You didn’t go back far enough in your chronology.
January 1955 - The first direct shipment of U.S. military aid to Saigon arrives. The U.S. also offers to train the fledgling South Vietnam Army.
May 1955 - Prime Minister Diem wages a violent crackdown against the Binh Xuyen organized crime group based in Saigon which operates casinos, brothels and opium dens.
July 1955 - Ho Chi Minh visits Moscow and agrees to accept Soviet aid.
October 23, 1955 - Bao Dai is ousted from power, defeated by Prime Minister Diem in a U.S.-backed plebiscite which was rigged. Diem is advised on consolidating power by U.S. Air Force Col. Edward G. Lansdale, who is attached to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
October 26, 1955 - The Republic of South Vietnam is proclaimed with Diem as its first president. In America, President Eisenhower pledges his support for the new government and offers military aid.
Diem assigns most high level government positions to close friends and family members including his younger brother Ngo Dinh Nhu who will be his chief advisor. Diem’s style of leadership, aloof and autocratic, will create future political problems for him despite the best efforts of his American advisors to popularize him via American-style political rallies and tours of the countryside.
December 1955 - In North Vietnam, radical land reforms by Communists result in land owners being hauled before “people’s tribunals.” Thousands are executed or sent to forced labor camps during this period of ideological cleansing by Ho Chi Minh.
In South Vietnam, President Diem rewards his Catholic supporters by giving them land seized from Buddhist peasants, arousing their anger and eroding his support among them. Diem also allows big land owners to retain their holdings, disappointing peasants hoping for land reform.
1956
January 1956 - Diem launches a brutal crackdown against Viet Minh suspects in the countryside. Those arrested are denied counsel and hauled before “security committees” with many suspects tortured or executed under the guise of ‘shot while attempting escape.’
April 28, 1956 - The last French soldier leaves South Vietnam. The French High Command for Indochina is then dissolved.
July 1956 - The deadline passes for the unifying elections set by the Geneva Conference. Diem, backed by the U.S., had refused to participate.
November 1956 - Peasant unrest in North Vietnam resulting from oppressive land reforms is put down by Communist force with more than 6000 killed or deported.
1957
January 1957 - The Soviet Union proposes permanent division of Vietnam into North and South, with the two nations admitted separately to the United Nations. The U.S. rejects the proposal, unwilling to recognize Communist North Vietnam.
May 8-18 - Diem pays a state visit to Washington where President Eisenhower labels him the “miracle man” of Asia and reaffirms U.S. commitment. “The cost of defending freedom, of defending America, must be paid in many forms and in many places...military as well as economic help is currently needed in Vietnam,” Eisenhower states.
Diem’s government, however, with its main focus on security, spends little on schools, medical care or other badly needed social services in the countryside. Communist guerrillas and propagandists in the countryside capitalize on this by making simple promises of land reform and a better standard of living to gain popular support among peasants.
October 1957 - Viet Minh guerrillas begin a widespread campaign of terror in South Vietnam including bombings and assassinations. By year’s end, over 400 South Vietnamese officials are killed.
1958
June 1958 - A coordinated command structure is formed by Communists in the Mekong Delta where 37 armed companies are being organized.
1959
March 1959 - The armed revolution begins as Ho Chi Minh declares a People’s War to unite all of Vietnam under his leadership. His Politburo now orders a changeover to an all-out military struggle. Thus begins the Second Indochina War.
May 1959 - North Vietnamese establish the Central Office of South Vietnam (COSVN) to oversee the coming war in the South. Construction of the Ho Chi Minh trail now begins.
The trail will eventually expand into a 1500 mile-long network of jungle and mountain passes extending from North Vietnam’s coast along Vietnam’s western border through Laos, parts of Cambodia, funneling a constant stream of soldiers and supplies into the highlands of South Vietnam. In 1959, it takes six months to make the journey, by 1968 it will take only six weeks due to road improvements by North Vietnamese laborers, many of whom are women. In the 1970s a parallel fuel pipeline will be added.
July 1959 - 4000 Viet Minh guerrillas, originally born in the South, are sent from North Vietnam to infiltrate South Vietnam.
July 8, 1959 - Two U.S. military advisors, Maj. Dale Buis and Sgt. Chester Ovnand, are killed by Viet Minh guerrillas at Bien Hoa, South Vietnam. They are the first American deaths in the Second Indochina War which Americans will come to know simply as The Vietnam War.
1960
April 1960 - Universal military conscription is imposed in North Vietnam. Tour of duty is indefinite.
April 1960 - Eighteen distinguished nationalists in South Vietnam send a petition to President Diem advocating that he reform his rigid, family-run, and increasingly corrupt, government. Diem ignores their advice and instead closes several opposition newspapers and arrests journalists and intellectuals.
November 1960 - A failed coup against President Diem by disgruntled South Vietnamese Army officers brings a harsh crackdown against all perceived ‘enemies of the state.’ Over 50,000 are arrested by police controlled by Diem’s brother Nhu with many innocent civilians tortured then executed. This results in further erosion of popular support for Diem.
Thousands who fear arrest flee to North Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh will later send many back to infiltrate South Vietnam as part of his People’s Liberation Armed Forces. Called Viet Cong by Diem, meaning Communist Vietnamese, Ho’s guerrillas blend into the countryside, indistinguishable from South Vietnamese, while working to undermine Diem’s government.
December 20, 1960 - The National Liberation Front is established by Hanoi as its Communist political organization for Viet Cong guerrillas in South Vietnam.
To kabar:
Thanks for the data. I have added this reply of yours as a link to the Nam history/data in my post.
Obama to Make Case for Sending Special Forces to Iraq (Now wants ‘boots on the ground’)
We have been there and done that under rat presidents in Nam.
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1961.html
January 20, 1961- John Fitzgerald Kennedy is inaugurated as the 35th U.S. President and declares “...we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to insure the survival and the success of liberty.” Privately, outgoing President Eisenhower tells him “I think you’re going to have to send troops...” to Southeast Asia.
The youthful Kennedy administration is inexperienced in matters regarding Southeast Asia. Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense, 44-year-old Robert McNamara, along with civilian planners recruited from the academic community, will play a crucial role in deciding White House strategy for Vietnam over the next several years. Under their leadership, the United States will wage a limited war to force a political settlement.
However, the U.S. will be opposed by an enemy dedicated to total military victory “...whatever the sacrifices, however long the struggle...until Vietnam is fully independent and reunified,” as stated by Ho Chi Minh.
May 1961 - Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson visits President Diem in South Vietnam and hails the embattled leader as the ‘Winston Churchill of Asia.’
May 1961 - President Kennedy sends 400 American Green Beret ‘Special Advisors’ to South Vietnam to train South Vietnamese soldiers in methods of ‘counter-insurgency’ in the fight against Viet Cong guerrillas.
The role of the Green Berets soon expands to include the establishment of Civilian Irregular Defense Groups (CIDG) made up of fierce mountain men known as the Montagnards. These groups establish a series of fortified camps strung out along the mountains to thwart infiltration by North Vietnamese.
Fall - The conflict widens as 26,000 Viet Cong launch several successful attacks on South Vietnamese troops. Diem then requests more military aid from the Kennedy administration.
October 1961 - To get a first-hand look at the deteriorating military situation, top Kennedy aides, Maxwell Taylor and Walt Rostow, visit Vietnam. “If Vietnam goes, it will be exceedingly difficult to hold Southeast Asia,” Taylor reports to the President and advises Kennedy to expand the number of U.S. military advisors and to send 8000 combat soldiers.
Defense Secretary McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommend instead a massive show of force by sending six divisions (200,000 men) to Vietnam. However, the President decides against sending any combat troops.
October 24, 1961 - On the sixth anniversary of the Republic of South Vietnam, President Kennedy sends a letter to President Diem and pledges “the United States is determined to help Vietnam preserve its independence...”
President Kennedy then sends additional military advisors along with American helicopter units to transport and direct South Vietnamese troops in battle, thus involving Americans in combat operations. Kennedy justifies the expanding U.S. military role as a means “...to prevent a Communist takeover of Vietnam which is in accordance with a policy our government has followed since 1954.” The number of military advisors sent by Kennedy will eventually surpass 16,000.
December 1961 - Viet Cong guerrillas now control much of the countryside in South Vietnam and frequently ambush South Vietnamese troops. The cost to America of maintaining South Vietnam’s sagging 200,000 man army and managing the overall conflict in Vietnam rises to a million dollars per day.
Thanks to Kabar for providing the info/data below to show the involvement in Nam way before JFK/LBJ.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3183965/posts?page=38#38