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Communists led by Mao Zedong had taken power in china
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Communist North Korea, with Soviet and Chinese support, invaded South Korea
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president Dwight D. Eisenhower sent military advisers to train and arm the south Vietnameses Army in its fight against the communists.
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American officials feared that the rest of asia could also fall. "you have a row of dominoes set up; you knock over the first on," Eisenhower said, "and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly." This domino theory? was essentially the foundation of American policy in Vietnam
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"vietnam is still with us. it has created doubts about american judgment, about American credibility, about american power- not only at home, but throughout the world" says national security adviser Henry Kissinger
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after two North Vietnameses gun boats were siad to have attacked an American destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin President Lyndon B. Johnson recieved permission to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
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More than 20,000 people gathered in washington to protest the unpopular war
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North Vietnam and the Vietcong launched the Tet offensive, a series of attacks during Tet, the lunar New Year
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president Nixon and Kissinger began the process of "vietnamization" turning the fighting over to the South Vietnamese troops
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the Paris Peace Accords called for an end to the fighting and for all foreign troops to be withdrawn from vietnam
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communist forces overran the South, with Saigon falling
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Helicopters lifted evacuees from the American embassy in Saigon to U.S. warships
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Party leaders followed China's lead and instituted free-market reeforms, known as the doi moi, with less state control of the economy and more private enterprise
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President Bill Clinton lifted the U.S. trade embargo
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after President Bill Clinton restored diplomatic relations foreign investors have poured into Vietnam and its economy has boomed
