Chan Van Dan Chan, a suspected terrorist of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, was publicly executed by South Vietnamese government forces in June 1965 in the plaza in front of Saigon Central Market.

   Chan Van Dan Chan, a suspected terrorist of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, was publicly executed in the square in front of Saigon Central Market in June 1965. Even while blindfolded, Chan Van Dan Chan shouted, “Oppose America!”

    On January 1, 1965, the Viet Cong (National Liberation Front of South Vietnam) defeated an elite unit of the South Vietnamese government army in the Battle of Binh Xa. Feeling a sense of crisis, the United States judged that only direct U.S. military intervention could save the South Vietnamese government. On February 7, the U.S. military began bombing North Vietnam (the North Bombing). Furthermore, on March 8, under the pretext of defending the airbases conducting the North Bombing, the U.S. deployed its first ground combat force, the Marines. President Johnson, who had already secured a blank check for escalating the Vietnam War by fabricating the “Gulf of Tonkin Incident” in August 1964, announced the deployment of large-scale U.S. combat forces to Vietnam on July 28, 1965, plunging the nation into full-scale regional war. By June, the bombing of North Vietnam had intensified.

    The trigger for the start of the bombing campaign in February 1965 was the “Gulf of Tonkin Incident.” On July 30, 1964, with U.S. financial backing, South Vietnamese forces began landing on islands in the Gulf of Tonkin near Thanh Hoa, North Vietnam. In coordination with this, U.S. Navy destroyers conducted patrols off the North Vietnamese coast. On August 2, the U.S. destroyer Maddox engaged in combat with North Vietnamese vessels. Furthermore, on August 4, it was reported that the Maddox, which had forcibly continued its patrol, had been attacked. 

  Whether an actual attack occurred on August 4 remains unclear. The U.S. government fabricated the “Gulf of Tonkin Incident” as a pretext for full-scale intervention in the Vietnam War. The U.S. government's response was extremely swift. Immediately afterward, it announced to the press that “the North launched a unilateral attack,” concealing the fact that South Vietnamese and U.S. forces were conducting operations. On August 5, U.S. aircraft bombed North Vietnamese bases for the first time, claiming it was retaliation for the “Gulf of Tonkin Incident.” On August 7, the U.S. Congress passed the “Resolution for Action in Southeast Asia” (the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution), granting President Johnson broad wartime powers. This enabled President Johnson to proceed with bombing North Vietnam.

   However, the truth about the “Gulf of Tonkin Incident” later came to light. On February 21, 1968, Senator Morse stated before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the destroyer USS Maddox was a spy ship and that “the U.S. military was the aggressor in the Gulf of Tonkin.” In 1970, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution repealing the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.