February 12, 1955: The 1st American "Advisors" Are Sent to Vietnam

February 12, 1955: President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends the 1st U.S. "advisors" to South Vietnam. This comes 9 months after the Battle of Dien Bien Phu saw the Communist Viet Minh defeat the French Army, and 7 months after the Geneva Conference divided the country into a Communist North and a "free" South, just like Korea.

These "advisors" -- some of them U.S. Army officers, some of them CIA officers, some of them civilian diplomats -- were supposed to guide South Vietnam toward 3 things: Governmental stability, economic stability, and freedom.

To the American public, most of whom barely knew of Vietnam's existence in those early days of television -- "Indochina" was still the more common name, but that also encompassed Cambodia, Laos, Burman (now Myanmar), Thailand, and Peninsular Malaysia -- let alone could find it on a world map, freedom was the most important part.

But, in all fairness, it would have been a miracle if the country were stable enough to hold together, let alone enough to hold off attacks -- either military or spying -- from North Vietnam.

Since the Vietnam War finally came to an end in 1975, Republicans have usually blamed the American role in the war on President Lyndon B. Johnson, for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964 and his subsequent escalation of the war; or on President John F. Kennedy, who increased the U.S. presence in Vietnam in 1961, '62 and '63. JFK and LBJ were both Democrats.

These Republicans tend to ignore the fact that Republican Richard Nixon, after being elected President in 1968, largely on the basis of saying he would end the war, only took the last U.S. combat troops out after being sworn in for a 2nd term in 1973.

Let the record show that the 1st President to send U.S. troops to Vietnam was a Republican, Dwight D. Eisenhower. And his Vice President was Richard Nixon.

*

February 12, 1955 was a Tuesday. Baseball and football were out of season. There were 3 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Fort Wayne Pistons, 88-82 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Syracuse Nationals beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 92-66 at the Onondaga County War Memorial (now the Upstate Medical University Arena) in Syracuse, New York.

* And the Minneapolis Lakers beat the Rochester Royals, 96-95 at the Rochester War Memorial (now the Blue Cross Arena) in Rochester, New York.

And there were 2 games played in the NHL. The New York Rangers played the Boston Bruins to a tie, 5-5 at the Boston Garden. And the Detroit Red Wings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 2-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. The Montreal Canadiens and the Chicago Black Hawks were not scheduled.