Partof	the Cold War
Caption	Clockwise, from top left: U.S. Marines battle in Hamo village during the Tet Offensive, extraction of troops after an airmobile assault, a burning Viet Cong base camp in Mỹ Tho, Vietnamese civilians killed by U.S. troops during the My Lai Massacre
Date	South Korea: 50,000,
Strength2	~461000North Vietnam: 287,465 (Jan 1968) PRC: 170,000 (1969) Soviet Union: 3,000North Korea: 300-600
Commander1	Ngô Đình Diệm Nguyễn Văn Thiệu Nguyễn Cao Kỳ Cao Văn Viên Lyndon B. Johnson Richard Nixon William Westmoreland Creighton Abrams...and others
Commander2	Hồ Chí Minh Lê Duẩn Võ Nguyên Giáp Văn Tiến Dũng Trần Văn Trà Nguyễn Văn Linh...and others
Casualties1	South Vietnam220,357 dead; 1,170,000 wounded United States58,159 dead; South Korea5,099 dead; 10,962 wounded; 4 missing
Casualties2	North Vietnam & NLF1,176,000 dead/missing; P.R. China1,446 dead; 4,200 wounded Soviet Union16 dead
Casualties3	Vietnamese civilian dead (both sides): ~200,000–2,000,000Cambodian civilian dead: 200,000–300,000*Laotian civilian dead: ~20,000–200,000*Total civilian dead: ~420,000–2,500,000*= approximations, see Casualties below

The Vietnam War |group="A"}} was a Cold War military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 U.S. government reports currently cite 1 November 1955, as the commencement date of the “Vietnam Conflict,” for this was the day when the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) in Indochina (deployed to Southeast Asia under President Truman), was reorganized into country-specific units and MAAG Vietnam was established. So on 1 November 1955 a Vietnamese MAAG was created.

Other start dates include when Hanoi authorized Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam to begin a low level insurgency in December 1956. Where as some view 26 September 1959 when the first battle occurred between the Communist and South Vietnamese army. |group="A"|name="start date"}} to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the U.S. and other anti-communist nations. The Viet Cong, a lightly armed South Vietnamese communist-controlled common front, largely fought a guerrilla war against anti-communist forces in the region. The Vietnam People's Army (North Vietnamese Army) engaged in a more conventional war, at times committing large units into battle. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery and airstrikes.

The U.S. government viewed involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam and part of their wider strategy of containment. The North Vietnamese government viewed the war as a colonial war, fought initially against France, backed by the U.S., and later against South Vietnam, which it regarded as a U.S. puppet state. U.S. military advisors arrived beginning in 1950. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with U.S. troop levels tripling in 1961 and tripling again in 1962. U.S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Operations spanned borders, with Laos and Cambodia heavily bombed. Involvement peaked in 1968 at the time of the Tet Offensive. After this, U.S. ground forces were withdrawn as part of a policy called Vietnamization. Despite the Paris Peace Accords, signed by all parties in January 1973, fighting continued.

The Case–Church Amendment passed by the U.S. Congress prohibited use of American military after 15 August 1973, unless the president secured congressional approval in advance. The capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese army in April 1975 marked the end of the Vietnam War. North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year. The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities (See: Vietnam War casualties). Estimates as to the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed vary from less than one to more than three million. Some 200,000–300,000 Laotians, and 58,159 U.S. servicemembers also died in the conflict.

Etymology

Various names have been applied to the conflict. Vietnam War is the most commonly used name in English. It has also been called the Second Indochina War, and the Vietnam Conflict.

As there have been so many conflicts in Indochina, this conflict is known by the name of their chief opponent to distinguish it from the others. Thus, in Vietnamese, the war is known as Chiến tranh Việt Nam (The Vietnam War), or as Kháng chiến chống Mỹ (Resistance War Against America), loosely translated as the American War.

The main military organizations involved in the war were, on one side, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and the U.S. military, and, on the other side, the Vietnam People's Army (VPA), or North Vietnamese Army (NVA), and the Viet Cong, or National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF), a South Vietnamese communist army.

Background to 1949

France began its conquest of Indochina in the late 1850s, and completed pacification by 1893. The Treaty of Huế, concluded in 1884, formed the basis for French colonial rule in Vietnam for the next seven decades. In spite of military resistance, most notable by the Can Vuong of Phan Dinh Phung, by 1888, the area of the current-day nations of Cambodia and Vietnam was made into the colony of French Indochina (Laos was added later). Various Vietnamese opposition movements to the French rule existed during this period, such as the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang who staged the failed Yen Bai mutiny in 1930, but none were ultimately as successful as the Viet Minh common front, controlled by the Communist Party of Vietnam, founded in 1941 and funded by U.S. and Chinese Nationalist Party in its fight against Japanese occupation.

During World War II, the French were defeated by the Germans in 1940. For French Indochina, this meant that the colonial authorities became Vichy French, allies of the German-Italian Axis powers. In turn this meant that the French collaborated with the Japanese forces after their invasion of French Indochina during 1940. The French continued to run affairs in the colony, but ultimate power resided in the hands of the Japanese.

Double occupation by France and Japan continued until the German forces were expelled from France and the French Indochina colonial authorities started holding secret talks with the Free French. Fearing that they could no longer trust the French authorities the Japanese army interned them all on 9 March 1945 and assumed direct control themselves through their puppet state of the Empire of Vietnam under Bảo Đại.

During 1944–1945, a deep famine struck northern Vietnam due to a combination of poor weather and French/Japanese exploitation. 1 million people died of starvation (out of a population of 10 million in the affected area). Exploiting the administrative gap that the internment of the French had created, the Viet Minh in March 1945 urged the population to ransack rice warehouses and refuse to pay their taxes. Between 75 and 100 warehouses were consequently raided. This rebellion against the effects of the famine and the authorities that were partially responsible for it bolstered the Viet Minh's popularity and they recruited many members during this period. After their defeat in the war, the Japanese Army gave weapons to the Vietnamese. To further help the nationalists, the Japanese kept Vichy French officials and military officers imprisoned for a month after the surrender. The Việt Minh had recruited more than 600 Japanese soldiers and given them roles to train or command Vietnamese soldiers.

On 2 September 1945, Ho Chi Minh, the leader of the Viet Minh, declared the independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam before a crowd of 500,000 in Hanoi. In January 1946, the Viet Minh won elections across central and northern Vietnam and began killing off opposition politicians. The French landed in Hanoi by March 1946 and in November of that year they ousted the Viet Minh from the city. Soon thereafter the Viet Minh began a guerrilla war against the French Union forces, beginning the First Indochina War.

The war spread to Laos and Cambodia where Communists organized the Pathet Lao and the Khmer Serei after the model of the Viet Minh. Globally, the Cold War began in earnest, which meant that the rapprochement that existed between the Western powers and the Soviet Union during World War II disintegrated. The Viet Minh fight was hampered by a lack of weapons; this situation changed by 1949 when the Chinese Communists had largely won the Chinese Civil War and were free to provide arms to their Vietnamese allies. The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 convinced many Washington policymakers that the war in Indochina was an example of communist expansionism directed by the Kremlin.

PRC military advisors began assisting the Viet Minh in July 1950. PRC weapons, expertise, and laborers transformed the Viet Minh from a guerrilla force into a regular army. In September 1950, the United States created a Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) to screen French requests for aid, advise on strategy, and train Vietnamese soldiers. By 1954, the United States had supplied 300,000 small arms and spent US$1 billion in support of the French military effort and was shouldering 80 percent of the cost of the war.

There were also talks between the French and Americans in which the possible use of three tactical nuclear weapons was considered, though how seriously this was considered and by whom are even now vague and contradictory. One version of plan for the proposed Operation Vulture envisioned sending 60 B-29s from U.S. bases in the region, supported by as many as 150 fighters launched from U.S. Seventh Fleet carriers, to bomb Viet Minh commander Vo Nguyen Giap's positions. The plan included an option to use up to three atomic weapons on the Viet Minh positions. Admiral Arthur W. Radford, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave this nuclear option his backing. U.S. B-29s, B-36s, and B-47s could have executed a nuclear strike, as could carrier aircraft from the Seventh Fleet.

U.S. carriers sailed to the Gulf of Tonkin, and reconnaissance flights over Dien Bien Phu were conducted during the negotiations. According to Richard Nixon the plan involved the Joint Chiefs of Staff drawing up plans to use 3 small tactical nuclear weapons in support of the French. President Eisenhower made American participation contingent on British support, but London was opposed.

The Viet Minh received crucial support from the Soviet Union and PRC. PRC support in the Border Campaign of 1950 allowed supplies to come from PRC into Vietnam. Throughout the conflict, U.S. intelligence estimates remained skeptical of French chances of success.

The Battle of Dien Bien Phu marked the end of French involvement in Indochina. The Viet Minh and their mercurial commander Vo Nguyen Giap handed the French a stunning military defeat, and on 7 May 1954, the French Union garrison surrendered. At the Geneva Conference the French negotiated a ceasefire agreement with the Viet Minh. Independence was granted to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.

Transition period

Vietnam was temporarily partitioned at the 17th parallel, and under the terms of the Geneva Convention, civilians were to be given the opportunity to move freely between the two provisional states for a 300-day period. Elections throughout the country were to be held in 1956 to establish a unified government. Around one million northerners, mainly minority Catholics, fled south, fearing persecution by the communists, following an American propaganda campaign using slogans such as "The Virgin Mary is heading south", and aided by a U.S. funded $93 million relocation program, which included ferrying refugees with the Seventh Fleet. It is estimated that as many as two million more would have left had they not been stopped by the Viet Minh. The northern, mainly Catholic refugees were meant to give Diem a strong anti-communist constituency. Diem later went on to staff his administration's key posts mostly with northern and central Catholics.

In addition to the Catholics flowing south, up to 130,000 ‘Revolutionary Regroupees’, went north for "regroupment" expecting to return to the South within 2 years. The Viet Minh left roughly 5,000 to 10,000 cadres in South Vietnam as a "politico-military substructure within the object of its irredentism." The last French soldiers were to leave Vietnam in April 1956.

In the north, the Viet Minh ruled as the DRV and engaged in a drastic land reform program in which an estimated eight thousand perceived "class enemies" were executed. In 1956 the Communist Party leaders of Hanoi admitted to "excesses" in implementing this program and restored a large amount of the land to the original owners.

In the south, former Emperor Bảo Đại's State of Vietnam operated, with Ngô Đình Diệm (appointed in July 1954) as his prime minister. In June 1955, Diem announced that elections would not be held. South Vietnam had rejected the agreement from the beginning and was therefore not bound by it, he said. "How can we expect 'free elections' to be held in the Communist North?" Diem asked. President Dwight D. Eisenhower echoed senior U.S. experts when he wrote that, in 1954, "80 per cent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh" over Emperor Bảo Đại.

In April–June 1955, Diem (against U.S. advice) cleared the decks of any political opposition in the south by launching military operations against the Cao Dai religious sect, the Hoa Hao sect of Ba Cut, and the Binh Xuyen organized crime group (which was allied with members of the secret police and some military elements). As broad-based opposition to his harsh tactics mounted, Diem increasingly sought to blame the communists.

In a referendum on the future of the State of Vietnam on 23 October, Diem rigged the poll supervised by his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu and was credited with 98.2 percent of the vote, including 133% in Saigon. His American advisers had recommended a more modest winning margin of "60 to 70 percent." Diem, however, viewed the election as a test of authority. On 26 October 1955, Diem declared the new Republic of Vietnam (ROV), with himself as president. The ROV was created largely because of the Eisenhower administration's desire for an anti-communist state in the region. It was, and is still, commonly hypothesized that it applied to Vietnam. John F. Kennedy, then a U.S. senator, said in a speech to the American Friends of Vietnam: "Burma, Thailand, India, Japan, the Philippines and obviously Laos and Cambodia are among those whose security would be threatened if the Red Tide of Communism overflowed into Vietnam."

Rule

A devout Roman Catholic, Diem was fervently anti-communist, nationalist and socially conservative. Historian Luu Doan Huynh notes, however, that "Diem represented narrow and extremist nationalism coupled with autocracy and nepotism." As a wealthy Catholic, Diem was viewed by many ordinary Vietnamese as part of the elite who had helped the French rule Vietnam; Diem had been interior minister in the colonial government. The majority of Vietnamese people were Buddhist, and were alarmed by actions such as his dedication of the country to the Virgin Mary.

Beginning in the summer of 1955, he launched the "Denounce the Communists" campaign, during which communists and other anti-government elements were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, or executed. Diem instituted a policy of death penalty against any activity deemed communist in August 1956. Opponents were labeled Viet Cong ("Vietnamese communist") by the regime to degrade their nationalist credentials. As a measure of the level of political repression, about 12,000 suspected opponents of Diem were killed in the years 1955–1957 and by the end of 1958 an estimated 40,000 political prisoners had been jailed.

In May, Diem undertook a ten-day state visit to the United States. President Eisenhower pledged his continued support. A parade in New York City was held in his honor. Although Diem was openly praised, in private Secretary of State John Foster Dulles conceded that he had been selected because there were no better alternatives.

Robert McNamara wrote that the new American patrons were almost completely ignorant of Vietnamese culture. They knew little of the language or long history of the country.

Hồ Chí Minh stated, "Do not engage in military operations; that will lead to defeat. Do not take land from a peasant. Emphasize nationalism rather than communism. Do not antagonize anyone if you can avoid it. Be selective in your violence. If an assassination is necessary, use a knife, not a rifle or grenade. It is too easy to kill innocent bystanders with guns and bombs, and accidental killing of the innocent bystanders will alienate peasants from the revolution. Once an assassination has taken place, make sure peasants know why the killing occurred." This strategy was referred to as "armed propaganda."

Soon afterward, Lê Duẩn, a communist leader who had been working in the South, returned to Hanoi to accept the position of acting first secretary, effectively replacing Trường. Duẩn urged a military line and advocated increased assistance to the insurgency. Four hundred government officials were assassinated in 1957 alone, and the violence gradually increased. While the terror was originally aimed at local government officials, it soon broadened to include other symbols of the status quo, such as schoolteachers, health workers, and agricultural officials. Village chiefs were Diem appointees from outside the villages and were hated by the peasantry for their corruption and abuse.) According to one estimate, 20 percent of South Vietnam's village chiefs had been assassinated by the insurgents by 1958. (The insurgency sought to completely destroy government control in South Vietnam's rural villages and replace it with a shadow government.

In January 1959, the North's Central Committee issued a secret resolution authorizing an "armed struggle". This authorized the southern communists to begin large-scale operations against the South Vietnamese military. North Vietnam supplied troops and supplies in earnest, and the infiltration of men and weapons from the north began along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In May, South Vietnam enacted Law 10/59, which made political violence punishable by death and property confiscation.

Observing the increasing unpopularity of the Diem regime, on 12 December 1960, Hanoi authorized the creation of the National Liberation Front as a common front controlled by the communist party in the South.

Successive American administrations, as Robert McNamara and others have noted, overestimated the control that Hanoi had over the NLF. According to a November 1960 report by the head of the U.S. military advisory team, Lieutenant General Lionel C. McGarr, a "significant part" of the population in the south supported the communists. The communists thus had a degree of popular support for their campaign to bring down Diem and reunify the country.

During John F. Kennedy's administration, 1961–1963

When John F. Kennedy won the 1960 U.S. presidential election, one major issue Kennedy raised was whether the Soviet space and missile programs had surpassed those of the United States. As Kennedy took over, despite warnings from Eisenhower about Laos and Vietnam, Europe and Latin America "loomed larger than Asia on his sights." In his inaugural address, Kennedy made the ambitious pledge to "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty."

In June 1961, John F. Kennedy bitterly disagreed with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev when they met in Vienna over key U.S.-Soviet issues. The aftermath of the Korean War created the idea of a limited war.

Although Kennedy stressed long-range missile parity with the Soviets, he was also interested in using special forces for counterinsurgency warfare in Third World countries threatened by communist insurgencies. Although they were originally intended for use behind front lines after a conventional invasion of Europe, Kennedy believed that the guerrilla tactics employed by special forces such as the Green Berets would be effective in a "brush fire" war in Vietnam.

The Kennedy administration remained essentially committed to the Cold War foreign policy inherited from the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. In 1961, the U.S. had 50,000 troops based in Korea, and Kennedy faced a three-part crisis—the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the construction of the Berlin Wall, and a negotiated settlement between the pro-Western government of Laos and the Pathet Lao communist movement These made Kennedy believe that another failure on the part of the United States to gain control and stop communist expansion would fatally damage U.S. credibility with its allies and his own reputation. Kennedy determined to "draw a line in the sand" and prevent a communist victory in Vietnam, saying, "Now we have a problem making our power credible and Vietnam looks like the place", to James Reston of The New York Times immediately after meeting Khrushchev in Vienna.

In May 1961, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson visited Saigon and enthusiastically declared Diem the "Winston Churchill of Asia." Asked why he had made the comment, Johnson replied, "Diem's the only boy we got out there." , Military Regions, 1967]]

The quality of the South Vietnamese military, however, remained poor. Bad leadership, corruption, and political promotions all played a part in emasculating the ARVN. The frequency of guerrilla attacks rose as the insurgency gathered steam. While Hanoi's support for the NLF played a role, South Vietnamese governmental incompetence was at the core of the crisis.

Kennedy advisers Maxwell Taylor and Walt Rostow recommended that U.S. troops be sent to South Vietnam disguised as flood relief workers. Kennedy rejected the idea but increased military assistance yet again. In April 1962, John Kenneth Galbraith warned Kennedy of the "danger we shall replace the French as a colonial force in the area and bleed as the French did." By 1963, there were 16,000 American military personnel in South Vietnam, up from Eisenhower's 900 advisors.

The Strategic Hamlet Program had been initiated in 1961. This joint U.S.-South Vietnamese program attempted to resettle the rural population into fortified camps. The aim was to isolate the population from the insurgents, provide education and health care, and strengthen the government's hold over the countryside. The Strategic Hamlets, however, were quickly infiltrated by the guerrillas. The peasants resented being uprooted from their ancestral villages. In part, this was because Colonel Pham Ngoc Thao, a Diem favourite who was instrumental in running the program, was in fact a communist agent who used his Catholicism to gain influential posts and damage the ROV from the inside.

The government refused to undertake land reform, which left farmers paying high rents to a few wealthy landlords. Corruption dogged the program and intensified opposition.

On 23 July 1962, fourteen nations, including the People's Republic of China, South Vietnam, the Soviet Union, North Vietnam and the United States, signed an agreement promising the neutrality of Laos.

Coup and assassinations

:See also: Kennedy's role, 1960 South Vietnamese coup attempt, 1962 South Vietnamese Independence Palace bombing, Huế Phật Đản shootings and Xa Loi Pagoda raids The inept performance of the South Vietnamese army was exemplified by failed actions such as the Battle of Ap Bac on 2 January 1963, in which a small band of Viet Cong beat off a much larger and better equipped South Vietnamese force, many of whose officers seemed reluctant even to engage in combat. The ARVN were led in that battle by Diem's most trusted General Huynh Van Cao, commander of the IV Corps, and a Catholic who had been promoted due to religion and fidelity rather than skill, and whose main job was to preserve his forces to stave off coups; Cao had earlier vomited during a communist attack. Some policymakers in Washington began to conclude that Diem was incapable of defeating the communists and might even make a deal with Ho Chi Minh. He seemed concerned only with fending off coups, and had become more paranoid after attempts in 1960, 1962, which he partly attributed to U.S. encouragement. As Robert F. Kennedy noted, "Diem wouldn't make even the slightest concessions. He was difficult to reason with..."

Discontent with Diem's policies exploded following the Huế Phật Đản shootings of majority Buddhists who were protesting against the ban on the Buddhist flag on Vesak, the Buddha's birthday. This resulted in mass protests against discriminatory policies that gave privileges to the Catholic Church and its adherents. Diem's elder brother Ngo Dinh Thuc was the Archbishop of Huế and aggressively blurred the separation between church and state. Thuc's anniversary celebrations shortly before Vesak had been bankrolled by the government and Vatican flags were displayed prominently. There had also been reports of Buddhist pagodas being demolished by Catholic paramilitaries throughout Diem's rule. Diem refused to make concessions to the Buddhist majority or take responsibility for the deaths. On 21 August 1963, the ARVN Special Forces of Colonel Le Quang Tung, loyal to Diem's younger brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, raided pagodas across Vietnam, causing widespread damage and destruction and leaving a death toll estimated to range into the hundreds.

U.S. officials began discussing the possibility of a regime change during the middle of 1963. The United States Department of State was generally in favor of encouraging a coup, while the Defense Department favored Diem.

Chief among the proposed changes was the removal of Diem's younger brother Nhu, who controlled the secret police and special forces was seen as the man behind the Buddhist repression and more generally the architect of the Ngo family's rule. This proposal was conveyed to the U.S. embassy in Saigon in Cable 243. The CIA was in contact with generals planning to remove Diem. They were told that the United States would not oppose such a move nor punish the generals by cutting off aid. President Diem was overthrown and executed, along with his brother, on 2 November 1963. When he was informed, Maxwell Taylor remembered that Kennedy "rushed from the room with a look of shock and dismay on his face." He had not approved Diem's murder. The U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge, invited the coup leaders to the embassy and congratulated them. Ambassador Lodge informed Kennedy that "the prospects now are for a shorter war".

Following the coup, chaos ensued. Hanoi took advantage of the situation and increased its support for the guerrillas. South Vietnam entered a period of extreme political instability, as one military government toppled another in quick succession. Increasingly, each new regime was viewed as a puppet of the Americans; whatever the failings of Diem, his credentials as a nationalist (as Robert McNamara later reflected) had been impeccable.

U.S military advisers were embedded at every level of the South Vietnamese armed forces. They were, however, almost completely ignorant of the political nature of the insurgency. The insurgency was a political power struggle, in which military engagements were not the main goal. The Kennedy administration sought to refocus U.S. efforts on pacification and "winning over the hearts and minds" of the population. The military leadership in Washington, however, was hostile to any role for U.S. advisers other than conventional troop training. General Paul Harkins, the commander of U.S. forces in South Vietnam, confidently predicted victory by Christmas 1963. The CIA was less optimistic, however, warning that "the Viet Cong by and large retain de facto control of much of the countryside and have steadily increased the overall intensity of the effort".

Paramilitary officers from the CIA's Special Activities Division trained and led Hmong tribesmen in Laos and into Vietnam. 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. The CIA also ran the Phoenix Program and participation Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MAC-V SOG), which was originally named the Special Operations Group, but was changed for cover purposes.

Lyndon B. Johnson expands the war, 1963–1969

and four F-105 Thunderchiefs dropping bombs on North Vietnam]] Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ), as he took over the presidency after the death of Kennedy, initially did not consider Vietnam a priority and was more concerned with his "Great Society" and progressive social programs. Presidential aide Jack Valenti recalls, "Vietnam at the time was no bigger than a man's fist on the horizon. We hardly discussed it because it was not worth discussing."

On 24 November 1963, Johnson said, "the battle against communism... must be joined... with strength and determination." The pledge came at a time when Vietnam was deteriorating, especially in places like the Mekong Delta, because of the recent coup against Diem.

Johnson had reversed Kennedy's disengagement policy from Vietnam in withdrawing 1,000 troops by the end of 1963 (NSAM 263 on 11 Oct.), with his own NSAM 273 (26 Nov.) to expand the war.

The military revolutionary council, meeting in lieu of a strong South Vietnamese leader, was made up of 12 members headed by General Duong Van Minh—whom Stanley Karnow, a journalist on the ground, later recalled as "a model of lethargy." Lodge, frustrated by the end of the year, cabled home about Minh: "Will he be strong enough to get on top of things?" His regime was overthrown in January 1964 by General Nguyen Khanh. However, there was persistent instability in the military as several coups—not all successful—occurred in a short space of time. On 2 August 1964, the , on an intelligence mission along North Vietnam's coast, allegedly fired upon and damaged several torpedo boats that had been stalking it in the Gulf of Tonkin.

A second attack was reported two days later on the and Maddox in the same area. The circumstances of the attack were murky. Lyndon Johnson commented to Undersecretary of State George Ball that "those sailors out there may have been shooting at flying fish."

The second attack led to retaliatory air strikes, prompted Congress to approve the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and gave the president power to conduct military operations in Southeast Asia without declaring war. In the same month, Johnson pledged that he was not "... committing American boys to fighting a war that I think ought to be fought by the boys of Asia to help protect their own land."

An undated NSA publication declassified in 2005, however, revealed that there was no attack on 4 August. It had already been called into question long before this. "Gulf of Tonkin incident", writes Louise Gerdes, "is an oft-cited example of the way in which Johnson misled the American people to gain support for his foreign policy in Vietnam." George C. Herring argues, however, that McNamara and the Pentagon "did not knowingly lie about the alleged attacks, but they were obviously in a mood to retaliate and they seem to have selected from the evidence available to them those parts that confirmed what they wanted to believe."

"From a strength of approximately 5,000 at the start of 1959 the Viet Cong's ranks grew to about 100,000 at the end of 1964...Between 1961 and 1964 the Army's strength rose from about 850,000 to nearly a million men." .]] The National Security Council recommended a three-stage escalation of the bombing of North Vietnam. On 2 March 1965, following an attack on a U.S. Marine barracks at Pleiku, Operation Flaming Dart (initiated when Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin was at a state visit to North Vietnam), Operation Rolling Thunder and Operation Arc Light commenced. The bombing campaign, which ultimately lasted three years, was intended to force North Vietnam to cease its support for the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF) by threatening to destroy North Vietnam's air defenses and industrial infrastructure. As well, it was aimed at bolstering the morale of the South Vietnamese. Between March 1965 and November 1968, "Rolling Thunder" deluged the north with a million tons of missiles, rockets and bombs.

Bombing was not restricted to North Vietnam. Other aerial campaigns, such as Operation Commando Hunt, targeted different parts of the NLF and VPA infrastructure. These included the Ho Chi Minh trail, which ran through Laos and Cambodia. The objective of forcing North Vietnam to stop its support for the NLF, however, was never reached. As one officer noted "this is a political war and it calls for discriminate killing. The best weapon... would be a knife... The worst is an airplane."

Escalation and ground war

film about an attack on U.S. air bases and the U.S. response. 1965]] After several attacks upon them, it was decided that U.S. Air Force bases needed more protection. The South Vietnamese military seemed incapable of providing security. On 8 March 1965, 3,500 U.S. Marines were dispatched to South Vietnam. This marked the beginning of the American ground war. U.S. public opinion overwhelmingly supported the deployment.

In a statement similar to that made to the French almost two decades earlier, Ho Chi Minh warned that if the Americans "want to make war for twenty years then we shall make war for twenty years. If they want to make peace, we shall make peace and invite them to afternoon tea." As former First Deputy Foreign Minister Tran Quang Co has noted, the primary goal of the war was to reunify Vietnam and secure its independence. The policy of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) was not to topple other non-communist governments in South East Asia.

The Marines' assignment was defensive. The initial deployment of 3,500 in March was increased to nearly 200,000 by December. The U.S. military had long been schooled in offensive warfare. Regardless of political policies, U.S. commanders were institutionally and psychologically unsuited to a defensive mission. in a battle that both sides viewed as a watershed. Previously communist forces had utilized hit-and-run guerrilla tactics, however at Binh Gia they had successfully defeated a strong ARVN force in conventional warfare. Tellingly, South Vietnamese forces were again defeated in June, at the Battle of Đồng Xoài.

Desertion rates were increasing, and morale plummeted. General William Westmoreland informed Admiral U.S. Grant Sharp, Jr., commander of U.S. Pacific forces, that the situation was critical. With this recommendation, Westmoreland was advocating an aggressive departure from America's defensive posture and the sidelining of the South Vietnamese. By ignoring ARVN units, the U.S. commitment became open-ended. Westmoreland outlined a three-point plan to win the war:

Phase 1. Commitment of U.S. (and other free world) forces necessary to halt the losing trend by the end of 1965.

Phase 2. U.S. and allied forces mount major offensive actions to seize the initiative to destroy guerrilla and organized enemy forces. This phase would end when the enemy had been worn down, thrown on the defensive, and driven back from major populated areas.

Phase 3. If the enemy persisted, a period of twelve to eighteen months following Phase 2 would be required for the final destruction of enemy forces remaining in remote base areas.

The plan was approved by Johnson and marked a profound departure from the previous administration's insistence that the government of South Vietnam was responsible for defeating the guerrillas. Westmoreland predicted victory by the end of 1967. Johnson did not, however, communicate this change in strategy to the media. Instead he emphasized continuity. The change in U.S. policy depended on matching the North Vietnamese and the NLF in a contest of attrition and morale. The opponents were locked in a cycle of escalation. The idea that the government of South Vietnam could manage its own affairs was shelved. As a result, training programs were shortened.

South Vietnam was inundated with manufactured goods. As Stanley Karnow writes, "the main PX [Post Exchange], located in the Saigon suburb of Cholon, was only slightly smaller than the New York Bloomingdale's..." The American buildup transformed the economy and had a profound impact on South Vietnamese society. A huge surge in corruption was witnessed.

Washington encouraged its SEATO allies to contribute troops. Australia, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines all agreed to send troops. Major allies, however, notably NATO nations Canada and the United Kingdom, declined Washington's troop requests. The U.S. and its allies mounted complex operations, such as operations Masher, Attleboro, Cedar Falls, and Junction City. However, the communist insurgents remained elusive and demonstrated great tactical flexibility.

Meanwhile, the political situation in South Vietnam began to stabilize with the coming to power of Prime Minister Air Marshal Nguyễn Cao Kỳ and figurehead Chief of State, General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, in mid 1965 at the head of a military junta. This ended a series of coups that had happened more than once a year. In 1967, Thieu became president with Ky as his deputy, after rigged elections. Although they were nominally a civilian government, Ky was supposed to maintain real power through a behind-the-scenes military body. However, Thieu outmanoevred and sidelined Ky by filling the ranks with generals from his faction. Thieu was also accused of murdering Ky loyalists through contrived military accidents. Thieu, mistrustful and indecisive, remained president until 1975, having won a one-man election in 1971.

The Johnson administration employed a "policy of minimum candor" in its dealings with the media. Military information officers sought to manage media coverage by emphasizing stories that portrayed progress in the war. Over time, this policy damaged the public trust in official pronouncements. As the media's coverage of the war and that of the Pentagon diverged, a so-called credibility gap developed. in January 1968, the NVA and NLF broke the truce that had traditionally accompanied the Tết (Lunar New Year) holiday. They launched the surprise Tet Offensive in the hope of sparking a national uprising. Over 100 cities were attacked, with assaults on General Westmoreland's headquarters and the U.S. Embassy, Saigon.

Although the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces were initially taken aback by the scale of the urban offensive, they responded quickly and effectively, decimating the ranks of the NLF. In the former capital city of Huế, the combined NLF and VPA troops captured the Imperial Citadel and much of the city, which led to the Battle of Huế. Throughout the offensive, the American forces employed massive firepower; in Huế where the battle was the fiercest, that firepower left 80% of the city in ruins. During the interim between the capture of the Citadel and end of the "Battle of Huế", the communist insurgent occupying forces massacred several thousand unarmed Huế civilians (estimates vary up to a high of 6,000). After the war, North Vietnamese officials acknowledged that the Tet Offensive had, indeed, caused grave damage to NLF forces. But the offensive had another, unintended consequence.

General Westmoreland had become the public face of the war. He was featured on the cover of Time magazine three times and was named 1965's Man of the Year. Time described him as "the sinewy personification of the American fighting man... (who) directed the historic buildup, drew up the battle plans, and infused the... men under him with his own idealistic view of U.S. aims and responsibilities." In a speech before the National Press Club he said that a point in the war had been reached "where the end comes into view." Thus, the public was shocked and confused when Westmoreland's predictions were trumped by Tet. Journalist Peter Arnett quoted an unnamed officer, saying of Bến Tre (laid to rubble by U.S. firepower) that "it became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it" (though the authenticity of this quote is disputed). According to one source, this quote was attributed to Major Booris of 9th Infantry Division.

Westmoreland became Chief of Staff of the Army in March, just as all resistance was finally subdued. The move was technically a promotion. However, his position had become untenable because of the offensive and because his request for 200,000 additional troops had been leaked to the media. Westmoreland was succeeded by his deputy Creighton Abrams, a commander less inclined to public media pronouncements.

On 10 May 1968, despite low expectations, peace talks began between the United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Negotiations stagnated for five months, until Johnson gave orders to halt the bombing of North Vietnam. The Democratic candidate, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, was running against Republican former vice president Richard Nixon.

As historian Robert Dallek writes, "Lyndon Johnson's escalation of the war in Vietnam divided Americans into warring camps... cost 30,000 American lives by the time he left office, (and) destroyed Johnson's presidency..." His refusal to send more U.S. troops to Vietnam was seen as Johnson's admission that the war was lost. It can be seen that the refusal was a tacit admission that the war could not be won by escalation, at least not at a cost acceptable to the American people.

Vietnamization, 1969–1972

Nixon Doctrine / Vietnamization

Severe communist losses during the Tet Offensive allowed U.S. President Richard Nixon to begin troop withdrawals. His plan, called the Nixon Doctrine, was to build up the ARVN, so that they could take over the defense of South Vietnam. The policy became known as "Vietnamization". Vietnamization had much in common with the policies of the Kennedy administration. One important difference, however, remained. While Kennedy insisted that the South Vietnamese fight the war themselves, he attempted to limit the scope of the conflict.

Nixon said in an announcement, "I am tonight announcing plans for the withdrawal of an additional 150,000 American troops to be completed during the spring of next year. This will bring a total reduction of 265,500 men in our armed forces in Vietnam below the level that existed when we took office 15 months ago."

On 10 October 1969, Nixon ordered a squadron of 18 B-52s loaded with nuclear weapons to race to the border of Soviet airspace to convince the Soviet Union that he was capable of anything to end the Vietnam War.

Nixon also pursued negotiations. Theater commander Creighton Abrams shifted to smaller operations, aimed at communist logistics, with better use of firepower and more cooperation with the ARVN. Nixon also began to pursue détente with the Soviet Union and rapprochement with the People's Republic of China. This policy helped to decrease global tensions. Détente led to nuclear arms reduction on the part of both superpowers. But Nixon was disappointed that the PRC and the Soviet Union continued to supply the North Vietnamese with aid. In September 1969, Ho Chi Minh died at age seventy-nine.

The anti-war movement was gaining strength in the United States. Nixon appealed to the "silent majority" of Americans to support the war. But revelations of the My Lai Massacre, in which a U.S. Army platoon raped and killed civilians, and the 1969 "Green Beret Affair" where eight Special Forces soldiers, including the 5th Special Forces Group Commander were arrested for the murder of a suspected double agent provoked national and international outrage.

The civilian cost of the war was again questioned when U.S. forces concluded Operation Speedy Express with a claimed bodycount of 10,889 Communist guerillas with only 40 U.S. losses; Kevin Buckley writing in Newsweek estimated that perhaps 5,000 of the Vietnamese dead were civilians.

Beginning in 1970, American troops were being taken away from border areas where much more killing took place, and instead put along the coast and interior, which is one reason why casualties in 1970 were less than half of 1969's totals. but the communists used Cambodian soil as a base and Sihanouk tolerated their presence, because he wished to avoid being drawn into a wider regional conflict. Under pressure from Washington, however, he changed this policy in 1969. The Vietnamese communists were no longer welcome. President Nixon took the opportunity to launch a massive secret bombing campaign, called Operation Menu, against their sanctuaries along the Cambodia/Vietnam border.

This violated a long succession of pronouncements from Washington supporting Cambodian neutrality. Richard Nixon wrote to Prince Sihanouk in April 1969 assuring him that the United States respected "the sovereignty, neutrality and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Cambodia..." In 1970, Prince Sihanouk was deposed by his pro-American prime minister Lon Nol. The country's borders were closed, while U.S. forces and ARVN launched incursions into Cambodia to attack VPA/NLF bases and buy time for South Vietnam.

The invasion of Cambodia sparked nationwide U.S. protests. Four students were killed by National Guardsmen at Kent State University during a protest in Ohio, which provoked public outrage in the United States. The reaction to the incident by the Nixon administration was seen as callous and indifferent, providing additional impetus for the anti-war movement.

In 1971 the Pentagon Papers were leaked to The New York Times. The top-secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, commissioned by the Department of Defense, detailed a long series of public deceptions. The Supreme Court ruled that its publication was legal.

The ARVN launched Operation Lam Son 719 in February 1971, aimed at cutting the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos.

In 1971 Australia and New Zealand withdrew their soldiers. The U.S. troop count was further reduced to 196,700, with a deadline to remove another 45,000 troops by February 1972. As peace protests spread across the United States, disillusionment and ill-discipline grew in the ranks.

Vietnamization was again tested by the Easter Offensive of 1972, a massive conventional invasion of South Vietnam. The VPA and NLF quickly overran the northern provinces and in coordination with other forces attacked from Cambodia, threatening to cut the country in half. U.S. troop withdrawals continued. But American airpower came to the rescue with Operation Linebacker, and the offensive was halted. However, it became clear that without American airpower South Vietnam could not survive. The last remaining American ground troops were withdrawn in August.

1972 election and Paris Peace Accords

, December 1972]] The war was the central issue of the 1972 presidential election. Nixon's opponent, George McGovern, campaigned on a platform of withdrawal from Vietnam. Nixon's National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger, continued secret negotiations with North Vietnam's Lê Ðức Thọ. In October 1972, they reached an agreement.

However, South Vietnamese President Thieu demanded massive changes to the peace accord. When North Vietnam went public with the agreement's details, the Nixon administration claimed that the North was attempting to embarrass the President. The negotiations became deadlocked. Hanoi demanded new changes.

To show his support for South Vietnam and force Hanoi back to the negotiating table, Nixon ordered Operation Linebacker II, a massive bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong 18–29 December 1972. The offensive destroyed much of the remaining economic and industrial capacity of North Vietnam. Simultaneously Nixon pressured Thieu to accept the terms of the agreement, threatening to conclude a bilateral peace deal and cut off American aid.

On 15 January 1973, Nixon announced the suspension of offensive action against North Vietnam. The Paris Peace Accords on "Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam" were signed on 27 January 1973, officially ending direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. A cease-fire was declared across North and South Vietnam. U.S. POWs were released. The agreement guaranteed the territorial integrity of Vietnam and, like the Geneva Conference of 1954, called for national elections in the North and South. The Paris Peace Accords stipulated a sixty-day period for the total withdrawal of U.S. forces. "This article", noted Peter Church, "proved... to be the only one of the Paris Agreements which was fully carried out."

Opposition to the Vietnam War: 1962–1975

during the Vietnam War]] Some advocates within the peace movement advocated a unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam. One reason given for the withdrawal is that it would contribute to a lessening of tensions in the region and thus less human bloodshed. Early opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam was centered around the Geneva conference of 1954. American support of Diem in refusing elections was thought to be thwarting the very democracy that America claimed to be supporting. John Kennedy, while Senator, opposed involvement in Vietnam.

The fatal shooting of four anti-war protesters at Kent State University led to nation-wide university protests. Riots broke out at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

After explosive news reports of American military abuses, such as the 1968 My Lai Massacre, brought new attention and support to the anti-war movement, some veterans joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

Anti-war protests ended with the final withdrawal of troops after the Paris Peace Accords were signed in 1973. South Vietnam was left to defend itself alone when the fighting resumed. Many South Vietnamese fled to the United States. However, just before the Paris Peace Accords were signed, Lyndon B. Johnson, whose presidency was marred by the Vietnam War, died.

Exit of the Americans: 1973–1975

The United States began drastically reducing their troop support in South Vietnam during the final years of "Vietnamization". Many U.S. troops were removed from the region, and on 5 March 1971, the United States returned the 5th Special Forces Group, which was the first American unit deployed to South Vietnam, to its former base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. |group="A"}}

Under the Paris Peace Accords, between North Vietnamese Foreign Minister Lê Ðức Thọ and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and reluctantly signed by South Vietnamese President Thiệu, U.S. military forces withdrew from South Vietnam and prisoners were exchanged. North Vietnam was allowed to continue supplying communist troops in the South, but only to the extent of replacing materials that were consumed. Later that year the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Kissinger and Thọ, but the Vietnamese negotiator declined it saying that a true peace did not yet exist.

The communist leaders had expected that the ceasefire terms would favor their side. But Saigon, bolstered by a surge of U.S. aid received just before the ceasefire went into effect, began to roll back the Vietcong. The communists responded with a new strategy hammered out in a series of meetings in Hanoi in March 1973, according to the memoirs of Trần Văn Trà. Public and congressional reaction to Nixon's trial balloon was unfavorable and in April Nixon appointed Graham Martin as U.S. ambassador to Vietnam. Martin was a second stringer compared to previous U.S. ambassadors and his appointment was an early signal that Washington had given up on Vietnam.

Gerald Ford took over as U.S. president on 9 August 1974 after President Nixon resigned due to the Watergate scandal. At this time, Congress cut financial aid to South Vietnam from $1 billion a year to $700 million. The U.S. midterm elections in 1974 brought in a new Congress dominated by Democrats who were even more determined to confront the president on the war. Congress immediately voted in restrictions on funding and military activities to be phased in through 1975 and to culminate in a total cutoff of funding in 1976.

The success of the 1973–1974 dry season offensive inspired Trà to return to Hanoi in October 1974 and plead for a larger offensive in the next dry season. This time, Trà could travel on a drivable highway with regular fueling stops, a vast change from the days when the Ho Chi Minh Trail was a dangerous mountain trek. Giáp, the North Vietnamese defense minister, was reluctant to approve Trà's plan. A larger offensive might provoke a U.S. reaction and interfere with the big push planned for 1976. Trà appealed over Giáp's head to first secretary Lê Duẩn, who approved of the operation.

Trà's plan called for a limited offensive from Cambodia into Phuoc Long Province. The strike was designed to solve local logistical problems, gauge the reaction of South Vietnamese forces, and determine whether U.S. would return to the fray.

On 13 December 1974, North Vietnamese forces attacked Route 14 in Phuoc Long Province. Phuoc Binh, the provincial capital, fell on 6 January 1975. Ford desperately asked Congress for funds to assist and re-supply the South before it was overrun. Congress refused. The fall of Phuoc Binh and the lack of an American response left the South Vietnamese elite demoralized.

The speed of this success led the Politburo to reassess its strategy. It was decided that operations in the Central Highlands would be turned over to General Văn Tiến Dũng and that Pleiku should be seized, if possible. Before he left for the South, Dũng was addressed by Lê Duẩn: "Never have we had military and political conditions so perfect or a strategic advantage as great as we have now."

At the start of 1975, the South Vietnamese had three times as much artillery and twice the number of tanks and armoured cars as the opposition. They also had 1,400 aircraft and a two-to-one numerical superiority in combat troops over their Communist enemies. However, the rising oil prices meant that much of this could not be used. They faced a well-organized, highly determined and well-funded North Vietnam. Much of the North's material and financial support came from the communist bloc. Within South Vietnam, there was increasing chaos. Their abandonment by the American military had compromised an economy dependent on U.S. financial support and the presence of a large number of U.S. troops. South Vietnam suffered from the global recession that followed the Arab oil embargo.

Campaign 275

On 10 March 1975, General Dung launched Campaign 275, a limited offensive into the Central Highlands, supported by tanks and heavy artillery. The target was Buôn Ma Thuột, in Đắk Lắk Province. If the town could be taken, the provincial capital of Pleiku and the road to the coast would be exposed for a planned campaign in 1976. The ARVN proved incapable of resisting the onslaught, and its forces collapsed on 11 March. Once again, Hanoi was surprised by the speed of their success. Dung now urged the Politburo to allow him to seize Pleiku immediately and then turn his attention to Kon Tum. He argued that with two months of good weather remaining until the onset of the monsoon, it would be irresponsible to not take advantage of the situation.

President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, a former general, was fearful that his forces would be cut off in the north by the attacking communists; Thieu ordered a retreat. The president declared this to be a "lighten the top and keep the bottom" strategy. But in what appeared to be a repeat of Operation Lam Son 719, the withdrawal soon turned into a bloody rout. While the bulk of ARVN forces attempted to flee, isolated units fought desperately. ARVN General Phu abandoned Pleiku and Kon Tum and retreated toward the coast, in what became known as the "column of tears".

As the ARVN tried to disengage from the enemy, refugees mixed in with the line of retreat. The poor condition of roads and bridges, damaged by years of conflict and neglect, slowed Phu's column. As the North Vietnamese forces approached, panic set in. Often abandoned by the officers, the soldiers and civilians were shelled incessantly. The retreat degenerated into a desperate scramble for the coast. By 1 April the "column of tears" was all but annihilated.

On 20 March, Thieu reversed himself and ordered Huế, Vietnam's third-largest city, be held at all costs, and then changed his policy several times. Thieu's contradictory orders confused and demoralized his officer corps. As the North Vietnamese launched their attack, panic set in, and ARVN resistance withered. On 22 March, the VPA opened the siege of Huế. Civilians flooded the airport and the docks hoping for any mode of escape. Some even swam out to sea to reach boats and barges anchored offshore. In the confusion, routed ARVN soldiers fired on civilians to make way for their retreat.

On 31 March, after a three-day battle, Huế fell. As resistance in Huế collapsed, North Vietnamese rockets rained down on Da Nang and its airport. By 28 March, 35,000 VPA troops were poised to attack the suburbs. By 30 March 100,000 leaderless ARVN troops surrendered as the VPA marched victoriously through Da Nang. With the fall of the city, the defense of the Central Highlands and Northern provinces came to an end.

Final North Vietnamese offensive

With the northern half of the country under their control, the Politburo ordered General Dung to launch the final offensive against Saigon. The operational plan for the Ho Chi Minh Campaign called for the capture of Saigon before 1 May. Hanoi wished to avoid the coming monsoon and prevent any redeployment of ARVN forces defending the capital. Northern forces, their morale boosted by their recent victories, rolled on, taking Nha Trang, Cam Ranh, and Da Lat.

On 7 April, three North Vietnamese divisions attacked Xuan Loc, 40 miles (64 km) east of Saigon. The North Vietnamese met fierce resistance at Xuan Loc from the ARVN 18th Division, who were outnumbered six to one. For two bloody weeks, severe fighting raged as the ARVN defenders made a last stand to try to block the North Vietnamese advance. By 21 April, however, the exhausted garrison were ordered to withdraw towards Saigon.

An embittered and tearful President Thieu resigned on the same day, declaring that the United States had betrayed South Vietnam. In a scathing attack, he suggested U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had tricked him into signing the Paris peace agreement two years ago, promising military aid that failed to materialise.

}} Having transferred power to Tran Van Huong, he left for Taiwan on 25 April. At the same time, North Vietnamese tanks had reached Bien Hoa and turned toward Saigon, brushing aside isolated ARVN units along the way.

By the end of April, the ARVN had collapsed on all fronts except in the Mekong Delta. Thousand of refugees streamed southward, ahead of the main communist onslaught. On 27 April 100,000 North Vietnamese troops encircled Saigon. The city was defended by about 30,000 ARVN troops. To hasten a collapse and foment panic, the VPA shelled the airport and forced its closure. With the air exit closed, large numbers of civilians found that they had no way out.

Fall of Saigon

Chaos, unrest, and panic broke out as hysterical South Vietnamese officials and civilians scrambled to leave Saigon. Martial law was declared. American helicopters began evacuating South Vietnamese, U.S., and foreign nationals from various parts of the city and from the U.S. embassy compound. Operation Frequent Wind had been delayed until the last possible moment, because of U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin's belief that Saigon could be held and that a political settlement could be reached.

Schlesinger announced early in the morning of 29 April 1975 the evacuation from Saigon by helicopter of the last U.S. diplomatic, military, and civilian personnel. Frequent Wind was arguably the largest helicopter evacuation in history. It began on 29 April, in an atmosphere of desperation, as hysterical crowds of Vietnamese vied for limited space. Martin pleaded with Washington to dispatch $700 million in emergency aid to bolster the regime and help it mobilize fresh military reserves. But American public opinion had soured on this conflict.

In the United States, South Vietnam was perceived as doomed. President Gerald Ford had given a televised speech on 23 April, declaring an end to the Vietnam War and all U.S. aid. Frequent Wind continued around the clock, as North Vietnamese tanks breached defenses on the outskirts of Saigon. In the early morning hours of 30 April, the last U.S. Marines evacuated the embassy by helicopter, as civilians swamped the perimeter and poured into the grounds. Many of them had been employed by the Americans and were left to their fate.

On 30 April 1975, VPA troops overcame all resistance, quickly capturing key buildings and installations. A tank crashed through the gates of the Independence Palace, and at 11:30 a.m. local time the NLF flag was raised above it. President Duong Van Minh, who had succeeded Huong two days earlier, surrendered.

The Communists had attained their goal, but the cost of victory was high. By war's end, the Vietnamese had been fighting foreign involvement or occupation (primarily by the French, Chinese, Japanese, British, and American governments) for 116 years.

Other countries' involvement

People's Republic of China

In 1950, the People's Republic of China extended diplomatic recognition to the Viet Minh's Democratic Republic of Vietnam and sent weapons, as well as military advisors led by Luo Guibo to assist the Viet Minh in its war with the French. The first draft of the 1954 Geneva Accords was negotiated by French Prime Minister Pierre Mendès France and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai who, fearing U.S. intervention, urged the Viet Minh to accept a partition at the 17th parallel.

China's ability to aid the Viet Minh declined when Soviet aid to China was reduced following the end of the Korean War in 1953. Moreover, a divided Vietnam posed less of a threat to China. China provided material and technical support to the Vietnamese communists worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Chinese-supplied rice allowed North Vietnam to pull military-age men from the paddies and imposed a universal draft beginning in 1960.

In the summer of 1962, Mao Zedong agreed to supply Hanoi with 90,000 rifles and guns free of charge. Starting in 1965, China sent anti-aircraft units and engineering battalions to North Vietnam to repair the damage caused by American bombing, rebuild roads and railroads, and to perform other engineering works. This freed North Vietnamese army units for combat in the South.

Sino-Soviet relations soured after the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in August 1968. In October, the Chinese demanded North Vietnam cut relations with Moscow, but Hanoi refused. The Chinese began to withdraw in November 1968 in preparation for a clash with the Soviets, which occurred at Zhenbao Island in March 1969. The Chinese also began financing the Khmer Rouge as a counterweight to the Vietnamese communists at this time. China's withdrawal from Vietnam was completed in July 1970.

The Khmer Rouge launched ferocious raids into Vietnam in 1975–1978. Vietnam responded with an invasion that toppled the Khmer Rouge. In response, China launched a brief, punitive invasion of Vietnam in 1979.

South Korea

On the anti-communist side, South Korea had the second-largest contingent of foreign troops in South Vietnam after the United States. The first South Korean troops began arriving in 1964 and large combat battalions began arriving a year later, with the South Koreans soon developing a reputation for effectiveness. Indeed arguably, they conducted counterinsurgency operations so well that American commanders felt that Korean area of responsibility was the safest.

Approximately 320,000 South Korean soldiers were sent to Vietnam, each serving a one year tour of duty. Maximum troop levels peaked at 50,000 in 1968, however all were withdrawn by 1973. About 5,000 South Koreans were killed and 11,000 were injured during the war.

Australia and New Zealand

Australia and New Zealand, close allies of the United States and members of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and the ANZUS military co-operation treaty, sent ground troops to Vietnam. Both nations had gained experience in counterinsurgency and jungle warfare during the Malayan Emergency and World War II. Their governments subscribed to the Domino theory. Australia began by sending advisors to Vietnam in 1962, and combat troops were committed in 1965. New Zealand began by sending a detachment of engineers and an artillery battery, and then started sending special forces and regular infantry which were attached to Australian formations. Australia's peak commitment was 7,672 combat troops and New Zealand's 552. There were more than 60,000 Australian personnel involved during the course of the war, of which 521 were killed and more than 3,000 were wounded. Most served in the 1st Australian Task Force in Phước Tuy Province province. The Soviet intelligence ships would pick up American B-52 bombers flying from Okinawa and Guam.

Some Russian sources give more specific numbers: the hardware donated by the USSR included 2,000 tanks, 7,000 artillery guns, over 5,000 anti-aircraft guns, 158 surface-to-air rocket launchers. Over the course of the war the Soviet money donated to the Vietnamese cause was equal to 2 million dollars a day. From July 1965 to the end of 1974, fighting in Vietnam was attended by some 6,500 officers and generals, as well as more than 4,500 soldiers and sergeants of the Soviet Armed Forces. In addition, military schools and academies of the USSR began training Vietnamese soldiers – more than 10 thousand people.

North Korea

As a result of a decision of the Korean Workers' Party in October 1966, in early 1967 North Korea sent a fighter squadron to North Vietnam to back up the North Vietnamese 921st and 923rd fighter squadrons defending Hanoi. They stayed through 1968, and 200 pilots were reported to have served.

In addition, at least two anti-aircraft artillery regiments were sent as well. North Korea also sent weapons, ammunition and two million sets of uniforms to their comrades in North Vietnam. Kim Il-sung is reported to have told his pilots to "fight in the war as if the Vietnamese sky were their own".

Cuba

The extent of manpower contributions to North Vietnam by the communist Republic of Cuba, under Fidel Castro, is still a matter of debate. Then and since, the communist Vietnamese and Cuban governments have not divulged any information on this matter. There are numerous reports by former U.S. prisoners of war that Cuban military personnel were present at North Vietnamese prison facilities during the war, and that they participated in torture activities, in what is known as the "Cuba Program". Witnesses to this include Senator John McCain, 2008 U.S. Presidential candidate and former Vietnam prisoner of war, according to his 1999 book Faith of My Fathers. That there was at least a small contingent of Cuban military advisors present in North Vietnam during the war is without question. Some, notably Vietnam War POW/MIA issue advocates, claim evidence that Cuba's military and non-military involvement may have run into the "thousands" of personnel.

Canada and the ICC

Canada, India and Poland comprised the International Control Commission, which was supposed to monitor the 1954 ceasefire agreement. Officially, Canada did not have partisan involvement in the Vietnam War and diplomatically it was "non-belligerent". Victor Levant suggested otherwise in his book "Quiet Complicity: Canadian Involvement in the Vietnam War" (1986).

Republic of China (Taiwan)

Since November 1967, the Republic of China (Taiwan) secretly operated a cargo transport detachment to assist the United States and the ROV.

Taiwan also provided military training units for the South Vietnamese diving units, later known as the Lien Doi Nguoi Nhai (LDMN) or Frogman unit in English. Military commandos from Taiwan were captured by communist forces three times trying to infiltrate North Vietnam. and Soviet weaponry though some Viet Cong guerrilla units were equipped with Western infantry weapons either captured from French stocks during the first Indochina war or from ARVN units or requisitioned through illicit purchase. The ubiquitous Soviet Ak-47 was widely regarded as the best assault rifle of the war and it was not uncommon to see U.S. special forces with captured Ak-47s. The American M-16, which replaced the M-14, was considered more accurate and was lighter than the Ak-47 but was prone to jamming. Oftentimes the gun suffered from a jamming flaw known as “failure to extract,” which meant that a spent cartridge case remained lodged in the chamber after a bullet flew out the muzzle. This caused serious problems during firefights. Jamming problems were generally associated with poor maintenance but these problems were remedied with the issuance of cleaning kits and better maintenance. With its 17 mile range, the Soviet 130mm M-46 towed field gun was a highly regarded weapon and used to good effect by the NVA. It was countered by the long-range, American 175mm M107 Self-Propelled Gun. The United States had air superiority though many aircraft were lost to surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery. U.S. air power was credited with breaking the siege of Khe Sanh and blunting the 1972 Communist offensive against South Vietnam. At sea, the U.S. Navy had the run of the coastline, using aircraft carriers as platforms for offshore strikes and other naval vessels for offshore artillery support. Offshore naval fire played a pivotal role in the Battle for the city of Hue, providing accurate fire in support of the U.S. counter-offensive to retake the city. The Vietnam War was the first conflict that saw wide scale tactical deployment of helicopters. The Bell UH-1 Iroquois was used extensively in counter-guerilla operations both as a troop carrier and a gunship. |- ! Infantry weapons | MAT-49, SKS, AK-47, RPK, RPD, DShK HMG, RPG-7, RPG-2, B-10 recoilless rifle and B-11 recoilless rifle || M-14, M16, M79 grenade launcher, M60 machine gun, M2 Browning, LAW, TOW, and M40 recoilless rifle, FN-FAL (ADF), FN MAG (ADF) Owen Gun (ADF) |- ! Air-to-Air Missiles | Vympel K-13 || AIM-9 Sidewinder, AIM-7 Sparrow |- ! Air-to-Surface Missiles | || AGM-45 Shrike anti radiation missile, AGM-12 Bullpup, AGM-78 Standard ARM, AGM-62 Walleye, Zuni rocket |- ! Specialized weapons | IEDs || BLU-82 Daisy Cutter, Laser-guided bombs, Napalm, M18 Claymore anti-personnel mines |}

Aftermath

Events in Southeast Asia

Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, fell to followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, commonly known as the Khmer Rouge, on 17 April 1975. Over the next four years, the Khmer Rouge enacted a genocidal policy that killed over one-fifth of all Cambodians, or more than a million people. After repeated border clashes in 1978, Vietnam invaded Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia) and ousted the Khmer Rouge in the Cambodian–Vietnamese War.

In response, China invaded Vietnam in 1979. The two countries fought a brief border war, known as the Third Indochina War or the Sino-Vietnamese War. From 1978 to 1979, some 450,000 ethnic Chinese left Vietnam by boat as refugees or were expelled across the land border with China.

The Pathet Lao overthrew the royalist government of Laos in December 1975. They established the Lao People's Democratic Republic. From 1975 to 1996, the United States resettled some 250,000 Lao refugees from Thailand, including 130,000 Hmong.

More than 3 million people fled from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, many as "boat people". Most Asian countries were unwilling to accept refugees. Since 1975, an estimated 1.4 million refugees from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries have been resettled to the United States, while Canada, Australia, and France resettled over 500,000.

Effect on the United States

in Houston, Texas]] In the post-war era, Americans struggled to absorb the lessons of the military intervention. As General Maxwell Taylor, one of the principal architects of the war, noted "first, we didn't know ourselves. We thought that we were going into another Korean War, but this was a different country. Secondly, we didn't know our South Vietnamese allies... And we knew less about North Vietnam. Who was Ho Chi Minh? Nobody really knew. So, until we know the enemy and know our allies and know ourselves, we'd better keep out of this kind of dirty business. It's very dangerous."

Some have suggested that "the responsibility for the ultimate failure of this policy [America's withdrawal from Vietnam] lies not with the men who fought, but with those in Congress..." Alternatively, the official history of the United States Army noted that "tactics have often seemed to exist apart from larger issues, strategies, and objectives. Yet in Vietnam the Army experienced tactical success and strategic failure... The... Vietnam War('s)... legacy may be the lesson that unique historical, political, cultural, and social factors always impinge on the military... Success rests not only on military progress but on correctly analyzing the nature of the particular conflict, understanding the enemy's strategy, and assessing the strengths and weaknesses of allies. A new humility and a new sophistication may form the best parts of a complex heritage left to the Army by the long, bitter war in Vietnam."

U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote in a secret memo to President Gerald Ford that "in terms of military tactics, we cannot help draw the conclusion that our armed forces are not suited to this kind of war. Even the Special Forces who had been designed for it could not prevail." Even Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara concluded that "the achievement of a military victory by U.S. forces in Vietnam was indeed a dangerous illusion."

Doubts surfaced as to the effectiveness of large-scale, sustained bombing. As Army Chief of Staff Harold Keith Johnson noted, "if anything came out of Vietnam, it was that air power couldn't do the job. Even General William Westmoreland admitted that the bombing had been ineffective. As he remarked, "I still doubt that the North Vietnamese would have relented."

The Vietnam War called into question the U.S. Army doctrine. Marine Corps General Victor H. Krulak heavily criticised Westmoreland's attrition strategy, calling it "wasteful of American lives... with small likelihood of a successful outcome." This resulted in a large federal budget deficit.

More than 3 million Americans served in the Vietnam War. By war's end, 58,193 soldiers were killed, more than 150,000 were wounded, and at least 21,000 were permanently disabled. 61% of the men killed were age 21 or younger. Of those killed in combat, 86.3% were white, 12.5% were black and 1.2% from other races. Approximately 830,000 Vietnam veterans suffered symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder. An estimated 125,000 Americans fled to Canada to avoid the Vietnam draft, and approximately 50,000 American servicemen deserted. In 1977, United States President Jimmy Carter granted a full, complete and unconditional pardon to all Vietnam-era Draft dodgers. The Vietnam War POW/MIA issue, concerning the fate of U.S. service personnel listed as missing in action, persisted for many years after the war's conclusion.

Chemical defoliation

One of the most controversial aspects of the U.S. military effort in Southeast Asia was the widespread use of chemical defoliants between 1961 and 1971. They were used to large parts of the countryside. These chemicals continue to change the landscape, cause diseases and birth defects, and poison the food chain.

Early in the American military effort it was decided that since the enemy were hiding their activities under triple-canopy jungle, a useful first step might be to defoliate certain areas. This was especially true of growth surrounding bases (both large and small) in what became known as Operation Ranch Hand. Corporations like Dow Chemical Company and Monsanto were given the task of developing herbicides for this purpose.

The defoliants, which were distributed in drums marked with color-coded bands, included the "Rainbow Herbicides"—Agent Pink, Agent Green, Agent Purple, Agent Blue, Agent White, and, most famously, Agent Orange, which included dioxin as a by-product of its manufacture. About 12 million gallons (45,000,000 L) of Agent Orange were sprayed over Southeast Asia during the American involvement. A prime area of Ranch Hand operations was in the Mekong Delta, where the U.S. Navy patrol boats were vulnerable to attack from the undergrowth at the water's edge.

s in the Mekong Delta, South Vietnam]] In 1961 and 1962, the Kennedy administration authorized the use of chemicals to destroy rice crops. Between 1961 and 1967, the U.S. Air Force sprayed 20 million U.S. gallons (75,700,000 L) of concentrated herbicides over 6 million acres (24,000 km²) of crops and trees, affecting an estimated 13% of South Vietnam's land. In 1965, 42% of all herbicide was sprayed over food crops. Another purpose of herbicide use was to drive civilian populations into RVN-controlled areas.

As of 2006, the Vietnamese government estimates that there are over 4,000,000 victims of dioxin poisoning in Vietnam, although the United States government denies any conclusive scientific links between Agent Orange and the Vietnamese victims of dioxin poisoning. In some areas of southern Vietnam dioxin levels remain at over 100 times the accepted international standard.

The U.S. Veterans Administration has listed prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, multiple myeloma, Diabetes mellitus type 2, B-cell lymphomas, soft tissue sarcoma, chloracne, porphyria cutanea tarda, peripheral neuropathy, and spina bifida in children of veterans exposed to Agent Orange. Although there has been much discussion over whether the use of these defoliants constituted a violation of the laws of war, the defoliants were not considered weapons, since exposure to them did not lead to immediate death or incapacitation.

Casualties

The number of military and civilian deaths from 1955 to 1975 is debated. Some reports fail to include the members of South Vietnamese forces killed in the final campaign, or the Royal Lao Armed Forces, thousands of Laotian and Thai irregulars, or Laotian civilians who all perished in the conflict. They do not include the tens of thousands of Cambodians killed during the civil war or the estimated one and one-half to two million that perished in the genocide that followed Khmer Rouge victory, or the fate of Laotian Royals and civilians after the Pathet Lao assumed complete power in Laos.

In 1995, the Vietnamese government reported that its military forces, including the NLF, suffered 1.1 million dead and 600,000 wounded during Hanoi's conflict with the United States. Civilian deaths were put at two million in the North and South, and economic reparations were expected. Hanoi concealed the figures during the war to avoid demoralizing the population. Estimates of civilian deaths caused by American bombing in Operation Rolling Thunder range from 52,000 to 182,000. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died in the war.

Popular culture

The Vietnam War has been featured heavily in television, film, video games, and literature in the participant countries. The war also influenced a generation of musicians and songwriters in Vietnam and the United States, both anti-war and pro/anti-communist. The band Country Joe and the Fish recorded "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag" / The "Fish" Cheer in 1965, and it became one of the most influential anti-Vietnam protest anthems.

Trinh Cong Son was a South Vietnamese songwriter famous for his anti-war songs.

See also

Regional:

Cambodian Civil War

Indochina Wars

Laotian Civil War

North Vietnamese invasion of Laos

General:

History of Cambodia

History of Laos

List of conflicts in Asia

Annotations

Notes

References

Secondary sources

Anderson, David L. Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War (2004).

Baker, Kevin. "Stabbed in the Back! The past and future of a right-wing myth", Harper's Magazine (June 2006)

Angio, Joe. Nixon a Presidency Revealed (2007) The History Channel television documentary

Berman, Larry. Lyndon Johnson's War: The Road to Stalemate (1991).

Blaufarb, Douglas. The Counterinsurgency Era (1977) a history of the Kennedy Administration's involvement in South Vietnam.

Brigham, Robert K. Battlefield Vietnam: A Brief History a PBS interactive website

Buckley, Kevin. "Pacification’s Deadly Price", Newsweek, 19 June 1972. Buzzanco, Bob. "25 Years After End of Vietnam War: Myths Keep Us From Coming To Terms With Vietnam", The Baltimore Sun (17 April 2000)

Church, Peter ed. A Short History of South-East Asia (2006).

Cooper, Chester L. The Lost Crusade: America in Vietnam (1970) a Washington insider's memoir of events.

Demma, Vincent H. "The U.S. Army in Vietnam." American Military History (1989) the official history of the United States Army. Available online

Duiker, William J. The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam (1996).

Duncanson, Dennis J. Government and Revolution in Vietnam (1968).

Fincher, Ernest Barksdale, The Vietnam War (1980).

Ford, Harold P. CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers: Three Episodes, 1962–1968. (1998).

Gerdes, Louise I. ed. Examining Issues Through Political Cartoons: The Vietnam War (2005).

Gettleman, Marvin E.; Franklin, Jane; Young, Marilyn Vietnam and America: A Documented History. (1995).

Hammond, William. Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1962–1968 (1987); Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1068–1973 (1995). full-scale history of the war by U.S. Army; much broader than title suggests.

Herring, George C. America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975 (4th ed 2001), most widely used short history.

Hitchens, Christopher. The Vietnam Syndrome.

; popular history by a former foreign correspondent; strong on Saigon's plans.

Kutler, Stanley ed. Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War (1996).

Leepson, Marc ed. Dictionary of the Vietnam War (1999) New York: Webster's New World.

Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam (1978), defends U.S. actions.

Logevall, Fredrik. The Origins of the Vietnam War (Longman [Seminar Studies in History] 2001).

McMahon, Robert J. Major Problems in the History of the Vietnam War: Documents and Essays (1995) textbook.

McNamara, Robert, James Blight, Robert Brigham, Thomas Biersteker, Herbert Schandler, Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy, (Public Affairs, 1999).

Milne, David. America's Rasputin: Walt Rostow and the Vietnam War (Hill & Wang, 2008).

Moise, Edwin E. Historical Dictionary of the Vietnam War (2002).

Moss, George D. Vietnam (4th ed 2002) textbook.

Moyar, Mark. Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954–1965, (Cambridge University Press; 412 pages; 2006). A revisionist history that challenges the notion that U.S. involvement in Vietnam was misguided; defends the validity of the domino theory and disputes the notion that Ho Chi Minh was, at heart, a nationalist who would eventually turn against his Communist Chinese allies.

Major General Spurgeon Neel. Medical Support of the U.S. Army in Vietnam 1965–1970 (Department of the Army 1991) official medical history

Nulty, Bernard.The Vietnam War (1998) New York: Barnes and Noble.

Palmer, Bruce, Jr. The Twenty-Five Year War (1984), narrative military history by a senior U.S. general.

Schell, Jonathan. The Time of Illusion (1976).

Schulzinger, Robert D. A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941–1975 (1997).

Sorley, Lewis, A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam (1999), based upon still classified tape-recorded meetings of top level US commanders in Vietnam, ISBN 0-15-601309-6

Spector, Ronald. After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam (1992), very broad coverage of 1968.

Summers, Harry G. On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War, Presidio press (1982), ISBN 0-89141-563-7 (225 pages)

Tucker, Spencer. ed. Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War (1998) 3 vol. reference set; also one-volume abridgement (2001).

Witz, James J. The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War (1991).

Young, Marilyn, B. The Vietnam Wars: 1945–1990. (1991).

Xiaoming, Zhang. "China's 1979 War With Vietnam: A Reassessment", China Quarterly. Issue no. 184, (December 2005)

Primary sources

Carter, Jimmy. By The President Of The United States Of America, A Proclamation Granting Pardon For Violations Of The Selective Service Act, 4 August 1964 To 28 March 1973 (21 January 1977)

Central Intelligence Agency. "Laos", CIA World Factbook

Kolko, Gabriel The End of the Vietnam War, 30 Years Later

Eisenhower, Dwight D. Mandate for Change. (1963) a presidential political memoir

Ho, Chi Minh. "Vietnam Declaration of Independence", Selected Works. (1960–1962) selected writings

LeMay, General Curtis E. and Kantor, MacKinlay. Mission with LeMay (1965) autobiography of controversial former Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force

Kissinger, United States Secretary of State Henry A. "Lessons on Vietnam", (1975) secret memoranda to U.S. President Ford

Kim A. O'Connell, ed. Primary Source Accounts of the Vietnam War (2006)

McCain, John. (1999) *Marshall, Kathryn. In the Combat Zone: An Oral History of American Women in Vietnam, 1966–1975 (1987)

Martin, John Bartlow. Was Kennedy Planning to Pull out of Vietnam? (1964) oral history for the John F. Kennedy Library, tape V, reel 1.

Myers, Thomas. Walking Point: American Narratives of Vietnam (1988)

Public Papers of the Presidents, 1965 (1966) official documents of U.S. presidents.

Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. Robert Kennedy and His Times. (1978) a first-hand account of the Kennedy administration by one of his principal advisors

Sinhanouk, Prince Norodom. "Cambodia Neutral: The Dictates of Necessity." Foreign Affairs. (1958) describes the geopolitical situation of Cambodia

Tang, Truong Nhu. A Vietcong Memoir (1985), revealing account by senior NLF official

Terry, Wallace, ed. Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans (1984)

- Total pages: 350

The landmark series Vietnam: A Television History, first broadcast in 1983, is a special presentation of the award-winning PBS history series, American Experience.

The Pentagon Papers (Gravel ed. 5 vol 1971); combination of narrative and secret documents compiled by Pentagon. excerpts

U.S. Department of State. Foreign Relations of the United States (multivolume collection of official secret documents) vol 1: 1964; vol 2: 1965; vol 3: 1965; vol 4: 1966;

U.S. Department of Defense and the House Committee on Armed Services. U.S.-Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967. Washington, D.C. Department of Defense and the House Committee on Armed Services, 1971, 12 volumes.

Vann, John Paul Quotes from Answers.com Lt. Colonel, U.S. Army, DFC, DSC, advisor to the ARVN 7th Division, early critic of the conduct of the war.

Historiography

Hall, Simon, “Scholarly Battles over the Vietnam War,” Historical Journal 52 (Sept. 2009), 813–29.

External links

American Ethnography – On collecting engraved Zippos from the Vietnam War

Battlefield Vietnam PBS interactive site

Casualties – U.S. vs NVA/VC

Complete text of the Gravel Edition of the Pentagon Papers with supporting documents, maps, and photos

Documents Relating to American Foreign Policy-Vietnam primary sources on U.S. involvement

The Effects of Vietnamization on the Republic of Vietnam's Armed Forces, 1969–1972

Glossary of Military Terms & Slang from the Vietnam War

History of US Interventions, by Derek, Mitchell

Impressions of Vietnam and descriptions of the daily life of a soldier from the oral history of Elliott Gardner, U.S. Army

Sober thoughts on 30 April : The South Vietnam Liberation Front and Hanoi, Myth and Reality Speech by the former Minister of Information of the Republic of Vietnam.

Stephen H. Warner Southeast Asia Photograph Collection at Gettysburg College

Timeline US – Vietnam (1947–2001) in Open-Content project

The U.S. Army in Vietnam the official history of the United States Army

UC Berkeley Library Social Activism Sound Recording Project: Anti-Vietnam War Protests

Vietnam Casualties database searchable by first name, last name and location

Vietnam War Bibliography covers online and published resources

The Vietnam War at The History Channel

Vietnam war timeline comprehensive timeline of the Vietnam War

Virtual Vietnam Archive – Texas Tech University

War, propaganda, and the media: Vietnam

Category:Cambodian Civil War Category:Cold War Category:History of Vietnam Category:Laotian Civil War Category:Military history of the United States Category:Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower Category:Presidency of Gerald Ford Category:Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson Category:Presidency of John F. Kennedy Category:Presidency of Richard Nixon Category:Revolution-based civil wars * * * Category:Wars involving Australia Category:Wars involving Cambodia Category:Wars involving Canada Category:Wars involving Germany Category:Wars involving Laos Category:Wars involving New Zealand Category:Wars involving Nicaragua Category:Wars involving North Korea Category:Wars involving the People's Republic of China Category:Wars involving the Philippines Category:Wars involving South Korea Category:Wars involving the Soviet Union Category:Wars involving Spain Category:Wars involving Thailand Category:Wars involving Vietnam

Name	Jimi Hendrix
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Johnny Allen Hendrix, renamed James Marshall Hendrix
Born	November 27, 1942Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Died	September 18, 1970Kensington, Greater London, England
Instrument	guitar, vocals, bass, drums, keyboard, percussion
Genre	Hard rock, blues-rock, acid rock, funk-rock, psychedelic rock
Occupation	Musician, songwriter, record producer
Years active	1963–1970
Label	RSVP, Track, Barclay, Polydor, Reprise, Capitol, MCA
Associated acts	Little Richard, The Isley Brothers, The Blue Flames, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, Band of Gypsys
Url	www.jimihendrix.com
Notable instruments	Fender Stratocaster, Gibson Flying V

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix, November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter. He is widely considered to be the greatest electric guitarist in the history of music, and one of the most influential musicians of his era across a range of genres.

After initial success in Europe, he achieved fame in the United States following his 1967 performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. Later, Hendrix headlined the iconic 1969 Woodstock Festival and the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. He often favored raw overdriven amplifiers with high gain and treble and helped develop the previously undesirable technique of guitar amplifier feedback. Hendrix, as well as his friend Eric Clapton, popularized use of the wah-wah pedal in mainstream rock which he often used to deliver an exaggerated pitch in his solos, particularly with high bends and use of legato. He was influenced by blues artists such as B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Albert King and Elmore James, rhythm and blues and soul guitarists Curtis Mayfield, Steve Cropper, as well as by funk and some modern jazz. As a record producer, Hendrix also broke new ground in using the recording studio as an extension of his musical ideas. He was one of the first to experiment with stereophonic phasing effects for rock recording.

Hendrix won many of the most prestigious rock music awards in his lifetime, and has been posthumously awarded many more, including being inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005. An English Heritage blue plaque was erected in his name on his former residence at Brook Street, London, in September 1997. A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (at 6627 Hollywood Blvd.) was dedicated in 1994. In 2006, his debut US album, Are You Experienced, was inducted into the United States National Recording Registry, and Rolling Stone named Hendrix the top guitarist on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all-time in 2003. He was the first person inducted into the Native American Music Hall of Fame.

Biography

Early life

Born Johnny Allen Hendrix on November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington, the first of five children to James Allen "Al" Hendrix (10 June 1919, Vancouver, British Columbia – 17 April 2002, Renton, Washington) and Lucille Jeter (12 October 1925, Seattle, Washington – 2 February 1958, Renton, Washington). His father was a soldier in the United States Army stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma at the time of his birth, before he was shipped to France in World War II. When he was two years old, his mother placed him in the temporary care of friends in the San Francisco Bay Area. His father received an honorable discharge from the U.S. Army on September 1, 1945, and retrieved his eldest son and legally changed his name to James Marshall Hendrix in memory of his late brother, Leon Marshall Hendrix. He was known as "Buster" to friends and family, from birth. After his return, Al reunited with Lucille. He found it difficult to gain steady employment after the Second World War, and the family was impoverished.

Hendrix had two brothers, Leon and Joseph, and two sisters, Kathy and Pamela. Joseph was born with physical difficulties and was placed in foster care at age three. His two sisters were also both placed in foster care at a young age. Kathy was born blind and Pamela suffered lesser physical difficulties.

On December 17, 1951, when Hendrix was nine years old, his parents divorced. The divorce was caused by Lucille's alcoholism; she developed cirrhosis of the liver and died on February 2, 1958 when the state of her liver caused her spleen to rupture. On occasion, he was placed in the care of his paternal grandmother in Vancouver, British Columbia because of the unstable household, and his brother Leon was placed in foster care temporarily. Hendrix was a shy and sensitive boy, deeply affected by the poverty and family disruption he experienced at a young age. Unusual for his era, Hendrix's high school had a relatively equitable ethnic mix of African Americans, European Americans, and Asian Americans. At age 15, around the time his mother died, he acquired his first acoustic guitar for $5 from an acquaintance of his father. This guitar replaced both the broomstick he had been strumming in imitation, and a ukulele which his father had found while cleaning a garage. Hendrix learned to play by practicing for several hours a day, watching others play, getting tips from more experienced players, and listening to records. In mid-1959, his father bought Hendrix a white Supro Ozark, his first electric guitar, but there was no available amplifier. According to fellow Seattle bandmates, he learned most of his acrobatic stage moves, a major part of the blues/R&B; tradition, including playing with his teeth and behind his back, from a fellow young musician, Raleigh "Butch" Snipes, guitarist with local band The Sharps. Hendrix himself performed Chuck Berry's trademark "duck walk" on occasion. Hendrix played in a couple of local bands, occasionally playing outlying gigs in Washington State and at least once over the border in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Hendrix was particularly fond of Elvis Presley, whom he saw perform in Seattle, in 1957. Leon Hendrix claimed in an early interview that Little Richard appeared in his Central District neighborhood and shook hands with his brother, Jimi. This is unattested elsewhere and vehemently denied by his father. Hendrix's early exposure to blues music came from listening to records by Muddy Waters and B.B. King which his father owned. Another early impression came from the 1954 western Johnny Guitar, in which the hero carries no gun but instead wears a guitar slung behind his back.

Hendrix's first gig was with an unnamed band in the basement of a synagogue, Seattle's Temple De Hirsch. After too much wild playing and showing off, he was fired between sets. The first formal band he played in was The Velvetones, who performed regularly at the Yesler Terrace Neighborhood House without pay. He later joined the Rocking Kings, who played professionally at such venues as the Birdland. When his guitar was stolen (after he left it backstage overnight), Al bought him a white Silvertone Danelectro. He painted it red and had "Betty Jean" emblazoned on it — the name of his high school girlfriend.

Hendrix completed junior high at Washington Junior High School with little trouble but did not graduate from Garfield High School. Later he was awarded an honorary diploma, and in the 1990s a bust of him was placed in the school library. After he became famous in the late 1960s, Hendrix told reporters that he had been expelled from Garfield by racist faculty for holding hands with a white girlfriend in study hall. Principal Frank Hanawalt says that it was simply due to poor grades and attendance problems.

In the Army

Hendrix got into trouble with the law twice for riding in stolen cars. He was given a choice between spending two years in prison or joining the Army. Hendrix chose the latter and enlisted on May 31, 1961. After completing basic training, he was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division and stationed in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. His commanding officers and fellow soldiers considered him to be a subpar soldier: he slept while on duty, had little regard for regulations, required constant supervision, and showed no skill as a marksman. For these reasons, his commanding officers submitted a request that Hendrix be discharged from the military after he had served only one year. Hendrix did not object when the opportunity to leave arose. He would later tell reporters that he received a medical discharge after breaking his ankle during his 26th parachute jump. The rock music journalist Charles Cross contended in his biography of Hendrix, Room Full of Mirrors (2005) that Hendrix faked being homosexual—claiming to have fallen in love with a fellow soldier—in order to be discharged, but did not produce credible evidence to support this contention.

At the base recreation center, Hendrix met fellow soldier and bass player Billy Cox, and the two forged a loyal friendship that Hendrix would call upon from April 1969 until Billy's breakdown shortly before Hendrix's death. The two would often perform with other musicians at venues both on and off the base as a loosely organized band there named the Casuals. As a celebrity in the UK, Hendrix mentioned his military service in three published interviews; one in 1967 for the film See My Music Talking (much later released under the title Experience), which was intended for TV to promote his recently released LP, in which he spoke very briefly of his first parachuting experience: "...once you get out there everything is so quiet, all you hear is the breezes-s-s-s..." This comment has later been used to claim that he was saying that this was one of the sources of his "spacy" guitar sound. The second and third mentions of his military experience were in interviews for Melody Maker in 1967 and 1969, where he spoke of his dislike of the army. In interviews in the US, Hendrix almost never mentioned it, and when Dick Cavett brought it up in his TV interview, Hendrix's only response was to verify that he had been based at Fort Campbell.

Early career

After his Army discharge, Hendrix and Army friend Billy Cox moved to nearby Clarksville, Tennessee and undertook in earnest to earn a living with their existing band. Hendrix had already seen Butch Snipes play with his teeth in Seattle and now Alphonso 'Baby Boo' Young the other guitarist in the band, was featuring this gimmick. Not to be upstaged, it was then that Hendrix learned to play with his teeth properly, according to Hendrix himself: "... the idea of doing that came to me in a town in Tennessee. Down there you have to play with your teeth or else you get shot. There’s a trail of broken teeth all over the stage..." They played mainly in low-paying gigs at obscure venues. The band eventually moved to Nashville's Jefferson Street, the traditional heart of Nashville's black community and home to a lively rhythm and blues scene. After they moved to Nashville, upon learning there was already an established band by the name "The Casuals", they amended their name to the "King Kasuals". While in Nashville, according to Cox and Larry Lee—who replaced Alphonso Young on guitar—they were basically the house band at "Club del Morocco". Hendrix and Cox shared a flat above "Joyce's House Of Glamour". Hendrix's girlfriend at this time was Joyce Lucas. Bill 'Hoss' Allen's memory of Hendrix's supposed participation in a session with Billy Cox in November 1962, in which he cut Hendrix's contribution due to his over-the-top playing, has now been called into question; a suggestion has been made that he may have confused this with a later 1965 session by Frank Howard And The Commanders in which Hendrix participated. In December 1962, Hendrix visited his relatives in Vancouver, Canada, where as a child he had sometimes lived with his grandmother. It has been claimed that while there, he performed with future members of the Motown band Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers, including Tommy Chong (of later Cheech & Chong fame). Chong, however, disputes this ever happened and that any such appearance is a product of Taylor's "imagination". In early 1963, Hendrix returned to the South. For the next two years, Hendrix made a living performing on a circuit of venues throughout the South catering to black audiences. These were venues affiliated with the Theater Owners' Booking Association (TOBA), sarcastically known as "Tough On Black Asses" because the audiences were very demanding. The TOBA circuit was also widely known as the Chitlin' Circuit. In addition to performing in his own band, he performed with Bob Fisher and the Bonnevilles, and in backing bands for various soul, R&B;, and blues musicians, including Chuck Jackson, Slim Harpo, Tommy Tucker, Sam Cooke, and Jackie Wilson. The Chitlin' Circuit was where Hendrix refined his style.

Feeling he had artistically outgrown the circuit and frustrated at following the rules of bandleaders, Hendrix decided to try his luck in New York City and in January 1964 moved into the Hotel Theresa in Harlem, where he soon befriended Lithofayne Pridgeon (known as "Faye", who became his girlfriend) and the Allen twins, Arthur and Albert (now known as Taharqa and Tunde-Ra Aleem). The Allen twins became friends and kept Hendrix out of trouble in New York. The twins also performed as backup singers (under the name Ghetto Fighters) on some of his recordings, most notably the song "Freedom". Pridgeon, a Harlem native with connections throughout the area's music scene, provided Hendrix with shelter, support, and encouragement. In February 1964, Hendrix won first prize in the Apollo Theater amateur contest. Hoping to land a gig, Hendrix made the club circuit and sat in with various bands. Eventually, Hendrix was offered the guitarist position with The Isley Brothers' back-up band and he readily accepted. Hendrix' first studio recording occurred in March 1964, when the Isley Brothers, with Hendrix as a member of the band, recorded the two-part single "Testify". Hendrix then went on tour with the Isley Brothers. "Testify" was released in June 1964, but did not make an impact on the charts. After touring as a member of the Isley Brothers until mid-late 1964, Hendrix grew dissatisfied and left the band in Nashville. There, he found work with the tour's MC "Gorgeous" George Odell. On March 1, 1964, Hendrix (then calling himself Maurice James) began recording and performing with Little Richard. Hendrix would later (1966) say, "I want to do with my guitar what Little Richard does with his voice." During a stop in Los Angeles while touring with Little Richard in 1965, Hendrix played a session for Rosa Lee Brooks on her single "My Diary". This was his first recorded involvement with Arthur Lee of the band "Love". While in L.A., he also played on the session for Little Richard's final single for Vee-Jay, "I Don't Know What You've Got, But It's Got Me". He later made his first recorded TV appearance on Nashville's Channel 5 "Night Train" with "The Royal Company" backing up "Buddy and Stacy" on "Shotgun". Hendrix clashed with Richard, over tardiness, wardrobe, and, above all, Hendrix's stage antics. He then rejoined the Isley Brothers in the summer of 1965 and recorded a second single with them, "Move Over and Let Me Dance" backed with "Have You Ever Been Disappointed" (1965 Atlantic 45-2303).

Later in 1965, Hendrix joined a New York–based R&B; band, Curtis Knight and the Squires, after meeting Knight in the lobby of the Hotel America, off Times Square, where both men were living at the time. He performed on and off with them for eight months. In October 1965, Hendrix recorded a single with Curtis Knight, "How Would You Feel" backed with "Welcome Home" (1966 RSVP 1120) and on October 15 he signed a three-year recording contract with entrepreneur Ed Chalpin, receiving 1% royalty. While the relationship with Chalpin was short-lived, his contract remained in force, which caused considerable problems for Hendrix later on in his career. The legal dispute has continued to the present day. (Several songs (and demos) from the 1965–1966 Curtis Knight recording sessions, deemed not worth releasing at the time, were marketed as "Jimi Hendrix" recordings after he became famous.) Aside from Curtis Knight and the Squires, Hendrix then toured for two months with Joey Dee and the Starliters.

In between performing with Curtis Knight in 1966, Hendrix toured and recorded with King Curtis. Hendrix recorded the two-part single "Help Me (Get the Feeling)" with Ray Sharpe and the King Curtis Orchestra (1966 Atco 45-6402) (the backing track was subsequently overdubbed by other vocalists with different lyrics and released as new songs). Later in 1966, Hendrix also recorded with Lonnie Youngblood, a saxophone player who occasionally performed with Curtis Knight. The sessions produced two singles for Youngblood: "Go Go Shoes"/"Go Go Place" (Fairmount F-1002) and "Soul Food (That's What I Like)"/"Goodbye Bessie Mae" (Fairmount F-1022). Additionally, singles for other artists came out of the sessions: The Icemen's "(My Girl) She's a Fox"/ "(I Wonder) What It Takes" (1966 SAMAR S-111) and Jimmy Norman's "You're Only Hurting Yourself"/"That Little Old Groove Maker" (1966 SAMAR S-112). As with the King Curtis recordings, backing tracks and alternate takes for the Youngblood sessions would be overdubbed and otherwise manipulated to create many "new" tracks. (Many Youngblood tracks without any Hendrix involvement would later be marketed as "Jimi Hendrix" recordings). Also around this time in 1966, Hendrix got his first composer credits for two instrumentals "Hornets Nest" and "Knock Yourself Out", released as a Curtis Knight and the Squires single (1966 RSVP 1124).

Hendrix, now going by the name Jimmy James, formed his own band, The Blue Flame, composed of Randy Palmer (bass), Danny Casey (drums), a 15-year-old guitarist who played slide and rhythm named Randy Wolfe, and the occasional stand in June 1966.

Since there were two musicians named "Randy" in the group, Hendrix dubbed Wolfe "Randy California" (as he had recently moved from there to New York City) and Palmer (a Tejano) "Randy Texas". Randy California would later co-found the band Spirit with his stepfather, drummer Ed Cassidy. It was around this time that Hendrix's only daughter Tamika was conceived with Diana Carpenter (also known as Regina Jackson), a teenage runaway and prostitute that he briefly stayed with. Her claim has not been recognized by the US courts where, after death, she may not have a claim on his estate even if she could legally prove he was her father, unless recognized previously as such by him or the courts.

Hendrix and his new band played at several places in New York, but their primary venue was a residency at the Cafe Wha? on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. The street runs along "Washington (Square) Park" which appeared in at least two of Hendrix's songs. Their last concerts were at the Cafe au Go Go, as John Hammond Jr.'s backing group, billed as "The Blue Flame". Singer-guitarist Ellen McIlwaine and guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter also claim to have briefly worked with Hendrix in this period.

In 1966, Hendrix, who played and recorded with Little Richard's band from 1964 to 1965, said, "I want to do with my guitar what Little Richard does with his voice."

The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Early in 1966 at the Cheetah Club on Broadway at 53rd Street, Linda Keith, the girlfriend of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, befriended Hendrix and recommended him to Stones' manager Andrew Loog Oldham and later, producer Seymour Stein. Neither man took a liking to Hendrix's music, and they both passed. She then referred Hendrix to Chas Chandler, who was ending his tenure as bassist in The Animals and looking for talent to manage and produce. Chandler liked the song "Hey Joe" and was convinced he could create a hit single with the right artist.

performing on Dutch television in 1967]] Impressed with Hendrix's version, Chandler brought him to London and signed him to a management and production contract with himself and ex-Animals manager Michael Jeffery. It was Chandler who came up with the spelling change of "Jimmy" to "Jimi". Chandler then helped Hendrix form a new band, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, with guitarist-turned-bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, both English musicians. Shortly before the Experience was formed, Chandler introduced Hendrix to Pete Townshend and to Eric Clapton, who had only recently helped put together Cream. At Chandler's request, Cream let Hendrix join them on stage for a jam on the song "Killing Floor". Hendrix and Clapton remained friends up until Hendrix's death. The first night he arrived in London, he began a relationship with Kathy Etchingham that lasted until February 1969. She later wrote a well received autobiographical book about their relationship and the sixties London scene in general.

Hendrix sometimes had a camp sense of humor, specifically with the song "Purple Haze". A mondegreen had appeared, in which the line "'Scuse me while I kiss the sky" was misheard as "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy." In a few performances, Hendrix humorously used this, deliberately singing "kiss this guy" while pointing to Mitch or Noel, as he did at Monterey. In the Woodstock DVD he deliberately points to the sky at this point, to make it clear. A volume of misheard lyrics has been published, using this mondegreen itself as the title, with Hendrix on the cover.

UK success

After his enthusiastically received performance at France's No. 1 venue, the Olympia theatre in Paris on the Johnny Hallyday tour, an on-stage jam with Cream, a showcase gig at the newly opened, pop-celebrity oriented nightclub Bag O'Nails and the all important appearances on the top UK TV pop shows "Ready Steady Go!" and the BBC's "Top of the Pops", word of Hendrix spread throughout the London music community in late 1966. His showmanship and virtuosity made instant fans of reigning guitar heroes Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, as well as Brian Jones and members of The Beatles and The Who, whose managers signed Hendrix to their new record label, Track Records.

Hendrix's first single was a cover of "Hey Joe", using Tim Rose's slower arrangement of the song including his addition of a female backing chorus. Backing this first 1966 "Experience" single was Hendrix's first songwriting effort, "Stone Free". Further success came in early 1967 with "Purple Haze" which featured the "Hendrix chord" and "The Wind Cries Mary". The three singles were all UK Top 10 hits and were also popular internationally including Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan (though failed to sell when released later in the US). Onstage, Hendrix was also making an impression with sped up renderings of the B.B. King hit "Rock Me Baby" and Howlin' Wolf's hit "Killing Floor".

Are You Experienced

The first Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Are You Experienced, was released in the United Kingdom on May 12, 1967 and shortly thereafter internationally, outside of USA and Canada. It contained none of the previously released (outside North America) singles or their B sides ("Hey Joe/Stone Free", "Purple Haze/51st Anniversary" and "The Wind Cries Mary/Highway Chile"). Only The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band prevented Are You Experienced from reaching No. 1 on the UK charts.

At this time, the Experience extensively toured the United Kingdom and parts of Europe. This allowed Hendrix to develop his stage presence, which reached a high point on March 31, 1967, when, booked to appear as one of the opening acts on the Walker Brothers farewell tour, he set his guitar on fire at the end of his first performance, as a publicity stunt. This guitar has now been identified as the "Zappa guitar" (previously thought to have been from Miami), which has been partly refurbished. Later, as part of this press promotion campaign, there were articles about Rank Theatre management warning him to "tone down" his "suggestive" stage act, with Chandler stating that the group would not compromise regardless. On June 4, 1967, the Experience played their last show in England, at London's Saville Theatre, before heading off to America. The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album had just been released on June 1 and two Beatles (Paul McCartney and George Harrison) were in attendance, along with a roll call of other UK rock stardom, including: Brian Epstein, Eric Clapton, Spencer Davis, Jack Bruce, and pop singer Lulu. Hendrix opened the show with his own rendering of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", rehearsed only minutes before taking the stage, much to McCartney's astonishment and delight.

, Sweden, in 1967.]] While on tour in Sweden in 1967, Hendrix jammed with the duo Hansson & Karlsson, and later opened several concerts with their song "Tax Free", also recording a cover of it during the Electric Ladyland sessions. He played there frequently throughout his career, and his only son James Daniel Sundquist was born there in 1969 to a Swede, Eva Sundquist, recognized as such by the Swedish courts and paid a settlement by Experience Hendrix LLC. He wrote a poem to a woman there (probably Sundquist). Sundquist had sent Hendrix roses on each of his opening nights in Stockholm, and began – according to the Swedish courts – a sexual relationship from then until conceiving Daniel with him, after his third visit in January 1969. Hendrix also dedicated songs to the Swedish-based Vietnam deserters organization in 1969.

Months later, Reprise Records released the US and Canadian version of Are You Experienced with a new cover by Karl Ferris, removing "Red House", "Remember" and "Can You See Me" to make room for the first three single A-sides. Where the (Rest of the World) album kicked off with "Foxy Lady", the US and Canadian one started with "Purple Haze". Both versions offered a startling introduction to the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and the album was a blueprint for what had become possible on an electric guitar, basically recorded on four tracks, mixed into mono and only modified at this point by a "fuzz" pedal, reverb and a small bit of the experimental "Octavia" pedal on "Purple Haze", produced by Roger Mayer in consultation with Hendrix. A remix using the mostly mono backing tracks with the guitar and vocal overdubs separated and occasionally panned to create a stereo mix was also released, only in the US and Canada.

US success

Although very popular internationally at this time, the Experience had yet to crack America, their first single there failed to sell. Their chance came when Paul McCartney recommended the group to the organizers of the Monterey International Pop Festival. This proved to be a great opportunity for Hendrix, not only because of the large audience present at the event, but also because of the many journalists covering the event who wrote about him. The performances were filmed by D. A. Pennebaker and later shown in some movie theaters around the country in early 1969 as the concert documentary Monterey Pop, which immortalized Hendrix's iconic burning and smashing of his guitar at the finale of his performance.

The opening song was Hendrix's very fast arrangement of Howlin' Wolf's 1965 R&B; hit "Killing Floor". He played this frequently from late 1965 through 1968, usually as the opener to his shows. The Monterey performance included an equally lively rendering of B.B. King's 1964 R&B; hit "Rock Me Baby", Tim Rose's arrangement of "Hey Joe" and Bob Dylan's 1965 Pop hit "Like a Rolling Stone". The set ended with The Troggs "Wild Thing" and Hendrix repeating the act that had boosted his profile in the UK (and internationally) with him burning his guitar on stage, then smashing it to bits and tossing pieces out to the audience. This show finally brought Hendrix to the notice of the US public. A large chunk of this guitar was on display at the Experience Music Project in Seattle, along with the other psychedelically painted Stratocaster that Hendrix smashed (but did not burn) at his farewell concert in England before he left for the US and Monterey.

At the time Hendrix was playing sets in the Scene club in NYC in July 1967, he met Frank Zappa, whose Mothers of Invention were playing the adjacent Garrick Theater, and he was reportedly fascinated by Zappa's recently purchased wah-wah pedal. Hendrix immediately bought one from Manny's and starting using it right away on the sessions for both sides of his new single, and slightly later, on several jams recorded at Ed Chalpin's studio.

Following the festival, the Experience played a series of concerts at Bill Graham's Fillmore replacing the original headliners Jefferson Airplane at the top of the bill. It was at this time that Hendrix became acquainted with future musical collaborator Stephen Stills, and reacquainted himself with Buddy Miles who introduced Hendrix to his future partner, Devon Wilson. She had a turbulent on/off relationship with him, right up to the night of his death, and was the only one of his partners to record with him. She died only six months after Hendrix under mysterious circumstances, apparently falling from an upper window in the Chelsea Hotel.

Following this very successful West Coast introduction, which also included two open air concerts (one of them a free concert in the "panhandle" of Golden Gate Park) and a concert at the Whisky a Go Go, they were booked as one of the opening acts for pop group The Monkees on their first American tour. The Monkees asked for Hendrix because they were fans, but their (mostly early teens) audience sometimes did not warm to their act, and he quit the tour after a few dates. Chas Chandler later admitted that being thrown off the Monkees tour was engineered to gain maximum media impact and publicity for Hendrix, similar to that gained from the manufactured Rank Theatre's indecency dispute on the earlier UK Walker Brothers tour. At the time, a story circulated claiming that Hendrix was removed from the tour because of complaints made by the Daughters of the American Revolution that his stage conduct was "lewd and indecent". This report was concocted by a journalist accompanying the tour, the Australian Lillian Roxon.

Meanwhile in Western Europe, where Hendrix was appreciated for his authentic blues as well as his hit singles and recognized for his avant-garde musical ideas, his wild-man image and musical gimmickry (such as playing the guitar with his teeth and behind his back) had faded; but they later plagued him in the US following Monterey. He became frustrated by the US media and audience when they concentrated on his stage tricks and best known songs.

Axis: Bold as Love

The Jimi Hendrix Experience's second 1967 album, was his first recording made for stereo release and used panning and other stereo effects. It continued the style established by Are You Experienced. The opening track, "EXP", featured a stereo effect in which a sound emanating from Hendrix's guitar appeared to revolve around the listener, fading out into the distance from the right channel, then returning in on the left. This album marked the first time Hendrix recorded the whole album with his guitar tuned down one half-step, to E, which he used exclusively thereafter and was his first to feature the wah-wah pedal. A mishap almost delayed the album's pre-Christmas release: Hendrix lost the master tape of side one of the LP, leaving it in the back seat of a London taxi. With the release deadline looming, Hendrix, Chas Chandler and engineer Eddie Kramer had to remix most of side one in an overnight session, but they couldn't match the lost mix of "If 6 was 9". They soon learned that bassist Noel Redding had a tape recording of this mix. The tape had to be smoothed out as it had gotten wrinkled. Hendrix was disappointed that the album had to be finished so quickly and felt it could have been better, given more time. He was also somewhat disappointed in the album cover art work, which depicts Hendrix and his Experience bandmates as the various forms of Vishnu, incorporating a painting of them by Roger Law (from a photo-portrait by Karl Ferris). Hendrix remarked that it would have been more appropriate if the cover had highlighted his American Indian heritage.

The album was released in the UK near the end of their first headlining tour there, after which the pace slowed briefly during the Christmas holidays. In January 1968 the group went to Sweden for a short tour, and after the first show Hendrix, reportedly after drinking and according to Hendrix his drink being spiked, went berserk and smashed up his hotel room in a rage, injuring his hand and culminating in his arrest. Then on the 6th in Denmark his famous hat was stolen. The rest of the tour was uneventful, though Hendrix had to spend some time in Sweden waiting for his trial and eventual large fine.

Electric Ladyland

Hendrix's third recording, the double album Electric Ladyland (1968), was a departure from previous efforts. Following his third and penultimate French concert at the Paris Olympia, Hendrix flew to the US to start his first tour there, and after two months returned to his Electric Ladyland project at the newly opened Record Plant Studios with engineers Eddie Kramer and Gary Kellgren and initially Chas Chandler as producer.

As the album's recording progressed, Chas Chandler became so frustrated with Hendrix's perfectionism and with various friends and guests milling about the studio that he decided to sever his professional relationship with Hendrix. Chandler's departure had a clear impact on the artistic direction that the recording took.

Hendrix began experimenting with different combinations of musicians and instruments, and modern electronic effects. For example, Dave Mason, Chris Wood, and Steve Winwood from the band Traffic, drummer Buddy Miles and former Bob Dylan organist Al Kooper, among others, were involved in the recording sessions. He described how Hendrix went from a disciplined recording regimen to an erratic schedule, which often saw him beginning recording sessions in the middle of the night and with any number of guests.

Chandler also expressed exasperation at the number of times Hendrix would insist on rerecording particular tracks; the song "Gypsy Eyes" was reportedly recorded 43 times. This was also frustrating for bassist Noel Redding, who would often leave the studio to calm himself, only to return and find that Hendrix had recorded the bass parts himself during Redding's absence.

Electric Ladyland includes "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)" as well as Hendrix's rendering of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower".

Throughout the four years of his fame, Hendrix often appeared at impromptu jams with various musicians, such as B.B. King. In March 1968, Jim Morrison of The Doors joined Hendrix onstage at New York's Scene Club. Albums of this Electric Ladyland-era bootleg recording were released under various titles, some falsely claiming the presence of Johnny Winter, who has denied, several times, being a participant at that jam session, and to ever having met Morrison.

Breakup of Jimi Hendrix Experience

After a year based in the US, Hendrix temporarily moved back to London and into his girlfriend Kathy Etchingham's rented Brook Street flat, next door to the Handel House Museum, in the West End of London. During this time The Jimi Hendrix Experience toured Scandinavia, Germany, and included a final French concert. They later performed two sold-out concerts at London's Royal Albert Hall on February 18 and February 24, 1969, which were the last European appearances of this line-up of the "Jimi Hendrix Experience". A Gold and Goldstein-produced film titled Experience was also recorded at these two shows, which, according to Experience Hendrix LLC, "Elements of these recordings are sure to be utilized when the official release of this material is finally made."

Noel Redding felt increasingly frustrated by the fact that he was not playing his original and favored instrument, the guitar. In 1968, he decided to form his own band, Fat Mattress, which would sometimes open for the Experience (Hendrix would jokingly refer to them as "Thin Pillow"). Redding and Hendrix would begin seeing less and less of each other, which also had an effect in the studio, with Hendrix playing many of the bass parts on Electric Ladyland.

Fruitless recording sessions at Olympic in London; Olmstead and the Record Plant in New York that ended on April 9, which only produced a remake of Stone Free for a possible single release, were the last to feature Redding. Hendrix then flew Billy Cox to New York and started recording and rehearsing with him on April 21 as a replacement for Noel.

In a recorded interview by Nancy Carter on June 15 at his hotel in Los Angeles, Hendrix announced that he had been recording with Cox and that he would be replacing Noel as bass player in "The Jimi Hendrix Experience".

The last Experience concert took place on June 29, 1969 at Barry Fey's Denver Pop Festival, a three-day event held at Denver's Mile High Stadium that was marked by police firing tear gas into the audience as they played "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)". The band escaped from the venue in the back of a rental truck which was partly crushed by fans trying to escape the tear gas. The next day, Noel Redding announced that he had quit the Experience.

Gypsy Sun and Rainbows

After the departure of Noel Redding from the group, Hendrix rented the eight-bedroom 'Ashokan House' in the hamlet of Boiceville near Woodstock in upstate New York, where he spent some time in mid-1969. Manager Michael Jeffery, who had a house in Woodstock, arranged the stay, with hopes that the respite would produce a new album. To replace Redding as bassist, Hendrix had been rehearsing and recording with Billy Cox, his old and trusted Army buddy, since at least April 21.

Woodstock

Mitchell was unavailable to help fulfill Hendrix's commitments at this time, which include his first appearance on US TV – on the Dick Cavett show – where he was backed by the studio orchestra, and an appearance on The Tonight Show where he appeared with his new bass player Billy Cox, and session drummer Ed Shaughnessy sitting in for Mitchell. Mitchell returned in time for the Woodstock music festival on August 18, 1969, for which—in an effort to expand his sound beyond the power trio format—Hendrix then added rhythm guitarist Larry Lee (another old friend from his R&B; days), and percussionists Juma Sultan and Jerry Velez. , Woodstock, 1969]]

They recorded some jam-based material such as "Jam Back at the House", "Shokan Sunrise" (posthumous title for untitled jam), "Villanova Junction", and early renderings of the funk-driven centerpieces of Hendrix's post-Experience sound: "Machine Gun", "Message to Love" and "Izabella".

Bad weather and logistical problems caused long delays, so that Hendrix did not appear on stage until Monday morning. By this time, the audience (which had peaked at over 500,000 people) had been reduced to, at most, 180,000, many of whom merely waited to catch a glimpse of Hendrix before leaving. Festival MC Chip Monck introduced the band as "The Jimi Hendrix Experience", but Hendrix quickly corrected this to "Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, for short it's nothin’ but ‘A Band Of’ Gypsies" and launched into a two hour set, the longest of his career. As well as the two percussionists, the performance notably featured Larry Lee performing two songs and Lee sometimes soloing while Hendrix played rhythm in places. Most of this has been edited out of the officially released recordings, including Lee's two songs, reducing the sound to basically a three piece. The concert was relatively free of the technical difficulties that frequently plagued Hendrix's performances, although one of his guitar strings snapped while performing "Red House", which he played through. The band, unused to playing large audiences and exhausted after being up all night, could not always keep up with Hendrix's pace, but in spite of this the guitarist managed to deliver a memorable performance, climaxing with his rendering of "The Star-Spangled Banner", an improvisation since regarded as a defining moment of the 1960s.

This expanded band did not last long. After the Woodstock festival they appeared on only two more occasions. The first was a street benefit in Harlem where, in a scenario similar to the festival, most of the audience had left and only a fraction remained by the time Hendrix took the stage. Within seconds of Hendrix arriving at the site two youths had stolen his guitar from the back seat of his car, although it was later recovered. The band's only other appearance was at the Salvation club in Greenwich Village, New York. After some studio recordings, Hendrix disbanded the group. Some of this band's recordings can be heard on the MCA Records box set The Jimi Hendrix Experience and on South Saturn Delta. Their final work together was a session on September 6. Hendrix's September 9 appearance on TV's The Dick Cavett Show, backed by Cox, Mitchell and Juma Sultan, was credited as the "Jimi Hendrix Experience".

Band of Gypsys

In 1967, a contractual dispute arose in relation to an agreement Hendrix had entered into with producer Ed Chalpin in 1965. The resolution for the dispute included Hendrix having to record an LP of new material for Chalpin company, which wouldn't feature the Experience band, and wouldn't be associated with the Experience band name. In addition, Chalpin was granted 2% of profits from Hendrix's back catalog sold in US. For the agreed upon album, Hendrix chose to record Band of Gypsys, a live album.

Along with Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles (formerly with Wilson Pickett and The Electric Flag) with whom he had been jamming together since September, Hendrix wrote and rehearsed material which they then performed at a series of four concerts over two nights, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day at Fillmore East. The second night produced the material for the Band Of Gypsys LP, which was produced by Hendrix (under the name "Heaven Research").

The Band of Gypsys LP was the only official completely live LP released in Hendrix's lifetime. The band also released a single "Stepping Stone" which failed to sell, and recorded several studio songs slated for Hendrix's future LP. In 1999, the tapes from the four Fillmore concerts were remastered and additional tracks and edits were released as Live at the Fillmore East. Litigation with Chalpin ended in 2007 after the "singularly uncredible witness" was fined nearly $900,000 for failure to abide by contractual limitations and failure to pay Experience Hendrix L.L.C. its court ordered royalties.

On January 26 and 27, 1970, Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding flew into New York and signed contracts with Jeffery for the upcoming Jimi Hendrix Experience tour. The next day, a second and final Band of Gypsys appearance occurred at a twelve-act show in Madison Square Garden which was a benefit for the massively popular anti-Vietnam War Moratorium Committee, titled the "Winter Festival for Peace". Similar to Woodstock, set delays forced Hendrix to take the stage at an inopportune 3 a.m., only this time he was obviously in no shape to play. He played "Who Knows" before snapping a vulgar response at a woman who shouted a request for "Foxy Lady". He played a second song, "Earth Blues", he then told the audience: "That's what happens when earth fucks with space—never forget that". He then sat down on the drum riser for a minute and then walked off stage. Various unverifiable assertions have been proffered to explain this bizarre scene. Buddy Miles claimed that manager Michael Jeffery dosed Hendrix with LSD in an effort to sabotage the current band and bring about the return of the Experience lineup. But none of Hendrix's other close associates verifies his statement.

Cry of Love tour

A week after the botched Band of Gypsys show, Hendrix, Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding gave an interview to Rolling Stone for the upcoming tour dates as a reunited Jimi Hendrix Experience. But Redding never even got to rehearse, as Hendrix just continued to work with Billy Cox. Noel was not told he wasn't going to be playing until the pretour rehearsals. Fans refer to this final "Jimi Hendrix Experience" lineup as the "Cry of Love" band, named after The Cry of Love Tour to distinguish it from the original. Billy Cox has countered on several occasions that this lineup considered themselves "The Jimi Hendrix Experience" before they even went on tour and that any other title is bogus. All billing, adverts, tickets etc. on the tour used "Jimi Hendrix Experience" or occasionally, as previously, just "Jimi Hendrix".

Two of Hendrix's later recordings were the lead guitar parts on "Old Times Good Times" from Stephen Stills hit eponymous album (1970), and on "The Everlasting First" from Arthur Lee's new incarnation of Love's, not so successful and aptly named LP False Start both tracks were recorded with these old friends on a fleeting and unexplained visit to London in March 1970, following Kathy Etchingham's marriage.

He spent the next four months of 1970 working on his next LP tentatively titled First Rays of the New Rising Sun, recording during the week and playing live on the weekends. The "Cry of Love" tour, launched that April at the L.A. Forum, was partly undertaken to earn money to repay the Warner Bros loan for completing his Electric Lady Studios. Performances on this tour featured Hendrix, Cox, and Mitchell playing new material alongside older audience favourites. The USA leg of the tour included 30 performances and ended at Honolulu, Hawaii on August 1, 1970. A number of these shows were recorded and produced some of Hendrix's most memorable live performances.

Electric Lady Studios

In 1968, Hendrix and Jeffery had invested jointly in the purchase of the Generation Club in Greenwich Village. Their initial plans to reopen the club were scrapped when the pair decided that the investment would serve them much better as a recording studio. The studio fees for the lengthy Electric Ladyland sessions were astronomical, and Hendrix was constantly in search of a recording environment that suited him. In August 1970, Electric Lady Studios was opened in New York.

Designed by architect and acoustician John Storyk, the studio was made specifically for Hendrix, with round windows and a machine capable of generating ambient lighting in a myriad of colors. It was designed to have a relaxing feel to encourage Hendrix's creativity, but at the same time provide a professional recording atmosphere. Engineer Eddie Kramer upheld this by refusing to allow any drug use during session work.

Hendrix spent only two and a half months recording in Electric Lady, most of which took place while the final phases of construction were still ongoing. Following a recording/dubbing session on August 26, an opening party was held later that day. He then boarded an Air India flight for London with Billy Cox, joining Mitch Mitchell to perform at the Isle of Wight Festival.

European tour

The group then commenced the European leg of the tour. Longing for his new studio and creative outlets, the tour was a commitment that Hendrix was not eager to perform. In Aarhus, Hendrix abandoned his show after only two songs, remarking: "I've been dead a long time". In the months before Hendrix's death, a British music paper alleged that Hendrix had plans to join the band Emerson, Lake & Palmer. On September 6, 1970, his final concert performance, Hendrix was greeted with some booing and jeering by fans at the Isle of Fehmarn Festival in Germany, due to his non-appearance at the end of the previous nights bill, (due to the torrential rain and risk of electrocution). Several acts played after he left the stage, later part of the stage was burnt during the first stage appearance of Ton Steine Scherben. Billy Cox quit the tour and headed home to Memphis, Tennessee, reportedly suffering paranoia after taking LSD or being given it unknowingly, earlier in the tour.

Hendrix returned to London, where he reportedly spoke to Chas Chandler, Eric Burdon, and others about leaving his manager, Michael Jeffery. Hendrix's last public performance was an informal jam at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in Soho with Burdon and his latest band, War.

Death

Early on September 18, 1970, Jimi Hendrix died in London. He had spent the latter part of the previous evening at a party and was picked up by girlfriend Monika Dannemann and driven to her flat at the Samarkand Hotel, 22 Lansdowne Crescent, Notting Hill. According to the estimated time of death, from autopsy data and statements by friends about the evening of September 17, he died within a few hours after midnight, though no precise estimate was made at the original inquest.

Dannemann claimed in her original testimony that after they returned to her lodgings the evening before, Hendrix, unknown to her, had taken nine of her prescribed Vesperax sleeping pills. The normal medical dose was half a tablet, but Hendrix was unfamiliar with this very strong German brand. According to surgeon John Bannister, the doctor who initially attended to him, Hendrix had asphyxiated in his own vomit, mainly red wine which had filled his airways, as an autopsy later confirmed. For years, Dannemann publicly claimed that she had only discovered that her lover was unconscious and unresponsive sometime after 9 a.m., that Hendrix was alive when placed in the back of the ambulance after half past eleven, and that she rode with him on the way to the hospital; the latter two are denied by the ambulance crew. However, Dannemann's comments about that morning were often contradictory, varying from interview to interview. Police and ambulance statements reveal that there was no one but Hendrix in the flat when they arrived at 11:27 a.m., and not only was he dead when they arrived on the scene, but was fully clothed and had been dead for some time.

Later, Dannemen claimed that former road managers Gerry Stickels and Eric Barrett had been present before the ambulance was called and had removed some of Hendrix's possessions, including some of his most recent messages. Lyrics written by Hendrix, which were found in the apartment, led Eric Burdon to make a premature announcement on the BBC-TV program 24 Hours that he believed Hendrix had committed suicide. Burdon often claimed he had been telephoned by Dannemann after she discovered that Jimi failed to wake up.

Following a libel case brought in 1996 by Hendrix's long-term English girlfriend Kathy Etchingham, Monika Dannemann committed suicide.

Allegations of murder

A former Animals "roadie," James "Tappy" Wright, published a book in May 2009 claiming Hendrix's manager, Mike Jeffery, admitted to him that he had Hendrix killed because the rock star wanted to end his management contract. John Bannister, the doctor who attended the scene of his death in 1970 stated in 2009 that it "sounded plausible".

It was claimed that Mike Jeffery was not "in London," he was in Spain when Jimi died in London on September 18, 1970.

"There was a freak storm across Mallorca and all the phone lines were down. Somebody told Mike that Jimi had been trying to phone him. The first call that got through was to say Jimi was dead. Mike was terribly upset at the thought of Jimi not being able to get through to him." - Trixie Sullivan, secretary/assistant for Mike Jeffery

Fashion

on display at the Hard Rock Cafe, Hollywood]] Hendrix was well known for his unique sense of fashion and wardrobe and his Dylan-esque (c. 1966) hairstyle. A set of hair curlers was one of the few possessions that traveled with him to England when he was first discovered in 1966. When his first advance check arrived, Hendrix immediately took to the streets of London in search of clothing at famous boutiques like I Was Lord Kitchener's Valet and Granny Takes a Trip, both of which specialized in vintage fashion. He purchased at least two army dress uniform jackets, including an old Hussar's jacket adorned with tasseled ropes. A group of policemen once ordered him to remove a Royal Veterinary Corps dress jacket, saying it was an offense to the men who had worn it.

Many photographs of Hendrix show him wearing various scarves, rings, medallions, and brooches, and in the early days occasionally badges (pins or buttons) that professed his support for the hippie movement or his fascination with Bob Dylan. He initially wore a dark suit and plain silk shirts that progressively became "louder" and more psychedelically patterned. He later favored a bright blue velvet suit, then a bright red one, antique military dress jackets, a very broadly striped suit, psychedelically patterned silk jackets, various exotic waistcoats and brightly colored flared trousers. At Monterey, he wore a hand-painted silk jacket by Chris Jagger (Mick Jagger's brother) and a bright pink feather boa. In late 1967 he started to wear a wide-brimmed Western style hat (brand name "The Westerner"). It was adorned with a narrow purple band and various brooches, as shown in the original Jimi Plays Monterey film. This hat was stolen in 1968, and replaced later with another, crowned variously with a longer purple scarf, a star-like brooch in front and a set of silver bangles, sometimes with an angled feather, though he went hatless for protracted periods after this.

From late 1968 he began tying scarves to one leg and one arm, and in mid-1969 he gave up the hat for bandanas. He started wearing increasingly fantastic custom-made stage costume with long trailing sleeves, culminating in his African-styled "Fire Angel" outfit that he wore throughout most of his final "Cry Of Love" tour, until it began to come apart during the Isle of Wight concert. He appeared in this outfit only once more (in just the jacket) at the disastrous concert in Aarhus, Denmark. His only non-work-related vacation was a two-week trip to Morocco in July 1969 with friends Colette Mimram, Stella Benabou (the then-wife of producer Alan Douglas), and Deering Howe. Upon his return Hendrix decorated his Greenwich Village apartment with Moroccan objets d'art and fabrics. Mimram and Benabou created some of Hendrix's most memorable later attire, the shortened blue kimono-style jacket that he wore in three TV appearances and the white fringed jacket, ornamented with blue glass beads, he wore at the Woodstock Festival.

Drug use and women

of the drug possession charges.]] Hendrix is widely known for and associated with the use of psychedelic drugs, most notably lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), as were many other famous musicians and celebrities of that time. He supposedly had never taken psychedelic drugs until the night he met Linda Keith, but smoked cannabis and drank alcohol previously. Amphetamines are also recorded as being used by Hendrix during tours. Hendrix was notorious among friends and bandmates for sometimes becoming angry and violent when he drank too much alcohol. Kathy Etchingham spoke of an incident that took place in a London pub in which an intoxicated Hendrix beat her with a public telephone handset because he thought she was calling another man on the pay phone. Carmen Borrero, another girlfriend, says she required stitches after he hit her with a bottle after drinking and becoming jealous. Alcohol was also cited as the cause of Hendrix's 1968 rampage that badly damaged a Stockholm hotel room and led to his arrest. Paul Caruso's friendship with Hendrix ended in 1970 when Hendrix, while under the influence, punched him and accused him of stealing from him.

On May 3, 1969, while checking through Canadian customs at Toronto Pearson International Airport, Hendrix was arrested when small amounts of heroin and hashish were found in his luggage. After being released on a $10,000 cash bail the same day, only four hours before his show was to begin, (and being required to appear in court at a later date), the Experience were able to play their concert at Maple Leaf Gardens.

In his trial defense, Hendrix claimed that the drugs were slipped into his bag by a fan without his knowledge. He was acquitted.

Once he became a star, he entertained groupies and reportedly had casual sex with hundreds of women.

Gravesite

Hendrix's body was returned to Seattle and he was interred in Greenwood Memorial Park, Renton, Washington. As the popularity of Hendrix and his music grew over the decades following his death, concerns began to mount over fans damaging the adjoining graves at Greenwood, and the growing, extended Hendrix family further prompted his father to create an expanded memorial site separate from other burial sites in the park. The memorial was announced in late 1999, but Al Hendrix's deteriorating health led to delays and he died two months before its scheduled completion in 2002. Later that year, the remains of Jimi Hendrix, his father Al Hendrix, and grandmother Nora Rose Moore Hendrix were moved to the new site. The headstone contains a depiction of a Fender Stratocaster guitar, the instrument he was most famed for using —– although the guitar is shown right-side up, rather than the way Hendrix played it, upside down (left-handed).

The memorial is a granite dome supported by three pillars under which Jimi Hendrix and other family members are interred. Hendrix's autograph is inscribed at the base of each pillar, while two stepped entrances and one ramped entrance provide access to the dome's center where the original Stratocaster adorned headstone has been incorporated into a statue pedestal. A granite sundial complete with brass gnomon adjoins the dome, along with over 50 family plots that surround the central structure, half of which are currently adorned with raised granite headstones.

To date, the memorial remains incomplete: brass accents for the dome and a large brass statue of Hendrix were announced as being under construction in Italy, but since 2002, no information as to the status of the project has been revealed to the public. A memorial statue of Jimi playing a Stratocaster stands near the corner of Broadway and Pine Streets in Seattle.

In May 2006, the city of Seattle honored Hendrix with the re-naming of a park near Seattle's Colman School in the Central District.

Recordings

Hendrix's recordings were originally released in North America on Reprise Records (a division of Warner Communications) from 1967 until 1993 and were released Internationally (outside of US & Canada) on Polydor Records. (Because it was recorded to settle a legal dispute, the Band of Gypsys album was released on Capitol Records in US & Canada.) British releases of all his albums up to and including The Cry Of Love were first issued on the independent label Track Records, which was originally created by the managers of The Who. The label was later absorbed by Polydor.

In 1994, the Hendrix family prevailed in its long standing legal attempt to gain control of Jimi's music, and subsequently licensed the recordings to MCA Records (later Universal Music) through the family-run company Experience Hendrix. In August 2009, Experience Hendrix announced that it had entered a new licensing agreement with Sony Music Entertainment's Legacy Recordings division which would take effect in 2010.

Unfinished work and posthumous releases

Reports that Hendrix's tapes for a concept album Black Gold had been stolen and lost from the London flat, are incorrect. Hendrix gave those tapes to Mitch Mitchell at the Isle of Wight Festival three weeks prior to his death. They are now in the possession of Experience Hendrix LLC.

Hendrix's unfinished album was partly released as the 1971 title The Cry of Love. The album was well received and charted in several countries. However, the album's producers, Mitchell and Kramer, would later complain that they were unable to make use of all the tracks they wanted. This was due to some tracks being used for 1971's Rainbow Bridge and 1972's War Heroes for contractual reasons.

Material from The Cry of Love was rereleased in 1997 as First Rays of the New Rising Sun, along with the rest of the tracks that Mitchell and Kramer wanted to include.

Many of Hendrix's personal items, tapes, and many pages of lyrics and poems are now in the hands of private collectors and have attracted considerable sums at the occasional auctions. These materials surfaced after two employees, under the instructions of Mike Jeffery, removed items from Hendrix's Greenwich Village apartment following his death.

In 2010, Legacy Recordings and Experience Hendrix LLC launched the 2010 Jimi Hendrix Catalog Project, starting with the release of Valleys of Neptune in March. Legacy has also released deluxe CD/DVD editions of the Hendrix albums Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold As Love, Electric Ladyland and First Rays of the New Rising Sun, as well as the 1968 compilation album Smash Hits. and Davis would later want guitarists in his bands to emulate Hendrix. Hendrix was ranked number 3 on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock behind Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.

Hendrix's guitar style also had significanct influence upon future ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons and fellow Texas guitar legend Stevie Ray Vaughn.

Hendrix was ranked number 3 on VH1's list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock N' Roll, behind the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. He has been voted by Rolling Stone, Guitar World, and a number of other magazines and polls as the best electric guitarist of all time.

Guitar World's readers voted six of Hendrix's solos among the top "100 Greatest" of all time: "Purple Haze" (70), "The Star-Spangled Banner" (52), "Machine Gun" (32), "Little Wing" (18), "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" (11) and "All Along the Watchtower (5).

In 1992, Hendrix was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Financial

When Al Hendrix died of congestive heart failure in 2002, his will stipulated that Experience Hendrix, LLC was to exist as a trust designed to distribute profits to a list of Hendrix family beneficiaries. Upon his death, it was revealed that Al had signed a revision to his will which removed Hendrix's brother Leon Hendrix as a beneficiary. A 2004 probate lawsuit merged Leon's challenge to the will with charges from other Hendrix family beneficiaries that Janie Hendrix, Al's adopted daughter, was improperly handling the company finances. The suit argued that Janie and a cousin of Jimi Hendrix (Robert Hendrix) paid themselves exorbitant salaries and covered their own mortgages and personal expenses from the company's coffers while the beneficiaries went without payment and the Hendrix gravesite in Renton went uncompleted.

Janie and Robert's defense was that the company was not profitable yet, and that their salary and benefits were justified given the work that they put into running the company. Leon charged that Janie bilked Al Hendrix, then old and frail, into signing the revised will, and sought to have the previous will reinstated. The defense argued that Al willingly removed Leon from his will because of Leon's problems with alcohol and gambling. In early 2005, presiding judge Jeffrey Ramsdell handed down a ruling that left the final will intact, but replaced Janie and Robert's role at the financial helm of Experience Hendrix with an independent trustee.

The Jimi Hendrix Foundation

In 1987, Leon Hendrix commissioned the James (Jimi) Marshall Hendrix Foundation. This foundation is based in Renton, Washington. Though run for some time by Jimi's brother Leon Hendrix, in August, 2006 Leon asked a childhood friend of Jimi Hendrix – James (Jimmy) Williams, to take control of the Foundation.

Guitar

Fender Stratocaster

Hendrix owned and used a variety of guitars during his career. His guitar of choice however, and the instrument that became most associated with him, was the Fender Stratocaster. He started playing the model in 1966 and thereafter used it prevalently in his stage performances and recordings.

Hendrix bought many Stratocasters and gave some away as gifts. The original sunburst Stratocaster that Hendrix burnt at the Astoria in 1967, and that he kept as a souvenir, was given to Frank Zappa by a Hendrix roadie at the 1968 Miami Pop Festival; Zappa assumed it was the one Hendrix had played there.

Hendrix used right-handed guitars, turned upside down and restrung for left-hand playing. This had an important effect on his guitar sound: because of the slant of the Strat's bridge pickup, his lowest string had a bright sound while his highest string had a mellow sound, the opposite of the Stratocaster's intended design. Heavy use of the tremolo bar necessitated frequent tuning; Hendrix often asked the audience for a "minute to tune up", as heard on many live bootlegs of his performances.

In addition to Stratocasters, Hendrix was also photographed playing Fender Jazzmasters, Duosonics, two different Gibson Flying Vs, a Gibson Les Paul, three Gibson SGs, a Gretsch Corvette he used at the 1967 Curtis Knight sessions and miming with a right strung Fender Jaguar on the "Top Of The Pop's" TV show, as well as several other brands. Hendrix borrowed a Fender Telecaster from Noel Redding to record "Hey Joe" and "Purple Haze", used a white Gibson SG Custom for his performances on the Dick Cavett show in the summer of 1969, and the Isle of Wight film shows him playing his second Gibson Flying V. While Jimi had previously owned a Flying V that he'd painted with a psychedelic design, the Flying V used at the Isle of Wight was a unique custom left-handed guitar with gold plated hardware, a bound fingerboard and "split-diamond" fret markers that were not found on other 60s-era Flying Vs.

On December 4, 2006, one of Hendrix's 1968 Fender Stratocaster guitars with a sunburst design was sold at a Christie's auction for USD$168,000.

Amplifiers and effects

Hendrix was a catalyst in the development of modern guitar effects pedals. His high volume and use of feedback required robust and powerful amplifiers. For the first few rehearsals he used Vox and Fender amplifiers. Sitting in with Cream, Hendrix played through a new range of high-powered guitar amps being made by London drummer turned audio engineer Jim Marshall, and they proved perfect for his needs. Along with the Stratocaster, the Marshall stack and amplifiers were crucial in shaping his heavily overdriven sound, enabling him to master the use of feedback as a musical effect, and he created a "definitive vocabulary for rock guitar."

While his mainstays were the Arbiter Fuzz Face and a Vox wah-wah pedal, Hendrix experimented with guitar effects as well. He had a fruitful association with engineer Roger Mayer who later went on to make the Axis fuzz unit, the Octavia octave doubler and several other devices based on units Mayer had created or tweaked for Hendrix. The Japanese-made Univibe, designed to simulate the modulation effects of the rotating Leslie speaker, provided a rich phasing sound with a speed control pedal, and is heard on the Band of Gypsys track "Machine Gun," which highlights use of the univibe, octavia and fuzz face pedals.

The Hendrix sound combined high volume and high power, feedback manipulation, and a range of cutting-edge guitar effects. He was also known for his trick playing, which included playing with only his right (fretting) hand and using his teeth or playing behind his back and between his legs. Hendrix had large hands and characteristically used his thumb to fret bass notes, leaving his fingers free to play melodic lines on top. A clear demonstration of this thumb technique can be witnessed in the Woodstock video; during the song Red House there are closeups of Hendrix's fretting hand.

Discography

The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Are You Experienced (1967)

(1967)

Electric Ladyland (1968)

Jimi Hendrix/Band of Gypsys

Band of Gypsys (1970) [recorded live]

Posthumous studio albums

The Cry of Love (1971)

Rainbow Bridge (1971)

War Heroes (1972)

Loose Ends (1974)

Crash Landing (1975)

Midnight Lightning (1975)

Nine to the Universe (1980)

Radio One (1988)

First Rays of the New Rising Sun (1997)

South Saturn Delta (1997)

Valleys of Neptune (2010)

See also

Eire Apparent

Electric Church

Rainbow Bridge (film) Maui, Hawaii, 1970

Citations

Further reading

Charles R. Cross, ''Room Full Of Mirrors: A Biography Of Jimi Hendrix, 2005: ISBN 1401300286

Gary Geldeart & Steve Rodham, "From The Benjamin Franklin Studios 3rd Edition Parts 1, 2 & 3" 2008

Curtis Knight, Jimi: An Intimate Biography of Jimi Hendrix, Praegar Publishers, New York, 1974. The book includes A Jimi Hendrix Discography, compiled by John McKellar.

John Kruth, Bright Moments: The Life & Legacy of Rahsaan Roland Kirk, 2004: ISBN 1566491053

Mark Lewisohn, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, Hamlyn 1988: ISBN 0600612074. See pp. 164–5 re Apple recording studio.

Ken Matesich, Jimi Hendrix: A Discography, 1982

David Stubbs, Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child: The Stories Behind Every Song, 2003

Brad Tolinski and Ross Halfin, Classic Hendrix: The Ultimate Hendrix Experience, Genesis Publications 2004

External links

Official website

Jimpress Magazine

Univibes Magazine

Jimi Hendrix at MySpace

Jimi Hendrix Exhibition - slideshow by The First Post

"Jimi Hendrix: 'You never told me he was that good'" Ed Vulliamy, The Guardian

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