[160]:508513 This officially ended direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, created a ceasefire between North Vietnam/PRG and South Vietnam, guaranteed the territorial integrity of Vietnam under the Geneva Conference of 1954, called for elections or a political settlement between the PRG and South Vietnam, allowed 200,000 communist troops to remain in the south, and agreed to a POW exchange. Fact check: Which U.S. presidents led the nation into new wars? Of the war crimes reported to military authorities, sworn statements by witnesses and status reports indicated that 320 incidents had a factual basis. [97]:672674 With U.S. bombings suspended, work on the Ho Chi Minh trail and other logistical structures could proceed unimpeded. May 12, 1975, "Chapter I, Background to the Crisis, 1940-50", "Stabbed in the back! [200]:357 William Westmoreland, no longer in command but tasked with investigation of the failure, cited a clear dereliction of duty, lax defensive postures and lack of officers in charge as its cause. The negotiations became deadlocked when Hanoi demanded new changes. [45]:275 Other estimates point to higher figures of 313,000 casualties. [24]:1070. Thousands of refugees streamed southward, ahead of the main communist onslaught. Lyndon B. Johnson - Election and the Vietnam War | Britannica [citation needed] However, heightened oil prices meant that many of these assets could not be adequately leveraged. After North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked two U.S. destroyers on Aug. 5, 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin,. It has also been called the "Second Indochina War"[78] and the "Vietnam conflict". In 1961, the U.S. had 50,000 troops based in South Korea, and Kennedy faced four crisis situations: the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion that he had approved on 4 April,[118] settlement negotiations between the pro-Western government of Laos and the Pathet Lao communist movement in May ("Kennedy sidestepped Laos, whose rugged terrain was no battleground for American soldiers. During that period, they stated, they lost 849,018 killed plus approximately 232,000 missing and 463,000 wounded. [85]:349351. [319] This resulted in a large federal budget deficit. Who Was President During the Vietnam War? - WorldAtlas "[177] Thus, the public was shocked and confused when Westmoreland's predictions were trumped by the Tet Offensive. The inept performance of the ARVN was exemplified by failed actions such as the Battle of p Bc on 2 January 1963, in which a small band of Viet Cong won a battle against a much larger and better-equipped South Vietnamese force, many of whose officers seemed reluctant even to engage in combat. [347] A 1975 US Senate subcommittee estimated 1.4million South Vietnamese civilians casualties during the war, including 415,000 deaths. "[171][172], During the first month of the offensive, 1,100 Americans and other allied troops, 2,100 ARVN and 14,000 civilians were killed. This resulted in mass protests against discriminatory policies that gave privileges to the Catholic Church and its adherents over the Buddhist majority. In 1968, North Vietnamese forces launched the Tet Offensive; though it was a military defeat for them, it became a political victory, as it caused U.S. domestic support for the war to fade. The indigenous forces numbered in the tens of thousands and they conducted direct action missions, led by paramilitary officers, against the Communist Pathet Lao forces and their North Vietnamese supporters. [102] In 1956, leaders in Hanoi admitted to "excesses" in implementing this program and restored a large amount of the land to the original owners.