1961

• Dec 11, A U.S. aircraft carrier carrying Army helicopters arrived in Saigon. This was the first direct American military support for South Vietnam's battle against Communist guerrillas. JFK provided 425 US military helicopter crewmen to South Vietnam to provide training and support for South  Vietnamese forces

1962

• A covert operation was launched by the CIA to infiltrate North Vietnam. The Saigon station led by William Colby began recruiting Vietnamese commandos who could speak the local dialects. The operation was taken over by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1964 and run by colonels of the military’s Special Operations Group. In Dec 1965 the colonels began crossing off the names of some 200 missing commandos and listed them as dead. In 1996 the financial records of the operation, known as OPLAN 34-A, were declassified at the request of John Mattes, a lawyer representing 300 living commandos.