Vietnam

By savannahm5726

  • Eisenhower Administration

    • 34th President
    • Republican
    • Jan 20 1953 to Jan 20 1961
    • Signed an armistice ending the Korean War
    • Managed Cold War tensions during presidency

  • Dien Bien Phu

    • France wanted to reclaim Vietnam as a colony
    • Vietnam wanted independence
    • Turning point in the French Indochina War
    • Vietnam was divided at the 17th parallel

  • Geneva Accords

    • The French agreed to withdraw their troops from northern Vietnam. Vietnam would be temporarily divided at the 17th parallel, pending elections within two years to choose a president and reunite the country.

  • Kennedy Administration

    • 35th President
    • Democrat
    • Jan 20 1961 to Nov 22 1963
    • Negotiated through the Cuban Missile Crisis
    • Authorized the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty

  • Johnson Administration

    • 36th President
    • Democrat
    • Nov 22 1963 to Jan 20 1969
    • Increased U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War
    • Great Society Programs (Creation of Medicare and Medicaid, Civil Rights Act of 1964, etc.)

  • Gulf of Tonkin

    • aka the U.S.S. Maddox incident
    • an international confrontation that led to the United States engaging more directly in the Vietnam War. It involved either one or two separate confrontations involving North Vietnam and the United States in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin.

  • Tonkin Resolution

    • Authorized President Johnson to “take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression” by the communist government of North Vietnam.
    • Gives Johnson authority to use military forces without an official declaration of war.

  • Tet Offensive

    • A series of surprise attacks by the Vietcong (rebel forces sponsored by North Vietnam) and North Vietnamese forces, on scores of cities, towns, and hamlets throughout South Vietnam.
    • Turning point in the Vietnam War
    • Caused a sharp decline in American support for the war
    • Tet is a major holiday in Vietnam, and there was a ceasefire between the U.S. and North Vietnam. Then Vietcong attacked during the ceasefire.

  • My Lai Massacre

    • Vietnam War mass murder of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians by U.S. troops in Sơn Tịnh District, South Vietnam.
    • Big cause was the Tet Offensive

  • Fulbright Commission

    • any of the set of U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on Vietnam conducted between 1966 and 1971.
    • The hearings included testimony and debate from several members of Congress, as well as from representatives of interested pro-war and anti-war organizations.

  • Nixon Administration

    • 37th President
    • Republican
    • Jan 20 1969 to Aug 9 1974
    • Ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War
    • Brought American prisoners of war home
    • First and only president to resign

  • Vietnamization

    • U.S. policy of withdrawing its troops and transferring the responsibility and direction of the war effort to the government of South Vietnam.

  • Invasion of Cambodia

    • aka Cambodian Campaign
    • a series of military operations conducted in eastern Cambodia during 1970 by the United States and the Republic of Vietnam as an extension of the Vietnam War and the Cambodian Civil War.

  • Daniel Ellsberg

    • American writer, activist, former U.S. military analyst
    • Leaked the Pentagon Papers
    • Charged with conspiracy and violating the Espionage Act of 1917. He faced a total maximum sentence of 115 years in prison

  • Pentagon Papers

    • a top-secret Department of Defense study of U.S. political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967.
    • Leaked by Daniel Ellsberg
    • revealed that the Harry S. Truman administration gave military aid to France in its colonial war (Indochina) against the communist-led Viet Minh, thus directly involving the United States in Vietnam

  • Christmas Bombing

    • aka Operation Linebacker II
    • a US Seventh Air Force and US Navy Task Force 77 aerial bombing campaign, conducted against targets in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam during the final period of US involvement in the Vietnam War.
    • dropped 200,000 bombs in an attempt to smoke out North Vietnamese troops

  • Paris Peace Conference/Accords

    • Officially ended the Vietnam War
    • Established peace in Vietnam
    • Signed by the U.S. and North Vietnam

  • War Powers Act

    • a federal law intended to check the president's power to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress.

  • Ford Administration

    • 38th President
    • Republican
    • Aug 9 1974 to Jan 20 1977
    • Pardoned Nixon from any crimes in the Watergate Scandal
    • Signed Helsinki Accords (strengthened the relationship between Western nations and the communist countries of Europe).

  • Fall of Saigon

    • Saigon, capital of South Vietnam fell under the control of North Vietnam.
    • Marked the end of the war
    • U.S. stops its involvement