Vietnam Photo Gallery

In this June 18, 1965 file photo, an unidentified U.S. Army soldier wears a hand lettered "War Is Hell" slogan on his helmet, in Vietnam. The war ended on April 30, 1975, with the fall of Saigon, now known as Ho Chi Minh City, to communist troops from the north.

In this June 15, 1967 file photo, American infantrymen crowd into a mud-filled bomb crater and look up at tall jungle trees seeking out Viet Cong snipers firing at them during a battle in Phuoc Vinh, north-Northeast of Saigon in Vietnam's War Zone D. The war ended on April 30, 1975, with the fall of Saigon, now known as Ho Chi Minh City, to communist troops from the north.

In this March 17, 1973 file photo, released prisoner of war Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm is greeted by his family at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, Calif., as he returns home from the Vietnam War. The war ended on April 30, 1975, with the fall of Saigon, now known as Ho Chi Minh City, to communist troops from the north.

South Vietnamese Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, chief of the national police, fires his pistol into the head of suspected Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem (also known as Bay Lop) on a Saigon street Feb. 1, 1968, early in the Tet Offensive.

South Vietnamese forces follow after terrified children, including 9-year-old Kim Phuc, center, as they run down Route 1 near Trang Bang after an aerial napalm attack on suspected Viet Cong hiding places on June 8, 1972. A South Vietnamese plane accidentally dropped its flaming napalm on South Vietnamese troops and civilians. The terrified girl had ripped off her burning clothes while fleeing. The children from left to right are: Phan Thanh Tam, younger brother of Kim Phuc, who lost an eye, Phan Thanh Phouc, youngest brother of Kim Phuc, Kim Phuc, and Kim's cousins Ho Van Bon, and Ho Thi Ting. Behind them are soldiers of the Vietnam Army 25th Division.

In this April 29, 1975 file photo, U.S. Navy personnel aboard the USS Blue Ridge push a helicopter into the sea off the coast of Vietnam in order to make room for more evacuation flights from Saigon. The war ended on April 30, 1975, with the fall of Saigon, now known as Ho Chi Minh City, to communist troops from the north.

In this April 30, 1975 file photo, a North Vietnamese tank rolls through the gate of the Presidential Palace in Saigon, signifying the fall of South Vietnam. The war ended on April 30, 1975, with the fall of Saigon, now known as Ho Chi Minh City, to communist troops from the north.

In this January 1966 file photo, First Cavalry Division medic Thomas Cole, from Richmond, Va., looks up with one uncovered eye as he treats a wounded Staff Sgt. Harrison Pell during a firefight in the Central Highlands in Vietnam, between U.S. troops and a combined North Vietnamese and Vietcong force.

In this Jan. 1, 1966 file photo, women and children crouch in a muddy canal as they take cover from intense Viet Cong fire at Bao Trai, about 20 miles west of Saigon, Vietnam. The war ended on April 30, 1975, with the fall of Saigon, now known as Ho Chi Minh City, to communist troops from the north.

Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk, burns himself to death on a Saigon street June 11, 1963 to protest alleged persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government.

Mrs. Barbara Powers, center, wife of U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, speaks with Irene Yudovich upon her arrival, August 13, 1960, at Moscow Airport from the United States. At left is Marvin Kalb, Columbia broadcasting system newsman. Pilot Powers is slated to go on trial on August 17 in Moscow on charges of espionage.

Peter Arnett posed in 1963 with gear that he carries out in field while covering the Vietnamese army.

CBS correspondent Morley Safer Oct. 10, 1965

William Porter, left, deputy ambassador to South Vietnam, and Barry Zorthian, minister counselor of information in Saigon, pose in the Cabinet Room of the White House, June 16, 1966.

From left, Reporter Neil Sheehan, Managing Editor A.M. Rosenthal and Foreign News Editor James L. Greenfield are shown in an office of the New York Times in New York, May 1, 1972, after it was announced the team won the Pulitzer Prize for public service for its publication of the Pentagon Papers. Sheehan, who obtained and wrote most of the stories about the papers for the Times, was not cited in the award.

Journalists attend a briefing by military officers in Saigon ca. 1963. The regular briefings became known derisively as the "Five O'Clock Follies," by those who believed the official information released there was inaccurate and misleading. At center, foreground, is Seymour Topping of the New York Times. Immediately behind him at right (no glasses) is Malcolm Browne of the Associated Press.

Journalist David Halberstam, New York Times correspondent who is awarded the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for his international reporting of the Vietnam War, is shown at his desk in New York in 1964.

Seymour M. Hersh sits in the furnitureless office of Dispatch News Service in Washington, May 4, 1970, after being awarded the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. Hersh disclosed the alleged massacre of Vietnamese civilians at My Lai.

War correspondent Malcolm W. Browne with the commander of the Australian 1st Batt, at their arrival at Tan Son Nhut airport near the city of Siagon in South Vietnam, May 1965.

Edith Lederer, AP newswoman, is shown on the job, Oct. 1969 in San Francisco.

General Vo Nguyen Giap who commands the Communist-led Vietminh forces currently waging war against French Union Troops in Indochina, May 22, 1954.

U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower greets President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam at the White House in Washington, D.C., May 9, 1957. At right is Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. During the meeting, the two presidents put ceremony aside for a candid talk on means of safeguarding Diem's communist-threatened Southeast Asian country.

South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem waves from a balcony of the Presidential Palace to a crowd assembled in front of the palace as he makes his first public appearance after the abortive coup d'etat in Saigon, Vietnam, Nov. 13, 1960. He had been confined at the presidential palace during the two-day coup which occurred Nov. 11.

General Creighton W. Abrams at left shakes hands with Gen. William Westmoreland on arrival at Saigon on May 4, 1967 to take up what Abrams said would be a job as “Westmoreland’s assistant across the board.”

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara talks to reporters on July 12, 1967 at the White House after reporting to President Johnson on his trip to Vietnam. McNamara said he believes more U.S. manpower will be needed in Vietnam. At right is White House Press Secretary George Christian.

President Johnson, right, and South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu sit down at Pacific Command Headquarters in Honolulu to begin two days of meetings on the Vietnamese war and Paris peace talks on July 19, 1968. Thieu led his nation in the Vietnam War that tore apart his homeland and bitterly divided the United States, then was forced to step down as North Vietnamese troops closed in.

President Nixon and President Nguyen Van Thieu of South Vietnam say goodbye at the Midway Island Airport Sunday, June 8, 1969 following their conference on the Vietnam war.

U.S. President Richard Nixon poses in the White House after his announcement to the nation April 30, 1970 that American ground troops have attacked, at his order, a Communist complex in Cambodia. Nixon points to area of Vietnam and Cambodia in which the action is taking place.

President Nixon confers Nov. 25, 1972 with Henry A. Kissinger in New York after the presidential adviser returned from a week of secret negotiations in Paris with North Vietnam's Le Duc Tho. The White House announced later that the president was "Confident that we will achieve the right kind of settlement" in Vietnam.

Former Central Intelligence Agency director Richard Helms talking to reporters in April 1975.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, left, and Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, center, huddle up with U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge on arrival at Saigon airport, Sept. 24, 1963. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the secretary of defense are a two-man fact-finding committee dispatched by President Kennedy to investigate the situation in that Asian country.

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara poses with a map he used, Oct. 3, 1963 to brief the Senate Armed Services Committee on his trip to Vietnam. The briefing was held behind closed doors in an executive session of the committee.

General William C. Westmoreland, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, speaks at a news conference in 1967.

Returning from an inspection tour of U.S. forces in Vietnam, U.S. officials arrive at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington on July 11, 1967. From left are Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, Under Secretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach and Chief of Staff Gen. Earle Wheeler. McNamara is to report his findings in Vietnam to the President.

Undersecretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach listens to a senator’s question during testimony on August 21, 1967 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Katzenbach told the committee that President Lyndon Johnson and the nation would be “placed in an extremely difficult position” if Congress repeals a three-year-old resolution supporting steps to prevent aggression in South Vietnam.

U.S. President Richard Nixon conferred at the White House with Adm John McCain, commander in chief of the United States Pacific Forces, Feb. 11, 1969 in Washington. Admiral McCain has been a patient at Bethesda Naval Hospital after suffering a mild stroke last month. At right is Henry Kissinger.

Before boarding a plane for his trip back to the United States, visiting Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird (center) chats with General Creighton W. Abrams, the U.S. commander in Vietnam, March 10, 1969. To the left, is American Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker. The secretary and his party wound up a four-day fact-finding tour to Vietnam with a half-hour news conference in which he said that the current communist offensive was a calculated escalation of the war. He was pleased nonetheless that rocket attacks on Saigon has halted and added that these attacks were not significant.

President Nguyen Van Thieu talks to newsmen outside a pagoda, on an island near Hue on Oct. 14, 1969. During the conference the President invited 100 American antiwar students to South Vietnam to ‘dissipate misunderstanding’ about the war. The President addressed his remarks to student groups organizing on a ‘moratorium’ in the United States.

Defense Secretary Melvin R. Laird points to a chart showing the administration’s Vietnamization record during a news conference on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 1972 in Washington. During the news conference Laird conceded that American bombs may struck the French diplomatic mission in Hanoi, but said U.S. air state will continue over North Vietnam.

Vice Presidential nominee Gerald R. Ford, right, listens as President Richard Nixon speaks in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Saturday, Oct. 13, 1973. Ford went to the White House to meet with the President after holding a news conference on Capitol Hill. At left is Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Top presidential staff aide, Alexander Haig (right) with President Nixon (center) and Melvin Laird in 1973.

Generals who commanded U.S. forces during America’s involvement in Vietnam over the years on April 25, 1975. Gen. Creignton Abrams, who was chief of the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group in Vietnam chief of staff of the U.S. Army.

George C. Carver, Special Assistant for Vietnam Affairs to Director of Central Intelligence, 1966-1973.

Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi, March 1946

Secretary of Defense, Melvin R. Laird, and Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, arriving at the American Embassy in Saigon during Secretary Laird’s Vietnam tour. 12 February 1970.

Peter Rodman and John Negroponte en route to Paris, January 23, 1973.

Henry Kissinger and Winston Lord en route to Paris, January 23, 1973 (NB: Used in Kissinger memoirs).

French paratroops land near a blockhouse to help defend Dien Bien Phu, Indo-China, March 23, 1954.

With dead U.S. soldiers in the foreground, U.S. military police take cover behind a wall at the entrance to the U.S. consulate in Saigon on the first day of the Tet Offensive, Jan. 31, 1968. Viet Cong guerrillas had invaded the grounds of the U.S. Embassy compound in the earliest hours of the coordinated communist offensive.

Pfc. Bob G. Whitworth (Albany, Oregon), US soldier fighting the war in Vietnam, Sept. 27, 1968, had not slept for three days and had fought all the time when this picture was taken: his unit- a company of the 11th Light Infantry Brigade in the Americal Division – was pursuing shattered elements of the North Vietnamese 2nd Division in the paddies, brush and villages 30 miles south of Danang. The operation accounted for more than 400 of the enemy dead allied casualties were light. But combat fatigue is etched deeply into the face of the 21 year old soldier.

A wounded U.S. paratrooper of the 101st Airborne Division is helped through a blinding rainstorm by two medics after being evacuated from Dong Ap Bia during the 10-day battle for Hamburger Hill, May 1969. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces eventually dislodged communist forces from Dong Ap Bia, but the action touched off further political controversy in the United States.

President Nixon is surrounded by combat infantrymen of the U.S. First Infantry Division at their headquarters at Di An, 12 miles north of Saigon, July 30, 1969.

American military men in South Viet Nam—there are some 14,000 there as adviser to the nations armed forces are fighting, August 22, 1963. This type of war against communist infiltration from the north. The Kennedy administration feels victory will come in the Guerrilla war but is worried that bad government in Saigon – Highlighted by Buddhist - Government conflict – may reverse the tide.

A large section of rubble is all that remains in this one block square area of Saigon on Feb. 5, 1968, after fierce Tet Offensive fighting. Rockets and grenades, combined with fires, laid waste to the area. An Quang Pagoda, location of Viet Cong headquarters during the fighting, is at the top of the photo.

U.S. soldiers of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, among the first to enter Cambodia in April and May, celebrate as they return to South Vietnam in late June 1970, riding a tank past a bullet-riddled sign at the border north of Katum. The Cambodian incursion ordered by President Richard Nixon was intended to seize North Vietnamese and Viet Cong sanctuaries in Cambodia.

The era of American ground combat involvement in Vietnam comes to an end in a formal ceremony in Da Nang, Aug. 12, 1972.

A group of opposition National Assemblymen use torches to set fire to pictures of South Vietnam’s President Nguyen van Thieu during an anti-government protest on steps of the National Assembly building in Saigon, Tuesday, Feb. 13, 1975. The protest, held in conjunction with the Tet holiday, on lunar New Year, renewed opposition demands for Thieu’s resignation and charges of corrupting in government.

Mobs of Vietnamese people scale the wall of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, Vietnam, trying to get to the helicopter pickup zone, just before the end of the Vietnam War on April 29, 1975.

The helicopter zone at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, Vietnam, on April 29, 1975, showing last minute evacuation of authorized personnel and civilians.

In this 1966 file photo, U.S. Army helicopters providing support for U.S. ground troops fly into a staging area fifty miles northeast of Saigon, Vietnam. The war ended on April 30, 1975, with the fall of Saigon, now known as Ho Chi Minh City, to communist troops from the north.

General William Westmoreland talks with troops of first battalion, 16th regiment of 2nd brigade of U.S. First Division at their positions near Bien Hoa in Vietnam, 1965.

Two U.S. military policemen aid a wounded fellow MP during fighting in the U.S. Embassy compound in Saigon, Jan. 31, 1968, at the beginning of the Tet Offensive. A Viet Cong suicide squad seized control of part of the compound and held it for about six hours before they were killed or captured.

Street Scene, Hanoi, March 1946. The words on the mural above the Vietnamese soldier--"chien dau" and "toan dan doan ket" mean, respectively, "Fight!" and "The Entire Population is United."

General view of the plenary session in the Palais de Nations, Geneva, July 21, 1954, after the signing of the Indo China Truce Agreements. Left to right: the Soviet delegation and the British. Next table: the Laotian, French and Vietnam delegations, and with backs to the camera, the Cambodia delegation and, left, the United States delegation.

U.S. presidential advisor Dr. Henry Kissinger, left, and Le Duc Tho, right, North Vietnam's chief negotiator, are seen at Gif-sur-Yvette, suburban Paris, just before the beginning of secret talks, Nov. 23, 1972. At center is Nguyen Phuong, a member of the North Vietnamese delegation.

Presidential adviser Dr. Henry Kissinger, third from left, and Hanoi's Le Duc Tho, waving, are seen after their last meeting at the International Conference Center in Paris, Jan. 23, 1973.

Presidential adviser Dr. Henry Kissinger joins North Vietnamese negotiators in waving to onlookers in Paris after their meeting at the International Conference Center, Jan. 23, 1973. With him are Hanoi's Le Duc Tho, center, and Xuan Thuy.

Henry Kissinger President Nixon’s envoy, third from left, and Le Duc Tho, North Vietnam’s envoy, third from right, initial the peace agreement. Initialing took place in the International Conference Center in Paris on Jan. 23, 1973. Allied conferees are at left with those representing the North Vietnamese.

Presidential adviser Henry Kissinger, across table, and Le Duc Tho, foreground, head of the Hanoi delegation, initial the Vietnam peace agreement in the International Conference Center in Paris, Jan. 23, 1973.

Secretary of State Henry Kissinger being congratulated October 16, 1973 by President Richard Nixon in the Oval office of the White House, following the announcement that Kissinger was a winner of the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize. Kissinger and North Vietnamese diplomat Lo Duc Tho won the prize together for their efforts in ending the Vietnam war.

Presidential adviser Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, head of the Hanoi delegation, initial the Vietnam peace agreement in the International Conference Center in Paris, Jan. 23, 1973.

Leading the march against the Vietnam conflict are Dr. Benjamin Spock, tall, white-haired man, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., third from right, in a parade on State St. in Chicago, Ill., March 25, 1967. Dr. Spock is co-chairman of the National Committee for Sane Nuclear Policy.

Part of a crowd of pro-Vietnam War demonstrators hold up signs and American flags in support of U.S. policy in Vietnam in Wakefield, Mass., on Oct. 29, 1967. The demonstration was organized by 19-year-old Paul P. Christopher, a Wakefield high school senior who became "burned up" by anti-Vietnam War demonstrators.

Members of a women's brigade hold a banner protesting the Vietnam War at a march led by former Montana congresswoman Jeannette Rankin in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 15, 1968. Behind them are other protesters and the U.S. Capitol building. Carrying the sign, from left, are: Ruth Krause, Mrs. Vel Phillips, Wenn Griffin, Ruth Warwick, and Lucy Montgomery.

A group of youths cluster around a wounded person as Ohio National Guardsmen, wearing gas masks, hold their weapons in background on Kent State University campus in Kent, Ohio, Monday, May 4, 1970. Members of the Guards killed four students and injured nine during a campus protest against the Vietnam War. This picture was made by Kent State student photographer Douglas Moore.

Members of the Women’s Strike for Peace organization picketed the white house, Washington, Feb. 9, 1966 in protest of escalation of the war in Vietnam. The majority of the pickets came from cities along the Eastern seaboard some of the them carried paper white doves and helium-filled black balloons imprinted with the slogan “stop the killing.”

Peace demonstrators apparently burn their draft cards by touching them to flames from coffee can held by another demonstrator. The card-burning took place in New York's Central Park, April 15, 1967, as part of demonstration against the war in Vietnam. The coffee can contained sand soaked with lighter fluid.

Members of a U.S. Marine veterans group carry placards as they heckle some 10,000 marchers in New York October 16, 1965. Police barricades separated the veterans from the demonstrators who paraded down New York's Fifth Avenue to protest U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war.

Anti-war demonstrators gather opposite the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., Oct. 21, 1967. In the background is the Reflecting Pool, the base of the Washington Monument, and barely visible through the haze is the Capitol Building.

Police struggle to overpower a demonstrator in the battle in Grosvenor Square, London on March 17, 1968, when thousands of people protested against the Vietnam war and besieged the American Embassy. The protestors fought with the police and many arrests were made.

Demonstrators in support of the Vietnam War are shown on the Ellipse in Washington, May 9, 1970.

Members of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War raise clenched fists after ending their 40-hour occupation of State of Liberty, which can be seen behind them, Dec. 28, 1971. The veterans are protesting the continuation of the Vietnam war and the intensification of United States bombing.