Rolling_Thunder

Rolling Thunder ROLLING THUNDER As you all know, President Johnson was a starch anti-communist and the American people, as a majority, were against the Vietnam war. What this meant was that Johnson had to wait until after the 1964 elections before he could start escalating military actions. In December 1964, the Viet Cong had demonstrated their capabilities and the weakness of the South's Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN) forces by carrying out a successful operation around the village of Binh Gia, an area close to Saigon. On Christmas eve a terrorist bomb in the Brinks Hotel in Saigon killed several American personnel. By the end of January, most of Johnson’s advisors agreed that the threat to south Vietnam required the United States to bomb the north. On February 7, 1965 NLF units attacked a U.S. Army barracks at the Pleiku Airfield where 9 Americans were killed and 5 aircraft were destroyed. That evening the Johnson administration held a meeting and in less that 2 hours they decided to strike back. With in hours the President ordered operation Flaming Dart, which was a plan of retalitory strikes already draw up. So, for the next 2 north, johnson, thunder, rolling, bombing, war, vietnam, targets, miles, bomb, air, within, vietnamese, until, strikes, roads, military, killed, even, during, campaign, bridges, attacked, american, against, administration, viet, under, tight, strike, saigon, president, people, over, ordered