1962: The number of US military advisors increased from 700 to 12,000
1963: President Diem was killed in a military coup 15,000 US military advisors were in South Vietnam
1964: the Gulf of Tonkin incident; Congress passed the ‘Gulf of Tonkin Resolution’; America bombs targets in North Vietnam; NLF attacked US air bases
1965: ‘Operation Rolling Thunder’ started; first US combat troops were sent to Vietnam in March; by the end of the year there were 200,000 US troops there; first major conventional clash between USA and NVA at Ia Drang
1966: 400,000 US troops were in Vietnam
1967: 490,000 US troops in Vietnam; Nguyen Van Thieu became President of South Vietnam
1968: Tet Offensive; demonstrations against the war started in America; My Lai massacre; peace talks began in Paris; 540,000 US troops in Vietnam; anti-Vietnam War riots in Chicago (August)
1969: Nixon ordered the secret bombing of Cambodia; ‘Vietnamization’ started; Nixon announced the start of US troop withdrawals; Ho Chi Minh died; 480,000 US troops in Vietnam; My Lai massacre made public in November
Given that JFK was dead, when LBJ sent in the military, what was JFK"S "fiasco" What does John Wayne have to do with anything? Sorry Art, Canadian blowhards like yourself are pretty hard to take.
JFK's fiasco was the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, first for allowing it to happen, second for leaving the invasion force hanging in the wind. Luckily, he got smarter in time to force the Russians to remove their missiles from Cuba.
Comments
last comment1975: South Vietnam army collapses; North Vietnamese take Saigon; helicopters evacuate the last Americans amid general chaos.
Whatever the beginning, it was certainly a fiasco at the end.
Kind of like "Apocalypse Now"
Started out as a pretty decent movie but turned bizarro at the end.