7 Turning Points in The Vietnam War

Turning Point: The Vietnam War is a Netflix documentary series released in the spring of 2025. It explores “the Vietnam War's profound effects on American identity, causing social division and eroding government trust. More than military defeat, it transformed US politics and culture.”

By my count, there were at least seven disastrous decision points of America’s involvement in Vietnam.

1945-6: Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Vietnamese independence movement, wrote a series of letters to US President Harry S. Truman, asking for US aid and expressing admiration for American values as expressed by George Washington, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt. Truman never responded — he had his hands full with Europe and Palestine, and didn’t consider such a tiny country as Vietnam strategically important, especially considering America’s long alliance with France, the colonial occupier of Vietnam. Feeling rebuffed by America, Ho turned to the Soviet Union for assistance and became a communist.

1963: Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara returned from Vietnam and publicly put a happy face on what he knew to be trouble. Privately,