Vietnam War - wikipedia Vietnam War `` The Vietnam War '' redirects here. For the 2017 documentary, see The Vietnam War ( TV series ). For a list of wars throughout the history of Vietnam, see List of wars involving Vietnam. This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably. The readable prose size is 137 kilobytes. Please consider splitting content into sub-articles, condensing it, or adding or removing subheadings. ( October 2017 ) Vietnam War ( Chiến tranh Việt Nam ) Part of the Indochina Wars and the Cold War Clockwise, from top left : U.S. combat operations in Ia Drang, ARVN Rangers defending Saigon during the 1968 Tet Offensive, two A-4C Skyhawks after the Gulf of Tonkin incident, ARVN recapture Quảng Trị during the 1972 Easter Offensive, civilians fleeing the 1972 Battle of Quảng Trị, and burial of 300 victims of the 1968 Huế Massacre. Date 1 November 1955 -- 30 April 1975 ( 1975 - 04 - 30 ) ( 19 years, 5 months, 4 weeks and 1 day ) Location South Vietnam, North Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos Result North Vietnamese victory Withdrawal of American - led forces from Indochina Communist governments take power in South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos South Vietnam is annexed by North Vietnam Territorial changes Reunification of North and South Vietnam into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Belligerents South Vietnam United States South Korea Thailand Australia Philippines New Zealand Khmer Republic Laos Military support : Taiwan Other support Malaysia Spain Canada Iran West Germany Brazil Japan North Vietnam Viet Cong Khmer Rouge Pathet Lao China North Korea Military support : Soviet Union Cuba Other support Czechoslovakia Bulgaria East Germany Romania Poland Hungary Sweden Commanders and leaders Ngô Đình Diệm † Nguyễn Văn Thiệu Nguyễn Cao Kỳ Cao Văn Viên Ngô Quang Trưởng John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Johnson Richard Nixon Gerald Ford Robert McNamara William Westmoreland Creighton Abrams Frederick C. Weyand Park Chung - hee Thanom Kittikachorn Robert Menzies Harold Holt John McEwen John Gorton William McMahon Ferdinand Marcos Keith Holyoake Jack Marshall Norman Kirk Chiang Kai - Shek... and others Ho Chi Minh Lê Duẩn Võ Nguyên Giáp Văn Tiến Dũng Lê Trọng Tấn Phạm Văn Đồng Hoàng Văn Thái Trần Văn Trà Nguyễn Văn Linh Nguyễn Hữu Thọ... and others Strength ≈ 1,420,000 ( 1968 ) South Vietnam : 850,000 ( 1968 ) 1,500,000 ( 1974 -- 75 ) United States : 543,000 ( April 1969 ) South Korea : 50,003 Thailand : 11,570 Australia : 7,672 Philippines : 2,061 New Zealand : 552 ≈ 1,060,000 ( 1967 ) North Vietnam : 690,000 ( January 1967 ) Viet Cong : 200,000 ( estimated, 1968 ) China : 170,000 ( 1967 ) North Korea : 200 Casualties and losses South Vietnam 195,000 -- 430,000 civilian dead 220,357 -- 313,000 military dead 1,170,000 wounded United States 58,318 dead ; 303,644 wounded ( including 150,341 not requiring hospital care ) South Korea 5,099 dead ; 10,962 wounded ; 4 missing Australia 521 dead ; 3,129 wounded Thailand 351 dead ; 1,358 wounded New Zealand 37 dead ; 187 wounded Taiwan 25 dead ; Philippines 9 dead ; 64 wounded Total military dead : 284,668 -- 377,311 Total wounded : ≈ 1,340,000 + North Vietnam & Viet Cong 65,000 civilian dead 849,018 military dead 600,000 + wounded China ≈ 1,100 dead and 4,200 wounded North Korea 14 dead Total military dead : 850,132 + Total wounded : ≈ 604,200 Vietnamese civilian dead : 627,000 -- 2,000,000 Vietnamese total dead : 966,000 -- 3,812,000 Cambodian Civil War dead : 240,000 -- 300,000 * Laotian Civil War dead : 20,000 -- 62,000 * Non-Indochinese military dead ( sum ) : 65,425 Total dead ( sum ) : 1,291,425 -- 4,211,451 For more information see Vietnam War casualties and Aircraft losses of the Vietnam War * indicates approximations, see Casualties below Indochina Wars Masterdom First Second Laotian Civil War Cambodian Civil War Third Cambodian - Vietnamese Cambodian - Thai border Sino - Vietnamese border conflicts Hmong insurgency FULRO insurgency against Vietnam Military engagements of the Vietnam War Guerrilla phase Laos Chopper Sunrise 1st Ap Bac Go Cong Hiep Hoa 34A Long Dinh Kien Long Quyet Thang 202 Bien Hoa Airbase USNS Card Nam Dong An Lao Binh Gia Camp Holloway Qui Nhơn Song Be Ba Gia Dong Xoai American intervention Starlite Piranha An Ninh Plei Me Hump Gang Toi 1st Bau Bang Bushmaster II Ia Drang Marauder Crimp Van Buren Masher / White Wing Bong Son Mastiff Suoi Bong Trang New York Harrison Cocoa Beach Utah Silver City A Shau Oregon Texas Lincoln Birmingham Xa Cam My Fillmore Davy Crockett Austin IV Paul Revere Crazy Horse El Paso Hawthorne Hill 488 Nathan Hale Wahiawa Hastings Minh Thanh Road John Paul Jones Seward Prairie Colorado Duc Co Long Tan Amarillo Thayer Attleboro Deckhouse IV Irving Tan Son Nhut airbase Lam Son II Firebase Bird SS Baton Rouge Victory Sunset Beach Shenandoah Paul Revere IV Thayer II Geronimo Fairfax Deckhouse V Cedar Falls Desoto Tra Binh Dong Sam Houston Gadsden Pershing Bribie Junction City ( 1st Prek Klok 2nd Prek Klok Ap Gu Suoi Tre 2nd Bau Bang ) Lejeune Francis Marion Manhattan Beaver Cage Union The Hill Fights Con Thien Malheur I and Malheur II Union II Akron Concordia Buffalo Hong Kil Dong Diamond Head Hood River Suoi Chau Pha Benton Swift Dragon Fire Wheeler / Wallowa Kunia Medina Ong Thanh 1st Loc Ninh Kingfisher Kentucky Lancaster Dak To Phoenix Yellowstone Auburn 1968 New Year 's Day Battle of 1968 Khe Sanh Coburg Tet Offensive 1st Saigon Hue 1st Quảng Trị Ban Houei Sane Lang Vei Truong Cong Dinh Lima Site 85 My Lai Massacre Pegasus Toan Thang I Scotland II Delaware Allen Brook May ' 68 Kham Duc Coral -- Balmoral Mameluke Thrust Robin Duc Lap Vinh Loc Maui Peak Meade River Speedy Express Drawdown 1969 -- 71 Bold Mariner Dewey Canyon Taylor Common 2nd Tet Purple Martin Massachusetts Striker Maine Crag Montana Mauler Oklahoma Hills Virginia Ridge Apache Snow Hamburger Hill Twinkletoes Binh Ba LZ Kate Bu Prang Texas Star Chicago Peak FSB Ripcord 1st Cambodia Kompong Speu Prey Veng 2nd Cambodia Snuol Tailwind Jefferson Glenn Hat Dich Lam Son 719 Son Tay Raid Chenla I Chenla II FSB Mary Ann Long Khanh Nui Le Easter Offensive 2nd Quang Trị 3rd Quang Trị 2nd Loc Ninh An Lộc Kontum Thunderhead Post-Paris Peace Accords ( 1973 -- 1974 ) Cửa Việt Ap Da Bien Svay Rieng Iron Triangle Thượng Đức Spring ' 75 Phuoc Long Ban Me Thuot Hue -- Da Nang Phan Rang Xuân Lộc 2nd Saigon Air operations Farm Gate Chopper Ranch Hand Pierce Arrow Barrel Roll Pony Express Flaming Dart Iron Hand Rolling Thunder Steel Tiger Arc Light Tiger Hound Shed Light Thanh Hoa Bolo Popeye Yen Vien Niagara Igloo White Giant Lance Commando Hunt Menu Patio Freedom Deal Linebacker I Enhance Plus Linebacker II Homecoming Tan Son Nhut Air Base Babylift New Life Eagle Pull Frequent Wind Naval operations Yankee & Dixie Stations Gulf of Tonkin Market Time Vung Ro Bay Game Warden Double Eagle PIRAZ Sea Dragon Deckhouse Five Bo De River, Nha Trang, Tha Cau River Sealords Đồng Hới Pocket Money Custom Tailor End Sweep Paracel Islands East Sea Mayaguez incident The Vietnam War ( Vietnamese : Chiến tranh Việt Nam ), also known as the Second Indochina War, and known in Vietnam as the Resistance War Against America ( Vietnamese : Kháng chiến chống Mỹ ) or simply the American War, was a war that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. 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 and the South Vietnamese army was supported by the United States, South Korea, Australia, Thailand and other anti-communist allies. The war is therefore considered a Cold War - era proxy war. The Viet Cong ( also known as the National Liberation Front, or NLF ), a South Vietnamese communist common front aided by the North, fought a guerrilla war against anti-communist forces in the region, while the People 's Army of Vietnam, also known as the North Vietnamese Army ( NVA ), engaged in more conventional warfare, at times committing large units to battle. As the war continued, the military actions of the Viet Cong decreased as the role and engagement of the NVA grew. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery, and airstrikes. In the course of the war, the U.S. conducted a large - scale strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam. The North Vietnamese government and the Viet Cong were fighting to reunify Vietnam. They viewed the conflict as a colonial war and a continuation of the First Indochina War against forces from France and later on the United States. The U.S. government viewed its involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam. This was part of the domino theory of a wider containment policy, with the stated aim of stopping the spread of communism. Beginning in 1950, American military advisors arrived in what was then French Indochina. Most of the funding for the French war effort was provided by the U.S. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with troop levels tripling in 1961 and again in 1962. U.S. involvement escalated further following the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which a U.S. destroyer clashed with North Vietnamese fast attack craft, which was followed by the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave the U.S. president authorization to increase U.S. military presence. Regular U.S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Operations crossed international borders : bordering areas of Laos and Cambodia were heavily bombed by U.S. forces as American involvement in the war peaked in 1968, the same year that the communist side launched the Tet Offensive. The Tet Offensive failed in its goal of overthrowing the South Vietnamese government, but became the turning point in the war, as it persuaded a large segment of the U.S. population that its government 's claims of progress toward winning the war were illusory despite many years of massive U.S. military aid to South Vietnam. 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 themselves. Despite the Paris Peace Accord, which was signed by all parties in January 1973, the fighting continued. In the U.S. and the Western world, a large anti-Vietnam War movement developed as part of a larger counterculture. The war changed the dynamics between the Eastern and Western Blocs, and altered North -- South relations. Direct U.S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973. The capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese Army in April 1975 marked the end of the war, and North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year. The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities ( see Vietnam War casualties ). Estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed vary from 966,000 to 3.8 million. Some 240,000 -- 300,000 Cambodians, 20,000 -- 62,000 Laotians, and 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict, and a further 1,626 remain missing in action. Contents 1 Names for the war 2 Background to 1949 3 Exit of the French, 1950 -- 54 4 Transition period 5 Diệm era, 1955 -- 63 5.1 Rule 5.2 Insurgency in the South, 1954 -- 60 5.2. 1 North Vietnamese involvement 6 Kennedy 's escalation, 1961 -- 63 6.1 Ousting and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm 7 Johnson 's escalation, 1963 -- 69 7.1 Escalation and ground war 7.2 Tet Offensive 8 Vietnamization, 1969 -- 72 8.1 Nixon Doctrine / Vietnamization 8.2 Cambodia and Laos 8.3 1972 election and Paris Peace Accords 9 Opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War : 1962 -- 1973 10 Exit of the Americans : 1973 -- 75 10.1 Campaign 275 10.2 Final North Vietnamese offensive 10.3 Fall of Saigon 11 Other countries ' involvement 11.1 Pro-Hanoi 11.1. 1 People 's Republic of China 11.1. 2 Soviet Union 11.1. 3 North Korea 11.1. 4 Cuba 11.2 Pro-Saigon 11.2. 1 South Korea 11.2. 2 Australia and New Zealand 11.2. 3 Philippines 11.2. 4 Thailand 11.2. 5 Republic of China ( Taiwan ) 11.2. 6 Brazil 11.3 Canada and the ICC 12 United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races ( FULRO ) 13 War crimes 13.1 Allied war crimes 13.2 North Vietnamese, Viet Cong, and Khmer Rouge war crimes 14 Women in the Vietnam War 14.1 American nurses 14.2 Vietnamese women 15 Black servicemen in Vietnam 16 Weapons 16.1 Radio communications 16.2 Extent of U.S. bombing 17 Aftermath 17.1 Events in Southeast Asia 17.2 Effect on the United States 17.3 Impact on the U.S. military 17.4 Effects of U.S. chemical defoliation 17.5 Casualties 17.6 In popular culture 18 See also 19 Annotations 20 Notes 21 References 21.1 Secondary sources 21.2 Primary sources 21.3 Historiography 22 External links Names for the War Further information : Terminology of the Vietnam War Various names have been applied to the conflict. Vietnam War is the most commonly used name in English. It has also been called the Second Indochina War and the Vietnam Conflict. As there have been several conflicts in Indochina, this particular conflict is known by the names of its primary protagonists to distinguish it from others. In Vietnamese, the war is generally known as Kháng chiến chống Mỹ ( Resistance War Against America ), but less formally as ' Cuộc chiến tranh Mỹ ' ( The American War ' ). It is also called Chiến tranh Việt Nam ( The Vietnam War ). The primary military organizations involved in the war were, on one side, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam ( ARVN ) and the U.S. military, and, on the other side, the People 's Army of Vietnam ( PAVN ) ( more commonly called the North Vietnamese Army, or NVA, in English - language sources ), and the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam ( NLF, more commonly known as the Viet Cong in English language sources ), a South Vietnamese communist guerrilla force. Background to 1949 See also : History of Vietnam, Cochinchina Campaign, Cần Vương, Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng, Yên Bái mutiny, Vietnam during World War II, War in Vietnam ( 1945 -- 46 ), 1940 -- 46 in the Vietnam War, and 1947 -- 50 in the Vietnam War France began its conquest of Indochina in the late 1850s, and completed pacification by 1893. The 1884 Treaty of Huế formed the basis for French colonial rule in Vietnam for the next seven decades. In spite of military resistance, most notably by the Cần Vương of Phan Đình Phùng, by 1888 the area of the current - day nations of Cambodia and Vietnam was made into the colony of French Indochina ( Laos was later added to the colony ). Various Vietnamese opposition movements to French rule existed during this period, such as the Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng who staged the failed Yên Bái mutiny in 1930, but none were ultimately as successful as the Viet Minh common front, which was founded in 1941, controlled by the Indochinese Communist Party, and funded by the U.S. and the Chinese Nationalist Party in its fight against Imperial Japanese occupation. In 1940, during World War II, the French were defeated by the Germans. The French State ( commonly known as Vichy France ) was established as a client state of Nazi Germany. The French colonial authorities, in French Indochina, sided with the Vichy regime. In September 1940, Japan invaded Indochina. Following the cessation of fighting and the beginning of the Imperial Japanese occupation, the French colonial authorities collaborated with the Japanese. The French continued to run affairs in Indochina, but ultimate power resided in the hands of the Imperial Japanese. The Viet Minh was founded as a league for independence from France, but also opposed Japanese occupation in 1945 for the same reason. The U.S. and Chinese Nationalist Party supported them in the fight against the Imperial Japanese. However, they did not have enough power to fight actual battles at first. Viet Minh leader Ho Chi Minh was suspected of being a communist and jailed for a year by the Chinese Nationalist Party. Double occupation by France and Japan continued until the German forces were expelled from France and the French Indochina colonial authorities started holding secret talks with the Free French. Fearing that they could no longer trust the French authorities, the Imperial Japanese military interned the French authorities and troops on 9 March 1945 and created the puppet Empire of Vietnam state, under Bảo Đại instead. During 1944 -- 1945, a deep famine struck northern Vietnam due to a combination of bad weather and French / Japanese exploitation ( French Indochina had to supply grains to Japan ). Between 400,000 and 2 million people died of starvation ( out of a population of 10 million in the affected area ). Exploiting the administrative gap that the internment of the French had created, the Viet Minh in March 1945 urged the population to ransack rice warehouses and refuse to pay their taxes. Between 75 and 100 warehouses were consequently raided. This rebellion against the effects of the famine and the authorities that were partially responsible for it bolstered the Viet Minh 's popularity and they recruited many members during this period. On 22 August 1945, following the Imperial Japanese surrender, OSS agents Archimedes Patti and Carleton B. Swift Jr. arrived in Hanoi on a mercy mission to liberate allied POWs and were accompanied by Jean Sainteny, a French government official. The Japanese forces informally surrendered ( the official surrender took place on 2 September 1945 in Tokyo Bay ) but being the only force capable of maintaining law and order the Imperial Japanese military remained in power while keeping French colonial troops and Sainteny detained. During August the Imperial Japanese forces remained inactive as the Viet Minh and other nationalist groups took over public buildings and weapons, which began the August Revolution. OSS officers met repeatedly with Ho Chi Minh and other Viet Minh officers during this period and on 2 September 1945 Ho Chi Minh declared the independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam before a crowd of 500,000 in Hanoi. In an overture to the Americans, he began his speech by paraphrasing the United States Declaration of Independence : `` All men are created equal. The Creator has given us certain inviolable Rights : the right to Life, the right to be Free, and the right to achieve Happiness. '' The Viet Minh took power in Vietnam in the August Revolution. The Viet Minh, downplaying their Communist agenda and stressing nationalism enjoyed large popular support ( Vietnamese independence being popular at the time ), although Arthur J. Dommen cautions against a `` romanticized view '' of their success : `` The Viet Minh use of terror was systematic.... the party had drawn up a list of those to be liquidated without delay. '' After their defeat in the war, the Imperial Japanese Army ( IJA ) gave weapons to the Vietnamese, and kept Vichy French officials and military officers imprisoned for a month after the surrender. The Viet Minh had recruited more than 600 Imperial Japanese soldiers and given them roles to train or command Vietnamese soldiers. An Imperial Japanese naval officer surrenders his sword to a British lieutenant in Saigon on 13 September 1945. However, the major allied victors of World War II, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union, all agreed the area belonged to the French. As the French did not have the means to immediately retake Vietnam, the major powers came to an agreement that British troops would occupy the south while Nationalist Chinese forces would move in from the north. Nationalist Chinese troops entered the country to disarm Imperial Japanese troops north of the 16th parallel on 14 September 1945. When the British landed in the south, they rearmed the interned French forces as well as parts of the surrendered Imperial Japanese forces to aid them in retaking southern Vietnam, as they did not have enough troops to do this themselves. On the urging of the Soviet Union, Ho Chi Minh initially attempted to negotiate with the French, who were slowly re-establishing their control across the area. In January 1946, the Viet Minh won elections across central and northern Vietnam. On 6 March 1946, Ho signed an agreement allowing French forces to replace Nationalist Chinese forces, in exchange for French recognition of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as a `` free '' republic within the French Union, with the specifics of such recognition to be determined by future negotiation. The French landed in Hanoi by March 1946 and in November of that year they ousted the Viet Minh from the city. British forces departed on 26 March 1946, leaving Vietnam in the hands of the French. Soon thereafter, the Viet Minh began a guerrilla war against the French Union forces, beginning the First Indochina War. The war spread to Laos and Cambodia, where communists organized the Pathet Lao and the Khmer Serei, both of which were modeled on the Viet Minh. Globally, the Cold War began in earnest, which meant that the rapprochement that existed between the Western powers and the Soviet Union during World War II disintegrated. The Viet Minh fight was hampered by a lack of weapons ; this situation changed by 1949 when the Chinese Communists had largely won the Chinese Civil War and were free to provide arms to their Vietnamese allies. Exit of the French, 1950 -- 54 Main articles : First Indochina War, Operation Vulture, Operation Passage to Freedom, and 1954 in the Vietnam War In January 1950, the People 's Republic of China and the Soviet Union recognized the Viet Minh 's Democratic Republic of Vietnam, based in Hanoi, as the legitimate government of Vietnam. The following month the United States and Great Britain recognized the French - backed State of Vietnam in Saigon, led by former Emperor Bảo Đại, as the legitimate Vietnamese government. The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 convinced many Washington policymakers that the war in Indochina was an example of communist expansionism directed by the Soviet Union. French soldiers fight off a Viet Minh ambush in 1952. Military advisors from the People 's Republic of China ( PRC ) began assisting the Viet Minh in July 1950. PRC weapons, expertise, and laborers transformed the Viet Minh from a guerrilla force into a regular army. In September 1950, the United States created a Military Assistance and Advisory Group ( MAAG ) to screen French requests for aid, advise on strategy, and train Vietnamese soldiers. By 1954, the United States had supplied 300,000 small arms and spent US $1 billion in support of the French military effort, shouldering 80 percent of the cost of the war. There were also talks between the French and Americans in which the possible use of three tactical nuclear weapons was considered, though reports of how seriously this was considered and by whom are even now vague and contradictory. One version of the plan for the proposed Operation Vulture envisioned sending 60 B - 29s from U.S. bases in the region, supported by as many as 150 fighters launched from U.S. Seventh Fleet carriers, to bomb Viet Minh commander Võ Nguyên Giáp 's positions. The plan included an option to use up to three atomic weapons on the Viet Minh positions. Admiral Arthur W. Radford, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave this nuclear option his backing. U.S. B - 29s, B - 36s, and B - 47s could have executed a nuclear strike, as could carrier aircraft from the Seventh Fleet. U.S. carriers sailed to the Gulf of Tonkin, and reconnaissance flights over Điện Biên Phủ were conducted during the negotiations. According to U.S. Vice-President Richard Nixon, the plan involved the Joint Chiefs of Staff drawing up plans to use three small tactical nuclear weapons in support of the French. Nixon, a so - called `` hawk '' on Vietnam, suggested that the United States might have to `` put American boys in ''. U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower made American participation contingent on British support, but they were opposed to such a venture. In the end, convinced that the political risks outweighed the possible benefits, Eisenhower decided against the intervention. Eisenhower was a five - star general. He was wary of getting the United States involved in a land war in Asia. The Viet Minh received crucial support from the Soviet Union and PRC. PRC support in the Border Campaign of 1950 allowed supplies to come from the PRC into Vietnam. Throughout the conflict, U.S. intelligence estimates remained skeptical of French chances of success. The Battle of Dien Bien Phu marked the end of French involvement in Indochina. Giap 's Viet Minh forces handed the French a stunning military defeat, and on 7 May 1954, the French Union garrison surrendered. At the Geneva Conference, the French negotiated a ceasefire agreement with the Viet Minh, and independence was granted to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Transition period Main articles : Geneva Conference ( 1954 ) ; Operation Passage to Freedom ; Battle of Saigon ( 1955 ) ; Ba Cụt ; State of Vietnam referendum, 1955 ; Land reform in Vietnam ; and Land reform in North Vietnam The Geneva Conference, 1954 Vietnam was temporarily partitioned at the 17th parallel, and under the terms of the Geneva Accords, civilians were to be given the opportunity to move freely between the two provisional states for a 300 - day period. Elections throughout the country were to be held in 1956 to establish a unified government. Around one million northerners, mainly minority Catholics, fled south, fearing persecution by the communists following an American propaganda campaign using slogans such as `` The Virgin Mary is heading south '', and aided by a U.S. - funded $93 million relocation program, which included the use of the Seventh Fleet to ferry refugees. As many as two million more would have left had they not been stopped by the Viet Minh. The northern, mainly Catholic refugees were meant to give the later Ngô Đình Diệm regime a strong anti-communist constituency. Diệm later went on to staff his administration 's key posts mostly with northern and central Catholics. In addition to the Catholics flowing south, up to 130,000 `` Revolutionary Regroupees '' went to the north for `` regroupment '', expecting to return to the south within two years. The Viet Minh left roughly 5,000 to 10,000 cadres in the south as a `` politico - military substructure within the object of its irredentism. '' The last French soldiers were to leave Vietnam in April 1956. The PRC completed its withdrawal from North Vietnam at around the same time. Around 52,000 Vietnamese civilians moved from south to north. Between 1953 and 1956, the North Vietnamese government instituted various agrarian reforms, including `` rent reduction '' and `` land reform '', which resulted in significant political oppression. During the land reform, testimony from North Vietnamese witnesses suggested a ratio of one execution for every 160 village residents, which extrapolated nationwide would indicate nearly 100,000 executions. Because the campaign was concentrated mainly in the Red River Delta area, a lower estimate of 50,000 executions became widely accepted by scholars at the time. However, declassified documents from the Vietnamese and Hungarian archives indicate that the number of executions was much lower than reported at the time, although likely greater than 13,500. In 1956, leaders in Hanoi admitted to `` excesses '' in implementing this program and restored a large amount of the land to the original owners. The south, meanwhile, constituted the State of Vietnam, with Bảo Đại as Emperor and Ngô Đình Diệm ( appointed in July 1954 ) as his prime minister. Neither the United States government nor Ngô Đình Diệm 's State of Vietnam signed anything at the 1954 Geneva Conference. With respect to the question of reunification, the non-communist Vietnamese delegation objected strenuously to any division of Vietnam, but lost out when the French accepted the proposal of Viet Minh delegate Phạm Văn Đồng, who proposed that Vietnam eventually be united by elections under the supervision of `` local commissions ''. The United States countered with what became known as the `` American Plan '', with the support of South Vietnam and the United Kingdom. It provided for unification elections under the supervision of the United Nations, but was rejected by the Soviet delegation. The United States said, `` With respect to the statement made by the representative of the State of Vietnam, the United States reiterates its traditional position that peoples are entitled to determine their own future and that it will not join in any arrangement which would hinder this ''. U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote in 1954, `` I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly eighty percent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bảo Đại. Indeed, the lack of leadership and drive on the part of Bảo Đại was a factor in the feeling prevalent among Vietnamese that they had nothing to fight for. '' According to the Pentagon Papers, however, from 1954 to 1956 `` Ngô Đình Diệm really did accomplish miracles '' in South Vietnam : `` It is almost certain that by 1956 the proportion which might have voted for Ho -- in a free election against Diệm -- would have been much smaller than eighty percent. '' In 1957, independent observers from India, Poland, and Canada representing the International Control Commission ( ICC ) stated that fair, unbiased elections were not possible, with the ICC reporting that neither South nor North Vietnam had honored the armistice agreement From April to June 1955, Diệm eliminated any political opposition in the south by launching military operations against two religious groups : the Cao Đài and Hòa Hảo of Ba Cụt. The campaign also focused on the Bình Xuyên organized crime group which was allied with members of the communist party secret police and had some military elements. As broad - based opposition to his harsh tactics mounted, Diệm increasingly sought to blame the communists. In a referendum on the future of the State of Vietnam on 23 October 1955, Diệm rigged the poll supervised by his brother Ngô Đình Nhu and was credited with 98.2 percent of the vote, including 133 % in Saigon. His American advisors had recommended a more modest winning margin of `` 60 to 70 percent. '' Diệm, however, viewed the election as a test of authority. Three days later, he declared South Vietnam to be an independent state under the name Republic of Vietnam ( ROV ), with himself as president. Likewise, Ho Chi Minh and other communist officials always won at least 99 % of the vote in North Vietnamese `` elections ''. The domino theory, which argued that if one country fell to communism, then all of the surrounding countries would follow, was first proposed as policy by the Eisenhower administration. John F. Kennedy, then a U.S. Senator, said in a speech to the American Friends of Vietnam : `` Burma, Thailand, India, Japan, the Philippines and obviously Laos and Cambodia are among those whose security would be threatened if the Red Tide of Communism overflowed into Vietnam. '' Diệm era, 1955 -- 63 Main articles : Ngô Đình Diệm and War in Vietnam ( 1954 -- 59 ) U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles greet President Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam in Washington, 8 May 1957. Rule See also : Ngô Đình Diệm presidential visit to Australia A devout Roman Catholic, Diệm was fervently anti-communist, nationalist, and socially conservative. Historian Luu Doan Huynh notes that `` Diệm represented narrow and extremist nationalism coupled with autocracy and nepotism. '' The majority of Vietnamese people were Buddhist, and were alarmed by actions such as Diệm 's dedication of the country to the Virgin Mary. Beginning in the summer of 1955, Diệm launched the `` Denounce the Communists '' campaign, during which communists and other anti-government elements were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, or executed. He instituted the death penalty against any activity deemed communist in August 1956. According to Gabriel Kolko about 12,000 suspected opponents of Diệm were killed between 1955 and 1957 and by the end of 1958 an estimated 40,000 political prisoners had been jailed. In May 1957, Diệm undertook a ten - day state visit to the United States. President Eisenhower pledged his continued support, and a parade was held in Diệm 's honor in New York City. Although Diệm was publicly praised, in private Secretary of State John Foster Dulles conceded that Diệm had been selected because there were no better alternatives. Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara wrote in Argument Without End ( 1999 ) that the new American patrons of the Republic of Vietnam ( ROV ) were almost completely ignorant of Vietnamese culture. They knew little of the language or long history of the country. There was a tendency to assign American motives to Vietnamese actions, though Diệm warned that it was an illusion to believe that blindly copying Western methods would solve Vietnamese problems. Insurgency in the South, 1954 -- 60 Main articles : Viet Cong and War in Vietnam ( 1959 -- 63 ) The Ho Chi Minh trail was used to supply the Viet Cong. Between 1954 and 1957 there was large - scale but disorganized dissidence in the countryside which the Diệm government succeeded in quelling. In early 1957 South Vietnam enjoyed its first peace in over a decade. Incidents of political violence began to occur in mid-1957, but the government `` did not construe it as a campaign, considering the disorders too diffuse to warrant committing major GVN ( Government of Vietnam ) resources. '' By early 1959, however, Diệm had come to regard the ( increasingly frequent ) disorders as an organized campaign and implemented Law 10 / 59, which made political violence punishable by death and property confiscation. There had been some division among former Viet Minh whose main goal was to hold the elections promised in the Geneva Accords, leading to `` wildcat '' activities separate from the other communists and anti-GVN activists. In December 1960, the National Liberation Front ( NLF, a.k.a. the Viet Cong ) was formally created with the intent of uniting all anti-GVN activists, including non-communists. According to the Pentagon Papers, the Viet Cong `` placed heavy emphasis on the withdrawal of American advisors and influence, on land reform and liberalization of the GVN, on coalition government and the neutralization of Vietnam. '' Often the leaders of the organization were kept secret. Support for the NLF was driven by peasant resentment of Diem 's reversal of land reforms in the countryside. The vast majority of the population lived in villages in the countryside, where a key demand was for land reform. In areas they controlled, the Viet Minh had confiscated large private landholdings, reduced rents and debts, and leased communal lands, mostly to the poorer peasants. Diem brought the landlords back to the villages. People who were farming land they had held for years now had to return it to landlords and pay years of back rent. This rent collection was enforced by the South Vietnamese army. The divisions within villages reproduced those that had existed against the French : `` 75 percent support for the NLF, 20 percent trying to remain neutral and 5 percent firmly pro-government, '' North Vietnamese involvement See also : North Vietnamese invasion of Laos Sources disagree on whether North Vietnam played a direct role in aiding and organizing South Vietnamese rebels prior to 1960. Kahin and Lewis assert : Contrary to United States policy assumptions, all available evidence shows that the revival of the civil war in the South in 1958 was undertaken by Southerners at their own -- not Hanoi 's -- initiative... Insurgency activity against the Saigon government began in the South under Southern leadership not as a consequence of any dictate from Hanoi, but contrary to Hanoi 's injunctions. Similarly, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. states that `` it was not until September, 1960 that the Communist Party of North Vietnam bestowed its formal blessing and called for the liberation of the south from American imperialism ''. By contrast, James Olson and Randy Roberts assert that North Vietnam authorized a low - level insurgency in December 1956. To counter the accusation that North Vietnam was violating the Geneva Accord, the independence of the Viet Cong was stressed in communist propaganda. In March 1956, southern communist leader Lê Duẩn presented a plan to revive the insurgency entitled `` The Road to the South '' to the other members of the Politburo in Hanoi, but as both China and the Soviets opposed confrontation at this time, Lê Duẩn 's plan was rejected. However the North Vietnamese leadership approved tentative measures to revive the southern insurgency in December 1956. Communist forces were under a single command structure set up in 1958. The North Vietnamese Communist Party approved a `` people 's war '' on the South at a session in January 1959 and in May, Group 559 was established to maintain and upgrade the Ho Chi Minh trail, at this time a six - month mountain trek through Laos. About 500 of the `` regroupees '' of 1954 were sent south on the trail during its first year of operation. The first arms delivery via the trail was completed in August 1959. About 40,000 communist soldiers infiltrated into the south from 1961 -- 63. Kennedy 's escalation, 1961 -- 63 Main articles : Strategic Hamlet Program and Phạm Ngọc Thảo In the 1960 U.S. presidential election, Senator John F. Kennedy defeated incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon. Although Eisenhower warned Kennedy about Laos and Vietnam, Europe and Latin America `` loomed larger than Asia on his sights. '' In his inaugural address, Kennedy made the ambitious pledge to `` pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty. '' In June 1961, he bitterly disagreed with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev when they met in Vienna to discuss key U.S. -- Soviet issues. Only 16 months later, the Cuban Missile Crisis ( 16 -- 28 October 1962 ) played out on television worldwide. It was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full - scale nuclear war, and the U.S. raised the readiness level of Strategic Air Command ( SAC ) forces to DEFCON 2. President 's news conference of 23 March 1961 The Kennedy administration remained essentially committed to the Cold War foreign policy inherited from the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. In 1961, the U.S. had 50,000 troops based in Korea, and Kennedy faced a three - part crisis -- the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the construction of the Berlin Wall, and a negotiated settlement between the pro-Western government of Laos and the Pathet Lao communist movement. These crises made Kennedy believe that another failure on the part of the United States to gain control and stop communist expansion would fatally damage U.S. credibility with its allies and his own reputation. Kennedy was thus determined to `` draw a line in the sand '' and prevent a communist victory in Vietnam. He told James Reston of The New York Times immediately after his Vienna meeting with Khrushchev, `` Now we have a problem making our power credible and Vietnam looks like the place. '' In May 1961, U.S. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson visited Saigon and enthusiastically declared Diệm the `` Winston Churchill of Asia. '' Asked why he had made the comment, Johnson replied, `` Diệm 's the only boy we got out there. '' Johnson assured Diệm of more aid in molding a fighting force that could resist the communists. Kennedy 's policy toward South Vietnam rested on the assumption that Diệm and his forces had to ultimately defeat the guerrillas on their own. He was against the deployment of American combat troops and observed that `` to introduce U.S. forces in large numbers there today, while it might have an initially favorable military impact, would almost certainly lead to adverse political and, in the long run, adverse military consequences. '' The quality of the South Vietnamese military, however, remained poor. Poor leadership, corruption, and political promotions all played a part in weakening the South Vietnamese Army ( ARVN ). The frequency of guerrilla attacks rose as the insurgency gathered steam. While Hanoi 's support for the Viet Cong played a role, South Vietnamese governmental incompetence was at the core of the crisis. South Vietnam, Military Regions, 1967 One major issue Kennedy raised was whether the Soviet space and missile programs had surpassed those of the United States. Although Kennedy stressed long - range missile parity with the Soviets, he was also interested in using special forces for counterinsurgency warfare in Third World countries threatened by communist insurgencies. Although they were originally intended for use behind front lines after a conventional Soviet invasion of Europe, Kennedy believed that the guerrilla tactics employed by special forces such as the Green Berets would be effective in a `` brush fire '' war in Vietnam. Kennedy advisors Maxwell Taylor and Walt Rostow recommended that U.S. troops be sent to South Vietnam disguised as flood relief workers. Kennedy rejected the idea but increased military assistance yet again. In April 1962, John Kenneth Galbraith warned Kennedy of the `` danger we shall replace the French as a colonial force in the area and bleed as the French did. '' By November 1963, there were 16,000 American military personnel in South Vietnam, up from Eisenhower 's 900 advisors. The Strategic Hamlet Program was initiated in late 1961. This joint U.S. - South Vietnamese program attempted to resettle the rural population into fortified camps. It was implemented in early 1962 and involved some forced relocation, village internment, and segregation of rural South Vietnamese into new communities where the peasantry would be isolated from Communist insurgents. It was hoped these new communities would provide security for the peasants and strengthen the tie between them and the central government. However, by November 1963 the program had waned, and it officially ended in 1964. On 23 July 1962, fourteen nations, including China, South Vietnam, the Soviet Union, North Vietnam and the United States, signed an agreement promising to respect the neutrality of Laos. Ousting and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm See also : Role of the United States in the Vietnam War § John F. Kennedy ( 1961 -- 1963 ), 1960 South Vietnamese coup attempt, 1962 South Vietnamese Independence Palace bombing, Huế Phật Đản shootings, and Xá Lợi Pagoda raids Main articles : Cable 243, Arrest and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm, Buddhist crisis, Krulak Mendenhall mission, McNamara Taylor mission, 1963 South Vietnamese coup, and Reaction to the 1963 South Vietnamese coup The inept performance of the South Vietnamese army was exemplified by failed actions such as the Battle of Ap Bac on 2 January 1963, in which a small band of Viet Cong won a battle against a much larger and better - equipped South Vietnamese force, many of whose officers seemed reluctant even to engage in combat. The Army of the Republic of Vietnam forces were led in that battle by Diệm 's most trusted general, Huỳnh Văn Cao, commander of the IV Corps. Cao was a Catholic who had been promoted due to religion and fidelity rather than skill, and his main job was to preserve his forces to stave off coups ; he had earlier vomited during a communist attack. Some policymakers in Washington began to conclude that Diệm was incapable of defeating the communists and might even make a deal with Ho Chi Minh. He seemed concerned only with fending off coups, and had become more paranoid after attempts in 1960 and 1962, which he partly attributed to U.S. encouragement. As Robert F. Kennedy noted, `` Diệm would n't make even the slightest concessions. He was difficult to reason with... '' As historian James Gibson summed up the situation : Strategic hamlets had failed... The South Vietnamese regime was incapable of winning the peasantry because of its class base among landlords. Indeed, there was no longer a ' regime ' in the sense of a relatively stable political alliance and functioning bureaucracy. Instead, civil government and military operations had virtually ceased. The National Liberation Front had made great progress and was close to declaring provisional revolutionary governments in large areas. A US tank convoy during the Vietnam War Discontent with Diệm 's policies exploded following the Huế Phật Đản shootings of nine majority Buddhists who were protesting against the ban on the Buddhist flag on Vesak, the Buddha 's birthday. This resulted in mass protests against discriminatory policies that gave privileges to the Catholic Church and its adherents. Diệm 's elder brother Ngô Đình Thục was the Archbishop of Huế and aggressively blurred the separation between church and state. Thuc 's anniversary celebrations shortly before Vesak had been bankrolled by the government, and Vatican flags were displayed prominently. There had also been reports of Buddhist pagodas being demolished by Catholic paramilitaries throughout Diệm 's rule. Diệm refused to make concessions to the Buddhist majority or take responsibility for the deaths. On 21 August 1963, the ARVN Special Forces of Colonel Lê Quang Tung, loyal to Diệm 's younger brother Ngô Đình Nhu, raided pagodas across Vietnam, causing widespread damage and destruction and leaving a death toll estimated to range into the hundreds. Kennedy and McNamara Ngô Đình Diệm after being shot and killed in the 1963 coup U.S. officials began discussing the possibility of a regime change during the middle of 1963. The United States Department of State was generally in favor of encouraging a coup, while the Defense Department favored Diệm. Chief among the proposed changes was the removal of Diệm 's younger brother Nhu, who controlled the secret police and special forces and was seen as the man behind the Buddhist repression and more generally the architect of the Ngô family 's rule. This proposal was conveyed to the U.S. embassy in Saigon in Cable 243. The Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ) was in contact with generals planning to remove Diệm. They were told that the United States would not oppose such a move nor punish the generals by cutting off aid. President Diệm was overthrown and executed, along with his brother, on 2 November 1963. When Kennedy was informed, Maxwell Taylor remembered that he `` rushed from the room with a look of shock and dismay on his face. '' He had not anticipated Diệm 's murder. The U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge, invited the coup leaders to the embassy and congratulated them. Ambassador Lodge informed Kennedy that `` the prospects now are for a shorter war ''. Kennedy wrote Lodge a letter congratulating him for `` a fine job ''. Following the coup, chaos ensued. Hanoi took advantage of the situation and increased its support for the guerrillas. South Vietnam entered a period of extreme political instability, as one military government toppled another in quick succession. Increasingly, each new regime was viewed by the communists as a puppet of the Americans ; whatever the failings of Diệm, his credentials as a nationalist ( as Robert McNamara later reflected ) had been impeccable. U.S military advisors were embedded at every level of the South Vietnamese armed forces. They were however criticized for ignoring the political nature of the insurgency. The Kennedy administration sought to refocus U.S. efforts on pacification and `` winning over the hearts and minds '' of the population. The military leadership in Washington, however, was hostile to any role for U.S. advisors other than conventional troop training. General Paul Harkins, the commander of U.S. forces in South Vietnam, confidently predicted victory by Christmas 1963. The CIA was less optimistic, however, warning that `` the Viet Cong by and large retain de facto control of much of the countryside and have steadily increased the overall intensity of the effort ''. Paramilitary officers from the CIA 's Special Activities Division trained and led Hmong tribesmen in Laos and into Vietnam. The indigenous forces numbered in the tens of thousands and they conducted direct action missions, led by paramilitary officers, against the Communist Pathet Lao forces and their North Vietnamese supporters. The CIA also ran the Phoenix Program and participated in Military Assistance Command, Vietnam -- Studies and Observations Group ( MAC - V SOG ), which was originally named the Special Operations Group, but was changed for cover purposes. Johnson 's escalation, 1963 -- 69 Main article : Joint warfare in South Vietnam, 1963 -- 69 Further information : Role of the United States in the Vietnam War § Americanization See also : Opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, Gulf of Tonkin incident, 1964 South Vietnamese coup, September 1964 South Vietnamese coup attempt, December 1964 South Vietnamese coup, and 1965 South Vietnamese coup A U.S. B - 66 Destroyer and four F - 105 Thunderchiefs dropping bombs on North Vietnam during Operation Rolling Thunder At the time Lyndon B. Johnson took over the presidency after the death of Kennedy, he had not been heavily involved with policy toward Vietnam, Presidential aide Jack Valenti recalls, `` Vietnam at the time was no bigger than a man 's fist on the horizon. We hardly discussed it because it was not worth discussing. '' Upon becoming president, however, Johnson immediately had to focus on Vietnam : on 24 November 1963, he said, `` the battle against communism... must be joined... with strength and determination. '' The pledge came at a time when the situation in South Vietnam was deteriorating, especially in places like the Mekong Delta, because of the recent coup against Diệm. However, Johnson knew that he had inherited a rapidly deteriorating situation in South Vietnam, believing in the widely accepted arguments that were used for defending the South : Should they retreat or appease, either action would imperil other nations beyond the conflict. The military revolutionary council, meeting in lieu of a strong South Vietnamese leader, was made up of 12 members headed by General Dương Văn Minh -- whom Stanley Karnow, a journalist on the ground, later recalled as `` a model of lethargy ''. Lodge, frustrated by the end of the year, cabled home about Minh : `` Will he be strong enough to get on top of things ? '' His regime was overthrown in January 1964 by General Nguyễn Khánh. However, there was persistent instability in the military as several coups -- not all successful -- occurred in a short period of time. An alleged Viet Cong activist, captured during an attack on an American outpost near the Cambodian border, is interrogated. On 2 August 1964, the USS Maddox, on an intelligence mission along North Vietnam 's coast, allegedly fired upon and damaged several torpedo boats that had been stalking it in the Gulf of Tonkin. A second attack was reported two days later on the USS Turner Joy and Maddox in the same area. The circumstances of the attack were murky. Lyndon Johnson commented to Undersecretary of State George Ball that `` those sailors out there may have been shooting at flying fish. '' The second attack led to retaliatory air strikes, prompted Congress to approve the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on 7 August 1964, signed by Johnson, and gave the president power to conduct military operations in Southeast Asia without declaring war. Although Congressmen at the time denied that this was a full - scale war declaration, the Tonkin Resolution allowed the president unilateral power to launch a full - scale war if the president deemed it necessary. In the same month, Johnson pledged that he was not `` committing American boys to fighting a war that I think ought to be fought by the boys of Asia to help protect their own land ''. An undated NSA publication declassified in 2005, however, revealed that there was no attack on 4 August. It had already been called into question long before this. `` The Gulf of Tonkin incident '', wrote Louise Gerdes, `` is an oft - cited example of the way in which Johnson misled the American people to gain support for his foreign policy in Vietnam. '' George C. Herring argues, however, that McNamara and the Pentagon `` did not knowingly lie about the alleged attacks, but they were obviously in a mood to retaliate and they seem to have selected from the evidence available to them those parts that confirmed what they wanted to believe. '' `` From a strength of approximately 5,000 at the start of 1959 the Viet Cong 's ranks grew to about 100,000 at the end of 1964... Between 1961 and 1964 the Army 's strength rose from about 850,000 to nearly a million men. '' The numbers for U.S. troops deployed to Vietnam during the same period were quite different ; 2,000 in 1961, rising rapidly to 16,500 in 1964. By early 1965, 7,559 South Vietnamese hamlets had been destroyed by the Viet Cong. A Marine from 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, moves an alleged Viet Cong activist to the rear during a search and clear operation held by the battalion 15 miles ( 24 km ) west of Da Nang Air Base. The National Security Council recommended a three - stage escalation of the bombing of North Vietnam. On 7 February 1965 following an attack on a U.S. Army base in Pleiku, Operation Flaming Dart ( initiated when Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin was on a state visit to North Vietnam ), Operation Rolling Thunder and Operation Arc Light commenced. The bombing campaign, which ultimately lasted three years, was intended to force North Vietnam to cease its support for the Viet Cong by threatening to destroy North Vietnam 's air defenses and industrial infrastructure. As well, it was aimed at bolstering the morale of the South Vietnamese. Between March 1965 and November 1968, `` Rolling Thunder '' deluged the north with a million tons of missiles, rockets and bombs. Bombing was not restricted to North Vietnam. Other aerial campaigns, such as Operation Commando Hunt, targeted different parts of the Viet Cong and NVA infrastructure. These included the Ho Chi Minh trail supply route, which ran through Laos and Cambodia. The objective of stopping North Vietnam and the Viet Cong was never reached. As Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann noted, `` This is a political war and it calls for discriminate killing. The best weapon... would be a knife... The worst is an airplane. '' The Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force Curtis LeMay, however, had long advocated saturation bombing in Vietnam and wrote of the communists that `` we 're going to bomb them back into the Stone Age ''. Escalation and ground War Play media Universal Newsreel film about an attack on U.S. air bases and the U.S. response, 1965 Peasants suspected of being Viet Cong under detention of U.S. army, 1966 Start of Tet Offensive as seen looking north from LZ Betty 's water tower, just south of Quang Tri City Heavily bandaged woman with a tag attached to her arm which reads `` VNC Female '' meaning Vietnamese civilian After several attacks upon them, it was decided that U.S. Air Force bases needed more protection as the South Vietnamese military seemed incapable of providing security. On 8 March 1965, 3,500 U.S. Marines were dispatched to South Vietnam. This marked the beginning of the American ground war. U.S. public opinion overwhelmingly supported the deployment. In a statement similar to that made to the French almost two decades earlier, Ho Chi Minh warned that if the Americans `` want to make war for twenty years then we shall make war for twenty years. If they want to make peace, we shall make peace and invite them to afternoon tea. '' Some have argued that the policy of North Vietnam was not to topple other non-communist governments in South East Asia. The Marines ' initial assignment was defensive. The first deployment of 3,500 in March 1965 was increased to nearly 200,000 by December. The U.S. military had long been schooled in offensive warfare. Regardless of political policies, U.S. commanders were institutionally and psychologically unsuited to a defensive mission. In December 1964, ARVN forces had suffered heavy losses at the Battle of Bình Giã, in a battle that both sides viewed as a watershed. Previously, communist forces had utilized hit - and - run guerrilla tactics. However, at Binh Gia, they had defeated a strong ARVN force in a conventional battle. Tellingly, South Vietnamese forces were again defeated in June 1965 at the Battle of Đồng Xoài. U.S. soldiers searching a village for Viet Cong Desertion rates were increasing, and morale plummeted. General William Westmoreland informed Admiral U.S. Grant Sharp Jr., commander of U.S. Pacific forces, that the situation was critical. He said, `` I am convinced that U.S. troops with their energy, mobility, and firepower can successfully take the fight to the NLF ( National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam a.k.a. the Viet Cong ) ''. With this recommendation, Westmoreland was advocating an aggressive departure from America 's defensive posture and the sidelining of the South Vietnamese. By ignoring ARVN units, the U.S. commitment became open - ended. Westmoreland outlined a three - point plan to win the war : Phase 1. Commitment of U.S. ( and other free world ) forces necessary to halt the losing trend by the end of 1965. Phase 2. U.S. and allied forces mount major offensive actions to seize the initiative to destroy guerrilla and organized enemy forces. This phase would end when the enemy had been worn down, thrown on the defensive, and driven back from major populated areas. Phase 3. If the enemy persisted, a period of twelve to eighteen months following Phase 2 would be required for the final destruction of enemy forces remaining in remote base areas. The plan was approved by Johnson and marked a profound departure from the previous administration 's insistence that the government of South Vietnam was responsible for defeating the guerrillas. Westmoreland predicted victory by the end of 1967. Johnson did not, however, communicate this change in strategy to the media. Instead he emphasized continuity. The change in U.S. policy depended on matching the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong in a contest of attrition and morale. The opponents were locked in a cycle of escalation. The idea that the government of South Vietnam could manage its own affairs was shelved. Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin with U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson at the Glassboro Summit Conference where the two representatives discussed the possibilities of a peace settlement The one - year tour of duty of American soldiers deprived units of experienced leadership. As one observer noted `` we were not in Vietnam for 10 years, but for one year 10 times. '' As a result, training programs were shortened. South Vietnam was inundated with manufactured goods. As Stanley Karnow writes, `` the main PX ( Post Exchange ), located in the Saigon suburb of Cholon, was only slightly smaller than the New York Bloomingdale 's... '' The American buildup transformed the economy and had a profound effect on South Vietnamese society. A huge surge in corruption was witnessed. Washington encouraged its SEATO allies to contribute troops. Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines all agreed to send troops. Major allies, however, notably NATO nations Canada and the United Kingdom, declined Washington 's troop requests. The U.S. and its allies mounted complex operations, such as operations Masher, Attleboro, Cedar Falls, and Junction City. However, the communist insurgents remained elusive and demonstrated great tactical flexibility. Meanwhile, the political situation in South Vietnam began to stabilize with the coming to power of prime minister Air Marshal Nguyễn Cao Kỳ and figurehead Chief of State, General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, in mid-1965 at the head of a military junta. This ended a series of coups that had happened more than once a year. In 1967, Thieu became president with Ky as his deputy, after rigged elections. Although they were nominally a civilian government, Ky was supposed to maintain real power through a behind - the - scenes military body. However, Thieu outmaneuvered and sidelined Ky by filling the ranks with generals from his faction. Thieu was also accused of murdering Ky loyalists through contrived military accidents. Thieu, mistrustful and indecisive, remained president until 1975, having won a one - candidate election in 1971. The Johnson administration employed a `` policy of minimum candor '' in its dealings with the media. Military information officers sought to manage media coverage by emphasizing stories that portrayed progress in the war. Over time, this policy damaged the public trust in official pronouncements. As the media 's coverage of the war and that of the Pentagon diverged, a so - called credibility gap developed. Tet offensive Main article : Tet Offensive A US `` tunnel rat '' soldier prepares to enter a Viet Cong tunnel. In late 1967 the Communists lured American forces into the hinterlands at Đắk Tô and at the Marine Khe Sanh combat base in Quảng Trị Province where the United States was more than willing to fight because it could unleash its massive firepower unimpeded by civilians. However, on 30 January 1968, the NVA and the Viet Cong broke the truce that traditionally accompanied the Tết ( Lunar New Year ) holiday by launching the largest battle of the war, the Tet Offensive, in the hope of sparking a national uprising. Over 100 cities were attacked by over 85,000 enemy troops including assaults on General Westmoreland 's headquarters and the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. Although the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces were initially shocked by the scale of the urban offensive, they responded quickly and effectively, decimating the ranks of the Viet Cong. In the former capital city of Huế, the combined NVA and Viet Cong troops captured the Imperial Citadel and much of the city and massacred over 3,000 unarmed Huế civilians. In the following Battle of Huế American forces employed massive firepower that left 80 percent of the city in ruins. Further north, at Quảng Trị City, members of the 1st Cavalry Division and 1st ARVN Infantry Division killed more than 900 NVA and Vietcong troops in and around the city. In Saigon, 1,000 NLF ( Viet Cong ) fighters fought off 11,000 U.S. and ARVN troops for three weeks. U.S. Marines in Operation Allen Brook in 1968 Across South Vietnam, 1,100 Americans and other allied troops, 2,100 ARVN, 14,000 civilians, and 32,000 NVA and Viet Cong lay dead. But the Tet Offensive had another, unintended consequence. General Westmoreland had become the public face of the war. He had been named Time magazine 's 1965 's Man of the Year and eventually was featured on the magazine 's cover three times. Time described him as `` the sinewy personification of the American fighting man... ( who ) directed the historic buildup, drew up the battle plans, and infused the... men under him with his own idealistic view of U.S. aims and responsibilities. '' Six weeks after the Tet Offensive began, `` public approval of his overall performance dropped from 48 percent to 36 percent -- and, more dramatically, endorsement for his handling of the war fell from 40 percent to 26 percent. '' U.S. Marines fighting in Huế A few months earlier, in November 1967, Westmoreland had spearheaded a public relations drive for the Johnson administration to bolster flagging public support. In a speech before the National Press Club he had said a point in the war had been reached `` where the end comes into view. '' Thus, the public was shocked and confused when Westmoreland 's predictions were trumped by Tet. The American media, which had until then been largely supportive of U.S. efforts, turned on the Johnson administration for what had become an increasing credibility gap. Although the Tet Offensive was a significant victory for allied forces, in terms of casualties and control of territory, it was a sound defeat when evaluated from the point of view of strategic consequences : it became a turning point in America 's involvement in the Vietnam War because it had a profound impact on domestic support for the conflict. Despite the military failure for the Communist forces, the Tet Offensive became a political victory for them and ended the career of president Lyndon B. Johnson, who declined to run for re-election as his approval rating slumped from 48 to 36 percent. As James Witz noted, Tet `` contradicted the claims of progress... made by the Johnson administration and the military ''. The offensive constituted an intelligence failure on the scale of Pearl Harbor. Journalist Peter Arnett, in a disputed article, quoted an officer he refused to identify, saying of Bến Tre ( laid to rubble by U.S. attacks ) that `` it became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it ''. Viet Cong / NVA killed by U.S. Air Force personnel during a perimeter attack of Tan Son Nhut Air Base during the Tet Offensive Walter Cronkite said in an editorial, `` To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. '' Following Cronkite 's editorial report, President Lyndon Johnson is reported to have said, `` If I 've lost Cronkite, I 've lost Middle America. '' Whether this statement was actually made by Johnson has been called into doubt. Westmoreland became Chief of Staff of the Army in March 1968, just as all resistance was finally subdued. The move was technically a promotion. However, his position had become untenable because of the offensive and because his request for 200,000 additional troops had been leaked to the media. Westmoreland was succeeded by his deputy Creighton Abrams, a commander less inclined to public media pronouncements. On 10 May 1968, despite low expectations, peace talks began between the United States and North Vietnam in Paris. Negotiations stagnated for five months, until Johnson gave orders to halt the bombing of North Vietnam. As historian Robert Dallek writes, `` Lyndon Johnson 's escalation of the war in Vietnam divided Americans into warring camps... cost 30,000 American lives by the time he left office, ( and ) destroyed Johnson 's presidency... '' His refusal to send more U.S. troops to Vietnam was seen as Johnson 's admission that the war was lost. In effect, Johnson found that the Vietnam War was no easier to prosecute than the Korean war, learning from experience that China was likely to intervene directly if Hanoi 's survival was threatened. Likewise, the Soviet Union would respond by providing more supplies and equipment to raise the cost for U.S. involvement, weakening their defenses in Europe and in the worse case trigger a nuclear confrontation. It can be seen that the refusal was a tacit admission that the war could not be won by escalation, at least not at a cost acceptable to the American people. As Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara noted, `` the dangerous illusion of victory by the United States was therefore dead. '' Vietnam was a major political issue during the United States presidential election in 1968. The election was won by Republican party candidate Richard Nixon. Vietnamization, 1969 -- 72 Nixon Doctrine / Vietnamization Propaganda leaflet urging the defection of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese to the side of the Republic of Vietnam U.S. President Richard Nixon began troop withdrawals in 1969. His plan, called the Nixon Doctrine, was to build up the ARVN, so that they could take over the defense of South Vietnam. The policy became known as `` Vietnamization ''. Nixon said in 1970 in an announcement, `` I am tonight announcing plans for the withdrawal of an additional 150,000 American troops to be completed during the spring of next year. This will bring a total reduction of 265,500 men in our armed forces in Vietnam below the level that existed when we took office 15 months ago. '' On 10 October 1969, Nixon 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. Nixon also pursued negotiations. Theater commander Creighton Abrams shifted to smaller operations, aimed at communist logistics, with better use of firepower and more cooperation with the ARVN. Nixon also began to pursue détente with the Soviet Union and rapprochement with China. This policy helped to decrease global tensions. Détente led to nuclear arms reduction on the part of both superpowers. But Nixon was disappointed that China and the Soviet Union continued to supply the North Vietnamese with aid. In September 1969, Ho Chi Minh died at age seventy - nine. The anti-war movement was gaining strength in the United States. Nixon appealed to the `` silent majority '' of Americans who he said supported the war without showing it in public. But revelations of the My Lai Massacre, in which a U.S. Army platoon raped and killed civilians, and the 1969 `` Green Beret Affair '' where eight Special Forces soldiers, including the 5th Special Forces Group Commander, were arrested for the murder of a suspected double agent provoked national and international outrage. Beginning in 1970, American troops were withdrawn from border areas where most of the fighting took place, and instead redeployed along the coast and interior, which is one reason why casualties in 1970 were less than half of 1969 's totals. Cambodia and Laos Main articles : Operation Menu, Operation Freedom Deal, Operation Commando Hunt, Laotian Civil War, Cambodian Civil War, and Operation Lam Son 719 Prince Norodom Sihanouk had proclaimed Cambodia neutral since 1955, but the communists used Cambodian soil as a base and Sihanouk tolerated their presence, because he wished to avoid being drawn into a wider regional conflict. Under pressure from Washington, however, he changed this policy in 1969. The Vietnamese communists were no longer welcome. President Nixon took the opportunity to launch a massive bombing campaign, called Operation Menu, against communist sanctuaries along the Cambodia / Vietnam border. Only five high - ranking Congressional officials were informed of Operation Menu. In 1970, Prince Sihanouk was deposed by his pro-American prime minister Lon Nol. North Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1970 at the request of Khmer Rouge deputy leader Nuon Chea. U.S. and ARVN forces launched an invasion into Cambodia to attack NVA and Viet Cong bases. This invasion sparked nationwide U.S. protests as Nixon had promised to deescalate the American involvement. Four students were killed by National Guardsmen at Kent State University during a protest in Ohio, which provoked further public outrage in the United States. The reaction to the incident by the Nixon administration was seen as callous and indifferent, providing additional impetus for the anti-war movement. The U.S. Air Force continued to heavily bomb Cambodia in support of the Cambodian government as part of Operation Freedom Deal. In 1971 the Pentagon Papers were leaked to The New York Times. The top - secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, commissioned by the Department of Defense, detailed a long series of public deceptions on the part of the U.S. government. The Supreme Court ruled that its publication was legal. M41 Walker Bulldog, the main battle tank of the ARVN The ARVN launched Operation Lam Son 719 in February 1971, aimed at cutting the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos. The ostensibly neutral Laos had long been the scene of a civil war, pitting the Laotian government backed by the US against the Pathet Lao and its North Vietnamese allies. After meeting resistance, ARVN forces retreated in a confused rout. They fled along roads littered with their own dead. When they exhausted fuel supplies, soldiers abandoned their vehicles and attempted to barge their way on to American helicopters sent to evacuate the wounded. Many ARVN soldiers clung to helicopter skids in a desperate attempt to save themselves. U.S. aircraft had to destroy abandoned equipment, including tanks, to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. Half of the ARVN troops involved in the operation were either captured or killed. The operation was a fiasco and represented a clear failure of Vietnamization. As Karnow noted `` the blunders were monumental... The ( South Vietnamese ) government 's top officers had been tutored by the Americans for ten or fifteen years, many at training schools in the United States, yet they had learned little. '' In 1971 Australia and New Zealand withdrew their soldiers. The U.S. troop count was further reduced to 196,700, with a deadline to remove another 45,000 troops by February 1972. As peace protests spread across the United States, disillusionment and ill - discipline grew in the ranks including increased drug use, `` fragging '' ( the act of murdering the commander of a fighting unit ) and desertions. Vietnamization was again tested by the Easter Offensive of 1972, a massive conventional NVA invasion of South Vietnam. The NVA and Viet Cong quickly overran the northern provinces and in coordination with other forces attacked from Cambodia, threatening to cut the country in half. U.S. troop withdrawals continued. American airpower responded, beginning Operation Linebacker, and the offensive was halted. However, it became clear that without American airpower South Vietnam could not survive. The last remaining American ground troops were withdrawn by the end of March 1973 ; U.S. naval and air forces remained in the Gulf of Tonkin, as well as Thailand and Guam. 1972 election and Paris Peace Accords The war was the central issue of the 1972 U.S. presidential election. Nixon 's opponent, George McGovern, campaigned on a platform of withdrawal from Vietnam. Nixon 's National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, continued secret negotiations with North Vietnam 's Lê Đức Thọ. In October 1972, they reached an agreement. Operation Linebacker II, December 1972 However, South Vietnamese president Thieu demanded massive changes to the peace accord. When North Vietnam went public with the agreement 's details, the Nixon administration claimed that the North was attempting to embarrass the president. The negotiations became deadlocked. Hanoi demanded new changes. To show his support for South Vietnam and force Hanoi back to the negotiating table, Nixon ordered Operation Linebacker II, a massive bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong 18 -- 29 December 1972. The offensive destroyed much of the remaining economic and industrial capacity of North Vietnam. Simultaneously Nixon pressured Thieu to accept the terms of the agreement, threatening to conclude a bilateral peace deal and cut off American aid. On 15 January 1973, Nixon announced the suspension of offensive action against North Vietnam. The Paris Peace Accords on `` Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam '' were signed on 27 January 1973, officially ending direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. A cease - fire was declared across North and South Vietnam. U.S. prisoners of war were released. The agreement guaranteed the territorial integrity of Vietnam and, like the Geneva Conference of 1954, called for national elections in the North and South. The Paris Peace Accords stipulated 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. '' Opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War : 1962 -- 1973 Main article : Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War Protests against the war in Washington, D.C. on 24 April 1971 Anti-Vietnam War demonstration, 1967 Anti-war protests During the course of the Vietnam War a large segment of the American population came to be opposed to U.S. involvement in South Vietnam. Public opinion steadily turned against the war following 1967 and by 1970 only a third of Americans believed that the U.S. had not made a mistake by sending troops to fight in Vietnam. Nearly a third of the American population were strongly against the war. It is possible to specify certain groups who led the anti-war movement and the reasons why. Many young people protested because they were the ones being drafted while others were against the war because the anti-war movement grew increasingly popular among the counterculture and drug culture in American society and its music. Some advocates within the peace movement advocated a unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam. One reason given for the withdrawal is that it would contribute to a lessening of tensions in the region and thus less human bloodshed. Early opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam drew its inspiration from the Geneva Conference of 1954. American support of Diệm in refusing elections was seen as thwarting the very democracy that America claimed to be supporting. John F. Kennedy, while Senator, opposed involvement in Vietnam. Opposition to the Vietnam War tended to unite groups opposed to U.S. anti-communism and imperialism and, for those involved with the New Left such as the Catholic Worker Movement. Others, such as Stephen Spiro opposed the war based on the theory of Just War. Some wanted to show solidarity with the people of Vietnam, such as Norman Morrison emulating the actions of Thích Quảng Đức. In a key televised debate from 15 May 1965, Eric Severeid reporting for CBS conducted a debate between McGeorge Bundy and Hans Morgenthau dealing with an acute summary of the main war concerns of the U.S. as seen at that time stating them as : `` ( 1 ) What are the justifications for the American presence in Vietnam -- why are we there ? ( 2 ) What is the fundamental nature of this war ? Is it aggression from North Vietnam or is it basically, a civil war between the peoples of South Vietnam ? ( 3 ) What are the implications of this Vietnam struggle in terms of Communist China 's power and aims and future actions ? And ( 4 ) What are the alternatives to our present policy in Vietnam ? '' High - profile opposition to the Vietnam War turned to street protests in an effort to turn U.S. political opinion. On 15 October 1969, the Vietnam Moratorium attracted millions of Americans. 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. The fatal shooting of four students at Kent State University in 1970 led to nationwide university protests. Anti-war protests ended with the final withdrawal of troops after the Paris Peace Accords were signed in 1973. South Vietnam was left to defend itself alone when the fighting resumed. Many South Vietnamese subsequently fled to the United States. Exit of the Americans : 1973 -- 75 The United States began drastically reducing their troop support in South Vietnam during the final years of Vietnamization. Many U.S. troops were removed from the region, and on 5 March 1971, the United States returned the 5th Special Forces Group, which was the first American unit deployed to South Vietnam, to its former base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Under the Paris Peace Accords, between North Vietnamese Foreign Minister Lê Đức Thọ and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and reluctantly signed by South Vietnamese president Thiệu, U.S. military forces withdrew from South Vietnam and prisoners were exchanged. North Vietnam was allowed to continue supplying communist troops in the South, but only to the extent of replacing expended materiel. Later that year the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Kissinger and Thọ, but the Vietnamese negotiator declined it saying that a true peace did not yet exist. The communist leaders had expected that the ceasefire terms would favor their side. But Saigon, bolstered by a surge of U.S. aid received just before the ceasefire went into effect, began to roll back the Viet Cong. The communists responded with a new strategy hammered out in a series of meetings in Hanoi in March 1973, according to the memoirs of Trần Văn Trà. As the Viet Cong 's top commander, Tra participated in several of these meetings. With U.S. bombings suspended, work on the Ho Chi Minh trail and other logistical structures could proceed unimpeded. Logistics would be upgraded until the North was in a position to launch a massive invasion of the South, projected for the 1975 -- 76 dry season. Tra calculated that this date would be Hanoi 's last opportunity to strike before Saigon 's army could be fully trained. Calling for immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam, George McGovern 's 1972 Presidential Campaign lost 49 of 50 states to Richard Nixon. In the November 1972 Election, Democratic nominee George McGovern lost 49 of 50 states to the incumbent President Richard Nixon. On 15 March 1973, President Nixon implied that the United States would intervene militarily if the communist side violated the ceasefire. Public and congressional reaction to Nixon 's trial balloon was unfavorable and in April Nixon appointed Graham Martin as U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam. During his confirmation hearings in June 1973, Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger stated that he would recommend resumption of U.S. bombing in North Vietnam if North Vietnam launched a major offensive against South Vietnam. On 4 June 1973, the U.S. Senate passed the Case -- Church Amendment to prohibit such intervention. The oil price shock of October 1973 following the Yom Kippur War in Egypt caused significant damage to the South Vietnamese economy. The Viet Cong resumed offensive operations when the dry season began and by January 1974 it had recaptured the territory it lost during the previous dry season. After two clashes that left 55 South Vietnamese soldiers dead, President Thieu announced on 4 January that the war had restarted and that the Paris Peace Accord was no longer in effect. There had been over 25,000 South Vietnamese casualties during the ceasefire period. Gerald Ford took over as U.S. president on 9 August 1974 after President Nixon resigned due to the Watergate scandal. At this time, Congress cut financial aid to South Vietnam from $1 billion a year to $700 million. The U.S. midterm elections in 1974 brought in a new Congress dominated by Democrats who were even more determined to confront the president on the war. Congress immediately voted in restrictions on funding and military activities to be phased in through 1975 and to culminate in a total cutoff of funding in 1976. The success of the 1973 -- 74 dry season offensive inspired Trà to return to Hanoi in October 1974 and plead for a larger offensive in the next dry season. This time, Trà could travel on a drivable highway with regular fueling stops, a vast change from the days when the Ho Chi Minh trail was a dangerous mountain trek. Giáp, the North Vietnamese defense minister, was reluctant to approve Trà 's plan. A larger offensive might provoke a U.S. reaction and interfere with the big push planned for 1976. Trà appealed over Giáp 's head to first secretary Lê Duẩn, who approved of the operation. Trà 's plan called for a limited offensive from Cambodia into Phước Long Province. The strike was designed to solve local logistical problems, gauge the reaction of South Vietnamese forces, and determine whether U.S. would return to the fray. Recently released American POWs from North Vietnamese prison camps, 1973 On 13 December 1974, North Vietnamese forces attacked Route 14 in Phước Long Province. Phuoc Binh, the provincial capital, fell on 6 January 1975. Ford desperately asked Congress for funds to assist and re-supply the South before it was overrun. Congress refused. The fall of Phuoc Binh and the lack of an American response left the South Vietnamese elite demoralized. The speed of this success led the Politburo to reassess its strategy. It was decided that operations in the Central Highlands would be turned over to General Văn Tiến Dũng and that Pleiku should be seized, if possible. Before he left for the South, Dũng was addressed by Lê Duẩn : `` Never have we had military and political conditions so perfect or a strategic advantage as great as we have now. '' At the start of 1975, the South Vietnamese had three times as much artillery and twice the number of tanks and armored cars as the opposition. They also had 1,400 aircraft and a two - to - one numerical superiority in combat troops over their Communist enemies. However, the rising oil prices meant that much of this could not be used. They faced a well - organized, highly determined and well - funded North Vietnam. Much of the North 's material and financial support came from the communist bloc. Within South Vietnam, there was increasing chaos. The departure of the American military had compromised an economy dependent on U.S. financial support and the presence of a large number of U.S. troops. South Vietnam suffered from the global recession that followed the Arab oil embargo. Campaign 275 See also : 1975 Spring Offensive, Battle of Ban Me Thuot, and Hue -- Da Nang Campaign Captured U.S. - supplied armored vehicles and artillery pieces. On 10 March 1975, General Dung launched Campaign 275, a limited offensive into the Central Highlands, supported by tanks and heavy artillery. The target was Buôn Ma Thuột, in Đắk Lắk Province. If the town could be taken, the provincial capital of Pleiku and the road to the coast would be exposed for a planned campaign in 1976. The ARVN proved incapable of resisting the onslaught, and its forces collapsed on 11 March. Once again, Hanoi was surprised by the speed of their success. Dung now urged the Politburo to allow him to seize Pleiku immediately and then turn his attention to Kon Tum. He argued that with two months of good weather remaining until the onset of the monsoon, it would be irresponsible to not take advantage of the situation. President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, a former general, was fearful that his forces would be cut off in the north by the attacking communists ; Thieu ordered a retreat. The president declared this to be a `` lighten the top and keep the bottom '' strategy. But in what appeared to be a repeat of Operation Lam Son 719, the withdrawal soon turned into a bloody rout. While the bulk of ARVN forces attempted to flee, isolated units fought desperately. ARVN General Phu abandoned Pleiku and Kon Tum and retreated toward the coast, in what became known as the `` column of tears ''. As the ARVN tried to disengage from the enemy, refugees mixed in with the line of retreat. The poor condition of roads and bridges, damaged by years of conflict and neglect, slowed Phu 's column. As the North Vietnamese forces approached, panic set in. Often abandoned by the officers, the soldiers and civilians were shelled incessantly. The retreat degenerated into a desperate scramble for the coast. By 1 April the `` column of tears '' was all but annihilated. On 20 March, Thieu reversed himself and ordered Huế, Vietnam 's third - largest city, be held at all costs, and then changed his policy several times. Thieu 's contradictory orders confused and demoralized his officer corps. As the North Vietnamese launched their attack, panic set in, and ARVN resistance withered. On 22 March, the NVA opened the siege of Huế. Civilians flooded the airport and the docks hoping for any mode of escape. Some even swam out to sea to reach boats and barges anchored offshore. In the confusion, routed ARVN soldiers fired on civilians to make way for their retreat. On 25 March, after a three - day battle, Huế fell. As resistance in Huế collapsed, North Vietnamese rockets rained down on Da Nang and its airport. By 28 March 35,000 VPA troops were poised to attack the suburbs. By 30 March 100,000 leaderless ARVN troops surrendered as the NVA marched victoriously through Da Nang. With the fall of the city, the defense of the Central Highlands and Northern provinces came to an end. Final North Vietnamese offensive For more details on the final North Vietnamese offensive, see Ho Chi Minh Campaign. Captured South Vietnamese warplanes in Ho Chi Minh City With the northern half of the country under their control, the Politburo ordered General Dung to launch the final offensive against Saigon. The operational plan for the Ho Chi Minh Campaign called for the capture of Saigon before 1 May. Hanoi wished to avoid the coming monsoon and prevent any redeployment of ARVN forces defending the capital. Northern forces, their morale boosted by their recent victories, rolled on, taking Nha Trang, Cam Ranh, and Da Lat. On 7 April, three North Vietnamese divisions attacked Xuân Lộc, 40 miles ( 64 km ) east of Saigon. The North Vietnamese met fierce resistance at Xuân Lộc from the ARVN 18th Division, who were outnumbered six to one. For two bloody weeks, severe fighting raged as the ARVN defenders made a last stand to try to block the North Vietnamese advance. By 21 April, however, the exhausted garrison were 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. At the same time, North Vietnamese tanks had reached Biên Hòa and turned toward Saigon, brushing aside isolated ARVN units along the way. By the end of April, the ARVN had collapsed on all fronts except in the Mekong Delta. Thousands of refugees streamed southward, ahead of the main communist onslaught. On 27 April 100,000 North Vietnamese troops encircled Saigon. The city was defended by about 30,000 ARVN troops. To hasten a collapse and foment panic, the NVA shelled the airport and forced its closure. With the air exit closed, large numbers of civilians found that they had no way out. Fall of Saigon Main article : Fall of Saigon Further information : Operation Frequent Wind Victorious NVA troops at the Presidential Palace, Saigon Chaos, unrest, and panic broke out as hysterical South Vietnamese officials and civilians scrambled to leave Saigon. Martial law was declared. American helicopters began evacuating South Vietnamese, U.S., and foreign nationals from various parts of the city and from the U.S. embassy compound. Operation Frequent Wind had been delayed until the last possible moment, because of U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin 's belief that Saigon could be held and that a political settlement could be reached. 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 this conflict. In the United States, South Vietnam was perceived as doomed. 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. On 30 April 1975, NVA troops entered the city of Saigon and quickly overcame all resistance, capturing key buildings and installations. A tank from the 324th Division crashed through the gates of the Independence Palace at 11 : 30 am local time and the Viet Cong flag was raised above it. President Dương Văn Minh, who had succeeded Huong two days earlier, surrendered. Other countries ' involvement Pro-hanoi Ho Chi Minh with East German sailors in Stralsund harbour, 1957 2,000 years of Chinese - Vietnamese enmity and hundreds of years of Chinese and Russian mutual suspicions were suspended when they united against us in Vietnam. -- Richard Holbrooke, 1985 People 's Republic of China In 1950, the People 's Republic of China extended diplomatic recognition to the Viet Minh 's Democratic Republic of Vietnam and sent weapons, as well as military advisers led by Luo Guibo to assist the Viet Minh in its war with the French. The first draft of the 1954 Geneva Accords was negotiated by French prime minister Pierre Mendès France and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai who, fearing U.S. intervention, urged the Viet Minh to accept a partition at the 17th parallel. China 's support for North Vietnam included both financial aid and the deployment of hundreds of thousands of military personnel in support roles. In the summer of 1962, Mao Zedong agreed to supply Hanoi with 90,000 rifles and guns free of charge. Starting in 1965, China sent anti-aircraft units and engineering battalions to North Vietnam to repair the damage caused by American bombing, man anti-aircraft batteries, rebuild roads and railroads, transport supplies, and perform other engineering works. This freed North Vietnamese army units for combat in the South. China sent 320,000 troops and annual arms shipments worth $180 million. The Chinese military claims to have caused 38 % of American air losses in the war. China claimed that its military and economic aid to North Vietnam and the Viet Cong totaled $20 billion ( approx. $143 billion adjusted for inflation in 2015 ) during the Vietnam War. Included in that aid were donations of 5 million tons of food to North Vietnam ( equivalent to NV food production in a single year ), accounting for 10 - 15 % of the North Vietnamese food supply by the 1970s. Military aid given to North Vietnam by the People 's Republic of China Date 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 Total Guns 80,500 220,767 141,531 146,600 219,899 139,900 101,800 143,100 189,000 233,500 164,500 141,800 1,922,897 Artillery pieces 1,205 4,439 3,362 3,984 7,087 3,906 2,212 7,898 9,238 9,912 6,406 4,880 64,529 Bullets 25,240,000 114,010,000 178,120,000 147,000,000 247,920,000 119,117,000 29,010,000 57,190,000 40,000,000 40,000,000 30,000,000 20,600,000 1,048,207,000 Artillery shells 335,000 1,800,000 1,066,000 1,363,000 2,082,000 1,357,000 397,000 1,899,000 2,210,000 2,210,000 1,390,000 965,000 17,074,000 Radio transmitters 426 2,779 1,568 2,464 1,854 2,210 950 2,464 4,370 4,335 5,148 2,240 30,808 Telephones 2,941 9,502 2,235 2,289 3,313 3,453 1,600 4,424 5,905 6,447 4,663 2,150 48,922 Tanks 16 ? ? 26 18 ? ? 80 220 120 80 ? 560 Planes 18 ? 70 ? ? ? 14 36 ? 20 164 Automobiles 25 114 96 435 454 162 ? 4,011 8,758 1,210 506 ? 15,771 Sino - Soviet relations soured after the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in August 1968. In October, the Chinese demanded North Vietnam cut relations with Moscow, but Hanoi refused. The Chinese began to withdraw in November 1968 in preparation for a clash with the Soviets, which occurred at Zhenbao Island in March 1969. The Chinese also began financing the Khmer Rouge as a counterweight to the Vietnamese communists at this time. China `` armed and trained '' the Khmer Rouge during the civil war and continued to aid them for years afterward. The Khmer Rouge launched ferocious raids into Vietnam in 1975 -- 1978. When Vietnam responded with an invasion that toppled the Khmer Rouge, China launched a brief, punitive invasion of Vietnam in 1979. Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev ( left ) was the leader of the Soviet Union during the second half of the Vietnam War. Soviet ships in the South China Sea gave vital early warnings to Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam. The Soviet intelligence ships would pick up American B - 52 bombers flying from Okinawa and Guam. Their airspeed and direction would be noted and then relayed to COSVN, North Vietnam 's southern headquarters. Using airspeed and direction, COSVN analysts would calculate the bombing target and tell any assets to move `` perpendicularly to the attack trajectory. '' These advance warning gave them time to move out of the way of the bombers, and, while the bombing runs caused extensive damage, because of the early warnings from 1968 to 1970 they did not kill a single military or civilian leader in the headquarters complexes. The Soviet Union supplied North Vietnam with medical supplies, arms, tanks, planes, helicopters, artillery, anti-aircraft missiles and other military equipment. Soviet crews fired Soviet - made surface - to - air missiles at U.S. F - 4 Phantoms, which were shot down over Thanh Hóa in 1965. Over a dozen Soviet citizens lost their lives in this conflict. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian officials acknowledged that the Soviet Union had stationed up to 3,000 troops in Vietnam during the war. Some Russian sources give more specific numbers : Between 1953 and 1991, the hardware donated by the Soviet Union included 2,000 tanks, 1,700 APCs, 7,000 artillery guns, over 5,000 anti-aircraft guns, 158 surface - to - air missile launchers, 120 helicopters. During the war, the Soviets sent North Vietnam annual arms shipments worth $450 million. From July 1965 to the end of 1974, fighting in Vietnam was observed by some 6,500 officers and generals, as well as more than 4,500 soldiers and sergeants of the Soviet Armed Forces. In addition, Soviet military schools and academies began training Vietnamese soldiers -- in all more than 10,000 military personnel. North Korea As a result of a decision of the Korean Workers ' Party in October 1966, in early 1967 North Korea sent a fighter squadron to North Vietnam to back up the North Vietnamese 921st and 923rd fighter squadrons defending Hanoi. They stayed through 1968, and 200 pilots were reported to have served. In addition, at least two anti-aircraft artillery regiments were sent as well. North Korea also sent weapons, ammunition and two million sets of uniforms to their comrades in North Vietnam. Kim Il - sung is reported to have told his pilots to `` fight in the war as if the Vietnamese sky were their own ''. Cuba The contribution to North Vietnam by the Republic of Cuba, under Fidel Castro have been recognized several times by representatives of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Fidel Castro mentioned in his discourses the Batallón Girón ( Giron Battalion ) as comprising the Cuban contingent that served as military advisors during the war. In this battalion, alongside the Cubans, fought Nguyễn Thị Định, founding member of the Viet Cong, who later became the first female Major General in the North Vietnamese Army. There are numerous allegations by former U.S. prisoners of war that Cuban military personnel were present at North Vietnamese prison facilities during the war and that they participated in torture activities, in what is known as the `` Cuba Program ''. Witnesses to this include Senator John McCain, 2008 U.S. Presidential candidate and former Vietnam prisoner of war, according to his 1999 book Faith of My Fathers. Benjamin Gilman, a Vietnam War POW / MIA issue advocate, claim evidence that Cuba 's military and non-military involvement may have run into the `` thousands '' of personnel. Fidel Castro visited in person Quảng Trị province, held by North Vietnam after the Easter Offensive to show his support for the Viet Cong. Pro-Saigon South Korea Main article : Military history of South Korea during the Vietnam War Soldiers of the South Korean White Horse Division in Vietnam Vietnamese civilians of Phong Nhi village massacred by South Korean Blue Dragon Brigade in 1968 On the anti-communist side, South Korea ( a.k.a. the Republic of Korea, ROK ) had the second - largest contingent of foreign troops in South Vietnam after the United States. In November 1961, Park Chung - hee proposed South Korean participation in the war to John F. Kennedy, but Kennedy disagreed. On 1 May 1964 Lyndon Johnson requested South Korean participation. The first South Korean troops began arriving in 1964 and large combat formations began arriving a year later. The ROK Marine Corps dispatched their 2nd Marine Brigade while the ROK Army sent the Capital Division and later the 9th Infantry Division. In August 1966 after the arrival of the 9th Division the Koreans established a corps command, the Republic of Korea Forces Vietnam Field Command, near I Field Force, Vietnam at Nha Trang. The South Koreans soon developed a reputation for effectiveness, reportedly conducting counterinsurgency operations so well that American commanders felt that the South Korean area of responsibility was the safest. Approximately 320,000 South Korean soldiers were sent to Vietnam, each serving a one - year tour of duty. Maximum troop levels peaked at 50,000 in 1968, however all were withdrawn by 1973. About 5,099 South Koreans were killed and 10,962 wounded during the war. South Korea claimed to have killed 41,000 Viet Cong fighters. The United States paid South Korean soldiers 236 million dollars for their efforts in Vietnam, and South Korean GNP increased five-fold during the war. Australia and New Zealand Main articles : Military history of Australia during the Vietnam War and New Zealand in the Vietnam War An Australian soldier in Vietnam Australia and New Zealand, close allies of the United States and members of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization ( SEATO ) and the ANZUS military co-operation treaty, sent ground troops to Vietnam. Both nations had gained experience in counterinsurgency and jungle warfare during the Malayan Emergency and World War II. Their governments subscribed to the Domino theory. Australia began by sending advisors to Vietnam in 1962, and combat troops were committed in 1965. New Zealand began by sending a detachment of engineers and an artillery battery, and then started sending special forces and regular infantry which were attached to Australian formations. Australia 's peak commitment was 7,672 combat troops and New Zealand 's 552. More than 60,000 Australian personnel were involved during the course of the war, of which 521 were killed and more than 3,000 wounded. Approximately 3,500 New Zealanders served in Vietnam, with 37 killed and 187 wounded. Most Australians and New Zealanders served in the 1st Australian Task Force in Phước Tuy Province. Philippines Some 10,450 Filipino troops were dispatched to South Vietnam. They were primarily engaged in medical and other civilian pacification projects. These forces operated under the designation PHLCAG - V or Philippine Civic Action Group - Vietnam. More noteworthy was the fact that the naval base in Subic Bay was used for the U.S. Seventh Fleet from 1964 till the end of the war in 1975. The Navy base in Subic bay and the Air force base at Clark achieved maximum functionality during the war and supported an estimated 80,000 locals in allied tertiary businesses from shoe making to prostitution. Thailand See also : Laotian Civil War The Thai Queen 's Cobra battalion in Phuoc Tho Thai Army formations, including the `` Queen 's Cobra '' battalion, saw action in South Vietnam between 1965 and 1971. Thai forces saw much more action in the covert war in Laos between 1964 and 1972, though Thai regular formations there were heavily outnumbered by the irregular `` volunteers '' of the CIA - sponsored Police Aerial Reconnaissance Units or PARU, who carried out reconnaissance activities on the western side of the Ho Chi Minh trail. Republic of China ( Taiwan ) Main article : Republic of China in the Vietnam War Since November 1967, the Taiwanese government secretly operated a cargo transport detachment to assist the United States and South Vietnam. Taiwan also provided military training units for the South Vietnamese diving units, later known as the Lien Doi Nguoi Nhai ( LDMN ) or `` Frogman unit '' in English. In addition to the diving trainers there were several hundred military personnel. Military commandos from Taiwan were captured by communist forces three times trying to infiltrate North Vietnam. Brazil The Brazilian government of President Castelo Branco officially supported the United States 's position in South Vietnam and contributed a medical team and supplies to the country -- the only Latin American country to do so ( two other Latin American countries -- Nicaragua and Paraguay -- offered to send military forces in support of the United States, but their offers were declined ). Canada and the ICC Main article : Canada and the Vietnam War Canada, India and Poland constituted the International Control Commission, which was supposed to monitor the 1954 ceasefire agreement. Officially, Canada did not have partisan involvement in the Vietnam War and diplomatically it was `` non-belligerent ''. Victor Levant suggested otherwise in his book Quiet Complicity : Canadian Involvement in the Vietnam War ( 1986 ). The Vietnam War entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia asserts plainly that Canada 's record on the truce commissions was a pro-Saigon partisan one. United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed races ( FULRO ) Main articles : United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races and FULRO insurgency against Vietnam The ethnic minority peoples of south Vietnam like the Christian Montagnards ( Degar ), Hindu and Muslim Cham and the Buddhist Khmer Krom banded together in the United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races ( French : Front Uni de Lutte des Races Opprimées, acronym : FULRO ) to fight against the Vietnamese for autonomy or independence. FULRO fought against both the anti-Communist South Vietnamese and the Communist Viet Cong, and then FURLO proceeded to fight against the united Communist Socialist Republic of Vietnam after the fall of South Vietnam. FULRO was supported by China, the United States, Cambodia, and some French citizens. During the war, the South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem began a program to settle ethnic Vietnamese Kinh on Montagnard lands in the Central Highlands region. This provoked a backlash from the Montagnards. The Cambodians under both the pro-China King Sihanouk and the pro-American Lon Nol supported their fellow co-ethnic Khmer Krom in south Vietnam, following an anti - ethnic Vietnamese policy. FULRO was formed from the amalgation of the Cham organization `` Champa Liberation Front '' ( Front de Liberation du Champa FLC ) led by the Cham Muslim officer Les Kosem who served in the Royal Cambodian Army, the Khmer Krom organization `` Liberation Front of Kampuchea Krom '' ( Front de Liberation du Kampuchea Krom FLKK ) led by Chau Dara, a former monk, and the Montagnard organizations `` Central Highlands Liberation Front '' ( Front de Liberation des Hauts Plateaux FLHP ) led by Y Bham Enuol and BAJARAKA. The leaders of FULRO were executed by the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot when he took power in Cambodia but FULRO insurgents proceeded to fight against the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia and it was not until 1992 that they finally surrendered to the United Nations in Cambodia. War crimes Victims of the My Lai massacre Main articles : List of war crimes § 1954 -- 1975 : Vietnam War, and Vietnam War casualties See also : List of massacres in Vietnam A large number of war crimes took place during the Vietnam War. War crimes were committed by both sides during the conflict and included rape, massacres of civilians, bombings of civilian targets, terrorism, the widespread use of torture and the murder of prisoners of war. Additional common crimes included theft, arson, and the destruction of property not warranted by military necessity. Allied War crimes Main articles : Tiger Force and Vietnam War Crimes Working Group In 1968, the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group ( VWCWG ) was established by the Pentagon task force set up in the wake of the My Lai Massacre, to attempt to ascertain the veracity of emerging claims of war crimes by U.S. armed forces in Vietnam, during the Vietnam War period. A Viet Cong prisoner captured in 1967 by the U.S. Army awaits interrogation. He has been placed in a stress position by tying a board between his arms. The investigation compiled over 9,000 pages of investigative files, sworn statements by witnesses and status reports for top military officers, indicating that 320 incidents had factual basis. The substantiated cases included 7 massacres between 1967 and 1971 in which at least 137 civilians were killed ; seventy eight further attacks targeting non-combatants resulting in at least 57 deaths, 56 wounded and 15 sexually assaulted ; one hundred and forty - one cases of US soldiers torturing civilian detainees or prisoners of war with fists, sticks, bats, water or electric shock. Over 800 alleged atrocities were investigated, but only 23 soldiers were ever convicted on charges and most served sentences of less than a year. A Los Angeles Times report on the archived files concluded that the war crimes were not confined to a few rogue units, having been uncovered in every army division that was active in Vietnam. During their visits to transit detention facilities under American administration in 1968 and 1969, the International Red Cross recorded many cases of torture and inhumane treatment before the captives were handed over to South Vietnamese authorities. In 2003 a series of investigative reports by the Toledo Blade uncovered a large number of unreported American war crimes particularly from the Tiger Force unit. The war involved the establishment of numerous free - fire zones by U.S. forces as a tactic to prevent Viet Cong fighters from sheltering in South Vietnamese villages. Such practice, which involved the assumption that any individual appearing in the designated zones was an enemy combatant that could be freely targeted by weapons, is regarded by journalist Lewis M. Simons as `` a severe violation of the laws of war ''. Cases of indiscriminate attacks against civilians within free - fire zones resulting from unsuccessful forced evacuations were frequent. According to political scientist R.J. Rummel, U.S. troops murdered about 6,000 Vietnamese civilians during the war. Nick Turse, in his 2013 book, Kill Anything that Moves, argues that a relentless drive toward higher body counts, a widespread use of free - fire zones, rules of engagement where civilians who ran from soldiers or helicopters could be viewed as Viet Cong, and a widespread disdain for Vietnamese civilians led to massive civilian casualties and endemic war crimes inflicted by U.S. troops. One example cited by Turse is Operation Speedy Express, an operation by the 9th Infantry Division, which was described by John Paul Vann as, in effect, `` many My Lais ''. A report by Newsweek magazine suggested that an estimated 5,000 civilians may have been killed during six months of the operation. In terms of atrocities by the South Vietnamese, during the Diem era ( 1954 -- 1963 ) R.J. Rummel estimated that 16,000 to 167,000 South Vietnamese civilians were killed in democide ; for 1964 to 1975, Rummel estimated a total of 42,000 to 128,000 killed in democide. Thus, the total for 1954 to 1975 is from 57,000 to 284,000 deaths caused by South Vietnam, excluding NLF / North Vietnamese forces killed by the South Vietnamese armed forces. Torture and ill - treatment were frequently applied by the South Vietnamese to POWs as well as civilian prisoners. During their visit to the Con Son Prison in 1970, U.S. Congressmen Augustus F. Hawkins and William R. Anderson witnessed detainees either confined in minute `` tiger cages '' or chained to their cells, and provided with poor - quality food. A group of American doctors inspecting the prison in the same year found many inmates suffering symptoms resulting from forced immobility and torture. Red Cross reports after the war showed connections of U.S. advisors with the torture at POW camps. South Korean forces were also accused of war crimes as well. One documented event was the Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre where the 2nd Marine Brigade of the South Korean Army purportedly killed 69 - 79 civilians on 12 February 1968 in Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất village, Điện Bàn District of Quảng Nam Province in South Vietnam. South Korean forces are also accused of perpetrating other massacres, namely : Bình Hòa massacre, Binh Tai Massacre and Hà My massacre. North Vietnamese, Viet Cong, and Khmer Rouge War crimes Main article : Viet Cong and PAVN strategy, organization and structure § VC / NVA use of terror Victims of the Huế Massacre According to Guenter Lewy, the Viet Cong assassinated about 36,725 South Vietnamese between 1957 and 1972. Statistics for 1968 -- 72 suggest that `` about 80 percent of the terrorist victims were ordinary civilians and only about 20 percent were government officials, policemen, members of the self - defence forces or pacification cadres. '' Ami Pedahzur has written that `` the overall volume and lethality of Viet Cong terrorism rivals or exceeds all but a handful of terrorist campaigns waged over the last third of the twentieth century ''. Notable Viet Cong atrocities include the massacre of over 3,000 unarmed civilians at Huế during the Tet Offensive and the incineration of hundreds of civilians at the Đắk Sơn massacre with flamethrowers. Up to 155,000 refugees fleeing the final North Vietnamese Spring Offensive were killed or abducted on the road to Tuy Hòa in 1975. According to Rummel, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops murdered between 106,000 and 227,000 civilians in South Vietnam. North Vietnam was also known for its inhumane and abusive treatment of American POWs, most notably in Hỏa Lò Prison ( aka the Hanoi Hilton ), where severe torture was employed to extract `` confessions ''. According to a U.S. Senate report, squads were assigned monthly assassination quotas. Peer De Silva, former head of the Saigon department of the CIA, wrote that from as early as 1963, Viet Cong units were using disembowelment and other methods of mutilation for the purpose of waging psychological warfare. In the Cambodian Civil War, Khmer Rouge insurgents reportedly committed atrocities during the war. These include the murder of civilians and POWs by slowly sawing off their heads a little more each day, the destruction of Buddhist wats and the killing of monks, attacks on refugee camps involving the deliberate murder of babies and bomb threats against foreign aid workers, the abduction and assassination of journalists, and the shelling of Phnom Penh for more than a year. Journalist accounts stated that the Khmer Rouge shelling `` tortured the capital almost continuously '', inflicting `` random death and mutilation '' on 2 million trapped civilians. The Khmer Rouge forcibly evacuated the entire city after taking it, in what has been described as a death march : François Ponchaud wrote : `` I shall never forget one cripple who had neither hands nor feet, writhing along the ground like a severed worm, or a weeping father carrying his ten - year old daughter wrapped in a sheet tied around his neck like a sling, or the man with his foot dangling at the end of a leg to which it was attached by nothing but skin '' ; John Swain recalled that the Khmer Rouge were `` tipping out patients from the hospitals like garbage into the streets... In five years of war, this is the greatest caravan of human misery I have seen. '' Women in the Vietnam War American nurses Da Nang, South Vietnam, 1968 During the Vietnam War, American women served on active duty doing a variety of jobs. Early in 1963, the Army Nurse Corps ( ANC ) launched Operation Nightingale, an intensive effort to recruit nurses to serve in Vietnam. Most nurses who volunteered to serve in Vietnam came from predominantly working or middle - class families with histories of military service. The majority of these women were white Catholics and Protestants. Because the need for medical aid was great, many nurses underwent a concentrated four - month training program before being deployed to Vietnam in the ANC. Due to the shortage of staff, nurses usually worked twelve - hour shifts, six days per week and often suffered from exhaustion. First Lieutenant Sharon Lane was the only female military nurse to be killed by enemy gunfire during the war, on 8 June 1969. A nurse treats a Vietnamese child, 1967 At the start of the Vietnam War, it was commonly thought that American women had no place in the military. Their traditional place had been in the domestic sphere, but with the war came opportunity for the expansion of gender roles. In Vietnam, women held a variety of jobs which included operating complex data processing equipment and serving as stenographers. Although a small number of women were assigned to combat zones, they were never allowed directly in the field of battle. The women who served in the military were solely volunteers. They faced a plethora of challenges, one of which was the relatively small number of female soldiers. Living in a male - dominated environment created tensions between the sexes. While this high male to female ratio was often uncomfortable for women, many men reported that having women in the field with them boosted their morale. Although this was not the women 's purpose, it was one positive result of their service. By 1973, approximately 7,500 women had served in Vietnam in the Southeast Asian theater. In that same year, the military lifted the prohibition on women entering the armed forces. American women serving in Vietnam were subject to societal stereotypes. Many Americans either considered females serving in Vietnam masculine for living under the army discipline, or judged them to be women of questionable moral character who enlisted for the sole purpose of seducing men. To address this problem, the ANC released advertisements portraying women in the ANC as `` proper, professional and well protected. '' ( 26 ) This effort to highlight the positive aspects of a nursing career reflected the ideas of second - wave feminism that occurred during the 1960s -- 1970s in the United States. Although female military nurses lived in a heavily male environment, very few cases of sexual harassment were ever reported. Vietnamese women Master - Sergeant and pharmacist Do Thi Trinh, part of the WAFC, supplying medication to ARVN dependents Unlike the American women who went to Vietnam, North Vietnamese women were enlisted and fought in the combat zone as well as providing manual labor to keep the Ho Chi Minh trail open and cook for the soldiers. They also worked in the rice fields in North Vietnam and Viet Cong - held farming areas in South Vietnam 's Mekong Delta region to provide food for their families and the war effort. Women were enlisted in both the North Vietnamese Army ( NVA ) and the Viet Cong guerrilla insurgent force in South Vietnam. Some women also served for the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong intelligence services. In South Vietnam, many women voluntarily served in the ARVN 's Women 's Armed Force Corps ( WAFC ) and various other Women 's corps in the military. Some, like in the WAFC, fought in combat with other soldiers. Others served as nurses and doctors in the battlefield and in military hospitals, or served in South Vietnam or America 's intelligence agencies. During Diệm 's presidency, Madame Nhu was the commander of the WAFC. The war saw more than one million rural people migrate or flee the fighting in the South Vietnamese countryside to the cities, especially Saigon. Among the internal refugees were many young women who became the ubiquitous `` bargirls '' of wartime South Vietnam `` hawking her wares -- be that cigarettes, liquor, or herself '' to American and allied soldiers. American bases were ringed by bars and brothels. 8,040 Vietnamese women came to the United States as war brides between 1964 and 1975. Many mixed - blood Amerasian children were left behind when their American fathers returned to the United States after their tour of duty in South Vietnam. 26,000 of them were permitted to immigrate to the United States in the 1980s and 1990s. Black servicemen in Vietnam See also : African - American Civil Rights Movement ( 1954 -- 1968 ) A wounded African American soldier being carried away, 1968 The experience of American military personnel of African origin during the Vietnam War had received significant attention. For example, the website `` African - American Involvement in the Vietnam War '' compiles examples of such coverage, as does the print and broadcast work of journalist Wallace Terry. The epigraph of Terry 's book Bloods : An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans ( 1984 ), includes the following quote : `` I have an intuitive feeling that the Negro serviceman have a better understanding than whites of what the war is about. '' -- General William C. Westmoreland, U.S. Army, Saigon, 1967. That book 's introduction includes observations about the impact of the war on the black community in general and on black servicemen specifically. Points he makes on the latter topic include : the higher proportion of combat casualties in Vietnam among African American servicemen than among American soldiers of other races, the shift toward and different attitudes of black military careerists versus black draftees, the discrimination encountered by black servicemen `` on the battlefield in decorations, promotion and duty assignments '' as well as their having to endure `` the racial insults, cross-burnings and Confederate flags of their white comrades '' -- and the experiences faced by black soldiers stateside, during the war and after America 's withdrawal. Upon the war 's completion, black casualties made up 12.5 % of US combat deaths, approximately equal to percentage of draft - eligible black men, though still slightly higher than the 10 % who served in the military. Weapons Main article : Weapons of the Vietnam War Marines complete construction of M101 howitzer positions at a mountain - top fire support base, 1968 The communist forces were principally armed with Chinese and Soviet weaponry though some guerrilla units were equipped with Western infantry weapons either captured from French stocks during the First Indochina war or from ARVN units or bought on the black market. The ubiquitous Soviet AK - 47 assault rifle was often regarded as the best rifle of the war, due to its ability to continue to function even in adverse, muddy conditions. Other weapons used by the Viet Cong included the World War II - era PPSh - 41 submachine gun ( both Soviet and Chinese versions ), the SKS carbine, the RPD light machine gun, the DShK heavy machine gun and the RPG - 2 / B - 40 grenade launcher. While the Viet Cong had both amphibious tanks ( such as the PT - 76 ) and light tanks ( such as the Type 62 ), they also used bicycles to transport munitions. The US ' heavily armored, 90 mm M48A3 Patton tank saw extensive action during the Vietnam War and over 600 were deployed with US Forces. They played an important role in infantry support. The US service rifle was initially the M14 ( though some units were still using the WWII - era M1 Garand for a lack of M14s ). Found to be unsuitable for jungle warfare, the M14 was replaced by M16 which was more accurate and lighter than the AK - 47. For a period, the gun suffered from a jamming flaw known as `` failure to extract '', which means that a spent cartridge case remained lodged in the action after a round is fired. According to a congressional report, the jamming was caused primarily by a change in gunpowder which was done without adequate testing and reflected a decision for which the safety of soldiers was a secondary consideration. That issue was solved in early 1968 with the issuance of the M16A1 that featured a chrome plated chamber among several other features. End - user satisfaction with the M16 was high except during this episode, but the M16 still has a reputation as a gun that jams easily. The M60 machine gun GPMG ( General Purpose Machine Gun ) was the main machine gun of the US army at the time and many of them were put on helicopters, to provide suppressive fire when landing in hostile regions. The MAC - 10 machine pistol was supplied to many special forces troops in the midpoint of the war. It also armed many CIA agents in the field. UH - 1D helicopters airlift members of a U.S. infantry regiment, 1966 Two aircraft which were prominent in the war were the AC - 130 `` Spectre '' Gunship and the UH - 1 `` Huey '' gunship. The AC - 130 was a heavily armed ground - attack aircraft variant of the C - 130 Hercules transport plane ; it was used to provide close air support, air interdiction and force protection. The AC - 130H `` Spectre '' was armed with two 20 mm M61 Vulcan cannons, one Bofors 40mm autocannon, and one 105 mm M102 howitzer. The Huey is a military helicopter powered by a single, turboshaft engine, with a two - bladed main rotor and tail rotor. Approximately 7,000 UH - 1 aircraft saw service in Vietnam. The Claymore M18A1, an anti-personnel mine, was widely used during the war. Unlike a conventional land mine, the Claymore is command - detonated and directional, meaning it is fired by remote - control and shoots a pattern of 700 one - eighth - inch steel balls into the kill zone like a shotgun. The aircraft ordnance used during the war included precision - guided munition, cluster bombs, and napalm, a thickening / gelling agent generally mixed with petroleum or a similar fuel for use in an incendiary device, initially against buildings and later primarily as an anti-personnel weapon that sticks to skin and can burn down to the bone. Radio communications The Vietnam War was the first conflict where U.S. forces had secure voice communication equipment available at the tactical level. The National Security Agency ran a crash program to provide U.S. forces with a family of security equipment code named NESTOR, fielding 17,000 units initially. Eventually 30,000 units were produced. However limitations of the units, including poor voice quality, reduced range, annoying time delays and logistical support issues led to only one unit in ten being used. While many in the U.S. military believed that the Viet Cong and NVA would not be able to exploit insecure communications, interrogation of captured communication intelligence units showed they were able to understand the jargon and codes used in realtime and were often able to warn their side of impending U.S. actions. Extent of U.S. bombing Bombs being dropped by the B - 52 Stratofortress long - range strategic bomber See also : Operation Rolling Thunder, Operation Menu, Operation Freedom Deal, and CIA activities in Laos The U.S. dropped over 7 million tons of bombs on Indochina during the war -- more than triple the 2.1 million tons of bombs the U.S. dropped on Europe and Asia during all of World War II, and more than ten times the amount dropped by the U.S. during the Korean War. 500 thousand tons were dropped on Cambodia, 1 million tons were dropped on North Vietnam, and 4 million tons were dropped on South Vietnam. On a per capita basis, the 2 million tons dropped on Laos make it the most heavily bombed country in history ; The New York Times noted this was `` nearly a ton for every person in Laos. '' In Laos alone, some 80 million bombs failed to explode and remain scattered throughout the country, rendering vast swathes of land impossible to cultivate and killing or maiming 50 Laotians every year. Former U.S. Air Force official Earl Tilford has recounted `` repeated bombing runs of a lake in central Cambodia. The B - 52s literally dropped their payloads in the lake '' : The Air Force ran many missions of this kind for the purpose of securing additional funding during budget negotiations, so the amount of tonnage expended does not directly correlate with the resulting damage. Aftermath Events in Southeast Asia Further information : Mayaguez incident and Indochina refugee crisis Vietnamese refugees fleeing Vietnam, 1984 On 2 July 1976, North and South Vietnam were merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Despite speculation that the victorious North Vietnamese would, in President Nixon 's words, `` massacre the civilians there ( South Vietnam ) by the millions, '' there is a widespread consensus that no mass executions in fact took place. However, in the years following the end of the war, up to 300,000 South Vietnamese were sent to reeducation camps ( not including `` dissidents detained in the many prisons of Vietnam '' ), where many endured torture, starvation, and disease while being forced to perform hard labor. In addition, 200,000 to 400,000 Vietnamese boat people died at sea, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, fell to the communist Khmer Rouge on 17 April 1975. Under the leadership of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge would eventually kill 1 -- 3 million Cambodians out of a population of around 8 million, in one of the bloodiest genocides in history. An estimated 1,386,734 victims of execution have been counted in mass graves, while demographic analysis suggests that the policies of the regime caused between 1.7 and 2.5 million excess deaths altogether ( including disease and starvation ). After repeated border clashes in 1978, Vietnam invaded Democratic Kampuchea ( Cambodia ) and ousted the Khmer Rouge, who were being supported by China, in the Cambodian -- Vietnamese War. In response, China invaded Vietnam in 1979. The two countries fought a brief border war, known as the Sino - Vietnamese War. From 1978 to 1979, some 450,000 ethnic Chinese left Vietnam by boat as refugees or were expelled. The devastating impact of Khmer Rouge rule contributed to a 1979 famine in Cambodia, during which an additional 300,000 Cambodians perished. The Pathet Lao overthrew the monarchy of Laos in December 1975, establishing the Lao People 's Democratic Republic under the leadership of a member of the royal family, Souphanouvong. The change in regime was `` quite peaceful, a sort of Asiatic ' velvet revolution ' '' -- although 30,000 former officials were sent to reeducation camps, often enduring harsh conditions for several years. The conflict between Hmong rebels and the Pathet Lao continued in isolated pockets. Over 3 million people left Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in the Indochina refugee crisis. Most Asian countries were unwilling to accept these refugees, many of whom fled by boat and were known as boat people. Between 1975 and 1998, an estimated 1.2 million refugees from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries resettled in the United States, while Canada, Australia, and France resettled over 500,000. China accepted 250,000 people. Of all the countries of Indochina, Laos experienced the largest refugee flight in proportional terms, as 300,000 people out of a total population of 3 million crossed the border into Thailand. Included among their ranks were `` about 90 percent '' of Laos 's `` intellectuals, technicians, and officials. '' In 1988, Vietnam suffered a famine that afflicted millions. Vietnam retained its pro-Soviet orientation after the war and remained an important ally of the USSR in the region. Agent Orange and similar chemical substances used by the U.S. have also caused a considerable number of deaths and injuries over the years, including the US Air Force crew that handled them. On 9 August 2012, the United States and Vietnam began a cooperative cleaning up of the toxic chemical on part of Danang International Airport, marking the first time Washington has been involved in cleaning up Agent Orange in Vietnam. Effect on the United States United States expenditures in South Vietnam ( SVN ) ( 1953 -- 1974 ) Direct costs only. Some estimates are higher. U.S. military costs U.S. military aid to SVN U.S. economic aid to SVN Total Total ( 2015 dollars ) $111 billion $16.138 billion $7.315 billion $134.53 billion $1.020 trillion Vietnam War protests at the Pentagon, October 1967 In the post-war era, Americans struggled to absorb the lessons of the military intervention. As General Maxwell Taylor, one of the principal architects of the war, noted, `` First, we did n't know ourselves. We thought that we were going into another Korean War, but this was a different country. Secondly, we did n't know our South Vietnamese allies... And we knew less about North Vietnam. Who was Ho Chi Minh ? Nobody really knew. So, until we know the enemy and know our allies and know ourselves, we 'd better keep out of this kind of dirty business. It 's very dangerous. '' President Ronald Reagan coined the term `` Vietnam Syndrome '' to describe the reluctance of the American public and politicians to support further international interventions after Vietnam. Some have suggested that `` the responsibility for the ultimate failure of this policy ( America 's withdrawal from Vietnam ) lies not with the men who fought, but with those in Congress... '' Alternatively, the official history of the United States Army noted that `` tactics have often seemed to exist apart from larger issues, strategies, and objectives. Yet in Vietnam the Army experienced tactical success and strategic failure... The... Vietnam War... legacy may be the lesson that unique historical, political, cultural, and social factors always impinge on the military... Success rests not only on military progress but on correctly analyzing the nature of the particular conflict, understanding the enemy 's strategy, and assessing the strengths and weaknesses of allies. A new humility and a new sophistication may form the best parts of a complex heritage left to the Army by the long, bitter war in Vietnam. '' A young Marine private waits on the beach during the Marine landing, Da Nang, 3 August 1965 U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote in a secret memo to President Gerald Ford that `` in terms of military tactics, we can not help draw the conclusion that our armed forces are not suited to this kind of war. Even the Special Forces who had been designed for it could not prevail. '' Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara concluded that `` the achievement of a military victory by U.S. forces in Vietnam was indeed a dangerous illusion. '' Doubts surfaced as to the effectiveness of large - scale, sustained bombing. As Army Chief of Staff Harold Keith Johnson noted, `` if anything came out of Vietnam, it was that air power could n't do the job. '' Even General William Westmoreland admitted that the bombing had been ineffective. As he remarked, `` I still doubt that the North Vietnamese would have relented. '' The inability to bring Hanoi to the bargaining table by bombing also illustrated another U.S. miscalculation. The North 's leadership was composed of hardened communists who had been fighting for thirty years. They had defeated the French, and their tenacity as both nationalists and communists was formidable. Ho Chi Minh is quoted as saying, `` You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours... But even at these odds you will lose and I will win. '' Marine gets his wounds treated during operations in Huế City, 1968 The Vietnam War called into question the U.S. Army doctrine. Marine Corps General Victor H. Krulak heavily criticised Westmoreland 's attrition strategy, calling it `` wasteful of American lives... with small likelihood of a successful outcome. '' In addition, doubts surfaced about the ability of the military to train foreign forces. Between 1953 and 1975, the United States spent $168 billion on the war ( $1.02 trillion in FY2015 dollars ). This resulted in a large federal budget deficit. More than 3 million Americans served in the Vietnam War, some 1.5 million of whom actually saw combat in Vietnam. James E. Westheider wrote that `` At the height of American involvement in 1968, for example, there were 543,000 American military personnel in Vietnam, but only 80,000 were considered combat troops. '' Conscription in the United States had been controlled by the president since World War II, but ended in 1973. By war 's end, 58,220 American soldiers had been killed, more than 150,000 had been wounded, and at least 21,000 had been permanently disabled. The average age of the U.S. troops killed in Vietnam was 23.11 years. According to Dale Kueter, `` Of those killed in combat, 86.3 percent were white, 12.5 percent were black and the remainder from other races. '' Approximately 830,000 Vietnam veterans suffered some degree of posttraumatic stress disorder. An estimated 125,000 Americans left for Canada to avoid the Vietnam draft, and approximately 50,000 American servicemen deserted. In 1977, United States president Jimmy Carter granted a full and unconditional pardon to all Vietnam - era draft dodgers. The Vietnam War POW / MIA issue, concerning the fate of U.S. service personnel listed as missing in action, persisted for many years after the war 's conclusion. The costs of the war loom large in American popular consciousness ; a 1990 poll showed that the public incorrectly believed that more Americans lost their lives in Vietnam than in World War II. As of 2013, the U.S. government is paying Vietnam veterans and their families or survivors more than $22 billion a year in war - related claims. Impact on the U.S. military As the Vietnam War continued inconclusively and became more unpopular with the American public, morale declined and disciplinary problems grew among American enlisted men and junior, non-career officers. Drug use, racial tensions, and the growing incidence of fragging -- attempting to kill unpopular officers and non-commissioned officers with grenades or other weapons -- created severe problems for the U.S. military and impacted its capability of undertaking combat operations. By 1971, a U.S. Army colonel writing in the Armed Forces Journal declared : `` By every conceivable indicator, our army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers and non commissioned officers, drug - ridden, and dispirited where not near mutinous... The morale, discipline, and battleworthiness of the U.S. Armed Forces are, with a few salient exceptions, lower and worse than at any time in this century and possibly in the history of the United States. '' Between 1969 and 1971 the US Army recorded more than 700 attacks by troops on their own officers. Eighty - three officers were killed and almost 650 were injured. Ron Milam has questioned the severity of the `` breakdown '' of the U.S. armed forces, especially among combat troops, as reflecting the opinions of `` angry colonels '' who deplored the erosion of traditional military values during the Vietnam War. Although acknowledging serious problems, he questions the alleged `` near mutinous '' conduct of junior officers and enlisted men in combat. Investigating one combat refusal incident, a journalist declared, `` A certain sense of independence, a reluctance to behave according to the military 's insistence on obedience, like pawns or puppets... The grunts ( infantrymen ) were determined to survive... they insisted of having something to say about the making of decisions that determined whether they might live or die. '' The morale and discipline problems and resistance to conscription ( the draft ) were important factors leading to the creation of an all - volunteer military force by the United States and the termination of conscription. The last conscript was inducted into the army in 1973. The all - volunteer military moderated some of the coercive methods of discipline previously used to maintain order in military ranks. Effects of U.S. chemical defoliation U.S. helicopter spraying chemical defoliants in the Mekong Delta, South Vietnam, 1969 One of the most controversial aspects of the U.S. military effort in Southeast Asia was the widespread use of chemical defoliants between 1961 and 1971. They were used to defoliate large parts of the countryside to prevent the Viet Cong from being able to hide their weapons and encampments under the foliage. These chemicals continue to change the landscape, cause diseases and birth defects, and poison the food chain. Early in the American military effort, it was decided that since the enemy were hiding their activities under triple - canopy jungle, a useful first step might be to defoliate certain areas. This was especially true of growth surrounding bases ( both large and small ) in what became known as Operation Ranch Hand. Corporations like Dow Chemical Company and Monsanto were given the task of developing herbicides for this purpose. American officials also pointed out that the British had previously used 2, 4, 5 - T and 2, 4 - D ( virtually identical to America 's use in Vietnam ) on a large scale throughout the Malayan Emergency in the 1950s in order to destroy bushes, crops, and trees in effort to deny communist insurgents the concealment they needed to ambush passing convoys. Indeed, Secretary of State Dean Rusk told President John F. Kennedy on 24 November 1961, that `` ( t ) he use of defoliant does not violate any rule of international law concerning the conduct of chemical warfare and is an accepted tactic of war. Precedent has been established by the British during the emergency in Malaya in their use of aircraft for destroying crops by chemical spraying. '' The defoliants, which were distributed in drums marked with color - coded bands, included the `` Rainbow Herbicides '' -- Agent Pink, Agent Green, Agent Purple, Agent Blue, Agent White, and, most famously, Agent Orange, which included dioxin as a by - product of its manufacture. About 11 -- 12 million gallons ( 41.6 -- 45.4 million L ) of Agent Orange were sprayed over southern Vietnam between 1961 and 1971. A prime area of Ranch Hand operations was in the Mekong Delta, where the U.S. Navy patrol boats were vulnerable to attack from the undergrowth at the water 's edge. In 1961 and 1962, the Kennedy administration authorized the use of chemicals to destroy rice crops. Between 1961 and 1967, the U.S. Air Force sprayed 20 million U.S. gallons ( 75,700,000 L ) of concentrated herbicides over 6 million acres ( 24,000 km ) of crops and trees, affecting an estimated 13 % of South Vietnam 's land. In 1965, 42 % of all herbicide was sprayed over food crops. Another purpose of herbicide use was to drive civilian populations into RVN - controlled areas. Vietnamese victims affected by Agent Orange attempted a class action lawsuit against Dow Chemical and other US chemical manufacturers, but District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein dismissed their case. They appealed, but the dismissal was cemented in February 2008 by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. As of 2006, the Vietnamese government estimates that there are over 4,000,000 victims of dioxin poisoning in Vietnam, although the United States government denies any conclusive scientific links between Agent Orange and the Vietnamese victims of dioxin poisoning. In some areas of southern Vietnam, dioxin levels remain at over 100 times the accepted international standard. The U.S. Veterans Administration has listed prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, multiple myeloma, Diabetes mellitus type 2, B - cell lymphomas, soft - tissue sarcoma, chloracne, porphyria cutanea tarda, peripheral neuropathy, and spina bifida in children of veterans exposed to Agent Orange. Casualties See also : Vietnam War casualties Military deaths in Vietnam War ( 1955 -- 1975 ) Year U.S. South Vietnam 1956 -- 1959 n.a. 1960 5 2,223 1961 16 4,004 1962 53 4,457 1963 122 5,665 1964 216 7,457 1965 1,928 11,242 1966 6,350 11,953 1967 11,363 12,716 1968 16,899 27,915 1969 11,780 21,833 1970 6,173 23,346 1971 2,414 22,738 1972 759 39,587 1973 68 27,901 31,219 62 n.a. After 1975 7 n.a. Total 58,220 > 254,256 Estimates of the number of casualties vary, with one source suggesting up to 3.8 million violent war deaths in Vietnam for the period 1955 to 2002. Between 195,000 and 430,000 South Vietnamese civilians died in the war. Extrapolating from a 1969 US intelligence report, Guenter Lewy estimated 65,000 North Vietnamese civilians died in the war. Estimates of civilian deaths caused by American bombing of North Vietnam in Operation Rolling Thunder range from 52,000 to 182,000. The military forces of South Vietnam suffered an estimated 254,256 killed between 1960 and 1974 and additional deaths from 1954 to 1959 and in 1975. The official US Department of Defense figure was 950,765 communist forces killed in Vietnam from 1965 to 1974. Defense Department officials believed 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. It was difficult to distinguish between civilians and military personnel on the Viet Cong side as many persons were part - time guerrillas or impressed laborers who did not wear uniforms. A detailed demographic study calculated 791,000 -- 1,141,000 war - related deaths for all of Vietnam. According to figures released by the Vietnamese government in 1995, there were 1,100,000 North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong military personnel deaths during the Vietnam War ( including the missing ). The Vietnamese government released its estimate of war deaths for the more lengthy period of 1955 to 1975. According to the Vietnamese, Communist battle deaths totaled 1.1 million and civilian deaths of Vietnamese totaled 2.0 million. These estimates probably include battle deaths of Vietnamese soldiers in Laos and Cambodia, but do not include deaths of South Vietnamese and allied soldiers which would add nearly 300,000 for a grand total of 3.4 million military and civilian dead. Between 240,000 and 300,000 Cambodians died during the war. 20,000 - 62,000 Laotians also died, and 58,300 U.S. military personnel were killed, of which 1,596 are still listed as missing as of 2015. Unexploded ordnance, mostly from U.S. bombing, continue to detonate and kill people today. According to the Vietnamese government, ordnance has killed some 42,000 people since the war officially ended. According to the government of Laos, unexploded ordnance has killed or injured over 20,000 Laotians since the end of the war. In popular culture See also : Vietnam War in film, Vietnam War in games, and War in popular culture The Vietnam War has been featured extensively in television, film, video games, and literature in the participant countries. In American popular culture, the `` Crazy Vietnam Veteran '', who was suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, became a common stock character after the war. One of the first major films based on the Vietnam War was John Wayne 's pro-war film, The Green Berets ( 1968 ). Further cinematic representations were released during the 1970s and 1980s, including Michael Cimino 's The Deer Hunter ( 1978 ), Francis Ford Coppola 's Apocalypse Now ( 1979 ), Oliver Stone 's Platoon ( 1986 ) -- based on his service in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War, Stanley Kubrick 's Full Metal Jacket ( 1987 ), Hamburger Hill ( 1987 ), and Casualties of War ( 1989 ). Later films would include We Were Soldiers ( 2002 ) and Rescue Dawn ( 2007 ). The war also influenced a generation of musicians and songwriters in Vietnam and the United States, both anti-war and pro / anti-communist. The band Country Joe and the Fish recorded `` I - Feel - Like - I 'm - Fixin ' - To - Die Rag '' / The `` Fish '' Cheer in 1965, and it became one of the most influential anti-Vietnam protest anthems. Many songwriters and musicians supported the anti-war movement, including Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Peggy Seeger, Ewan MacColl, Barbara Dane, The Critics Group, Phil Ochs, John Lennon, Nina Simone, Neil Young, Tom Paxton, Jimmy Cliff and Arlo Guthrie. See also Vietnam portal United States portal War portal Cold War portal 1950s portal 1960s portal 1970s portal Aircraft losses of the Vietnam War Awards and decorations of the Vietnam War Battle of Quang Tri ( 1968 ) Counterculture of the 1960s Củ Chi tunnels Đắk Sơn massacre Draft lottery ( 1969 ) Kit Carson Scouts List of Medal of Honor recipients for the Vietnam War List of United States servicemembers and civilians missing in action during the Vietnam War ( 1968 -- 69 ) McNamara Line Major General Michael D. Healy Operation Wheeler / Wallowa Patrol Craft Fast Political midlife crisis Protests of 1968 The Sixties Unplugged United States Air Force in Thailand United States Army Special Forces in popular culture U.S. news media and the Vietnam War Vietnam War Crimes Working Group Files Weapons of the Cambodian Civil War Weapons of the Vietnam War Winter Soldier Investigation General : History of Cambodia History of Laos List of conflicts in Asia Annotations ^ Jump up to : Due to the early presence of American troops in Vietnam the start date of the Vietnam War is a matter of debate. In 1998, after a high level review by the Department of Defense ( DoD ) and through the efforts of Richard B. Fitzgibbon 's family the start date of the Vietnam War according to the US government was officially changed to 1 November 1955. U.S. government reports currently cite 1 November 1955 as the commencement date of the `` Vietnam Conflict '', because this date marked when the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group ( MAAG ) in Indochina ( deployed to Southeast Asia under President Truman ) was reorganized into country - specific units and MAAG Vietnam was established. Other start dates include when Hanoi authorized Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam to begin a low - level insurgency in December 1956, whereas some view 26 September 1959 when the first battle occurred between the Viet Cong and the South Vietnamese army, as the start date. ^ Jump up to : The figures of 58,220 and 303,644 for U.S. deaths and wounded come from the Department of Defense Statistical Information Analysis Division ( SIAD ), Defense Manpower Data Center, as well as from a Department of Veterans fact sheet dated May 2010 ; the total is 153,303 WIA excluding 150,341 persons not requiring hospital care the CRS ( Congressional Research Service ) Report for Congress, American War and Military Operations Casualties : Lists and Statistics, dated 26 February 2010, and the book Crucible Vietnam : Memoir of an Infantry Lieutenant. Some other sources give different figures ( e.g. the 2005 / 2006 documentary Heart of Darkness : The Vietnam War Chronicles 1945 -- 1975 cited elsewhere in this article gives a figure of 58,159 U.S. deaths, and the 2007 book Vietnam Sons gives a figure of 58,226 ) Jump up ^ The Military Assistance Advisory Group, Indochina ( with an authorized strength of 128 men ) was set up in September 1950 with a mission to oversee the use and distribution of US military equipment by the French and their allies. Jump up ^ The Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng had previously formed in Nanjing, China, at some point between August 1935 and early 1936 when the non-communist Vietnamese Nationalist Party ( Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng, or Viet Quoc ), led by Nguyễn Thái Học, and some members of the Indochinese Communist Party ( ICP ) and a number of other Vietnamese nationalist parties formed an anti-imperialist united front. This organisation soon lapsed into inactivity, only to be revived by the ICP and Ho Chi Minh in 1941. Jump up ^ On 8 March 1965 the first American combat troops, the Third Marine Regiment, Third Marine Division, began landing in Vietnam to protect the Da Nang airport. Notes ^ Jump up to : Moïse 1996, pp. 3 -- 4. ^ Jump up to : `` ALLIES OF THE REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM ''. Retrieved 24 September 2011. Jump up ^ `` Chapter Three : 1957 - 1969 Early Relations between Malaysia and Vietnam '' ( PDF ). University of Malaya Student Repository. p. 72. Retrieved 17 October 2015. Jump up ^ `` Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al - Haj ( Profiles of Malaysia 's Foreign Ministers ) '' ( PDF ). Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations ( IDFR ), Ministry of Foreign Affairs ( Malaysia ). 2008. p. 31. ISBN 978 - 983 - 2220 - 26 - 8. Archived ( PDF ) from the original on 16 October 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015. The Tunku had been personally responsible for Malaya 's partisan support of the South Vietnamese regime in its fight against the Vietcong and, in reply to a Parliamentary question on 6 February 1962, he had listed all the used weapons and equipment of the Royal Malaya Police given to Saigon. These included a total of 45,707 single - barrel shotguns, 611 armoured cars and smaller numbers of carbines and pistols. Writing in 1975, he revealed that `` we had clandestinely been giving ' aid ' to Vietnam since early 1958. Published American archival sources now reveal that the actual Malaysian contributions to the war effort in Vietnam included the following : `` over 5,000 Vietnamese officers trained in Malaysia ; training of 150 U.S. soldiers in handling Tracker Dogs ; a rather impressive list of military equipment and weapons given to Viet - Nam after the end of the Malaysian insurgency ( for example, 641 armored personnel carriers, 56,000 shotguns ) ; and a creditable amount of civil assistance ( transportation equipment, cholera vaccine, and flood relief ) ''. It is undeniable that the Government 's policy of supporting the South Vietnamese regime with arms, equipment and training was regarded by some quarters, especially the Opposition parties, as a form of interfering in the internal affairs of that country and the Tunku 's valiant efforts to defend it were not convincing enough, from a purely foreign policy standpoint. ^ Jump up to : Weil, Thomas E. et. al. Area Handbook for Brazil ( 1975 ), p. 293 Jump up ^ The Cuban Military Under Castro, 1989. Page 76 Jump up ^ Cuba in the World, 1979. Page 66 Jump up ^ `` Cesky a slovensky svet ''. Svet.czsk.net. Retrieved 24 February 2014. Jump up ^ `` Bilaterální vztahy České republiky a Vietnamské socialistické republiky Mezinárodní vztahy e-Polis -- Internetový politologický časopis ''. E-polis.cz. Retrieved 24 February 2014. Jump up ^ `` Foreign Affairs in the 1960s and 1970s ''. Library of Congress. 1992. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Bulgaria gave official military support to many national liberation causes, most notably in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, ( North Vietnam )... Jump up ^ `` Project MUSE - Sailing in the Shadow of the Vietnam War : The GDR Government and the `` Vietnam Bonus '' of the Early 1970s '' ( PDF ). Jump up ^ https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/stasi-aid-and-the-modernization-the-vietnamese-secret-police Jump up ^ Crump 2015, p. 183 Jump up ^ http://www.historycy.org/index.php?showtopic=36539&st=15 Polish military advisers in North Vietnam ( in Polish ) ^ Jump up to : Radvanyi, Janos ( 1980 ). `` Vietnam War Diplomacy : Reflections of a Former Iron Curtain Official '' ( PDF ). Paramaters : Journal of the US Army War College. Carlise Barracks, Pennsylvania. 10 ( 3 ) : 8 -- 15. Jump up ^ `` Why did Sweden support the Viet Cong ? ''. HistoryNet. 25 July 2013. Retrieved 20 July 2016. Jump up ^ `` Sweden announces support to Viet Cong ''. HISTORY.com. Retrieved 20 July 2016. In Sweden, Foreign Minister Torsten Nilsson reveals that Sweden has been providing assistance to the Viet Cong, including some $550,000 worth of medical supplies. Similar Swedish aid was to go to Cambodian and Laotian civilians affected by the Indochinese fighting. This support was primarily humanitarian in nature and included no military aid. Jump up ^ DoD 1998 Jump up ^ Lawrence 2009, p. 20. ^ Jump up to : Olson & Roberts 1991, p. 67. ^ Jump up to : Origins of the Insurgency in South Vietnam, 1954 -- 1960, The Pentagon Papers ( Gravel Edition ), Volume 1, Chapter 5, ( Boston : Beacon Press, 1971 ), Section 3, pp. 314 -- 346 ; International Relations Department, Mount Holyoke College. Jump up ^ Le Gro, p. 28. Jump up ^ Tucker, Spencer ( 2011 ). The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War : A Political, Social, and Military History, 2nd Edition. ABC - CLIO. p. xlv. ISBN 9781851099610. Jump up ^ `` Facts about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Collection ''. nps.gov. ( citing The first American ground combat troops landed in South Vietnam during March 1965, specifically the U.S. Third Marine Regiment, Third Marine Division, deployed to Vietnam from Okinawa to defend the Da Nang, Vietnam, airfield. During the height of U.S. military involvement, 31 December 1968, the breakdown of allied forces were as follows : 536,100 U.S. military personnel, with 30,610 U.S. military having been killed to date ; 65,000 Free World Forces personnel ; 820,000 South Vietnam Armed Forces ( SVNAF ) with 88,343 having been killed to date. At the war 's end, there were approximately 2,200 U.S. missing in action ( MIA ) and prisoners of war ( POW ). Source : Harry G. Summers Jr. Vietnam War Almanac, Facts on File Publishing, 1985. ) Jump up ^ http://www.americanwarlibrary.com/vietnam/vwatl.htm, accessed 7 Nov 2017 ^ Jump up to : The A to Z of the Vietnam War. The Scarecrow Press. 2005. ISBN 9781461719038. Jump up ^ Victory in Vietnam : The Official History of the People 's Army of Vietnam, 1954 -- 1975. Translated by Merle Pribbenow, Lawerence KS : University of Kansas Press, 2002, p. 211 : `` By the end of 1966 the total strength of our armed forces was 690,000 soldiers. '' Jump up ^ Doyle, THE NORTH, pp. 45 -- 49 Jump up ^ `` China admits 320,000 troops fought in Vietnam ''. Toledo Blade. Reuters. 16 May 1989. Retrieved 24 December 2013. Jump up ^ Roy, Denny ( 1998 ). China 's Foreign Relations. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 27. ISBN 978 - 0847690138. ^ Jump up to : Womack, Brantly ( 2006 - 02 - 13 ). China and Vietnam. ISBN 9780521618342. Jump up ^ Pham Thi Thu Thuy ( 1 August 2013 ). `` The colorful history of North Korea - Vietnam relations ''. NK News. Retrieved 3 October 2016. ^ Jump up to : Charles Hirschman et al., `` Vietnamese Casualties During the American War : A New Estimate, '' Population and Development Review, December 1995. ^ Jump up to : Lewy 1978, pp. 450 -- 3. ^ Jump up to : Thayer 1985, chap. 12. ^ Jump up to : Aaron Ulrich ( editor ) ; Edward FeuerHerd ( producer and director ) ( 2005, 2006 ). Heart of Darkness : The Vietnam War Chronicles 1945 -- 1975 ( Box set, Color, Dolby, DVD - Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Dolby, Vision Software ) ( Documentary ). Koch Vision. Event occurs at 321 minutes. ISBN 1 - 4172 - 2920 - 9. Jump up ^ Rummel, R.J ( 1997 ), `` Table 6.1 A. Vietnam Democide : Estimates, Sources, and Calculations '' ( GIF ), Freedom, Democracy, Peace ; Power, Democide, and War, University of Hawaii System ^ Jump up to : Tucker, Spencer E. The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War : A Political, Social, and Military History ABC - CLIO. ISBN 1 - 85109 - 961 - 1 Jump up ^ Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund ( 29 May 2017 ). `` 3 new names added to Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall '' ( Press release ). Associated Press. Jump up ^ America 's Wars ( PDF ) ( Report ). Department of Veterans Affairs. May 2010. Jump up ^ Anne Leland ; Mari -- Jana `` M-J '' Oboroceanu ( 26 February 2010 ). American War and Military Operations : Casualties : Lists and Statistics ( PDF ) ( Report ). Congressional Research Service. Jump up ^ Lawrence 2009, pp. 65, 107, 154, 217 Jump up ^ Kueter, Dale. Vietnam Sons : For Some, the War Never Ended. AuthorHouse ( 21 March 2007 ). ISBN 978 - 1425969318 Jump up ^ `` Australian casualties in the Vietnam War, 1962 -- 72 Australian War Memorial ''. Awm.gov.au. Retrieved 29 June 2013. Jump up ^ The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War : A Political, Social, and Military History By Spencer C. Tucker `` https://books.google.com/?id=qh5lffww-KsC '' Jump up ^ `` Overview of the war in Vietnam VietnamWar.govt.nz, New Zealand and the Vietnam War ''. Vietnamwar.govt.nz. 16 July 1965. Archived from the original on 26 July 2013. Retrieved 29 June 2013. Jump up ^ `` America Was n't the Only Foreign Power in the Vietnam War ''. Retrieved 10 June 2017. Jump up ^ `` Chapter III : The Philippines ''. History.army.mil. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 24 February 2014. Jump up ^ `` Asian Allies in Vietnam '' ( PDF ). Embassy of South Vietnam. March 1970. Retrieved 18 October 2015. Jump up ^ Chuyên đề 4 CÔNG TÁC TÌM KIẾM, QUY TẬP HÀI CỐT LIỆT SĨ TỪ NAY ĐẾN NĂM 2020 VÀ NHỮNG NĂM TIẾP THEO, datafile.chinhsachquandoi.gov.vn/Quản % 20lý % 20chỉ % 20đạo / Chuyên % 20đề % 204. doc Jump up ^ Associated Press, 3 April 1995, `` Vietnam Says 1.1 Million Died Fighting For North. '' Jump up ^ Soames, John. A History of the World, Routledge, 2005. Jump up ^ `` North Korea fought in Vietnam War ''. BBC News. 31 March 2000. Retrieved 18 October 2015. Jump up ^ Shenon, Philip ( 23 April 1995 ). `` 20 Years After Victory, Vietnamese Communists Ponder How to Celebrate ''. The New York Times. Retrieved 24 February 2011. The Vietnamese government officially claimed a rough estimate of 2 million civilian deaths, but it did not divide these deaths between those of North and South Vietnam. Jump up ^ `` fifty years of violent war deaths : data analysis from the world health survey program : BMJ ''. 23 April 2008. Retrieved 5 January 2013. From 1955 to 2002, data from the surveys indicated an estimated 5.4 million violent war deaths... 3.8 million in Vietnam ^ Jump up to : Obermeyer, Murray & Gakidou 2008. ^ Jump up to : Heuveline, Patrick ( 2001 ). `` The Demographic Analysis of Mortality in Cambodia ''. Forced Migration and Mortality. National Academy Press. pp. 102 -- 104, 120, 124. ISBN 9780309073349. As best as can now be estimated, over two million Cambodians died during the 1970s because of the political events of the decade, the vast majority of them during the mere four years of the ' Khmer Rouge ' regime... Subsequent reevaluations of the demographic data situated the death toll for the ( civil war ) in the order of 300,000 or less. ^ Jump up to : Banister, Judith ; Johnson, E. Paige ( 1993 ). `` After the Nightmare : The Population of Cambodia ''. Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia : The Khmer Rouge, the United Nations and the International Community. Yale University Southeast Asia Studies. p. 87. ISBN 9780938692492. An estimated 275,000 excess deaths. We have modeled the highest mortality we can justify for the early 1970s. ^ Jump up to : Sliwinski estimates 240,000 wartime deaths, of which 40,000 were caused by U.S. bombing. ( Sliwinski 1995, p. 48 ). He characterizes other estimates ranging from 600,000 -- 700,000 as `` the most extreme evaluations '' ( p. 42 ). Jump up ^ Factasy. `` The Vietnam War or Second Indochina War ''. PRLog. Retrieved 29 June 2013. Jump up ^ `` Vietnam War ''. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 5 March 2008. Meanwhile, the United States, its military demoralized and its civilian electorate deeply divided, began a process of coming to terms with defeat in its longest and most controversial war Jump up ^ Lind, Michael ( 1999 ). `` Vietnam, The Necessary War : A Reinterpretation of America 's Most Disastrous Military Conflict ''. The New York Times. Retrieved 17 January 2014. Jump up ^ Digital History ; Steven Mintz. `` The Vietnam War ''. Digitalhistory.uh.edu. Archived from the original on 30 October 2011. Retrieved 31 October 2011. Jump up ^ Major General George S. Eckhardt, Vietnam Studies Command and Control 1950 -- 1969, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C. ( 1991 ), p. 6 Jump up ^ `` Dien Bien Phu : Did the US offer France an A-bomb ? '' BBC Magazine, May 5, 2014 Jump up ^ Vietnam War Statistics and Facts 1, 25th Aviation Battalion website. Jump up ^ Thee, Marek ( 1976 ). `` The Indochina Wars : Great Power Involvement - Escalation and Disengagement ''. Journal of Peace Research. Sage Publications. 13 ( 2 ) : 117. doi : 10.1177 / 002234337601300204. ISSN 1460 - 3578. JSTOR 423343. ( Subscription required ( help ) ). Jump up ^ Kolko 1985, pp. 457, 461ff. Jump up ^ Moore, Harold. G and Joseph L. Galloway We Are Soldiers Still : A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam ( p. 57 ). Jump up ^ `` Asian - Nation : Asian American History, Demographics, & Issues : : The American / Viet Nam War ''. Retrieved 18 August 2008. The Viet Nam War is also called ' The American War ' by the Vietnamese Jump up ^ Tucker, Spencer C. ( 2011 ) The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War : A Political, Social, and Military History ABC - CLIO. ISBN 1 - 85109 - 961 - 1, p. xli Jump up ^ Ooi, Keat Gin. Southeast Asia : a historical encyclopedia, from Angkor Wat to East Timor. ABC - CLIO ; 2004. ISBN 978 - 1 - 57607 - 770 - 2. p. 520. Jump up ^ Rai, Lajpat. Social Science. FK Publications ; ISBN 978 - 81 - 89611 - 12 - 5. p. 22. Jump up ^ Dommen, Arthur J. The Indochinese experience of the French and the Americans : nationalism and communism in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Indiana University Press ; 2001. ISBN 978 - 0 - 253 - 33854 - 9. p. 4 -- 19. Jump up ^ Neale 2001, p. 3. ^ Jump up to : Neale 2001, p. 17. Jump up ^ Sophie Quinn - Judge ( 2003 ). Ho Chi Minh : the missing years, 1919 -- 1941. C. Hurst. pp. 212 -- 213. ISBN 978 - 1 - 85065 - 658 - 6. Jump up ^ Tucker 1999, p. 42 Jump up ^ Brocheux 2007, p. 198 Jump up ^ Neale 2001, p. 18. Jump up ^ Koh, David ( 21 August 2008 ). `` Vietnam needs to remember famine of 1945 ''. The Straits Times. Singapore. Jump up ^ Neale 2001, pp. 18 -- 9. ^ Jump up to : Kolko 1985, p. 36. Jump up ^ Neale 2001, p. 19. ^ Jump up to : Neale 2001, p. 20. Jump up ^ Interview with Carleton Swift, 1981, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/vietnam-9dc948-interview-with-carleton-swift Jump up ^ Stuart - Fox 1997, p.. Jump up ^ Interview with Archimedes L.A. Patti, 1981, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/vietnam-bf3262-interview-with-archimedes-l-a-patti-1981 Jump up ^ Kolko 1985, p. 37. Jump up ^ Dommen, Arthur J. ( 2001 ), The Indochinese Experience of the French and the Americans, Indiana University Press, pg. 120. `` According to one estimate, 15,000 nationalists were massacred '' in the summer of 1946 ( pg. 154 ). In addition, `` 100,000 to 150,000 ( civilians ) had been assassinated by the Viet Minh '' by the end of the First Indochina war ( pg. 252 ). Jump up ^ `` ベトナム 独立 戦争 参加 日本 人 の 事跡 に 基づく 日 越 の あり方 に関する 研究 '' ( PDF ). 井川 一久. Tokyo foundation. October 2005. Retrieved 10 June 2010. Jump up ^ `` 日 越 関係 発展 の 方途 を 探る 研究 ヴェトナム 独立 戦争 参加 日本 人 ― その 実態 と 日 越 両国 にとって の 歴史 的 意味 ― '' ( PDF ). 井川 一久. Tokyo foundation. May 2006. Retrieved 10 June 2010. Jump up ^ Willbanks 2009, p. 8 ^ Jump up to : Neale 2001, p. 24. Jump up ^ Neale 2001, pp. 23 -- 4. Jump up ^ Willbanks 2009, p. 9 Jump up ^ `` Franco - Vietnam Agreement of March 6th, 1946 ''. Vietnamgear.com. 6 March 1946. Retrieved 29 April 2011. Jump up ^ `` Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, Chapter !, Section 2 ''. Mtholyoke.edu. Retrieved 29 April 2011. Jump up ^ Peter Dennis ( 1987 ). Troubled days of peace : Mountbatten and South East Asia command, 1945 -- 46. Manchester University Press ND. p. 179. ISBN 978 - 0 - 7190 - 2205 - 0. ^ Jump up to : Neale 2001, p. 25. ^ Jump up to : McNamara 1999, pp. 377 -- 9. Jump up ^ `` The Vietnam War Seeds of Conflict 1945 -- 1960 ''. The History Place. Retrieved 13 May 2013. Jump up ^ Pentagon Papers, Gravel, ed, Chapter 2, ' U.S. Involvement in the Franco - Viet Minh War ', p. 54. ^ Jump up to : Ang, Cheng Guan, The Vietnam War from the Other Side, p. 14. Routledge ( 2002 ). ^ Jump up to : `` The History Place -- Vietnam War 1945 -- 1960 ''. Retrieved 11 June 2008. Jump up ^ Herring 2001, p. 18. Jump up ^ Zinn, A People 's History of the United States, p. 471. ^ Jump up to : Vietnam The Ten Thousand Day War, Thames 1981, Michael Maclear, p. 57. Jump up ^ Vietnam at War : The History : 1946 -- 1975, ISBN 978 - 0 - 19 - 506792 - 7, p. 263. Jump up ^ Dien Bien Phu, Air Force Magazine 87 : 8, August 2004. ^ Jump up to : Tucker 1999, p. 76 Jump up ^ The U.S. Navy : a history, Naval Institute Press, 1997, Nathan Miller, ISBN 978 - 1 - 55750 - 595 - 8, pp. 67 -- 68. Jump up ^ The Pentagon Papers. Gravel, ed. vol. 1, pp. 391 -- 404. Jump up ^ Press release by the Embassy of the Republic of Vietnam, quoted from the Washington, D.C. press and Information Service, vol I. no. 18 ( 22 July 1955 ) and no. 20 ( 18 August 1955 ), in Chapter 19 of Gettleman, Franklin and Young, Vietnam and America : A Documented History, pp. 103 -- 105. Jump up ^ Jacobs, pp. 45 -- 55. Jump up ^ Fall 1967, p.. Jump up ^ Vietnam Divided by B.S.N. Murti, Asian Publishing House, 1964. Jump up ^ Turner 1975, p. 102. Jump up ^ Karnow 1997, p. 238. Jump up ^ Kolko 1985, p. 98. Jump up ^ 1 Pentagon Papers ( The Senator Gravel Edition ), 247, 328 ( Boston, Beacon Press, 1971 ). Jump up ^ John Prados, `` The Numbers Game : How Many Vietnamese Fled South In 1954 ? ''. The VVA Veteran ( January / February 2005 ). Archived from the original on 27 May 2006. Retrieved 11 May 2017. Jump up ^ Turner 1975, p. 143. Jump up ^ cf. Gittinger, J. Price, `` Communist Land Policy in Viet Nam '', Far Eastern Survey, Vol. 29, No. 8, 1957, p. 118. Jump up ^ Courtois, Stephane ; et al. ( 1997 ). The Black Book of Communism. Harvard University Press. p. 569. ISBN 978 - 0 - 674 - 07608 - 2. Jump up ^ Dommen, Arthur J. ( 2001 ), The Indochinese Experience of the French and the Americans, Indiana University Press, p. 340, gives a lower estimate of 32,000 executions. Jump up ^ `` Newly released documents on the land reform ''. Vietnam Studies Group. Archived from the original on 20 April 2011. Retrieved 2016 - 07 - 15. Vu Tuong : There is no reason to expect, and no evidence that I have seen to demonstrate, that the actual executions were less than planned ; in fact the executions perhaps exceeded the plan if we consider two following factors. First, this decree was issued in 1953 for the rent and interest reduction campaign that preceded the far more radical land redistribution and party rectification campaigns ( or waves ) that followed during 1954 - 1956. Second, the decree was meant to apply to free areas ( under the control of the Viet Minh government ), not to the areas under French control that would be liberated in 1954 - 1955 and that would experience a far more violent struggle. Thus the number of 13,500 executed people seems to be a low - end estimate of the real number. This is corroborated by Edwin Moise in his recent paper `` Land Reform in North Vietnam, 1953 - 1956 '' presented at the 18th Annual Conference on SE Asian Studies, Center for SE Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley ( February 2001 ). In this paper Moise ( 7 - 9 ) modified his earlier estimate in his 1983 book ( which was 5,000 ) and accepted an estimate close to 15,000 executions. Moise made the case based on Hungarian reports provided by Balazs, but the document I cited above offers more direct evidence for his revised estimate. This document also suggests that the total number should be adjusted up some more, taking into consideration the later radical phase of the campaign, the unauthorized killings at the local level, and the suicides following arrest and torture ( the central government bore less direct responsibility for these cases, however ). cf. Szalontai, Balazs ( November 2005 ). `` Political and Economic Crisis in North Vietnam, 1955 -- 56 ''. Cold War History. 5 ( 4 ) : 395 -- 426. doi : 10.1080 / 14682740500284630. cf. Vu, Tuong ( 2010 ). Paths to Development in Asia : South Korea, Vietnam, China, and Indonesia. Cambridge University Press. p. 103. ISBN 9781139489010. Clearly Vietnamese socialism followed a moderate path relative to China... Yet the Vietnamese ' land reform ' campaign... testified that Vietnamese communists could be as radical and murderous as their comrades elsewhere. Jump up ^ Appy 2006, pp. 46 -- 7. Jump up ^ The Pentagon Papers ( 1971 ), Beacon Press, vol. 3, p. 134. Jump up ^ The Pentagon Papers ( 1971 ), Beacon Press, vol. 3, p. 119. ^ Jump up to : The Pentagon Papers ( 1971 ), Beacon Press, vol. 3, p. 140. Jump up ^ The Pentagon Papers ( 1971 ), Beacon Press, vol. 3, pp. 570 -- 71. Jump up ^ Dwight D. Eisenhower. Mandate for Change. Garden City, New Jersey. Doubleday & Company, 1963, p. 372. Jump up ^ Turner, Robert F. ( 1990 ). `` Myths and Realities in the Vietnam Debate ''. The Vietnam Debate : A Fresh Look at the Arguments. University Press of America. ISBN 9780819174161. Jump up ^ Woodruff 2005, p. 6 states : `` The elections were not held. South Vietnam, which had not signed the Geneva Accords, did not believe the Communists in North Vietnam would allow a fair election. In January 1957, the International Control Commission ( ICC ), comprising observers from India, Poland, and Canada, agreed with this perception, reporting that neither South nor North Vietnam had honored the armistice agreement. With the French gone, a return to the traditional power struggle between north and south had begun again. '' Jump up ^ Karnow 1997, p. 224. Jump up ^ Gerdes ( ed. ) Examining Issues Through Political Cartoons : The Vietnam War p. 19. Jump up ^ Turner 1975, pp. 193 -- 4, 202 -- 3, 215 -- 7 Jump up ^ McNamara 1999, p. 19. Jump up ^ John F. Kennedy. `` America 's Stakes in Vietnam ''. Speech to the American Friends of Vietnam, June 1956. Archived 26 June 2012 at the Wayback Machine. Jump up ^ McNamara 1999, pp. 200 -- 1. Jump up ^ `` The Pentagon Papers Gravel Edition Volume 1, Chapter 5, `` Origins of the Insurgency in South Vietnam, 1954 -- 1960 '' ``. Mtholyoke.edu. Retrieved 31 October 2011. Jump up ^ Kolko 1985, p. 89. ^ Jump up to : Karnow 1997, p. 230. Jump up ^ Excerpts from Law 10 / 59, 6 May 1959. Jump up ^ Marilyn Young, The Vietnam Wars : 1945 -- 1990 ( New York : Harper Perennial, 1991 ), p. 73 ^ Jump up to : Ang, Cheng Guan ( 2002 ). The Vietnam War from the Other Side. RoutledgeCurzon. pp. 16, 58, 76. ISBN 0 - 7007 - 1615 - 7. Jump up ^ Olson & Roberts 1991, p. 67. This decision was made at the 11th Plenary Session of the Lao Dong Central Committee. Jump up ^ Military History Institute of Vietnam, ( 2002 ) Victory in Vietnam : The Official History of the People 's Army of Vietnam, 1954 -- 1975, translated by Merle L. Pribbenow. University Press of Kansas. p. 68. ISBN 0 - 7006 - 1175 - 4. 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Southworth, Stephen Tanner, Published by Da Capo Press, 2002, ISBN 978 - 0 - 306 - 81165 - 4. Jump up ^ Shooting at the Moon by Roger Warner -- The history of CIA / IAD 'S 15 - year involvement in conducting the secret war in Laos, 1960 -- 1975, and the career of CIA PMCO ( paramilitary case officer ) Bill Lair. Jump up ^ Karnow 1997, pp. 336 -- 9. Johnson viewed many members that he inherited from Kennedy 's cabinet with distrust because he had never penetrated their circle during Kennedy 's presidency ; to Johnson 's mind, those like W. Averell Harriman and Dean Acheson spoke a different language. Jump up ^ Shortly after the assassination of Kennedy, when McGeorge Bundy called LBJ on the phone, LBJ responded : `` Goddammit, Bundy. I 've told you that when I want you I 'll call you. '' Brian VanDeMark, Into the Quagmire ( New York : Oxford University Press, 1995 ), 13. Jump up ^ Karnow 1997, p. 339. Before a small group, including Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the new president also said, `` We should stop playing cops and robbers ( a reference to Diệm 's failed leadership ) and get back to... winning the war... tell the generals in Saigon that Lyndon Johnson intends to stand by our word... ( to ) win the contest against the externally directed and supported Communist conspiracy. '' Jump up ^ Karnow 1997, p. 339 : `` At a place called Hoa Phu, for example, the strategic hamlet built during the previous summer now looked like it had been hit by a hurricane... Speaking through an interpreter, a local guard explained to me that a handful of Viet Cong agents had entered the hamlet one night and told the peasants to tear it down and return to their native villages. The peasants complied without question. '' ^ Jump up to : Hunt, Michael ( 2016 ). The World Transformed - 1945 to the Present. New York City : Oxford. pp. 169 -- 171. ISBN 978 - 0 - 19 - 937102 - 0. Jump up ^ Karnow 1997, p. 340. 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Citing `` Wenhua dageming zhong de jiefangjun '' by Li Ke and Hao Shengzhang, p. 416 Jump up ^ Ang, Cheng Guan, Ending the Vietnam War : The Vietnamese Communists ' Perspective, p. 27. Jump up ^ Bezlova, Antoaneta, China haunted by Khmer Rouge links, Asia Times, 21 February 2009. Jump up ^ Truong 1985, p. 168 Jump up ^ AP ( 2010 ). `` Soviet Involvement in the Vietnam War ''. historicaltextarchive.com. Associated Press. Retrieved 27 March 2010. Jump up ^ Oleg Sarin and Lev Dvoretsky ( 1996 ), Alien Wars : The Soviet Union 's Aggressions Against the World, 1919 to 1989, Presidio Press, pp. 93 -- 4. Jump up ^ `` Asia Times -- Russian missiles to guard skies over Vietnam ''. Atimes.com. 5 September 2003. Retrieved 24 February 2014. Jump up ^ `` Soviet rocketeer : After our arrival in Vietnam, American pilots refused to fly '' ( in Russian ). RU : rus. ruvr. 29 January 2010. Retrieved 26 May 2010. Jump up ^ Asia Times, 18 August 2006, Richard M Bennett Missiles and madness. 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Embajada de Cuba en Vietnam ( Cuban Embassy in Vietnam ). Retrieved 2 August 2015. Jump up ^ AII POW - MIA Cuban Torture Archived 15 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine... Aiipowmia.com ( 8 November 1999 ). Retrieved 6 August 2010. Jump up ^ Cuban General Lies Repeatedly About Torturing U.S. POWs. Latinamericanstudies.org ( 11 December 1978 ). Retrieved 6 August 2010. Jump up ^ Former U.S. POWs detail torture by Cubans in Vietnam. Autentico.org ( 22 August 1999 ). Retrieved 6 August 2010. Jump up ^ Facts of the Cuban Program. Miafacts.org. Retrieved 6 August 2010. Jump up ^ Cuba Program Research Paper. Vietnam and All Veterans of Florida. Retrieved 6 August 2010. Jump up ^ Castro denies McCain 's torture claim -- World news -- Americas -- Focus on Cuba. MSNBC ( 19 April 1959 ). Retrieved 6 August 2010. Jump up ^ Testimony of Michael D. Benge before the House International Relations Committee Chaired by the Honorable Benjamin A. Gilman Archived 4 March 2010 at the Wayback Machine., 4 November 1999 Jump up ^ dT ( ) ; ( 11 September 2008 ). `` Photo exhibition on Fidel Castro 's visit in 1973 ''. VietnamPlus. Retrieved 29 June 2013. ^ Jump up to : Chang, Jae Baik ( 2011 ). The Park Chung Hee Era : The Transformation of South Korea. Harvard University Press. p. 409. ISBN 0 - 674 - 05820 - 8. Jump up ^ Stanton, ' Vietnam Order of Battle '. Jump up ^ `` ROK Army and Marines prove to be rock - solid fighters and allies in Vietnam War ''. Archived from the original on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 3 February 2008. ^ Jump up to : `` 1965 년 전투병 베트남 파병 의결 ''. Donga Ilbo. 2 July 2008. Retrieved 17 July 2011. Jump up ^ Leepson 1999, p. 209. ^ Jump up to : Dennis et al 2008, pp. 555 -- 558. Jump up ^ McGibbon 2000, pp. 561 -- 566. Jump up ^ `` Vietnam War 1962 -- 1972 ''. Encyclopaedia. Australian War Memorial. Retrieved 1 July 2006. Jump up ^ McGibbon 2000, p. 539. Jump up ^ Anderson, Gerald ( January 2009 ). 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Murder of a Gentle Land. Reader 's Digest Press. pp. 1 -- 2. Jump up ^ Ponchaud, François ( 1978 ). Cambodia Year Zero. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. pp. 6 -- 7. Jump up ^ Swain, John ( 1999 ). River of Time : A Memoir of Vietnam and Cambodia. Berkley Trade. Jump up ^ Norman, Elizabeth M. Women at War : the Story of Fifty Military Nurses Who Served in Vietnam. Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania, 1990. ISBN 978 - 0 - 8122 - 1317 - 1 p. 7. Jump up ^ Vuic, Kara Dixon. Officer, Nurse, Woman : the Army Nurse Corps in the Vietnam War. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins UP, 2010. ISBN 978 - 0 - 8018 - 9391 - 9 p. 5. Jump up ^ Norman, p. 57. Jump up ^ Holm 1992, p. 214. Jump up ^ Holm 1992, p. 213. Jump up ^ Holm 1992, p. 206. Jump up ^ Vuic, p. 8. Jump up ^ Norman, p. 71. Jump up ^ Shapiro, T. Rees ( 27 April 2011 ). `` Mme. Ngo Dinh Nhu, who exerted political power in Vietnam, dies at 87 ''. The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 February 2014. Jump up ^ Gustafsson, Mai Lan `` ' Freedom. Money. Fun. Love ' : The Warlore of Vietnamese Bargirls '' Oral History Review, 2011, Vol. 38, No. 2, p. 308 ; Hunt, Richard A. Pacification : The American Struggle for Vietnam 's Hearts and Minds Boulder, CO : Westview Press, 1995, p. 40 Jump up ^ Barry, Kathleen The Prostitution of Sexuality New York : NYU Press, 1995, p. 133 Jump up ^ Linda Trinh Võ and Marian Sciachitano, Asian American women : the Frontiers reader, University of Nebraska Press, 2004, p. 144. Jump up ^ Lamb, David Children of the Vietnam War Smithsonian Magazine June 2009. Retrieved 28 May 2014. Jump up ^ `` ' Fully Integrated ' ''. African - American Involvement in the Vietnam War ( aavw.org ). Retrieved 11 May 2017. Jump up ^ Terry, Wallace ( 1984 ). Bloods : An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans. Random House. pp. Epigraph and pages xv -- xvii. ISBN 978 - 0 - 394 - 53028 - 4. Jump up ^ `` Working - Class War ''. Jump up ^ Chinese Support for North Vietnam during the Vietnam War : The Decisive Edge, Bob Seals, Military History Online, 23 September 2008 Jump up ^ Albert Parray, Military Review, Soviet aid to Vietnam, June 1967 Jump up ^ Gordon L. Rottman, Viet Cong Fighter, Osprey Publishing ( 2007 ) p. 20 - 30 ISBN 978 - 1 - 84603 - 126 - 7 Jump up ^ C.H. Chivers ( 2 November 2009 ). `` How Reliable is the M16 Rifle ? ''. The New York Times. Jump up ^ David Maraniss ( 2003 ). They Marched into Sunlight : War and Peace Vietnam and America October 1967. Simon and Schuster. p. 410. ISBN 978 - 0 - 7432 - 6255 - 2. Jump up ^ Hog, Ian V., Jane 's Infantry Weapons 1986 -- 87, Jane 's Publishing, Inc. New York, NY ( 1986 ) p. 225. ^ Jump up to : A History of U.S. Communications Security ; the David G. Boak Lectures, National Security Agency ( NSA ), Volumes I, 1973, Volumes II 1981, partially released 2008, additional portions declassified 14 October 2015 Jump up ^ Kiernan, Ben ; Owen, Taylor ( 2015 - 04 - 26 ). `` Making More Enemies than We Kill ? Calculating U.S. Bomb Tonnages Dropped on Laos and Cambodia, and Weighing Their Implications ''. The Asia - Pacific Journal. Retrieved 2016 - 09 - 19. ^ Jump up to : Wright, Rebecca ( 2016 - 09 - 06 ). `` ' My friends were afraid of me ' : What 80 million unexploded US bombs did to Laos ''. CNN. Retrieved 2016 - 09 - 18. Jump up ^ Greenberg, Jon ( 2014 - 09 - 11 ). `` Kissinger : Drones have killed more civilians than the bombing of Cambodia in the Vietnam War ''. Politifact.com. Retrieved 2016 - 09 - 18. Jump up ^ Robbers, Gerhard ( 30 January 2007 ). Encyclopedia of world constitutions. Infobase Publishing. p. 1021. ISBN 978 - 0 - 8160 - 6078 - 8. Retrieved 1 July 2011. Jump up ^ Elliot, Duong Van Mai ( 2010 ). `` The End of the War ''. RAND in Southeast Asia : A History of the Vietnam War Era. RAND Corporation. pp. 499, 512 -- 513. ISBN 9780833047540. A study by Jacqueline Desbarats and Karl D. Jackson estimated that 65,000 South Vietnamese were executed for political reasons between 1975 and 1983, based on a survey of 615 Vietnamese refugees who claimed to have personally witnessed 47 executions. However, `` their methodology was reviewed and criticized as invalid by authors Gareth Porter and James Roberts. '' 16 of the 47 names used to extrapolate this `` bloodbath '' were duplicates ; this extremely high duplication rate ( 34 % ) strongly suggests Desbarats and Jackson were drawing from a small number of total executions. Rather than arguing that this duplication rate proves there were very few executions in post-war Vietnam, Porter and Roberts suggest it is an artifact of the self - selected nature of the participants in the Desbarats - Jackson study, as the authors followed subjects 's recommendations on other refugees to interview. See Elliot, Duong Van Mai ( 2010 ). `` The End of the War ''. RAND in Southeast Asia : A History of the Vietnam War Era. RAND Corporation. pp. 512 -- 513. ISBN 9780833047540. cf. Porter, Gareth ; Roberts, James ( Summer 1988 ). `` Creating a Bloodbath by Statistical Manipulation : A Review of A Methodology for Estimating Political Executions in Vietnam, 1975 - 1983, Jacqueline Desbarats ; Karl D. Jackson ''. Pacific Affairs. 61 ( 2 ) : 303 -- 310. JSTOR 2759306. Nevertheless, there exist unverified reports of mass executions ( see Nguyen Cong Hoan ' testimony in `` Human Rights in Vietnam : Hearings Before the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations : House of Representatives, Ninety - Fifth Congress, First Session ''. U.S. Government Printing Office : 149, 153. 1977 - 07 - 26. ; see also Desbarats and Jackson. `` Vietnam 1975 -- 1982 : The Cruel Peace '' The Washington Quarterly 8, no. 4 ( September 1985 ) : p. 117 ) Jump up ^ Sagan, Ginetta ; Denney, Stephen ( October -- November 1982 ). `` Re-education in Unliberated Vietnam : Loneliness, Suffering and Death ''. The Indochina Newsletter. Retrieved 2016 - 09 - 01. Jump up ^ See also Nghia M. Vo, The Bamboo Gulag : Political Imprisonment in Communist Vietnam ( McFarland, 2004 ). Jump up ^ Associated Press, 23 June 1979, San Diego Union, 20 July 1986. See generally Nghia M. Vo, The Vietnamese Boat People ( 2006 ), 1954 and 1975 -- 1992, McFarland. ^ Jump up to : Sharp, Bruce ( 1 April 2005 ). `` Counting Hell : The Death Toll of the Khmer Rouge Regime in Cambodia ''. Retrieved 15 July 2016. The range based on the figures above extends from a minimum of 1.747 million, to a maximum of 2.495 million. Jump up ^ Courtois, Stephane ; et al. ( 1997 ). The Black Book of Communism. Harvard University Press. pp. 575 -- 576. ISBN 978 - 0 - 674 - 07608 - 2. Jump up ^ `` Migration in the Asia - Pacific Region ''. Stephen Castles, University of Oxford. Mark J. Miller, University of Delaware. July 2009. Jump up ^ Robinson, William Courtland ( 1998 ). Terms of refuge : the Indochinese exodus & the international response. Zed Books. p. 127. ISBN 1 - 85649 - 610 - 4. Jump up ^ Courtois, Stephane ; et al. ( 1997 ). The Black Book of Communism. Harvard University Press. p. 575. ISBN 978 - 0 - 674 - 07608 - 2. Jump up ^ Crossette, Barbara, Hanoi, Citing Famine Fears, Seeks Emergency Aid, The New York Times, 15 May 1988. Jump up ^ Van, Canh Nguyen ; Cooper, Earle ( 1983 ). Vietnam under Communism, 1975 -- 1982, p. 229. Hoover Press. ISBN 9780817978518. Jump up ^ `` U.S. starts its first Agent Orange cleanup in Vietnam ''. Reuters. 9 August 2012. Jump up ^ Dacy, Douglas C. ( 1986 ), Foreign aid, war, and economic development : south Vietnam 1955 -- 1975, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, p. 242 ; `` CRS report for Congress : Costs of Major Wars '', https://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/108054.pdf, accessed 22 Oct 2015 Jump up ^ Gerdes ( ed ). Examining Issues Through Political Cartoons : The Vietnam War pp. 14 -- 15. Jump up ^ Karnow 1997, p. 23. Jump up ^ Taylor paraphrases Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans. Samuel B. Griffith. Oxford, UK. Oxford University Press, 1963. Jump up ^ `` President Richard Nixon 's Role in the Vietnam War ''. Vietnam War. Archived from the original on 31 March 2009. Retrieved 17 October 2009. Jump up ^ `` Lessons of Vietnam -- Secret Memoranda to The President of the United States by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger ( ca. 12 May 1975 ) ''. p. 3. Archived from the original on 9 May 2008. Retrieved 11 June 2008. Jump up ^ McNamara 1999, p. 368. ^ Jump up to : Quoted in Bob Buzzano. `` 25 Years After End of Vietnam War, Myths Keep Us from Coming to Terms with Vietnam ''. The Baltimore Sun Times. 17 April 2000. Retrieved 11 June 2008. Jump up ^ Karnow 1997, p. 17. Jump up ^ Dacy, Douglas C. ( 1986 ), Foreign aid, war, and economic development : south Vietnam 1955 -- 1975, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, p. 242 Jump up ^ `` Echoes of Combat : The Vietnam War in American Memory ''. Stanford University. Jump up ^ Westheider 2007, p. 78. ^ Jump up to : The War 's Costs. Digital History. Jump up ^ Combat Area Casualty File, November 1993. ( The CACF is the basis for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, i.e. The Wall ), Center for Electronic Records, National Archives, Washington, D.C. Jump up ^ Kueter, Dale ( 2007 ). Vietnam Sons : For Some, the War Never Ended. AuthorHouse. ISBN 1 - 4259 - 6931 - 3. Jump up ^ `` War Resisters Remain in Canada with No Regrets ''. ABC News. 19 November 2005. Retrieved 26 February 2010. Jump up ^ Vietnam War Resisters in Canada Open Arms to U.S. Military Deserters Archived 12 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine... Pacific News Service. 28 June 2005. Jump up ^ `` Proclamation 4483 : Granting Pardon for Violations of the Selective Service Act ''. Retrieved 11 June 2008. By The President of the United States of America, A Proclamation Granting Pardon For Violations of the Selective Services Act, 4 August 1964 To 28 March 1973. 21 January 1977. Jump up ^ Victory in Europe 56 Years Ago Gallup News Service 8 May 2001 Jump up ^ `` US still making payments to relatives of Civil War veterans, analysis finds ''. Fox News. Associated Press. 20 March 2013. Jump up ^ Jim Lobe ( 30 March 2013 ). `` Iraq, Afghanistan Wars Will Cost U.S. 4 -- 6 Trillion Dollars : Report ''. Inter Press Service. Jump up ^ Heinl, Jr., Col. Robert D. ( 1971 ), `` The Collapse of the Armed Forces '', Armed Forces Journal, 7 June 1971 Jump up ^ Flitton, Dave. `` Battlefield Vietnam : Peace with Honour ''. PBS. Retrieved 2 August 2015. Jump up ^ Milam, Ron ( 2009 ), Not A Gentleman 's War : An Inside View of Junior Officers in the Vietnam War, Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, p. 172 Jump up ^ Shkurti, William J. ( 2011 ), Soldiering on in a Dying War : The True Story of the Firebase Pace Incidents and the Vietnam Drawdown, Lawrence : University of Kansas Press, p. 95 Jump up ^ `` Military draft system stopped ''. The Bulletin. Bend, Oregon. UPI. 27 January 1973. p. 1. Jump up ^ `` Military draft ended by Laird ''. The Times - News. Hendersonville, North Carolina. Associated Press. 27 January 1973. p. 1. Jump up ^ Lepre, p. 183 Jump up ^ Palmer 2007 ; Stone 2007. Jump up ^ Lynne Peeples ( 10 July 2013 ). `` Veterans Sick From Agent Orange - Poisoned Planes Still Seek Justice ''. The Huffington Post. Retrieved 4 September 2013. Jump up ^ Bruce Cumings ( 1998 ). The Global Politics of Pesticides : Forging Consensus from Conflicting Interests. Earthscan. p. 61. Jump up ^ `` Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961 -- 1963 Volume I, Vietnam, 1961, Document 275 ''. History.state.gov. Retrieved 24 February 2014. Jump up ^ Michael F. Martin ( 13 November 2015 ). U.S. Agent Orange / Dioxin Assistance to Vietnam ( PDF ) ( Report ). Congressional Research Service. Jump up ^ Kolko 1985, pp. 144 -- 5. Jump up ^ Roberts 2005, p. 380. In his 234 - page judgment, Weinstein observed : `` Despite the fact that Congress and the President were fully advised of a substantial belief that the herbicide spraying in Vietnam was a violation of international law, they acted on their view that it was not a violation at the time. '' Jump up ^ Crook 2008. Jump up ^ Anthony Faiola ( 13 November 2006 ). `` In Vietnam, Old Foes Take Aim at War 's Toxic Legacy ''. The Washington Post. Retrieved 8 September 2013. Jump up ^ `` Veterans ' Diseases Associated with Agent Orange ''. va.gov. Archived from the original on 9 May 2010. Retrieved 4 September 2013. Jump up ^ `` Statistical Information about Fatal Casualties of the Vietnam War, Electronic Records Reference Report ''. U.S. National Archives. DCAS Vietnam Conflict Extract File record counts by HOME OF RECORD STATE CODE ( as of 29 April 2008 ). ( generated from the Vietnam Conflict Extract Data File of the Defense Casualty Analysis System ( DCAS ) Extract Files ( as of 29 April 2008 ) Jump up ^ Clarke, Jeffrey J. ( 1988 ), United States Army in Vietnam : Advice and Support : The Final Years, 1965 -- 1973, Washington, D.C. : Center of Military History, United States Army, p. 275 Jump up ^ `` fifty years of violent war deaths : data analysis from the world health survey program : BMJ ''. 23 April 2008. Retrieved 5 January 2013. From 1955 to 2002, data from the surveys indicated an estimated 5.4 million violent war deaths... 3.8 million in Vietnam. Jump up ^ Tucker, Spencer, ed. ( 1998 ). Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War : A Political, Social, and Military History. Volume Two. Santa Barbara, CA : ABC - CLIO. p. 617. ISBN 0 - 87436 - 983 - 5. Jump up ^ `` Battlefield : Vietnam Timeline ''. Pbs.org. Retrieved 31 October 2011. Jump up ^ Clarke, p. 275 Jump up ^ Willbanks, James H. ( 2008 ). The Tet Offensive : A Concise History. New York : Columbia University Press. p. 32. ISBN 0 - 231 - 12841 - X. Jump up ^ Rand Corporation SOME IMPRESSIONS OF VIET CONG VULNERABILITIES AN INTERIM REPORT 1965 Jump up ^ James J.F. Forest Countering Terrorism and Insurgency in the 21st Century 2007 ISBN 978 - 0275990343 Jump up ^ Associated Press, 3 April 1995. Jump up ^ Shenon, Philip, `` 20 Years After Victory, Vietnamese Communists Ponder How to Celebrate, The New York Times, 23 April 1995 Jump up ^ `` Vietnam War Casualties ''. vietnamwarcasualties.org. Jump up ^ Linnington, Michael, Director, Defense POW / MIA Accounting Agency, `` World 's Largest Anthropology Lab ' Opens, '' VFW magazine, Nov. / Dec. 2015 : 8. Jump up ^ `` Vietnam War Bomb Explodes Killing Four Children ''. The Huffington Post. 3 December 2012. Jump up ^ Vietnam war shell explodes, kills two fishermen The Australian ( 28 April 2011 ) References Secondary sources Anderson, David L. ( 2004 ). Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War. 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Battlefield Vietnam : A Brief History. A PBS interactive website. Brocheux, Pierre ( 2007 ). Ho Chi Minh : a biography. Cambridge University Press. p. 198. ISBN 978 - 0 - 521 - 85062 - 9. Buckley, Kevin. `` Pacification 's Deadly Price '', Newsweek, 19 June 1972. Buzzanco, Bob. `` 25 Years After End of Vietnam War : Myths Keep Us from Coming to Terms with Vietnam '', The Baltimore Sun ( 17 April 2000 ) `` 25 Years After End of Vietnam War Myths Keep Us From Coming To Terms With Vietnam ''. Retrieved 11 June 2008. Carney, Timothy ( 1989 ). `` The Unexpected Victory ''. In Karl D. Jackson, ed., Cambodia, 1975 -- 1978 : Rendezvous with Death ( pp. 13 -- 35 ). Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 691 - 07807 - 6. Church, Peter, ed. ( 2006 ). A Short History of South - East Asia. ISBN 978 - 0 - 470 - 82181 - 7. Cooper, Chester L. ( 1970 ). The Lost Crusade : America in Vietnam. ISBN 0 - 396 - 06241 - 5. a Washington insider 's memoir of events. Courtwright, David T. ( 2005 ). Sky as Frontier : Adventure, Aviation, and Empire. College Station, Texas : Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 978 - 1 - 585 - 44384 - 0. Crook, John R. ( 2008 ). `` Court of Appeals Affirms Dismissal of Agent Orange Litigation ''. American Journal of International Law. 102 ( 3 ) : 662 -- 664. JSTOR 20456664. Crump, Laurien ( 2015 ). The Warsaw Pact Reconsidered : International Relations in Eastern Europe, 1955 - 1969. Oxon : Routledge. ISBN 978 - 1 - 315 - 73254 - 1. Demma, Vincent H. ( 1989 ). `` The U.S. Army in Vietnam ''. American Military History. Washington, D.C. : US Army Center of Military History. pp. 619 -- 694. Dennis, Peter ; et al. ( 2008 ). The Oxford Companion to Australian Military History ( Second ed. ). Melbourne : Oxford University Press Australia & New Zealand. ISBN 978 - 0 - 19 - 551784 - 2. DoD ( 6 November 1998 ). `` Name of Technical Sergeant Richard B. Fitzgibbon to be added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial ''. Department of Defense ( DoD ). Archived from the original on 20 October 2013. Duiker, William J. ( 1981 ). The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam. Westview Press. ISBN 0891587942. Duncanson, Dennis J. ( 1968 ). Government and Revolution in Vietnam. Oxford University Press. OCLC 411221. Etcheson, Craig ( 2005 ). After the Killing Fields : Lessons from the Cambodian Genocide. New York : Praeger. ISBN 978 - 0 - 275 - 98513 - 4. Fall, Bernard B. ( 1967 ). The Two Viet - Nams : A Political and Military Analysis ( 2nd ed. ). New York : Praeger. ISBN 978 - 0 - 999 - 14179 - 3. Fincher, Ernest Barksdale, The Vietnam War ( 1980 ). Ford, Harold P. ( 1998 ). CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers : Three Episodes, 1962 -- 1968. OCLC 39333058. Gerdes, Louise I., ed. ( 2005 ). Examining Issues Through Political Cartoons : The Vietnam War. Greenhaven Press. ISBN 0 - 7377 - 2531 - 1. Gettleman, Marvin E. ; Franklin, Jane ; Young, Marilyn Vietnam and America : A Documented History. ( 1995 ). Greiner, Bernd ( 2010 ). War Without Fronts : The USA in Vietnam. London : Vintage Books. ISBN 9780099532590. Hammond, William. Public Affairs : The Military and the Media, 1962 -- 1968 ( 1987 ) ; Public Affairs : The Military and the Media, 1968 -- 1973 ( 1995 ). Full - scale history of the war by U.S. Army ; much broader than title suggests. Healy, Gene ( 2009 ). The Cult of the Presidency : America 's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power. Cato Institute. ISBN 978 - 1 - 933995 - 19 - 9. Herring, George C. ( 2001 ). America 's Longest War : The United States and Vietnam, 1950 -- 1975 ( 4th ed. ). New York : McGraw - Hill. ISBN 978 - 0 - 072 - 53618 - 8. Hitchens, Christopher. The Vietnam Syndrome. Holm, Jeanne ( 1992 ). Women in the Military : An Unfinished Revolution ( Rev. ed. ). Novato, California : Presidio Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 891 - 41450 - 6. Karnow, Stanley ( 1997 ). Vietnam : A History ( 2nd ed. ). New York : Penguin Books. ISBN 978 - 0 - 140 - 26547 - 7. Khong, Yuen Foong ( 1992 ). Analogies at War : Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the Vietnam Decisions of 1965. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691078467. Kiernan, Ben ( 2008 ). The Pol Pot Regime : Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia Under the Khmer Rouge ( 3rd ed. ). New Haven, Connecticut : Yale University Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 300 - 14434 - 5. -- -- -- ; Owen, Taylor. Bombs over Cambodia ( PDF ). The Walrus. pp. 62 -- 69. Kolko, Gabriel ( 1985 ). Anatomy of a War : Vietnam, the United States, and the Modern Historical Experience. New York : Pantheon Books. ISBN 978 - 0 - 394 - 74761 - 3. Kutler, Stanley I., ed. ( 1996 ). Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War. New York : Charles Scribner 's Sons. ISBN 978 - 0 - 132 - 76932 - 7. Lawrence, A.T. ( 2009 ). Crucible Vietnam : Memoir of an Infantry Lieutenant. Jefferson, North Carolina : McFarland. ISBN 978 - 0 - 786 - 44517 - 2. Lawrence, Mark Atwood ( 2008 ). The Vietnam War : A Concise International History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195314656. Leepson, Marc ed. ( 1999 ). Dictionary of the Vietnam War. New York : Webster 's New World. Lewy, Guenter ( 1978 ). America in Vietnam. New York : Oxford University Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 195 - 02732 - 7. Logevall, Fredrik ( 2001 ). The Origins of the Vietnam War. Harlow : Longman. ISBN 978 - 0 - 582 - 31918 - 9. -- -- -- ( 2010 ). `` The Indochina wars and the Cold War, 1945 -- 1975 ''. In Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, eds., The Cambridge History of the Cold War, Volume II : Crises and Détente ( pp. 281 -- 304 ). Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 521 - 83720 - 0. McGibbon, Ian ; ed ( 2000 ). The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Military History. Auckland : Oxford University Press. ISBN 0 - 19 - 558376 - 0. McMahon, Robert J. ( 1995 ). Major Problems in the History of the Vietnam War : Documents and Essays. McNamara, Robert S. ; Blight, James G. ; Brigham, Robert K. ; Biersteker, Thomas J. ; Schandler, Herbert ( 1999 ). Argument Without End : In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy. New York : PublicAffairs. ISBN 978 - 1 - 891 - 62087 - 4. McNeill, Ian ( 1993 ). To Long Tan : The Australian Army and the Vietnam War 1950 -- 1966. St Leonards : Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1 - 86373 - 282 - 9. Milne, David ( 2008 ). America 's Rasputin : Walt Rostow and the Vietnam War. New York : Hill & Wang. ISBN 978 - 0 - 374 - 10386 - 6. Moïse, Edwin E. ( 1996 ). Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. Chapel Hill, North Carolina : University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 807 - 82300 - 2. -- -- -- ( 2002 ). Historical Dictionary of the Vietnam War. Lanham, Maryland : Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 810 - 84183 - 3. Moss, George D. Vietnam ( 4th ed 2002 ) textbook. Moyar, Mark ( 2006 ). Triumph Forsaken : The Vietnam War, 1954 -- 1965. New York : Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 521 - 86911 - 9. Major General Spurgeon Neel. Medical Support of the U.S. Army in Vietnam 1965 -- 1970 ( Department of the Army 1991 ) official medical history Neale, Jonathan ( 2001 ). The American War : Vietnam, 1960 -- 1975. London : Bookmarks. ISBN 978 - 1 - 898 - 87667 - 0. Nelson, Deborah ( 2008 ). The War Behind Me : Vietnam Veterans Confront the Truth about U.S. War Crimes. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania : Basic Books. ISBN 978 - 0 - 465 - 00527 - 7. Nulty, Bernard. The Vietnam War ( 1998 ) New York : Barnes and Noble. Oberdorfer, Don ( 2001 ) ( 1971 ). Tet ! The Turning Point in the Vietnam War. Baltimore, Maryland : Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 801 - 86703 - 3. Obermeyer, Ziad ; Murray, Christopher J.L. ; Gakidou, Emmanuela ( 2008 ). `` Fifty years of violent war deaths from Vietnam to Bosnia : analysis of data from the world health survey programme ''. BMJ. 336 ( 7659 ) : 1482 -- 6. doi : 10.1136 / bmj. a137. PMC 2440905. PMID 18566045. Olson, James S. ; Roberts, Randy ( 2008 ). Where the Domino Fell : America and Vietnam, Where the Domino Fell : America and Vietnam 1945 -- 1995 ( 5th ed. ). Malden, Massachusetts : Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978 - 1 - 405 - 18222 - 5. Palmer, Bruce Jr. The Twenty - Five Year War ( 1984 ), narrative military history by a senior U.S. general. Palmer, Dave R. ( 1978 ). Summons of Trumpet : U.S. - Vietnam in Perspective. Novato, California : Presidio Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 891 - 41550 - 3. Palmer, Michael G. ( 2007 ). `` The Case of Agent Orange ''. Contemporary Southeast Asia. 29 ( 1 ) : 172 -- 195. doi : 10.1355 / cs29 - 1h. JSTOR 25798819. Prados, John ( 2006 ). `` The Road South : The Ho Chi Minh Trail ''. In Andew Wiest, ed., Rolling Thunder in a Gentle Land ( pp. 74 -- 95 ). Oxford : Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978 - 1 - 846 - 03020 - 8. Robbins, Mary Susannah ( 2007 ). Against the Vietnam War : Writings by Activists. Lanham, Maryland : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 978 - 0 - 7425 - 5914 - 1. Roberts, Anthea ( 2005 ). `` The Agent Orange Case : Vietnam Ass'n for Victims of Agent Orange / Dioxin v. Dow Chemical Co ''. ASIL Proceedings. 99 ( 1 ) : 380 -- 385. JSTOR 25660031. Schandler, Herbert Y. ( 2009 ). America in Vietnam : The War That Could n't Be Won. Lanham, Maryland : Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978 - 0 - 742 - 56697 - 2. Schell, Jonathan. The Time of Illusion ( 1976 ). Schulzinger, Robert D. A Time for War : The United States and Vietnam, 1941 -- 1975 ( 1997 ). Sheehan, Neil ( 1989 ). A Bright Shining Lie : John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. New York : Vintage. ISBN 978 - 0 - 679 - 72414 - 8. Sliwinski, Marek ( 1995 ). Le Génocide Khmer Rouge : Une Analyse Démographique. Paris : L'Harmattan. ISBN 978 - 2 - 738 - 43525 - 5. Sorley, Lewis, A Better War : The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America 's Last Years in Vietnam ( 1999 ), based upon still classified tape - recorded meetings of top level US commanders in Vietnam, ISBN 0 - 15 - 601309 - 6 Spector, Ronald. After Tet : The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam ( 1992 ), very broad coverage of 1968. Stanton, Shelby L. ( 2003 ). Vietnam order of battle ( 2003 ed. ). Stackpole Books. ISBN 0 - 8117 - 0071 - 2. Stone, Richard ( 2007 ). `` Agent Orange 's Bitter Harvest ''. Science. 315 ( 5809 ) : 176 -- 179. doi : 10.1126 / science. 315.5809. 176. JSTOR 20035179. PMID 17218503. Stuart - Fox, Martin ( 1997 ). A History of Laos. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 521 - 59235 - 2. Summers, Harry G. On Strategy : A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War, Presidio press ( 1982 ), ISBN 0 - 89141 - 563 - 7 ( 225 pages ) Thayer, Thomas C. ( 1985 ). War Without Fronts : The American Experience in Vietnam. Boulder, Colorado : Westview Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 813 - 37132 - 0. Tucker, Spencer. ed. Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War ( 1998 ) 3 vol. reference set ; also one - volume abridgement ( 2001 ). -- -- -- ( 1999 ). Vietnam. London : UCL Press. ISBN 978 - 1 - 857 - 28921 - 3. Tucker, Spencer ( 2011 ) ( 1998 ). The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War : A Political, Social, and Military History. ABC - CLIO. ISBN 978 - 1851099603. Turner, Robert F. ( 1975 ). Vietnamese Communism : Its Origins and Development. Stanford, California : Hoover Institution Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 817 - 96431 - 3. Turse, Nick ( 2013 ). Kill Anything That Moves : The Real American War in Vietnam. New York : Metropolitan Books. ISBN 978 - 0 - 805 - 08691 - 1. Vietnam Task Force ( 1969 ). Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force. Washington, D.C. : Office of the Secretary of Defense. Westheider, James E. ( 2007 ). The Vietnam War. Westport, Connecticut : Greenwood Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 313 - 33755 - 0. Willbanks, James H. ( 2009 ). Vietnam War almanac. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978 - 0 - 8160 - 7102 - 9. Witz, James J. The Tet Offensive : Intelligence Failure in War ( 1991 ). Woodruff, Mark ( 2005 ). Unheralded Victory : The Defeat of The Viet Cong and The North Vietnamese. Arlington, Virginia : Presidio Press. ISBN 0 - 8914 - 1866 - 0. Young, Marilyn B. ( 1991 ). The Vietnam Wars, 1945 -- 1990. New York : HarperPerennial. ISBN 978 - 0 - 060 - 92107 - 1. Xiaoming, Zhang. `` China 's 1979 War With Vietnam : A Reassessment '', China Quarterly. Issue no. 184, ( December 2005 ) `` CJO -- Abstract -- China 's 1979 War with Vietnam : A Reassessment ''. Retrieved 11 June 2008. Primary sources Carter, Jimmy. By The President Of The United States Of America, A Proclamation Granting Pardon For Violations Of The Selective Service Act, 4 August 1964 To 28 March 1973 ( 21 January 1977 ) Central Intelligence Agency. `` Laos '', CIA World Factbook ' Cora Weiss Collection ( materials related to war resistance and peace activism movements during the Vietnam War ), Lloyd Sealy Library Special Collections, John Jay College of Criminal Justice Eisenhower, Dwight D. Mandate for Change. ( 1963 ) a presidential political memoir Ho, Chi Minh. `` Vietnam Declaration of Independence '', Selected Works. ( 1960 -- 1962 ) selected writings LeMay, General Curtis E. and Kantor, MacKinlay. Mission with LeMay ( 1965 ) autobiography of controversial former Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force Kissinger, United States Secretary of State Henry A. `` Lessons on Vietnam '', ( 1975 ) secret memoranda to U.S. President Ford O'Connell, Kim A. ( 2006 ). Primary Source Accounts of the Vietnam War. Berkeley Heights, New Jersey : MyReportLinks.com. ISBN 978 - 1 - 598 - 45001 - 9. McCain, John. Faith of My Fathers : A Family Memoir ( 1999 ) ISBN 0060957867 Marshall, Kathryn. In the Combat Zone : An Oral History of American Women in Vietnam, 1966 -- 1975 ( 1987 ) ISBN 0316547077 Martin, John Bartlow. Was Kennedy Planning to Pull out of Vietnam ? ( 1964 ) oral history for the John F. Kennedy Library, tape V, reel 1. Myers, Thomas. Walking Point : American Narratives of Vietnam ( 1988 ) ISBN 0195053516 Public Papers of the Presidents, 1965 ( 1966 ) official documents of U.S. presidents. Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. Robert Kennedy and His Times. ( 1978 ) a first - hand account of the Kennedy administration by one of his principal advisors Sinhanouk, Prince Norodom. `` Cambodia Neutral : The Dictates of Necessity. '' Foreign Affairs. ( 1958 ) describes the geopolitical situation of Cambodia Tang, Truong Nhu. A Viet Cong Memoir ( 1985 ), revealing account by senior NLF official Terry, Wallace, ed. Bloods : An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans ( 1984 ) Truong, Như Tảng ; David Chanoff, Van Toai Doan ( 1985 ). A Vietcong memoir ( 1985 ed. ). Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. ISBN 978 - 0 - 15 - 193636 - 6. - Total pages : 350 The landmark series Vietnam : A Television History, first broadcast in 1983, is a special presentation of the award - winning PBS history series, American Experience. The Pentagon Papers ( Gravel ed. 5 vol 1971 ) ; combination of narrative and secret documents compiled by Pentagon. excerpts U.S. Department of State. Foreign Relations of the United States ( multivolume collection of official secret documents ) vol 1 : 1964 ; vol 2 : 1965 ; ; vol 4 : 1966 ; U.S. Department of Defense and the House Committee on Armed Services. U.S. - Vietnam Relations, 1945 -- 1967. Washington, D.C. Department of Defense and the House Committee on Armed Services, 1971, 12 volumes. Historiography Hall, Simon, `` Scholarly Battles over the Vietnam War '', Historical Journal 52 ( September 2009 ), 813 -- 29. External links Find more aboutVietnam Warat Wikipedia 's sister projects Definitions from Wiktionary Media from Commons Quotations from Wikiquote Textbooks from Wikibooks Learning resources from Wikiversity Data from Wikidata A Vietnam Diary 's Homecoming Video produced by the PBS Series History Detectives Detailed bibliography of Vietnam War Documents Relating to American Foreign Policy - Vietnam primary sources on U.S. involvement Fallout of the War from the Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives Glossary of Military Terms & Slang from the Vietnam War Impressions of Vietnam and descriptions of the daily life of a soldier from the oral history of Elliott Gardner, U.S. Army `` Perspectives, '' Vietnam magazine. Stephen H. Warner Southeast Asia Photograph Collection at Gettysburg College The Effects of Vietnamization on the Republic of Vietnam 's Armed Forces, 1969 -- 1972 Timeline US -- Vietnam ( 1947 -- 2001 ) in Open - Content project The U.S. Army in Vietnam the official history of the United States Army The Vietnam War at The History Channel UC Berkeley Library Social Activism Sound Recording Project : Anti-Vietnam War Protests Vietnam Casualties database searchable by first name, last name and location Vietnam War Bibliography covers online and published resources Vietnam war timeline comprehensive timeline of the Vietnam War Virtual Vietnam Archive -- Texas Tech University 1965 -- 1975 Another Vietnam ; Unseen images of the war from the winning side - Mashable Archival collections about the Vietnam War, University Archives and Special Collections, Joseph P. Healey Library, University of Massachusetts Boston Vietnam War Participants North Vietnam ( Viet Minh / PAVN, Viet Cong ) South Vietnam ( ARVN ) United States Related conflicts Laotian Civil War Cambodian Civil War Cold War ( 1962 -- 79 ) Background French Indochina Japanese occupation State of Vietnam ( 1949 -- 1955 ) Viet Minh Battle of Dien Bien Phu Geneva Conference ( 1954 ) 1955 referendum North Vietnamese invasion of Laos 1960 South Vietnamese coup attempt Events 1962 : Strategic Hamlet Program 1963 : Buddhist crisis Coup against Diem 1964 : Gulf of Tonkin Incident / Resolution December coup 1965 : U.S. escalation / `` Americanization '' 1965 South Vietnamese coup Bombing of North Vietnam 1968 : Tet Offensive ( Khe Sanh, Hue ) 1970 : Cambodian Campaign 1971 : Vietnamization policy, ARVN campaign in Laos 1972 : Easter Offensive Christmas bombings 1973 : Paris Peace Accords 1974 : Invasion and capture of the Central Highlands 1975 : 1975 Spring Offensive Fall of Saigon Aftermath Cambodian -- Vietnamese War Sino - Vietnamese War Vietnamese boat people Vietnam Veterans Memorial Normalization of US -- Vietnam relations Other topics Agent Orange Australia in the Vietnam War Ho Chi Minh trail Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War Pentagon Papers SEATO Sihanouk Trail South Korea in the Vietnam War United States news media and Vietnam Vietnam War in film Vietnam War in games War crimes ( Hue, My Lai, Đắk Sơn ) Weapons of the Vietnam War Category Battles and operations Vietnam War timeline ↓ Battle of Saigon ↓ Hòa Hảo defeated ↓ Viet Cong created ↓ Palace Bombing ↓ Gulf of Tonkin incident ↓ Battle of Đức Cơ ↓ Tet Offensive ↓ Cambodian Campaign ↓ Operation Lam Son 719 ↓ Easter Offensive ↓ Paracel Islands ↓ Fall of Saigon ↓ Trần Văn Hương → U.S.A. presidents : Dwight D. Eisenhower John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Johnson Richard Nixon G. Ford S. Vietnam presidents : Ngô Đình Diệm Instability Nguyễn Văn Thiệu N. Vietnam presidents : Ho Chi Minh Tôn Đức Thắng │ 1955 │ 1956 │ 1957 │ 1958 │ 1959 │ 1960 │ 1961 │ 1962 │ 1963 │ 1964 │ 1965 │ 1966 │ 1967 │ 1968 │ 1969 │ 1970 │ 1971 │ 1972 │ 1973 │ │ 20th century in Vietnam World War I Interwar World War II First Indochina War Vietnam War Subsidy phase Đổi Mới Topics related to Vietnam War Armed conflicts involving the United States Armed Forces listed chronologically Domestic Shays ' Rebellion Whiskey Rebellion Fries 's Rebellion Mormon War Dorr Rebellion Bleeding Kansas Utah War Civil War Indian Wars Brooks -- Baxter War Range War Lincoln County War Johnson County War Coal Creek War Homestead Strike Battle of Blair Mountain Bonus Army Battle of Athens Foreign Revolutionary War Quasi-War First Barbary War War of 1812 Second Barbary War First Sumatran expedition Second Sumatran expedition Ivory Coast Expedition Mexican -- American War First Fiji Expedition Second Opium War Second Fiji Expedition Formosa Expedition Korean Expedition Spanish -- American War Philippine -- American War Boxer Rebellion Banana Wars Border War World War I Russian Civil War World War II Korean War Vietnam War Invasion of the Dominican Republic Invasion of Grenada Lebanese Civil War Invasion of Panama Gulf War Somali Civil War Bosnian War Kosovo War Afghanistan War Iraq War War in North - West Pakistan Libyan Civil War Intervention against ISIL Iraq Syria Cameroon Libya Related articles List of conflicts in the U.S. List of wars involving the U.S. Timeline of U.S. military operations Length of U.S. participation in major wars Overseas expansion Military history Covert regime - change actions Casualties of war Peace movement List of anti-war organizations Conscientious objector Cold War USA USSR ANZUS NATO Non-Aligned Movement SEATO Warsaw Pact 1940s Hukbalahap Rebellion Dekemvriana Yalta Conference Guerrilla war in the Baltic states Forest Brothers Operation Priboi Operation Jungle Occupation of the Baltic states Cursed soldiers Operation Unthinkable Potsdam Conference Gouzenko Affair Operation Masterdom Operation Beleaguer Operation Blacklist Forty Iran crisis of 1946 Greek Civil War Corfu Channel incident Turkish Straits crisis Restatement of Policy on Germany First Indochina War Truman Doctrine Asian Relations Conference Marshall Plan 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état Tito -- Stalin Split Berlin Blockade Western betrayal Iron Curtain Eastern Bloc Western Bloc Chinese Civil War ( Second round ) Malayan Emergency Albanian Subversion 1950s Bamboo Curtain Korean War McCarthyism 1953 Iranian coup d'état Uprising of 1953 in East Germany Dirty War ( Mexico ) Bricker Amendment 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état Partition of Vietnam First Taiwan Strait Crisis Geneva Summit ( 1955 ) Bandung Conference Poznań 1956 protests Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Suez Crisis `` We will bury you '' Operation Gladio Arab Cold War Syrian Crisis of 1957 1958 Lebanon crisis Iraqi 14 July Revolution Sputnik crisis Second Taiwan Strait Crisis Cuban Revolution Kitchen Debate Sino - Soviet split 1960s Congo Crisis 1960 U-2 incident Bay of Pigs Invasion 1960 Turkish coup d'état Soviet -- Albanian split Berlin Wall Portuguese Colonial War Angolan War of Independence Guinea - Bissau War of Independence Mozambican War of Independence Cuban Missile Crisis Sino - Indian War Communist insurgency in Sarawak Iraqi Ramadan Revolution 1963 Syrian coup d'état Vietnam War 1964 Brazilian coup d'état United States occupation of the Dominican Republic ( 1965 -- 66 ) South African Border War Transition to the New Order Domino theory ASEAN Declaration Laotian Civil War 1966 Syrian coup d'état Argentine Revolution Korean DMZ Conflict Greek military junta of 1967 -- 74 USS Pueblo incident Six - Day War War of Attrition Dhofar Rebellion Protests of 1968 French May Cultural Revolution Prague Spring Communist insurgency in Malaysia Invasion of Czechoslovakia Iraqi Ba'athist Revolution Goulash Communism Sino - Soviet border conflict CPP -- NPA -- NDF rebellion Corrective Move 1970s Détente Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Black September in Jordan Corrective Movement ( Syria ) Cambodian Civil War Realpolitik Ping - pong diplomacy 1971 Turkish military memorandum Corrective Revolution ( Egypt ) Four Power Agreement on Berlin Bangladesh Liberation War 1972 Nixon visit to China North Yemen - South Yemen Border Conflict 1973 Chilean coup d'état Yom Kippur War Carnation Revolution Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Rhodesian Bush War Angolan Civil War Mozambican Civil War Ogaden War Ethiopian Civil War Lebanese Civil War Sino - Albanian split Cambodian -- Vietnamese War Sino - Vietnamese War Iranian Revolution Operation Condor Dirty War Korean Air Lines Flight 902 Saur Revolution New Jewel Movement 1979 Herat uprising Seven Days to the River Rhine Struggle against political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union 1980s Soviet -- Afghan War 1980 and 1984 Summer Olympics boycotts 1980 Turkish coup d'état Invasion of Grenada 1986 Black Sea incident 1988 Black Sea bumping incident Solidarity Soviet reaction Contras Central American crisis RYAN Korean Air Lines Flight 007 Able Archer 83 Star Wars People Power Revolution Glasnost Perestroika Nagorno - Karabakh War Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 Revolutions of 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall 1990s Mongolian Revolution of 1990 German reunification Yemeni unification Fall of communism in Albania Breakup of Yugoslavia Dissolution of the Soviet Union Dissolution of Czechoslovakia Frozen conflicts Abkhazia China - Taiwan Korea Nagorno - Karabakh South Ossetia Transnistria Sino - Indian border dispute North Borneo dispute Foreign policy Truman Doctrine Containment Eisenhower Doctrine Domino theory Hallstein Doctrine Kennedy Doctrine Peaceful coexistence Ostpolitik Johnson Doctrine Brezhnev Doctrine Nixon Doctrine Ulbricht Doctrine Carter Doctrine Reagan Doctrine Rollback Sovereignty of Puerto Rico during the Cold War Ideologies Capitalism Chicago school Keynesianism Monetarism Neoclassical economics Reaganomics Supply - side economics Thatcherism Communism Marxism -- Leninism Castroism Eurocommunism Guevarism Hoxhaism Juche Maoism Naxalism Stalinism Titoism Other Islamism Liberal democracy Social democracy Third - Worldism White supremacy Organizations ASEAN CIA Comecon EEC KGB MI6 Non-Aligned Movement SAARC Safari Club Stasi Propaganda Active measures Crusade for Freedom Izvestia Pravda Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty Red Scare TASS Voice of America Voice of Russia Races Arms race Nuclear arms race Space Race See also Soviet espionage in the United States Soviet Union -- United States relations Soviet -- US summits Russian espionage in the United States American espionage in the Soviet Union and Russian Federation NATO -- Russia relations Brinkmanship CIA and the Cultural Cold War Cold War II Category Commons Portal Timeline List of conflicts Armed conflicts involving the People 's Republic of China Internal Chinese Civil War ( 1927 -- 50 ) Kuomintang Islamic insurgency ( 1950 -- 58 ) Kuomintang insurgency ( 1949 - 1961 ) Battle of Chamdo ( 1950 ) Tibetan uprising ( 1959 ) Xinjiang conflict ( 1980 -- present ) Tiananmen Square protests ( 1989 ) Cross-Taiwan Strait ( vs Taiwan ) ( after 1 Oct 1949 ) Kuningtou ( 1949 ) Dengbu Island ( 1949 ) Hainan Island ( 1950 ) Nanri Island ( 1952 ) Dongshan Island ( 1953 ) Yijiangshan Islands ( 1955 ) Dachen Archipelago ( 1955 ) Second Taiwan Strait Crisis ( 1958 ) Burmese border Dong - Yin ( 1965 ) Third Taiwan Strait Crisis ( 1995 -- 96 ) Others vs USSR Sino - Soviet border conflict ( 1969 ) vs United States and allies Korean War ( 1950 -- 53 ) Vietnam War ( 1965 -- 70 ) vs India Sino - Indian War ( 1962 ) Chola incident ( 1967 ) Sino - Indian skirmish ( 1987 ) Sino - Indian Standoff ( 2017 ) vs South Vietnam / Vietnam Paracel Islands ( 1974 ) Sino - Vietnamese War ( 1979 ) Sino - Vietnamese conflicts 1979 -- 90 Johnson South Reef Skirmish ( 1988 ) See also Incorporation of Tibet into the People 's Republic of China Incorporation of Xinjiang into the People 's Republic of China Armed conflicts involving Russia ( incl. Imperial and Soviet times ) Internal Razin 's Rebellion Bulavin Rebellion Pugachev 's Rebellion Decembrist revolt Russian Civil War August Uprising Coup d'état attempt ( 1991 ) 1993 Russian constitutional crisis First Chechen War War of Dagestan Second Chechen War Insurgency in the North Caucasus Pre-17th century Muscovite -- Volga Bulgars war ( 1376 ) Battle on Pyana River ( 1377 ) Battle of the Vozha River ( 1378 ) First Muscovite -- Lithuanian War ( 1492 -- 94 ) Russo - Swedish War ( 1495 -- 97 ) Second Muscovite -- Lithuanian War ( 1500 -- 03 ) Battle of the Siritsa River ( 1501 ) Third Muscovite -- Lithuanian War ( 1507 -- 08 ) Fourth Muscovite -- Lithuanian War ( 1512 -- 22 ) Fifth Muscovite -- Lithuanian War ( 1534 -- 37 ) Russo - Crimean Wars Russo - Kazan Wars Russo - Swedish War ( 1554 -- 57 ) Livonian War Russian Conquest of Siberia ( 1580 - 1747 ) Russo - Swedish War ( 1590 -- 95 ) Polish -- Muscovite War ( 1605 -- 18 ) and the Time of Troubles Ingrian War Smolensk War Russo - Persian War ( 1651 -- 53 ) Sino - Russian border conflicts ( 1652 -- 89 ) Russo - Polish War ( 1654 -- 67 ) Second Northern War Russo - Turkish War ( 1676 -- 81 ) Russo - Turkish War ( 1686 -- 1700 ) 18th -- 19th century Great Northern War Russo - Turkish War ( 1710 -- 11 ) Russo - Persian War ( 1722 -- 23 ) War of the Polish Succession ( 1733 -- 38 ) Austro - Russian -- Turkish War ( 1735 -- 39 ) War of the Austrian Succession ( 1740 -- 48 ) Russo - Swedish War ( 1741 -- 43 ) Seven Years ' War Russo - Turkish War ( 1768 -- 74 ) Bar Confederation Russo - Turkish War ( 1787 -- 92 ) Russo - Swedish War ( 1788 -- 90 ) Russo - Polish War ( 1792 ) Kościuszko Uprising Russo - Persian War ( 1796 ) War of the Second Coalition War of the Third Coalition Russo - Persian War ( 1804 -- 13 ) War of the Fourth Coalition Russo - Turkish War ( 1806 -- 12 ) Anglo - Russian War Finnish War War of the Fifth Coalition French invasion of Russia War of the Sixth Coalition War of the Seventh Coalition Russian conquest of the Caucasus Caucasian War Russo - Circassian War Murid War Russo - Persian War ( 1826 -- 28 ) Russo - Turkish War ( 1828 -- 29 ) November Uprising Russian conquest of Bukhara Hungarian Revolution of 1848 Crimean War January Uprising Russo - Turkish War ( 1877 -- 78 ) Boxer Rebellion Russian invasion of Manchuria 20th century Russo - Japanese War Russian Invasion of Tabriz, 1911 World War I Russian Civil War Ukrainian -- Soviet War Finnish Civil War Heimosodat Soviet westward offensive of 1918 -- 19 Estonian War of Independence Latvian War of Independence Lithuanian -- Soviet War Polish -- Soviet War Red Army invasion of Azerbaijan Red Army invasion of Armenia Red Army invasion of Georgia Red Army intervention in Mongolia Sino - Soviet conflict ( 1929 ) Soviet -- Japanese border conflicts Soviet invasion of Xinjiang Xinjiang War ( 1937 ) World War II Soviet invasion of Poland Winter War Soviet occupation of the Baltic states ( 1940 ) Continuation War Eastern Front ( World War II ) Anglo - Soviet invasion of Iran Soviet - Japanese War ( 1945 ) Guerrilla war in the Baltic states Ili Rebellion First Indochina War Korean War Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Eritrean War of Independence War of Attrition Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia Sino - Soviet border conflict Vietnam War Ethio - Somali ( Ogaden ) War Soviet -- Afghan War Post-Soviet Nagorno - Karabakh War Transnistria War Georgian Civil War Tajikistani Civil War Russo - Georgian War Intervention in Ukraine Annexation of Crimea War in Donbass Intervention in Syria Military history of Russia Russian Winter Russian Revolution Cold War Sphere of influence LCCN : sh85143277 GND : 4063516 - 8 BNF : cb11937639v ( data ) NDL : 00560641 Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vietnam_War&oldid=809446919 '' Categories : Vietnam War 1950s conflicts 1960s conflicts 1970s conflicts Cambodian Civil War Cold War conflicts Communism - based civil wars Counterculture of the 1960s History of Vietnam Imperialism Indochina Wars Laotian Civil War Presidency of Dwight D. 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Question: when did the vietman war start and end
Answer: 1 November 1955[A 1] to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975