrayed by the government for withholding or deliberately manipulating information about the progress of the war, and once they saw on their televisions and read in their newspapers firsthand a less optimistic version of the war than the government had painted, public pressure to withdraw American power from Vietnam mounted until the government yielded and began to withdraw troops under Nixon in July 1969 (though the last troops would not be withdrawn until 1973).
Additionally, a study authorized by the Trilateral Commission in 1975 to examine the "governability" of American democracy found that "the most notable new source of national power in 1970, as compared to 1950, was the national media," suggesting also that there was "considerable evidence to suggest that the development of television journalism contributed to the undermining of governmental authority." Although this report was commissioned on the heels of the messy conflict of the war itself, the sentiment that the development of new journalistic media such as television supplanted governmental authority in attaining the support of the American public during the Vietnam War has been accepted and upheld by many scholars through present day.
Operation Homecoming
On January 27, 1973, Henry Kissinger (then assistant to the President for national security affairs) agreed to a ceasefire with representatives of North Vietnam that provided for the withdrawal of American military forces from South Vietnam. The agreement also postulated for the release of nearly 600 American prisoners of war (POWs) held by North Vietnam and its allies within 60 days of the withdrawal of U.S. troops. The deal would come to be known as Operation Homecoming and was divided into three phases. The first phase required the initial reception of prisoners at three release sites: POWs held by the Viet Cong (VC) were to be flown by helicopter to Saigon, POWs held by the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) were released in Hanoi, and the three POWs held in China were to be freed in Hong Kong. The former prisoners were to then be flown to Clark Air Base in the Philippines where they were to be processed at a reception center, debriefed, and receive a physical examination. The final phase was the relocation of the POWs to military hospitals.
Case–Church Amendment
The Case–Church Amendment was legislation attached to a bill funding the U.S. State Department. it was approved by the U.S. Congress in June 1973 that prohibited further U.S. military activity in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia unless the president secured Congressional approval in advance. This ended direct U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War, although the U.S. continued to provide military equipment and economic support to the South Vietnamese government. It is named for its principal co-sponsors, Senators Clifford P. Case (R-NJ) and Frank Church (D-ID). The Amendment was defeated 48–42 in the U.S. Senate in August 1972, but revived after the 1972 election. It was reintroduced on January 26, 1973 and approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on May 13. When it became apparent that the Amendment would pass, President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, lobbied frantically to have the deadline extended. However, under pressure from the extreme scrutiny of Watergate, Republicans relented on support for Vietnam and the amendment passed the United States Congress in June 1973 by a margin of 325–86 in the House, 73–16 in the Senate. Both of these margins for the amendment's passage were greater than the two-thirds majority required to override a presidential veto, and Nixon signed it on July 1, 1973. Although U.S. forces had been withdrawn from South Vietnam earlier pursuant to the Paris Peace Accords, air support and monetary support for Cambodia and Laos continued until August 15, 1973, the deadline set by the Amendment.
20th-century events
The second war, the Vietnam War, was perhaps the second most visible war of the 20th century, after World War II. After the French withdrawal from its former colony, on 21 July 1954, Vietnam became partitioned into two halves, much like Korea, along the 17th parallel. Fighting between North and South eventually escalated into a regional war.The United States provided aid to South Vietnam and contributed to propaganda efforts against the North, but was not directly involved until the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, passed in reaction to a supposed North Vietnamese attack upon American destroyers, brought the U.S. into the war as a belligerent. The war was initially viewed as a fight to contain communism (see containment, Truman Doctrine, and Domino Theory), but, as more Americans were drafted and news of events such as the Tet Offensive and My Lai massacre leaked out, American sentiment turned against the war. U.S. President Richard Nixon was elected partially on claims of a "secret plan" to stop the war. This Nixon Doctrine involved a gradual pullout of American forces; South Vietnamese units were supposed to replace them, backed up by American air power. The plan went awry, with Nixon deliberately sabotaging peace talks for political gain, and the war spilled into neighboring Cambodia while South Vietnamese forces were pushed further back. Eventually, the U.S. and North Vietnam signed the Paris Peace Accords, ending U.S. involvement in the war. With the threat of U.S. retaliation gone, the North proceeded to violate the ceasefire and invaded the South with full military force. Saigon was captured on April 30, 1975, and Vietnam was unified under Communist rule a year later, effectively bringing an end to one of the most unpopular wars of all time.
Charles McMahon and Darwin Judge
For over 40 years the first American serviceman who died in Vietnam was in controversy. Richard B. Fitzgibbon Jr.'s death in June 1956 was deemed to have taken place before the start of the Vietnam War. However, the family of Fitzgibbon had long lobbied to have the start date changed and their cause was taken up by U.S. Representative Ed Markey (D-MA). After a high level review by the DoD and through the efforts of Fitzgibbon's family, the start date of the Vietnam war was changed to November 1, 1955. The November 1955 date was chosen as the new start date because that was when the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG), Vietnam was separated out from MAAG, Indochina in a reorganization into the different countries that the deployments were stationed. With this new date Fitzgibbon became the first person to die in the Vietnam War, Fitzgibbon's name was added to the Vietnam Memorial Wall in 1999. The former first two official casualties were U.S. Army major Dale R. Buis and Master Sergeant Chester Charles Ovnand who were killed on July 8, 1959.
Role of the United States in the Vietnam War
By 1969 the policy of non-alignment and neutrality had worn thin for Prince Sihanouk, ruler of Cambodia. Pressures from the right in Cambodia caused the prince to begin a shift away from the pro-left position he had assumed in 1965–1966. He began to make overtures for normalized relations with the U.S. and created a Government of National Salvation with the assistance of the pro-American General Lon Nol. Seeing a shift in the prince's position, President Nixon ordered the launching of a top-secret bombing campaign, targeted at the PAVN/NLF Base Areas and sanctuaries along Cambodia's eastern border.
On March 18, 1970, Sihanouk, who was out of the country on a state visit, was deposed by a vote of the National Assembly and replaced by General Lon Nol. Cambodia's ports were immediately closed to North Vietnamese military supplies, and the government demanded that PAVN/NLF forces be removed from the border areas within 72 hours. On March 29, 1970, the Vietnamese had taken matters into their own hands and launched an offensive against the Cambodian army. A force of North Vietnamese quickly overran large parts of eastern Cambodia reaching to within of Phnom Penh allowing their allies, the Chinese-supported Khmer Rouge to extend their power. Nixon ordered a military incursion into Cambodia by U.S. and ARVN troops in order to both destroy PAVN/NLF sanctuaries bordering South Vietnam and to buy time for the U.S. withdrawal. During the Cambodian Campaign, U.S. and ARVN forces discovered and removed or destroyed a huge logistical and intelligence haul in Cambodia.
Cold War (1962–1979)
The U.S. pulled its troops out of Vietnam in 1973, and the conflict finally ended in 1975 when the North Vietnamese took Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City. The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities (see Vietnam War casualties). 195,000–430,000 South Vietnamese civilians died in the war. 50,000–65,000 North Vietnamese civilians died in the war. The Army of the Republic of Vietnam lost between 171,331 and 220,357 men during the war. The official US Department of Defense figure was 950,765 communist forces killed in Vietnam from 1965 to 1974. Defense Department officials concluded that these body-count figures need to be deflated by 30 percent. In addition, Guenter Lewy assumes that one-third of the reported "enemy" killed may have been civilians, concluding that the actual number of deaths of communist military forces was probably closer to 444,000. Between 200,000 and 300,000 Cambodians, about 35,000 Laotians, and 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict.
Vietnam War in film
After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, there was an increase in American films that were more "raw", containing actual battle footage. A FilmReference.com article noted that American filmmakers "appeared more confident to put Vietnam combat on screen for the first time" during that era. These American post-war film representations have generally been more realistic and , such as "The Deer Hunter" (1978) and "Apocalypse Now" (1979).
United States Marine Corps
The Marine Corps served in the Vietnam War taking part in such battles as the Battle of Hue and the Battle of Khe Sanh in 1968. Individuals from the USMC generally operated in the Northern I Corps Regions of South Vietnam. While there, they were constantly engaged in a guerrilla war against the Viet Cong, along with an intermittent conventional war against the North Vietnamese Army (NVA). Portions of the Corps were responsible for the less-known Combined Action Program (CAP) that implemented unconventional techniques for counter-insurgency and worked as military advisers to the Republic of Vietnam Marine Corps. Marines were withdrawn in 1971, and returned briefly in 1975 to evacuate Saigon and attempt a rescue of the crew of the Mayagüez.
United States assistance to Vietnam
In the early months of his administration, President Jimmy Carter (1977–1981) and the communist regime in Hanoi attempted to negotiate the outlines of a normalization agreement that would include U.S. assistance. The negotiations stalled, however, when the Vietnamese responded that they would neither agree to establish relations nor furnish information on U.S. POW/MIAs until the United States pledged to provide several billion dollars in postwar reconstruction aid.
Simultaneously, Congress objected to Carter's moves by reinforcing existing prohibitions on aid to Vietnam. Normalization efforts ultimately were thwarted in 1978 by Vietnam's decision to align with the Soviet Union, its invasion of Cambodia, and its expulsion of nearly half a million ethnic Chinese who then became
refugees in Southeast Asia.
Tactical Air Command
On 27 January 1973, the Paris Peace Accords were signed with an effective date of 28 January 1973. For TAC, the war in Southeast Asia (SEA) was almost over. With the official end of hostilities came the long-awaited release of American Prisoners of War from inside North Vietnam. The last USAF aircraft left South Vietnam at the end of January 1973, and the final group of American Prisoners of War were released from North Vietnam on 29 March 1973.
1975 in the Vietnam War
1975 marked the end of the Vietnam War, sometimes called the Second Indochina War or the American War. The North Vietnamese army (PAVN) launched the Spring Offensive in March, the South Vietnamese army (ARVN) was quickly defeated. The communist North Vietnamese captured Saigon on April 30, accepting the surrender of South Vietnam. In the final days of the war, the United States, which had supported South Vietnam for many years, carried out an emergency evacuation of its civilian and military personnel and more than 130,000 Vietnamese.
Operation Babylift
Operation Babylift was the name given to the mass evacuation of children from South Vietnam to the United States and other countries (including Australia, France, West Germany, and Canada) at the end of the Vietnam War (see also the Fall of Saigon), on April 3–26, 1975. By the final American flight out of South Vietnam, over 3,300 infants and children had been evacuated, although the actual number has been variously reported. Along with Operation New Life, over 110,000 refugees were evacuated from South Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War. Thousands of children were airlifted from Vietnam and adopted by families around the world.
Embassy of the United States, Saigon
In 1995, the U.S. and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam formally established relations and the embassy grounds and building were handed back to the United States. The former embassy was subsequently demolished in 1998 and is currently a park inside of the U.S. Consulate General's compound in what is now called Ho Chi Minh City.
Foreign relations of Vietnam
Vietnam did not begin to emerge from international isolation until it withdrew its troops from Cambodia in 1989. Within months of the 1991 Paris Agreements, Vietnam established diplomatic and economic relations with Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states and also with most countries of Western Europe and Asia's Far East. China re-established full diplomatic ties with Vietnam in 1991. The two nations concluded a land border demarcation agreement in 1999. In 1995, the US and Vietnam re-established diplomatic ties.
History of Vietnam since 1945
Soon after the Paris Agreement on Cambodia resolved the conflict in October 1991, however, Vietnam established or reestablished diplomatic and economic relations with most of Western Europe, and several Asian countries. In February 1994, the United States lifted its economic embargo against Vietnam, and in June 1995, the United States and Vietnam normalized relations. In June 2005, a high-level Vietnamese delegation, led by Prime Minister Phan Văn Khải, visited the United States and met with their U.S. counterparts, including President George W. Bush. This was the first such visit in 30 years. Although the visit mostly went well, a few embarrassing events occurred such as the White House's official website (www.whitehouse.gov) accidentally depicting the flag of South Vietnam in its official announcement of the visit. This provoked dismay and hostile comments from the Vietnamese government until the White House officially apologized and corrected the webpage. In addition, a crowd of hostile protesters gathered outside the White House during Phan's meeting with President Bush denouncing the Vietnamese Communist Party and waving South Vietnamese flags.
Operation Keystone Eagle
Following from the policy of Vietnamization, U.S. President Richard Nixon sought to reduce U.S. forces in South Vietnam. After a visit to South Vietnam in March 1969, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird recommended that planning begin for the withdrawal of 50-70,000 U.S. troops in 1969 with further withdrawals in 1970. MACV began planning for the withdrawal of 50,000 troops or approximately 2 Divisions plus support units in late 1969. In late May the Joint Chiefs of Staff presented Laird with a plan for the phased withdrawal of 244,000 of the total 549,000 U.S. personnel in South Vietnam with the withdrawal of 50,000 troops in late 1969 comprising 1 Marine Division and 1 Army Division. Laird forwarded the plan to Nixon in early June with the recommendation that 20-25,000 troops be withdrawn starting in July. MACV had determined that the first units to be withdrawn would be the 3rd Marine Division and the 9th Infantry Division. On 8 June, Nixon met South Vietnamese President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu on Midway Island and Nixon convinced Thiệu to accept the fact of U.S. force reductions, following the meeting Nixon announced the beginning of unilateral U.S. troop withdrawals.
Foreign policy of the John F. Kennedy administration
At the time of Kennedy's death, no final policy decision had been made as to Vietnam. In 2008, Theodore Sorensen wrote: "I would like to believe that Kennedy would have found a way to withdraw all American instructors and advisors [from Vietnam]. But... I do not believe he knew in his last weeks what he was going to do." Sorensen added that, in his opinion, Vietnam "was the only foreign policy problem handed off by JFK to his successor in no better, and possibly worse, shape than it was when he inherited it." U.S. involvement in the region escalated until his successor Lyndon Johnson directly deployed regular U.S. military forces for fighting the Vietnam War. After Kennedy's assassination, President Johnson signed NSAM 273 on November 26, 1963. It reversed Kennedy's decision to withdraw 1,000 troops, and reaffirmed the policy of assistance to the South Vietnamese.
United States–Vietnam relations
The U.S. embargo on Vietnam was eventually lifted in February 1994. Formal normalization of U.S.-Vietnam diplomatic relations took place in 1995, followed by booming trade volumes between the two countries in the subsequent years.
War in Vietnam (1959–1963)
While the visible guerilla incidents increased gradually, the key policy decisions by the North were made in 1959. Early in this period, there was a greater degree of conflict in Laos than in South Vietnam. US combat involvement was, at first, greater in Laos, but the activity of advisors, and increasingly US direct support to South Vietnamese soldiers, increased, under US military authority, in late 1959 and early 1960. Communications intercepts in 1959, for example, confirmed the start of the Ho Chi Minh trail and other preparation for large-scale fighting. North Vietnam declared its public support for communist insurgents in South Vietnam. The communist forces in South Vietnam established the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (Viet Cong). At the same time, the United States helped the South Vietnamese regime conduct its war strategy. Despite this assistance, the communist forces still won on the battlefield, fighting several large campaigns next to the big cities. Diệm was unable to take control of political crisis and was overthrown by the Council of Revolutionary Military (some documents of both sides suggest that it was the United States which had given the green light for this coup). After several years of chaos, the Ngô Đình Diệm government came to an end in 1963 and South Vietnam then fell into management crisis.
Marxism–Leninism
The Vietnam War (1945–1975) was the second East–West war that occurred in Asia during the Cold War. After the Vietnamese Communists led by Ho Chi Minh defeated the French re-establishment of European colonialism in Viet Nam, the United States replaced France as the Western support of the client-state Republic of Vietnam (1955–1975). Despite military superiority, the United States failed to safeguard South Vietnam from the Viet Cong, the guerrilla army sponsored by North Vietnam. In 1968, North Vietnam launched the Tet Offensive. Although a military failure, the attack was successful psychological warfare that decisively turned international public opinion against the United States intervention to the Vietnamese civil war and five years later eventual United States withdrawal from the war in 1973 and the subsequent Fall of Saigon to the Vietnamese Communists forces in 1975.
Military history of Vietnam
The North Vietnamese invasion of Laos begun in 1958 as a mixed result of boundary disputes and the Hanoi Regime's desire to control the Ho Chi Minh-path. The invasion was a success, and North Vietnam secured control over important parts of Laos.The Vietnam War started when North Vietnam and the Viet Cong attacked South Vietnam, seeking to reunite the country by force. This led to an American intervention, which lasted until 1973, when they withdrew their forces from Vietnam following a peace treaty. The war went on, and in 1975 North Vietnam emerged victorious.
National Security Action Memorandum 263
Many historians, Kennedy acolytes, and celebrities, such as movie director Oliver Stone, have claimed that the withdrawal of 1,000 U.S. soldiers from Vietnam was the beginning of Kennedy's plan to withdraw completely from South Vietnam after he gained re-election in 1964 and cited NSAM-263 as evidence for that plan. Others, including Pulitzer Prize winning historian Frederik Logevall, have said that "NSAM 263 hardly represented the kind of far-reaching policy initiative that the incipient-withdrawal proponents suggest. It was but one part of a larger 'selective pressures' policy designed to push the Diem regime into greater effectiveness." Logevall concluded that "The great preponderance of the evidence...would appear to refute any notion that John Kennedy had decided to withdraw from Vietnam." However, Logevall goes on to speculate that Kennedy, because of his character and personality, might have considered, at a later date, a unilateral withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam.
National Day (Vietnam)
The Japanese occupied Vietnam during World War II but allowed the French to remain and exert some influence. At the war's end in August 1945, a power vacuum was created in Vietnam. Capitalizing on this, the Việt Minh launched the "August Revolution" across the country to seize government offices. Emperor Bảo Đại abdicated on 25 August 1945, ending the Nguyễn dynasty. On 2 September 1945, at Ba Đình Square, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Viet Minh, declared Vietnam's independence under the new name of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN) in a speech that invoked the United States Declaration of Independence and the French Revolution's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
Role of the United States in the Vietnam War
On January 15, 1973, citing progress in peace negotiations, Nixon announced the suspension of all offensive actions against North Vietnam, to be followed by a unilateral withdrawal of all U.S. troops. The Paris Peace Accords on "Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam" were signed on January 27, officially ending direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.
Vietnamese boat people
The Vietnam War ended on April 30, 1975 with the fall of Saigon to the North Vietnamese Army and the subsequent evacuation of more than 130,000 Vietnamese closely associated with the United States or the former government of South Vietnam. Most of the evacuees were resettled in the United States in Operation New Life and Operation New Arrivals. Within the same year, the countries of Cambodia and Laos also fell to communist forces, thus engendering a steady flow of refugees fleeing all three countries.
National Security Action Memorandum 273
The withdrawal of almost 1,000 U.S. military personnel from South Vietnam took place, albeit described by the Pentagon Papers as an "accounting exercise." The number of soldiers in South Vietnam was 16,752 in October and on December 31, 1963, was 15,894.
Presidents Kennedy and Johnson had made decisions on the Vietnam War based on optimistic reports from the American Embassy and MACV in Saigon and from frequent assessment missions by U.S. policy makers. (The dissenters included some lower-level employees in the Department of State, CIA, the U.S. military, and U.S. journalists in South Vietnam.) The ink was barely dry on NSAM 273 when those optimistic assessments turned pessimistic. With dissention increasing among U.S. policy makers (Ambassador Lodge vs General Harkins in Saigon; Presidential advisor General Maxwell D. Taylor vs other military leaders in Washington) and reports of Viet Cong successes, Johnson sent Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Taylor back to Vietnam for another assessment. McNamara's report of December 20, 1963, was far more pessimistic that his previous assessments. He said, "The situation is very disturbing. Current trends, unless reversed in the next 2–3 months, will lead to neutralization at best and most likely to a Communist-controlled state." McNamara also criticized the ineffectiveness of the new South Vietnamese government, formed after the assassination of President Diem.
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
The administration of President Richard Nixon, which took office in January 1969, initially opposed repeal, warning of "consequences for Southeast Asia [that] go beyond the war in Vietnam". In 1970 the administration began to shift its stance. It asserted that its conduct of operations in Southeast Asia was based not on the resolution but was a constitutional exercise of the President's authority, as Commander in Chief of U.S. military forces, to take necessary steps to protect American troops as they were gradually withdrawn (the U.S. had begun withdrawing its forces from Vietnam in 1969 under a policy known as "Vietnamization").
People's Peace Treaty
1. The Americans agree to the immediate and total withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Vietnam. 
2. The Vietnamese pledge that, as soon as the U.S. government publicly sets a date for total withdrawal, they will enter discussions to secure the release of all American prisoners, including pilots captured while bombing North Vietnam. 
3. There will be an immediate cease-fire between U.S. forces and those led by the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam. 
4. They will enter discussions on the procedures to guarantee the safety of all withdrawing troops. 
5. The Americans pledge to end the imposition of Thieu-Ky-Khiem on the people of South Vietnam in
order to insure their right to self-determination and so that all political prisoners can be released. 
6. The Vietnamese pledge to form a provisional coalition government to organize democratic elections. All parties agree to respect the results of elections in which all South Vietnamese can participate freely without the presence of any foreign troops. 
7. The South Vietnamese pledge to enter discussions of procedures to guarantee the safety and political freedom of those South Vietnamese who have collaborated with the U.S. or with the U.S.-supported regime. 
8. The Americans and Vietnamese agree to respect the independence, peace and neutrality of Laos and Cambodia in accord with the 1954 and 1962 Geneva conventions, and not to interfere in the internal affairs of these two countries.
9. Upon these points of agreement, we pledge to end the war and resolve all other questions in the spirit of self-determination and mutual respect for the independence and political freedom of the people of Vietnam and the United States.
Role of the United States in the Vietnam War
The U.S. countered with a buildup of American airpower to support ARVN defensive operations and to conduct Operation Linebacker, the first offensive bombing of North Vietnam since "Rolling Thunder" had been terminated in 1968. The PAVN attacks against Huế, An Lộc, and Kon Tum were contained and the ARVN launched a counteroffensive in May to retake the lost northern provinces. On September 10, the South Vietnamese flag once again flew over the ruins of the Citadel of Quảng Trị City, but the ARVN offensive then ran out of steam, conceding the rest of the occupied territory to the North Vietnamese. South Vietnam had countered the heaviest attack since Tet, but it was very evident that it was totally dependent on U.S. airpower for its survival. Meanwhile, the withdrawal of American troops, who numbered less than 100,000 at the beginning of the year, was continued as scheduled. By June only six infantry battalions remained. On August 12, the last American ground combat division left the country. However, the U.S. continued to operate the base At Long Binh. Combat patrols continued there until November 11 when the U.S. handed over the base to the South Vietnamese. After this, only 24,000 American troops remained in Vietnam and President Nixon announced that they would stay there until all U.S. POW's were freed.
Operation Lancaster II
Convinced that the war could not be won on acceptable terms, from early 1969 President Richard Nixon began a gradual withdrawal of U.S. ground forces began as part of "Vietnamization", which aimed to end American involvement in the war while transferring the task of fighting the communists to the South Vietnamese. This policy , despite its successful execution, was ultimately a failure as the improved ARVN forces, and the reduced American and allied component, were unable to prevent the fall of Saigon and the subsequent merger of the north and south, to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
History of the United States Army
The Vietnam War is often regarded as a low point in the Army's record due to the extensive use of drafted enlisted personnel versus mobilization of Army Reserve and Army National Guard personnel, the unpopularity of the war with the American public, and frustrating restrictions placed on the Army by U.S. political leaders (i.e., no invasion of communist-held North Vietnam). While American forces had been stationed in the Republic of Vietnam since 1959, in intelligence and advisory/training roles, they did not deploy in large numbers until 1965, after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. American forces effectively established and maintained control of the "traditional" battlefield, however they struggled to counter the guerrilla hit and run tactics of the communist Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. On a tactical level, American soldiers (and the U.S. military as a whole) did not lose a sizable battle. For instance in the Tet Offensive in 1968, the U.S. Army turned a large scale attack by communist forces into a massive defeat of the Viet Cong on the battlefield (though at the time the offensive sapped the political will of the American public) which permanently weakened the guerrilla force. Thereafter, most large scale engagements were fought with the regular North Vietnamese Army. In 1973 domestic political opposition to the war finally forced a U.S. withdrawal. In 1975, Vietnam was unified under a communist government.
VMM-164
A detachment from the squadron participated in the evacuation of Americans from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on April 12, 1975, as part of Operation Eagle Pull. On April 30, 1975, an HMM-164 CH-46D crew lifted the last Americans out of Vietnam when they picked up the Marine combined security force during Operation Frequent Wind.
Presidency of Richard Nixon
After years of fighting, the Paris Peace Accords were signed at the beginning of 1973. The agreement implemented a cease fire and allowed for the withdrawal of remaining American troops; however, it did not require the 160,000 North Vietnam Army regulars located in the South to withdraw. By March 1973, U.S. military forced had been withdrawn from Vietnam. Once American combat support ended, there was a brief truce, but fighting quickly broke out again, as both South Vietnam and North Vietnam violated the truce. Congress effectively ended any possibility of another American military intervention by passing the War Powers Resolution over Nixon's veto. Congress also prohibited further bombing of Cambodia in August 1973.
Vietnam War
Schlesinger announced early in the morning of 29 April 1975 the evacuation from Saigon by helicopter of the last U.S. diplomatic, military, and civilian personnel. Frequent Wind was arguably the largest helicopter evacuation in history. It began on 29 April, in an atmosphere of desperation, as hysterical crowds of Vietnamese vied for limited space. Martin pleaded with Washington to dispatch $700 million in emergency aid to bolster the regime and help it mobilize fresh military reserves, but American public opinion had soured on the conflict.
Paris Agreement
On August 4, 2017, the Trump administration delivered an official notice to the United Nations that the U.S. intends to withdraw from the Paris Agreement as soon as it is legally eligible to do so. The formal notice of withdrawal cannot be submitted until the agreement is in force for 3 years for the US, in 2019. In accordance with Article 28, as the agreement entered into force in the United States on 4 November 2016, the earliest possible effective withdrawal date for the United States is 4 November 2019. If it chooses to withdraw by way of withdrawing from the UNFCCC, notice could be given immediately (the UNFCCC entered into force for the US in 1994), and be effective one year later.
List of ambassadors of the United States to Vietnam
The United States Ambassador to Vietnam (Vietnamese: "Đại sứ Hoa Kỳ tại Việt Nam") is the chief American diplomat to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. After the First Indochina War and the defeat of the French domination over Vietnam, the country was split into North and South Vietnam at the Geneva Conference of 1954. The United States did not recognize North Vietnam and thus had no diplomatic relations with the country. After the reunification of Vietnam in 1976, there followed a period of 20 years in which the United States had no diplomatic relations with Vietnam.
Jerry Daniels
The Paris Peace Accords in 1973 ended U.S. direct involvement in the Vietnam War and restrictions on U.S. military aid imposed by the Lao government doomed the Hmong. The American presence in Long Tieng declined. In April 1975, the United States rapidly began airlifting Americans and Vietnamese employees out of South Vietnam prior to the fall of Saigon to Communist forces. In Laos at the same time, communist forces were poised to capture Long Tieng. Daniels was the only American still working full-time at Long Tieng and he organized the evacuation of Hmong from Laos to Thailand May 12–14, 1975. Daniels and several American civilian pilots evacuated Vang Pao and 2,500 Hmong leaders and their families from Laos to northeastern Thailand where they were placed in hastily created refugee camps.
USS Coral Sea (CV-43)
The Paris Peace Accords, ending hostilities in Vietnam, were signed on 27 January 1973, ending four years of talks. North Vietnam released nearly 600 American prisoners by 1 April 1973, and the last U.S. combat troops departed Vietnam on 11 August 1973. However, the war was not over for the Vietnamese. By spring 1975, the North was advancing on the South. "Coral Sea", , "Hancock", , and responded on 19 April 1975 to the waters off South Vietnam when North Vietnam overran two-thirds of South Vietnam. On 29–30 April 1975, Operation Frequent Wind was carried out by Seventh Fleet forces. Hundreds of U.S. personnel and Vietnamese were evacuated from Saigon to the ships of the Seventh Fleet lying off Vũng Tàu. South Vietnam surrendered to the North on 30 April 1975.
Operation End Sweep
Operation End Sweep was a United States Navy and United States Marine Corps operation to remove naval mines from Haiphong harbor and other coastal and inland waterways in North Vietnam between February and July 1973. The operation fulfilled an American obligation under the Paris Peace Accord of January 1973, which ended direct American participation in the Vietnam War. It also was the first operational deployment of a U.S. Navy air mine countermeasures capability.
USS Vancouver (LPD-2)
On 20 October, "Vancouver" began a new phase in her participation in the Vietnam War. Operation Defiant Stand had been the last amphibious operation of the war. On the heels of President of the United States Richard Nixon's announcement of the staged withdrawal of large numbers of American troops from the war, the amphibious ready group began carrying out the withdrawal. On 20 October, "Vancouver" moved from Da Nang to Cửa Việt Base and began loading elements of BLT 1/4. She completed Operation Keystone Cardinal on 22 October and set course for Okinawa the following day. She disembarked the Marines at Okinawa on 25 and 26 October but remained at the island for liberty until 2 November. After embarking BLT 1/9, she headed for Subic Bay where she disembarked the marines on 4 November.
History of Vietnam since 1945
Although the Tết Offensive was a catastrophic military defeat for the Việt Cộng, it was a stunning political victory as it led many Americans to view the war as unwinnable. U.S. President Richard Nixon entered office with a pledge to end the war "with honor." He normalized US relations with China in 1972 and entered into détente with the USSR. Nixon thus forged a new strategy to deal with the Communist Bloc, taking advantage of the rift between China and the Soviet Union. A costly war in Vietnam begun to appear less effective for the cause of Communist containment. Nixon proposed "Vietnamization" of the war, with South Vietnamese troops taking charge of the fighting, yet still receiving American aid and, if necessary, air and naval support. The new strategy started to show some effects: in 1970, troops from the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) successfully conducted raids against North Vietnamese bases in Cambodia (Cambodian Campaign); in 1971, the ARVN made an incursion into Southern Laos to cut off the Ho Chi Minh trail in Operation Lam Son 719, but the operation failed as most high positions captured by ARVN forces were recaptured by North Vietnamese artillery; in 1972, the ARVN successfully held the town of An Lộc against massive attacks from North Vietnamese regulars and recaptured the town of Quảng Trị near the demilitarised zone (DMZ) in the center of the country during the Easter Offensive.
1975 Spring Offensive
At 4:58 a.m on 30 April, U.S. Ambassador Martin boarded a helicopter and departed from the US Embassy, Saigon on one of the last American evacuation flights. At 07:53 the last U.S. Marines were lifted from the roof of the U.S. Embassy. At 10:24 a.m. President Minh ordered all South Vietnamese forces to cease fighting. Later Minh would be escorted to a radio station, from which he declared the unconditional surrender of his government. Around noon, a PAVN tank, number 390, crashed through the gates of the Independence Palace. A crewman from the 843, which rammed into the side gate and got stuck, jumped out, ran up the steps, carrying the flag of the Provisional Revolutionary Government. A Western reporter on the scene asked the soldier his name and the man replied, "Nguyễn Văn Thiệu."
Brown-water navy
On December 18, 1965, for the first time since the American Civil War, the United States Navy formalized its new, brown-water navy in Vietnam. Initially, the brown-water navy patrolled the inland waterways of the Mekong River, primarily with South Vietnamese river craft (RAG—River Assault Groups) boats, which were mostly inherited from the French Navy during the previous war and in turn, had been received from the U.S., as military aid, in the French fight against the Viet Minh, the Communist-led Vietnamese alliance. As the new fiberglass Patrol Boat, River using water jet propulsion, became available, it became the main interdiction vessel for patrolling the Vietnamese Mekong River country.
National Security Action Memorandum 263
NSAM-263 has served as an important source for many authors who have claimed that President Kennedy planned to withdraw U.S. military forces from Vietnam and would have completed the withdrawal after achieving reelection in 1964.
Role of the United States in the Vietnam War
Operation "Rolling Thunder" was the code name given to a sustained strategic bombing campaign targeted against the North by aircraft of the U.S. Air Force and Navy that was inaugurated on March 2, 1965. Its original purpose was to bolster the morale of the South Vietnamese and to serve as a signaling device to Hanoi. U.S. airpower would act as a method of "strategic persuasion", deterring the North Vietnamese politically by the fear of continued or increased bombardment. "Rolling Thunder" gradually escalated in intensity, with aircraft striking only carefully selected targets. When that did not work, its goals were altered to destroying North Vietnam's will to fight by destroying the nation's industrial base, transportation network, and its (continually increasing) air defenses. After more than a million sorties were flown and three-quarters of a million tons of bombs were dropped, "Rolling Thunder" was ended on November 11, 1968.
South Vietnam
During the hours leading up to the surrender, the United States undertook a massive evacuation of its embassy in Saigon, Operation Frequent Wind. The evacuees included US government personnel as well as high-ranking members of the ARVN and other South Vietnamese who were seen as potential targets for persecution by the Communists. Many of the evacuees were taken directly by helicopter to multiple aircraft carriers waiting off the coast. An iconic image of the evacuation is the widely seen footage of empty Huey helicopters being jettisoned over the side of the carriers, to provide more room on the ship's deck for more evacuees to land. The evacuation was forced to stop by the US Navy. All the Marines and diplomats were evacuated, but thousands of South Vietnamese citizens waited in vain at the US embassy compound, and one block away at the former USAID and CIA office space in the Pittman Apartment House on 22 Gia Long Street atop the roof for helicopters that never came.
Vietnam War
U.S. President Richard Nixon began troop withdrawals in 1969. His plan, called the Nixon Doctrine, was to build up the ARVN, so it could take over the defense of South Vietnam. The policy became known as "Vietnamization". Theater commander Creighton Abrams shifted to smaller operations, aimed at disrupting logistics, with better use of firepower and more cooperation with the ARVN. On 27 October 1969, Nixon had ordered a squadron of 18 B-52s loaded with nuclear weapons to race to the border of Soviet airspace to convince the Soviet Union, in accord with the madman theory, that he was capable of anything to end the Vietnam War ("Operation Giant Lance"). Nixon had also sought détente with the Soviet Union and rapprochement with China, which decreased global tensions and led to nuclear arms reduction on the part of both superpowers; however, there was disappointment when both sides continued to supply the North Vietnamese with aid.
1956 in the Vietnam War
France completed its military withdrawal from Vietnam. The United States expanded the number of its military advisers in South Vietnam. The first American killed in the Vietnam War died June 8 at the hand of another American soldier.
Sino-Vietnamese War
The United States played an ever-increasing role in supporting South Vietnam through the period. The U.S. had supported French forces in the First Indochina War, sent supplies and military advisers to South Vietnam throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, and eventually took over most of the fighting against both North Vietnam and the Viet Cong by the mid-1960s. By 1968, over 500,000 American troops were involved in the Vietnam War. Due to a lack of clear military success and facing increasingly strident opposition to the war in the U.S., American forces began a slow withdrawal in 1969 while attempting to bolster South Vietnam's military so that they could take over the fighting. In accordance with the Paris Peace Accords by 29 March 1973 all U.S. combat forces had left South Vietnam, however North Vietnamese combat forces were allowed to remain in place. North Vietnam attacked South Vietnam in early 1975 and South Vietnam fell on 30 April 1975.
History of North America
During this time the United States became involved in the Vietnam War as part of the global Cold War. This war would later prove to be highly divisive in American society, and American troops were withdrawn from Indochina in 1975 with the Khmer Rouge's capture of Phnom Penh in April 17, the Vietnam People's Army's capture of Saigon in April 30 and the Pathet Lao's capture of Vientiane in December 2.
Yen Ngoc Do
By this time, the U.S. military had become firmly ensconced in Vietnam. The French war had turned into the American war. Like the French, the Americans, too, would be defeated. Indeed, on April 30, 1975, the communist North Vietnamese Army defeated the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). Saigon fell to communist control. Americans were evacuating everywhere—the photographs of them jumping into and clinging onto helicopters as they took off from the rooftop of the American Embassy are unforgettable.
John S. McCain Jr.
During the Vietnam War, McCain was Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC), commander of all U.S. forces in the Vietnam theater from 1968 to 1972. He was a stalwart supporter of President Richard Nixon's policy of Vietnamization. McCain played a significant role in the militarization of U.S. policy towards Cambodia, helping to convince Nixon to launch the 1970 Cambodian Incursion and establishing a personal relationship with Cambodian leader Lon Nol. McCain was also a proponent of the 1971 incursion into Laos. McCain retired from the Navy in 1972.
Timeline of United States military operations
1975: Evacuation from Vietnam: Operation Frequent Wind, On April 3, 1975, President Ford reported U.S. naval vessels, helicopters, and Marines had been sent to assist in evacuation of refugees and US nationals from Vietnam.
Vietnam War
High-profile opposition to the Vietnam War increasingly turned to mass protests in an effort to shift U.S. public opinion. Riots broke out at the 1968 Democratic National Convention during protests against the war. After news reports of American military abuses, such as the 1968 My Lai Massacre, brought new attention and support to the anti-war movement, some veterans joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War. On 15 October 1969, the Vietnam Moratorium attracted millions of Americans. The fatal shooting of four students at Kent State University in 1970 led to nationwide university protests. Anti-war protests declined with the final withdrawal of troops after the Paris Peace Accords in 1973.
Peace with Honor
"Peace with Honor" was a phrase U.S. President Richard M. Nixon used in a speech on January 23, 1973 to describe the Paris Peace Accord to end the Vietnam War. The phrase is a variation on a campaign promise Nixon made in 1968: "I pledge to you that we shall have an honorable end to the war in Vietnam." The treaty specified that a ceasefire would take place four days later. According to the plan, within sixty days of the ceasefire, the North Vietnamese would release all U.S. prisoners, and all U.S. troops would withdraw from South Vietnam. On March 29, 1973, the last U.S. soldier left Vietnam. On 30 April 1975, Saigon fell to North Vietnamese troops.
While Nixon's campaign used the phrase, as a rhetorical trope it has a very long pedigree of use by politicians as can be seen by the list below.
1954 in the Vietnam War
17 April
Vice President of the U.S. Richard M. Nixon said at a press conference: "the United States as a leader of the free world cannot afford further retreat from Asia...If the French withdrew [from Vietnam], the United States might have to take the risk now by putting our own boys in."
Howard Zinn
Zinn wrote one of the earliest books calling for the U.S. withdrawal from its war in Vietnam. "Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal" was published by Beacon Press in 1967 based on his articles in "Commonweal", "The Nation," and "Ramparts". In the opinion of Noam Chomsky, "The Logic of Withdrawal" was Zinn's most important book:"He was the first person to say—loudly, publicly, very persuasively—that this simply has to stop; we should get out, period, no conditions; we have no right to be there; it's an act of aggression; pull out. It was so surprising at the time that there wasn't even a review of the book. In fact, he asked me if I would review it in "Ramparts" just so that people would know about the book."
Military history of the United States
The U.S. framed the war as part of its policy of containment of Communism in south Asia, but American forces were frustrated by an inability to engage the enemy in decisive battles, corruption and incompetence in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, and ever increasing protests at home. The Tet Offensive in 1968, although a major military defeat for the NLF with half their forces eliminated, marked the psychological turning point in the war. With President Richard M. Nixon opposed to containment and more interested in achieving détente with both the Soviet Union and China, American policy shifted to "Vietnamization," – providing very large supplies of arms and letting the Vietnamese fight it out themselves. After more than 57,000 dead and many more wounded, American forces withdrew in 1973 with no clear victory, and in 1975 South Vietnam was finally conquered by communist North Vietnam and unified.
United States Navy SEALs
By 1970, President Richard Nixon initiated a Plan of Vietnamization, which would remove the US from the Vietnam War and return the responsibility of defense back to the South Vietnamese. Conventional forces were being withdrawn; the last SEAL platoon left Vietnam on 7 December 1971, the last SEAL advisor, left Vietnam in March 1973. South Vietnam fell to North Vietnamese communist forces in April 1975. The SEALs were among the highest decorated units for their size in the war, receiving by 1974 one Medal of Honor, two Navy Crosses, 42 Silver stars, 402 Bronze Stars, two Legions of Merit, 352 Commendation Medals, and 51 Navy Achievement Medals Later awards would bring the total to three Medals of Honor and five Navy Crosses. SEAL Team One was awarded three Presidential Unit Citations and one Navy Unit Commendation ; SEAL Team Two received two Presidential Unit Citations. By the end of the war, 48 SEALs had been killed in Vietnam, but estimates of their kill count are as high as 2,000. The Navy SEAL Museum in Fort Pierce, Florida, displays a list of the 48 SEALs who lost their lives in combat during the Vietnam War.
Vietnam War
President Gerald Ford had given a televised speech on 23 April, declaring an end to the Vietnam War and all U.S. aid. Frequent Wind continued around the clock, as North Vietnamese tanks breached defenses on the outskirts of Saigon. In the early morning hours of 30 April, the last U.S. Marines evacuated the embassy by helicopter, as civilians swamped the perimeter and poured into the grounds. Many of them had been employed by the Americans and were left to their fate.
United States–Vietnam trade relations
After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, the U.S. and Vietnam maintained no economic relation in more than two decades. Washington extended President Richard Nixon’s 1964 trade embargo to all of Vietnam and all bilateral trade activities were prohibited. The Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administrations’ joint efforts to resolve the remains of U.S. servicemen missing in action (MIA) had set the foundation for the normalization of bilateral trade relations between the two nations during the Clinton Administration. On February 3, 1994, President Bill Clinton ordered the lifting of the U.S. trade embargo on Vietnam. Three years later, in 1997, Pete Peterson was appointed as the first U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam since 1975. The two governments signed the first bilateral trade agreement (BTA) on July 13, 2000.
Dương Văn Minh
PAVN columns advanced into the city center encountering very little resistance. Except in the Mekong Delta, where South Vietnamese military forces were still intact and aggressive, the South Vietnamese military had virtually ceased to exist. Just before 05:00 on 30 April, U.S. Ambassador Martin boarded a helicopter and departed and at 07:53 the last Marines were evacuated from the U.S. Embassy rooftop. At 10:24, being advised by General Nguyễn Hữu Hạnh, President Minh went on radio and ordered all South Vietnamese forces to cease fighting and later declared an unconditional surrender. He announced, "The Republic of Vietnam policy is the policy of peace and reconciliation, aimed at saving the blood of our people. We are here waiting for the Provisional Revolutionary Government to hand over the authority in order to stop useless bloodshed."
Cambodian–Vietnamese War
The end of the Cambodian conflict also brought an end to the ASEAN-imposed trade and aid embargo which had been in place since 1979. In January 1990, Thai Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhavan publicly voiced his support for Vietnam, and the rest of Indochina, to gain admission into ASEAN. In the period between late 1991 and early 1992, Vietnam restored relations with several member nations of ASEAN. As a result, between 1991 and 1994, investments from ASEAN countries made up 15 percent of direct foreign investment in Vietnam. Aside from the obvious economic benefits, ASEAN also provided a peaceful environment that guaranteed Vietnam's national security against foreign threats in the post-Cold War era, when Soviet aid was no longer available. Thus, on 28 July 1995, Vietnam officially became the seventh member of ASEAN, after leading ASEAN officials invited Vietnam to join at the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in Bangkok in 1994. Then, in August 1995, the U.S. Liaison Office in Hanoi was upgraded to Embassy status, after U.S. President Bill Clinton announced a formal normalisation of diplomatic relations with Vietnam on 11 July 1995, thereby ending Vietnam's isolation from the United States.
Role of the United States in the Vietnam War
The incursion also sparked large-scale demonstrations on and closures of American college campuses. The expansion of the conflict into Cambodia was seen as an expansion of the conflict into yet another country, nullifying Nixon's promises of de-escalating the war. During the ensuing protests, four students were killed and a score were wounded by Ohio National Guardsmen during a demonstration at Kent State University. Two other students were killed at Jackson State University in Mississippi. In an effort to lessen opposition to the U.S. commitment, Nixon announced on October 12 that the U.S. would withdraw 40,000 more troops from Vietnam before Christmas.
Army of the Republic of Vietnam
At the end of 1972, Operation Linebacker II helped achieve a negotiated end to the war between the U.S. and the Hanoi government. By 1974, the United States had completely pulled its troops out of Vietnam. The ARVN was left to fight alone, but with all the weapons and technologies that their allies left behind. With massive technological support they had roughly four times as many heavy weapons as their enemies. The U.S. left the ARVN with thousands of aircraft, although the B-52 strategic bombers were removed to the United States, making the South Vietnam Airforce the fourth largest air force in the world. These figures are deceptive, however, as the U.S. began to curtail military aid. The same situation happened to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, since their allies, the Soviet Union, and China has also cut down military support, forcing them to use obsolete T-34 tanks and SU-100 tank destroyers in battle.
Military history of the United States
The Vietnam War was a war fought between 1955 and 1975 on the ground in South Vietnam and bordering areas of Cambodia and Laos ("see" Secret War) and in the strategic bombing ("see" Operation Rolling Thunder) of North Vietnam. American advisors came in the late 1950s to help the RVN (Republic of Vietnam) combat Communist insurgents known as "Viet Cong." Major American military involvement began in 1964, after Congress provided President Lyndon B. Johnson with blanket approval for presidential use of force in the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
United States assistance to Vietnam
After the victory of communist North Vietnam over South Vietnam in April
1975, the United States ended virtually all bilateral economic interchange, including
foreign assistance, with unified Vietnam. (Prohibitions on assistance to Vietnam were included in P.L. 94-41, a continuing
appropriations resolution signed into law by President Gerald Ford in the summer of 1975.) The restrictions included a halt to bilateral humanitarian aid, opposition to financial aid from international financial
institutions (such as the World Bank), a ban on U.S. travel to Vietnam, and an
embargo on bilateral trade. President Gerald Ford linked the provision of economic
assistance to Hanoi's cooperation in returning and accounting for POWs and MIAs.
In the FY1977 foreign aid appropriations bill Congress prohibited the use of any
funds to provide assistance to Vietnam, a provision that was repeated annually until
its removal in 1994.
Embassy of the United States, Saigon
CH-46s evacuated the Battalion Landing Team by 07:00 and after an anxious wait a lone CH-46 "Swift 2-2" of HMM-164 arrived to evacuate Major Kean and the 10 remaining men of the Marine Security Guards, this last helicopter took off at 07:53 on 30 April and landed on at 09:30. At 11:30 PAVN tanks smashed through the gates of the Presidential Palace (now the Reunification Palace) and raised the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam (NLF) flag over the building; the Vietnam War was over.
James R. Schlesinger
The last phase of the Indochina conflict occurred during Schlesinger's tenure. Although all U.S. combat forces had left South Vietnam in the spring of 1973, the United States continued to maintain a military presence in other areas of Southeast Asia. Some senators criticized Schlesinger and questioned him sharply during his confirmation hearings in June 1973 after he stated that he would recommend resumption of U.S. bombing in North Vietnam and Laos if North Vietnam launched a major offensive against South Vietnam. However, when the North Vietnamese did begin an offensive early in 1975, the United States could do little to help the South Vietnamese, who collapsed completely as the North Vietnamese entered Saigon in late April. Schlesinger announced early in the morning of 29 April 1975 the evacuation from Saigon by helicopter of the last U.S. diplomatic, military, and civilian personnel.
Vietnam War
On 15 January 1973, all U.S. combat activities were suspended. Lê Đức Thọ and Henry Kissinger, along with the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG, the Viet Cong's government) Foreign Minister Nguyễn Thị Bình and a reluctant President Thiệu, signed the Paris Peace Accords on 27 January 1973. This officially ended direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, created a ceasefire between North Vietnam/PRG and South Vietnam, guaranteed the territorial integrity of Vietnam under the Geneva Conference of 1954, called for elections or a political settlement between the PRG and South Vietnam, allowed 200,000 communist troops to remain in the south, and agreed to a POW exchange. There was a sixty-day period for the total withdrawal of U.S. forces. "This article", noted Peter Church, "proved… to be the only one of the Paris Agreements which was fully carried out." All US forces personnel were completely withdrawn by March 1973.
National Security Action Memorandum 263
National Security Action Memorandum No. 263 was approved by President Kennedy on 11 October. NSAM 263 accepted the military recommendations of McNamara and Taylor, as follows: (1) changes to be accomplished by the government of South Vietnam to improve its military performance; (2) a training program for Vietnamese "so that essential functions can be carried out by Vietnamese by the end of 1965. It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S. personnel by that time"; and (3) withdrawal as previously planned of 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963. NSAM 263 specifies that no formal announcement be made of the withdrawal.
Role of the United States in the Vietnam War
The role of the United States in the Vietnam War began after World War II and escalated into full commitment during the Vietnam War from 1955 to 1973. The U.S. involvement in South Vietnam stemmed from 20 long years of political and economic action. These had the common incentive of ending the growing communist domination in Vietnam. At the time, French forces, allies of the U.S., were backed by America — President Harry S. Truman provided progressively increasing amounts of financial and military assistance to French forces fighting in Vietnam. From the spring of 1950, their involvement increased from just assisting French troops to providing direct military assistance to the associated states (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia). Eventually, U.S. missions were carried out at a more constant rate by sending out increasing number of military assistance from the United States. Their main intent was to restrict the Communist domination that was present in the government of Vietnam as it would soon lead to a chain of neighbouring countries adopting the same. This would have resulted in a change in balance of power throughout Southeast Asia. The U.S. foreign policy establishment saw national security interests being disturbed due to the rise of this communist expansion and strived to take any measure to end it. Their actions came to be questioned by other segments of government and society, however, including the US congress..
Reunification Day
Reunification Day (), Victory Day () or Liberation Day ( or ) or the official name of Day of liberating the South for national reunification () is a public holiday in Vietnam that marks the event when Việt Cộng and North Vietnamese troops captured Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) on April 30, 1975. This signalled the end of the Vietnam War, known in Vietnamese as (Vietnam War) or ("Resistance War Against American invasion"). It was the start of the transition period toward reunification, which occurred in the national election for national reunification on July 2, 1976, when the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam and Democratic Republic of Vietnam merged, forming the modern-day Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
United States–Vietnam relations
U.S. relations with Vietnam have become deeper and more diverse in the years since political normalization. The two countries have broadened their political exchanges through regular and regional security. The annual Bilateral Human Rights Dialogue resumed in 2006 after a two-year hiatus. They signed a Bilateral Trade Agreement in July 2000, which went into force in December 2001. In 2003, the two countries signed a Counternarcotics Letter of Agreement (amended in 2006), a Civil Aviation Agreement, and a textile agreement. In January 2007, Congress approved Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) for Vietnam. In July 2015, the United States hosted Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng in the first-ever visit of a Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary to the United States following a concerted effort by the Obama administration to pursue warmer relations with Vietnam.
Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam
The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam was a massive demonstration and teach-in across the United States against the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. It took place on October 15, 1969, followed a month later by a large Moratorium March on Washington.