New Page 1

Key Figures

Menu

Interview

Previous to US invasion

Media

Bao Dai

Bao Dai took the throne in 1926 and was the last emperor of Vietnam . He could not show any of his power without receiving help from the French colonial regime. This showed him to be an ineffective ruler. When Viet Minh took control of the government and scared away the Japanese occupation forces, Bao Dai left the throne in 1946. During the year of 1949, Bao Dai was brought back as the premier of “independent Vietnam .” Affairs of the state were left to be handled by Bao Dai’s pro-French appointees. Bao Dai retired to France after Ngo Dinh Diem took his power. This happened one year after the Geneva Conference, which created a republic in South Vietnam .

William Calley

William Calley was a lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He was the leader of the company of U.S. soldiers involved in the My Lai Massacre of 1968. The soldiers in this company killed several hundred unarmed Vietnamese civilians. Calley was sentenced to life in prison during 1971 but he was paroled in 1974.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Eisenhower was the 34th president of the United States . He made the domino theory very popular. This theory was later used to validate the increasing numbers of U.S. military and political involvement with Vietnam .

Ho Chi Minh

During the twentieth century, Ho Chi Minh served as the primary Vietnamese nationalist and Communist leader. He refused French, Japanese and American influence in Vietnam . Ho Chi Minh traveled a great deal and while traveling, he experienced Western ideas, like Communism. He founded the Indochina Communist Party in 1930 and the Viet Minh in 1941. Ho Chi Minh served as the main North Vietnamese leader throughout most of the Vietnam War.

Lyndon B. Johnson

Johnson was the 36th president of the United States . He promised to stay with John F. Kennedy’s limited commitments in Vietnam . This changed when he escalated the war after the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1964. Johnson initiated Operation Rolling Thunder in 1965. This was a mission to bomb North Vietnam into submission. This failed causing Johnson to send in over 500,000 U.S. troops to Vietnam and basically turned the conflict into a terrible war.

John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy was the 35th president of the United States . He was the first one to involve the U.S. in Vietnam when he sent in military advisors in 1962. Even though Kennedy claimed to support the Ngo Dinh Diem regime in South Vietnam , he also decided to overthrow Diem during 1963. Weeks later, Lyndon B. Johnson took the oath of office after Kennedy was assassinated.

Le Duan

After Ho Chi Minh’s death in 1969, Le Duan became the new main leader of the North Vietnamese Communist Party.

Le Duc Tho

U.S. emissary Henry A. Kissinger and Le Duc Tho had secret meetings and negotiations in Paris during 1972. He was a senior North Vietnamese diplomat. This eventually led to the end of U.S. involvement in Vietnam during January of 1973.

Robert S. McNamara

McNamara was the secretary of defense from 1961 to 1968 serving under both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. At first, McNamara supported the increase of U.S. involvement in Vietnam . In 1966, he started to question U.S. policy. During 1968, after the Tet Offensive, McNamara resigned from his position.

Richard M. Nixon

Nixon was the 37th president of the United States . He established the U.S. pulling out of Vietnam in the early 1970’s. Nixon was elected in 1968 and he claimed that many Americans did support the war. He still wanted to give authority to the South Vietnamese and take out U.S. troops. Nixon secretly allowed illegal actions by the military to go on in Cambodia and Laos . In 1972, Nixon was trying to persuade North Vietnam into a “cease-fire.” He was reelected in 1972. While in office he was involved with the Watergate scandal and the Pentagon Papers. He resigned in 1974 so he would not be impeached because of the scandals.

Vo Nguyen Giap

During the early days of the Viet Minh, Giap was the leading general and the primary commander of Vietnamese Communist forces. During the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, Giap defeated the French showing his military brilliance. This gave Vietnam a higher status at the Geneva Conference. Giap stayed in the military throughout the entire war with the United States .

William C. Westmoreland

Westmoreland was a general in the U.S. Army. During 1964, he became the commander of the corps of U.S. military advisors in Vietnam . Westmoreland would always ask for more ground force in Vietnam . He was in charge of many search-and-destroy missions. He gave troops many goals but also put their lives in more danger than before. He requested an extra 200,000 troops after the Tet Offensive in 1968. This shocked the American people who thought the U.S. was making great progress in the war.