PEOPLE

William Calley, Jr.

. U.S. Army lieutenant during Vietnam War

. Found guilty in 1971 of murder for ordering the killing of hundreds of South Vietnamese civilians at My Lai in 1968, sentenced to life in prison

. Appealed conviction and received reduced sentence; released in 1974

Bao Dai

. Reigning emperor of Vietnam until 1945

. After French colonial rule ended in Vietnam in 1945, France reinstated Bao Dai as emperor but kept him powerless

. Essentially a puppet of the French government

. Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh forced him to surrender leadership months later

Ngo Dinh Diem

. President of South Vietnam from 1954 to 1963

. Staunch anti-Communist, but unpopular and paranoid leader who expelled, imprisoned, and sometimes executed those who opposed his regime

. Refused to ally with Ho Chi Minh after the Franco-Vietnamese War

. Long supported by U.S., but ineffectual leadership led to his assassination in a military coup supported by the U.S.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

. Republican U.S. president, elected in 1952 and 1956

. Refused to commit American forces to aid France in the Franco-Vietnamese War in early 1954; later sent aid, but no troops

. After France lost the war, his administration aided Ngo Dinh Diem

. Remained committed to supporting Diem throughout his administration, despite Diem's autocratic rule

Lyndon B. Johnson

. Democratic President; took office after assassination of President Kennedy in 1963; elected to his own full term in 1964

. Inherited escalating crisis in Vietnam from JFK

. Promised to bring end to U.S. involvement in Vietnam, but steadily increased number of troops deployed to ensure victory before withdrawal

. Determined not to be the first U.S. president to "lose" a war

. Announced he would not run for reelection in 1968, at the height of controversy over war

John F. Kennedy

. Democratic President elected in 1960

. During his short term, he tripled the amount of U.S. aid to the South Vietnamese

. Refused to withdraw from Vietnam because he feared spread of Communism

. Some historians argue that he supported the military coup that led to the assassination of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem

Robert McNamara

. U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1960 to 1967, through much of the Vietnam War

. Supported President Kennedy's decision to increase U.S. involvement in Vietnam

. Under President Johnson, he began to suspect that U.S. aims in the war were futile

Ho Chi Minh

. Vietnamese revolutionary leader; Communist and Vietnamese nationalist

. Fought for Vietnamese independence against Japan, France, and the U.S.

. Died in 1969, six years before his government declared victory in the Vietnam War and completed Vietnam's reunification under Communist rule

Richard M. Nixon

. Republican president elected in 1968 and 1972; resigned from office in 1974 due to Watergate scandal

. Promised he would reduce U.S. troop levels in Vietnam, but force levels remained high and Nixon actually expanded the war into Laos and Cambodia

. Pursued a plan he called "Vietnamization" to push the South Vietnamese army to shoulder the bulk of the fighting

. In the first months of his second term, the last U.S. combat soldiers left Vietnam

EVENTS

1963 Buddhist Protests

. Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk, set himself on fire in protest against South Vietnamese government policies, including religious intolerance

. Other Buddhists followed his example in the following months

. His suicide shocked and confused many Americans and created doubt in their minds about U.S. support for the South Vietnamese government

1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

. Gave President Johnson the power to take any military action he deemed necessary to defend South Vietnam against the Viet Cong

. Passed in response to an unconfirmed attack on the USS Maddox off the coast of Vietnam

1968 Tet Offensive

. Occurred on 31 January, beginning of Vietnamese Tet holiday

. Viet Cong forces, supported by North Vietnamese troops, shocked U.S. troops with wave of attacks deep in South Vietnamese territory

. Fighting continued for months following the first attack

. American and South Vietnamese forces defeated the Tet Offensive militarily

. But public support for the war in the United States plummeted

1968 My Lai Massacre

. Occurred in hamlet in South Vietnam, thought by American soldiers to have harbored Viet Cong or Viet Cong sympathizers

. American soldiers, led by Lieutenant William Calley, killed hundreds of unarmed civilians

. Those killed were mostly women, children, and elderly men

1970 Kent State Shootings

. Ohio National Guard shot and killed four students on the campus of Kent State U. on the fourth day of anti-war demonstrations

. Of the four killed, two had been protesting and two had just been walking to class

. College campuses nationwide shut down in response

. Photos of the dead were printed worldwide, intensifying opposition to the war

1972 Presidential Election

. Republican Richard Nixon won reelection in a landslide, defeating Democrat George McGovern, who ran on an anti-war platform

. U.S. forces withdrew from Vietnam within the first three months of Nixon's second term

1975 Fall of Saigon

. Following American withdrawal, North Vietnamese forces conquered the capital of South Vietnam

. Thousands of South Vietnamese tried to flee, many becoming refugees abroad

. Ended the Vietnam War with total victory for North Vietnamese Communists

. Saigon renamed Ho Chi Minh City to honor recently deceased North Vietnamese leader

GROUPS

Democratic Republic of Vietnam

. Formal name of North Vietnam's Communist government

. Leaders waged a war for independence against French and then Americans

. Americans and South Vietnamese viewed them only as Communists, but initially they sought independence rather than the establishment of any specific ideology

. Became staunch Communists after the U.S. rejected pleas for self-determination

Republic of Vietnam

. Formal name of South Vietnamese government after the Franco-Vietnamese War

. Repressive government that stifled dissent by imprisoning or executing its critics

. Fiercely anticommunist

. American-supported throughout the Vietnam War

Viet Cong

. Ho Chi Minh-supporting guerilla fighters within South Vietnam

. Did much of the fighting against American troops during war

Viet Minh

. Organized by Ho Chi Minh and other Vietnamese nationalists in 1941

. Seeking Vietnamese self-rule, fought a guerilla campaign against Japanese occupation; after World War II, fought French and then Americans

. Its members formed the Viet Cong in the 1950s

CONCEPTS

Pentagon Papers

. Secret documents leaked to New York Times by Daniel Ellsberg, a military analyst who had high-level security clearance at the Pentagon

. Contained top-secret information collected by the Department of Defense about U.S. involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967

. Revealed that military had been much more pessimistic about situation in Vietnam than it had revealed to the public

"Search and Destroy"

. Military strategy employed by American ground forces throughout the Vietnam War

. Involved ambushing enemy forces and then withdrawing immediately, rather than fortifying and holding hostile territory

"Vietnamization"

. President Nixon's plan for withdrawing troops from Vietnam, announced in June 1969

. Included training and transitioning South Vietnamese troops to assume the roles that had been filled by American troops

. Included promise to withdraw 25,000 American soldiers

. Was not a plan to end the war

PLACES

Hanoi

. Capital of North Vietnam

. Repeatedly bombed by American aircraft but never captured

Kent State University

. Ohio college, site of 1970 antiwar protests that turned deadly when National Guard troops shot and killed 4 students

My Lai

. Site of horrific 1968 massacre that convinced many that Americans had lost their way in Vietnam

Saigon

. Capital of South Vietnam

. Captured by North Vietnamese forces in 1975, ending the war

. Renamed Ho Chi Minh City to honor Vietnamese Communist/nationalist leader