U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam is established

A U.S. aircraft sprayed herbicide near a military target in South Vietnam as part of the defoliation program later widely associated with Agent Orange. The campaign damaged forests and crops and...

National Security Action Memorandum 111 expanded U.S. assistance and advisory activity in South Vietnam. The United States increased its role while Diệm’s state faced armed opposition and deep rural...

The first U.S. Army helicopter units arrived at Saigon’s Tân Sơn Nhứt airfield as part of a major expansion of military assistance. Helicopters increased the mobility of U.S.-backed forces, bringing...

The U.S.-backed Diệm government accelerated a program to move rural residents into fortified hamlets, aiming to separate them from insurgents. In practice, coercive relocation, land and livelihood...

U.S. helicopters transported South Vietnamese troops in an assault near Tây Ninh. The mission illustrated the increasingly direct U.S. role in planning and enabling combat operations, despite public...

South Vietnamese forces fought National Liberation Front units near Ấp Bắc in the Mekong Delta. Despite superior numbers, helicopters, and armor, government forces failed to destroy the opposing...

During Vesak, security forces fired on a Buddhist crowd in Huế after a dispute over flying religious flags. Nine people were reported killed in later diplomatic records. The incident triggered...

Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức set himself on fire in Saigon to protest discrimination and repression under Diệm’s government. The image circulated internationally and made the Buddhist crisis a global...

Special forces attacked Buddhist pagodas across South Vietnam, including Xá Lợi in Saigon, and arrested monks and activists. The raids intensified public opposition and fractured the Diệm government’s...

South Vietnamese generals overthrew Diệm on November 1; Diệm and his brother Nhu were killed the next day. The coup followed Buddhist repression and U.S. policy shifts. A succession of unstable...