Vietnam War Timeline by

Expulsion of Japanese Occupancy in Vietnam (1945)

agregorio26 — 2025-03-05 08:38:30 UTC

After Japan's nearly five-year occupancy of Vietnam, during which Vietnam (particularly its resources and commodities) was "shared" between Japan's military occupancy and France's colonial administration, Japan's loss in WWII provided Vietnamese nationalist groups with an opening to declare independence from Japan's colonial authority. Interested in Vietnam's rubber supply, and seeking to lay claims to more Asian markets, the US supported France's effort to stifle Vietnam's Independence (Eisenhower dedicated billions of dollars to help French resist nationalist groups).

US Declines France's Request for Military Assistance (1954)

agregorio26 — 2025-03-05 08:46:06 UTC

Despite already paying for 4/5ths of France's war effort fighting Vietnamese nationalist forces, the US feared involvement in another land-war (following the recent Korean War, lasting from 1950-1953), and declined to supply the French military with US troops in 1954. This decision, coupled with the US' decision not to provide France access to nuclear weapons, ultimately resulted in France's defeat in their war effort and Vietnamese independence.

The Rise of the New Left (1960-1968)

agregorio26 — 2025-03-05 09:17:36 UTC

Inspired by the Civil Rights and Black Freedom Movement of the 1950s, American college and university students mobilized to protest American involvement and intervention in foreign conflicts, such as the US' ongoing support for the Diem Regime, mirroring conservative/right leaning African American activists' non-violent protest techniques. Students at Berkeley, especially, led the effort in the Free Speech Movement, supported by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which called for a participatory democracy with active citizen involvement in shaping government policies and action.

Ngo Dinh Diem's Assassination by a Coup D'etat (October 1963)

agregorio26 — 2025-03-05 09:38:38 UTC

After years of US "counterinsurgency" tactic involvement in Vietnam, sponsoring and financing the rise of the Southern-Vietnamese anti-communist Ngo Dinh Diem, who undemocratically rose to power and repressed and killed dissenters of his government and Christian faith, the US approved of a coup d'etat resulting in Diem's assasination after he refused to comply with the US government's advice on dealing with the Vietnam's communist insurgency.

The US' Indirect Declaration of War in the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (August 1964)

agregorio26 — 2025-03-05 09:46:55 UTC

In August, 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in a landslide decision, following the (later revealed to be a fraud) North Vietnamese vessel attack on an American spying ship. The resolution empowered the US to resist Vietnam by "all necessary measures to repel armed attack," indirectly declaring war and preparing the US to fight in the case of a future confrontation.

President Johnson Beings Deploying Troops to Vietnam (February 1965)

agregorio26 — 2025-03-05 09:50:17 UTC

The commencement of America's Vietnam War effort began after a Vietnamese communist and nationalist group attacked an American air base in Vietnam. Johnson began deploying troops immediately after, channeling the advice of the National Security Council. By the late 1960s, American troops stationed in Vietnam amounted to over 500,000.

Martin Luther King Jr. Condemns the Vietnam War (1967)

agregorio26 — 2025-03-05 09:57:22 UTC

Now amid a disastrous, total war, with skyrocketing casualties on behalf of American and Vietnamese soldiers and civilians, alike, anti-war sentiment climaxed. King publicly condemned America's effort in the war as a waste of resources, depriving Americans of their essential needs at home (referring to the draft's unequal call to service, as college students still pursuing their education were exempted).

The First Anti-War Demonstration Organized, Kickstarting Antiwar Movement (April 1965)

agregorio26 — 2025-03-05 10:03:31 UTC

The SDS organized an assembly of anti-war advocates and general opponents of the administration's involvement in the war, in D.C. Over 25,000 war dissenters gathered, demonstrating a departure from the 50s' (under Presidents Eisenhower and Truman) public consensus (avid support for the war effort).

Peak Students for a Democratic Society Activity (late 1960s - 1970s)

agregorio26 — 2025-03-05 10:58:35 UTC

After the first anti-war assembly in April, 1965, several more were held, notably the most populous one in October 1967, which consisted of over 100,000 antiwar protestors concentrated at the Lincoln Memorial (inspiration from the Civil Rights Movement March to Washington), later marching to the Pentagon. Two years earlier, the SDS leader Carl Ogelsby gave a speech later coined the "declaration of independence" for the Left and war dissenters, where he boldly denounced the US rationale for participating in the Cold War, connecting the "obsessive anticommunist" effort demonstrated by the Red Scares and international anti-communist crusade, to the US' unnecessary intervention in foreign nations affairs (Guatemala, Deominican Republic, Vietnam). The student movement peaked several years after the first anti-war assemblies in 1970, with over "350 colleges and universities experiencing strikes," with public outrage following the murder of six student antiwar protesters at Kent State University and Jackson State University, on separate occasions.

Meddling With the Draft Commences as a Form of Protest (1967)

agregorio26 — 2025-03-05 11:04:09 UTC

By 1967, including several earlier years, young able-bodied American men attempted to escape the US draft by burning their cards and letters, or moving to Canada, refusing to serve in a war they believed America had improper, almost imperialist, justifications for fighting. War dissenters and the SDS viewed America's participation in the war as contradictory to the newly developed concept of "participatory democracy," as the public had not officially consented or approved of Congress' (secretive and discreet) "declaration" of war in the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

Nixon Elected in 1968

agregorio26 — 2025-03-05 11:12:01 UTC

An integral component of Nixon's presidential campaign in 1968 was his "secret plan" to end American involvement in the Vietnam War. After winning office, he revealed his plan entitled "Vietnamization," a new policy under which American troops would be gradually replaced by Southern Vietnamese soldiers, but continually supported by US air power.

Nixon settles the Paris Peace Agreement in Vietnam (1973)

agregorio26 — 2025-03-05 11:16:52 UTC

The Paris Peace Agreement of 1973 was the product of five years of American negotiation with Vietnam, under which all American troops were removed, and both the South Vietnam (communist) government and the North Vietnamese Viet Cong soldiers remained in place and active. The disputes between Northern and Southern Vietnam would be settled domestically without American interference two years later. By the war's end, nearly 60,000 American soldiers were killed.