US in Vietnam War: “Why Vietnam?” 1965 United States Department of Defense, President Lyndon Johnson

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“THE FILM OUTLINES THE UNITED STATES POLICY WITH RESPECT TO SOUTH VIETNAM AS STATED BY PRESIDENT JOHNSON IN AN ADDRESS TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND THE WORLD AT LARGE. PRESIDENT JOHNSON IN ANSWERING THE QUERY WHY VIETNAM? EXPLAINS THE BACKGROUND OF U.S. GOVERNMENT THINKING, ITS VIEWS ON AGGRESSION, THE ORIGIN OF U.S. COMMITMENTS THERE , AND THE BUILD-UP FROM SUPPLIES TO MILITARY ADVISORS, TO U.S. FIGHTING TROOPS OF THE ARMED SERVICES, IN RESPONSE TO THE EVER INCREASING CHALLENGE OF THE NORTH VIETNAM SUPPORTED BY THE CHINESE COMMUNISTS SECRETARY OF STATE DEAN RUSK APPEARS IN THE FILM TO EXPLAIN THE NUMEROUS ATTEMPTS ON THE PART OF THE UNITED STATES AND OTHER NATIONS OF THE WORLD TO BRING ABOUT A CEASE FIRE IN VIETNAM. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE ROBERT MCNAMARA ASSURES THE AUDIENCE THAT THE UNITED STATES SEEKS NO WIDER WAR. PRESIDENT JOHNSON SAYS THAT WE WILL NOT BLUSTER NOR BULLY NOR WILL WE RETREAT.”

Public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

…December 1946 — Negotiations between the Viet Minh and the French break down. The Viet Minh are driven out of Hanoi into the countryside.
– 1947–1949 — The Viet Minh fight a limited insurgency in remote rural areas of northern Vietnam.
– 1949 — Chinese communists reach the northern border of Indochina. The Viet Minh drive the French from the border region and begin to receive large amounts of weapons from the Soviet Union and China. The weapons transform the Viet Minh from an irregular large-scale insurgency into a conventional army.
– September 1950 – Truman sends the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) Indochina to Vietnam to assist the French..
– 1951 – Truman authorizes $150 million in French support…

– 1954 — The Viet Minh defeat the French at the battle of Dien Bien Phu. The defeat, along with the end of the Korean War the previous year, causes the French to seek a negotiated settlement to the war.
– 1954 — The Geneva Conference (1954), called to determine the post-French future of Indochina, proposes a temporary division of Vietnam, to be followed by nationwide elections to unify the country in 1956…

– April 1956 — The last French troops leave Vietnam.
– 1954–1956 — 450,000 Vietnamese civilians flee the Viet Minh administration in North Vietnam and relocate in South Vietnam. Approximately 52,000 move in the opposite direction.
– 1956 — National unification elections do not occur.
– December 1958 — North Vietnam invades Laos and occupies parts of the country…

– May 1961 — Kennedy sends 400 United States Army Special Forces personnel to South Vietnam to train South Vietnamese soldiers following a visit to the country by Vice-President Johnson.
– October 1962 — Operation Ranch Hand begins. US planes spray herbicides such as Agent Orange over South Vietnam until 1971.
– June 11, 1963 — Photographs of protesting Buddhist monk, Thích Quảng Đức, burning himself to death in protest, in Saigon, appear in U.S. newspapers.
Summer 1963 — Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu, defacto First Lady to the bachelor Diem makes a series of vitriolic attacks on Buddhists, calling the immolations “barbecues”. Diem ignores US calls to silence her.
– November 1, 1963 — Military officers launch a coup d’état against Diem, with the tacit approval of the Kennedy administration. Diem and Nhu escape the presidential residence via a secret exit after loyalist forces were locked out of Saigon, unable to rescue them.
– November 2, 1963 — Diem and Nhu are discovered in nearby Cholon. Although they had been promised exile by the junta, they are executed by Nguyen Van Nhung, bodyguard of General Duong Van Minh. Minh leads the military junta…