Vietnam

Ben Decker Liam Thompson Wes Crawford Molly Maguire __**Vietnam War Time line**__:

• Indochina Wars begins. It began because President Eisenhower did not want commission to spread thought the world and take over the United States • Democratic Republic of Vietnam launches its first attack against France
 * 1946**

• United States sends $15 million dollars in military aid to the French for the War in Indochina
 * 1950**

• Battle of Dienbienphu Begins. A force of 40,000 heavily armed Vietminh fight the French garrison at Dienbienphu. French Lose • Eisenhower Cites “Domino Theory” Regrading Southeast Asia. • U.S Military Assistance Advisor Group (MAAG) takes responsibility from France for teaching South Vietnamese forces.
 * 1954-1956**

• John F. Kennedy is elected president over Richard Nixon • North Vietnam makes Universal Military Conscription • 400 guerillas attack village in Kienhoa Province and get Defeated by South Vietnamese troops • Vice President Lyndon Johnson visits Diem in Saigon. Johnson tells Diem that for the objects to happen in Vietnam, he is crucial to the U.S • JFK is assassinated and Vietnam problems are given to Lyndon Johnson
 * 1960-1963**

• Gulf of Tonkin Incident accrues when three Vietnamese PT boats shot torpedoes at U.S boat in the Tonkin Gulf on August 2 • U.S enters the war on August 7 • LBJ is elected president in the United States • First troops reach North Vietnam and later the troop levels top 200,000
 * 1964-1965**

• B-52s start to bomb North Vietnam roads that are being used by south Vietnam • LBJ meets with South Vietnam leader Premier Nguyen Cao Ky • Veterans from WWI and WWII protest against the war in New York City
 * 1966**

• Nixon secretly bombing in Cambodia to destroy Communist supply routes and base camps • Ho Chi Minh dies
 * 1969**

• US troops start to leave and drop to 280k
 * 1970**

• Nixon cuts troops level by 70k • B-52s bomb Hanoi and Haiphong • Watergate break in • Nixon gets reelected
 * 1972**

• Last troops leave Vietnam • End of draft announced
 * 1973**


 * Time Line** Link

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**Flaws in the Domino Theory:** During the 1950's the United States was very much paranoid; we were absolutely terrified of all things communist, for we feared that the Soviets would influence the rest of the world to take up the system. Among others, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was swept by this anti-communist hysteria, and he expressed that the world was in such a fragile state that a single nation fallen to communism could convert the entire world into communist. It would be a bit like a row of domino's, it only takes one to knock all the others over. During the fifties, we firmly believed that Vietnam was the domino at the beginning of the chain, and that a communist victory there was a threat to the entire Earth. This Domino Theory is completely accurate on a large scale, but it's difficult to apply it to someplace like Vietnam. Quite frankly, a tiny island nation off the coast of Asia is not going to turn everyone into communists. We were worried that nations surrounding Vietnam, such as the Philippines would fall to communism, and that after that the rest of the world would come. If this was our firm belief, than it would have made much more sense to eliminate these “potential domino's” through diplomacy. We could have easily spoken with the Philippines, and eliminated their chances of being knocked over. To be quite honest, there was no need for our fear of Vietnam, in fact the entire war was not worth fighting. Fighting seemed almost the easy way out, so that's what we did.

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