The Fall of Saigon

  • 1949

    In 1949, Mao Zedong and his fellow communists took power in China.
  • Period: to

    The Fall of Saigon

  • U.S. involvement

    President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent military advisers to train and arm the South Vietnamese Army in its figtha against the Communists.
  • President John F. Kennedy

    When President John F. Kennedy took office, He too saw Vietnam as a place to prove Americas anti-Communists resolve.
  • Assassination of John F. Kennedy

    John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and The number of military advisers in Vietnam rose from 700 to 16,000.
  • Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

    President Lyndon B. Johnson asked congress to pass the Gukf of Tonkin Resolution.
  • Protests

    The first mass demonstration began with 20,000 people in washington, and trhe protests grew in size and militancy.
  • Military intervention

    Full scale-military intervention bean witht the arrival of Da Nang of the first U.S. combat troops.
  • North Vietnam and the Vietcong launched the Tet offensive.

  • President Nixon decides to extricate the U.S. from Vietnam.

  • Kissinger and President Nixon began the process of "Vietnamization."

  • The Prais Peace accords of January 1973 called for an end to the fighting to end and for all foreign troops to be withdrawn from Vietnam.

  • The End: Communits forces overrna the South, with Saigon falling in April, forcing the hurried evacuastion of the remaiing Americans and the Fraction of vietnamese who wanted to get out.

  • Party leqaders followed China's lead and instituted free-market reforms.

  • President Bill Clinton lifted the U.S. trade embargo.

  • President Bill Clinton restored diplomatic relations.