July 1: The South Vietnamese government announces as of June 22, 42 Vietnamese journalists have been found guilty of various offenses. The journalists have been fined or given up to one month in jail.

July 2: Sources report the U.S. has secretly been manipulating the weather by seeding clouds over North and South Vietnam and Laos.

July 3: Two former Johnson administration officials reveal then- Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, in late 1967, ordered the Air Force to stop cloud seeding.

July 4: South Vietnamese troops are reported to have moved into Quang Tri City in an effort to retake the province. The Interior Ministry says 14 Saigon newspapers confiscated by the agency will be tried for violating South Vietnamese press laws.

July 5: The State Department speculates that North Vietnam will likely have heavy flooding during the monsoon season because its dike system was damaged by 1971’s flooding, not by U.S. bombings. North Vietnam contends that despite the blockade, supplies are getting through 12 “coastal points” the U.S. has been unable to close. The Pentagon denies Hanoi’s claims.

July 8: Conflicting reports put doubt on whether or not South Vietnamese paratroopers have taken, or even entered, Quang Tri City. The U.S. Air Force announces a B-52, en route from Guam to Vietnam, has crashed into the Pacific. Five of the six aboard survived; Lt. Col. James L. Vaughan ejected but did not survive.

July 9: During an inspection visit to An Loc, Brig. Gen. Richard Tallman, deputy U.S. commander and adviser for the Saigon Military Region, and three other Americans are killed by an enemy shell.

July 12: In a radio broadcast, the VC accuses the U.S. of dropping “toxic chemical” bombs on July 8-10 that “killed hundreds and sickened thousands” in communist-held Quang Tri and Thua Thien provinces.

July 14: Six leaders of Vietnam Veterans Against the War are indicted on conspiracy charges to disrupt the upcoming Republican National Convention through fire-bombings and shootings.

July 15: George Latimer, a civilian lawyer for 1st Lt. William Calley, Jr., says he will seek a new trial because of the discovery of a witness to the My Lai massacre the Army contended was missing during the original court-martial.

July 17: Some of the heaviest U.S. air and naval strikes of the war are reported carried out north and south of the DMZ in support of South Vietnamese troops trying to retake Quang Tri City. Hanoi orders all citizens of working age to mobilize for the work force or face up to two years forced labor.

July 18: In a letter to UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, Cambodia appeals to the international agency to protect the ancient temples at Angkor Wat from destruction by the VC and NVA. Two explosions rock the Seventh Fleet destroyer Warrington twenty miles off the North Vietnamese coast. Two Americans are injured.

July 19: The White House and North Vietnam announce Kissinger, Tho, and Thuy secretly met in Paris. Sen. John Sherman Cooper (R-Ky.) proposes an amendment to withdraw all U.S. troops from Southeast Asia within four months.

July 20: The South Vietnamese command reports a new counteroffensive began July 19 to retake Binh Dinh Province. The New York Times reports that well-informed sources have disclosed two operations—Pink Rose and Sherwood Forest—carried out by the U.S. in 1966-67, in which the military, with the aid of the U.S. Forest Service, tried to set large fires to burn down tropical rain forests outside Saigon.

July 21: A Pentagon spokesman admits to U.S. attempts to destroy enemy cover with forest fires, but denies they were kept secret.

July 23: Following adverse court rulings, the Selective Service System orders over 2,000 conscientious objectors to be released from performing alternative service.

July 24: McGovern says as president he would not resume bombing the North even if he ran into difficulties with the release of POWs. Waldheim appeals to the U.S. to stop bombing dikes in the North to avert “enormous disaster.” Rogers denies the charge. Binh Dinh Province district capital Tam Quan is reported retaken by South Vietnamese troops.

July 25: The House Foreign Affairs Committee passes an amendment attached to the foreign military aid authorization bill to end American involvement in Southeast Asia subject only to a limited cease-fire and the release of POWs. The U.S. Paris delegation accuses North Vietnam of “a significant build-up” of troops in South Vietnam’s northern provinces.

July 26: South Vietnamese troops hoist their nation’s flag over Quang Tri City. The Saigon command indicates there is still some resistance within the citadel from enemy troops holed up within the walls. The White House asserts any damage to the North’s dikes was accidental and had only “the most incidental and minor impact.”

July 27: The South Vietnamese command discloses that on July 11 a U.S. Marine Corps CH-53 carrying at least 50 South Vietnamese soldiers was shot down during a combat assault north of Quang Tri City in one of the worst recorded helicopter crashes of the war. Fire Base Bastogne, southwest of Hue, is abandoned to NVA troops. In a news conference, Nixon says Waldheim and other “well-intentioned and naïve people” have been “taken in” by Hanoi propaganda into following a “double standard” of criticizing the U.S. while ignoring the North’s invasion of South Vietnam.

July 28: The White House releases a CIA report declaring that the dike system has been damaged at twelve points, but concludes the strikes were unintentional, impact was minor, “and no major dike has been breached.”

July 29: After reportedly suffering heavy casualties, South Vietnamese paratroopers pull out of Quang Tri City’s citadel. Marines replacing them stay outside the wall and meet with enemy resistance. Hanoi says McGovern’s “position [to end the Vietnam War] contains positive elements which would lead to a correct, peaceful settlement of the Vietnam problem.”

July 31: Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Cushman, Jr., orders an end to “voluntary segregation” by race in living quarters.

August 1: An American spokesman says Navy planes have bombed a shipyard in Haiphong to cut the flow of war supplies.

August 2: The Saigon command announces Fire Base Bastogne has been retaken. The Senate passes its military-procurement bill with an amendment calling for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops within four months subject to the release of American POWs.

August 3: Allied intelligence officials report they have confirmed 250 government officials publicly executed by communists in Binh Dinh Province. They believe the number was closer to 500 and that thousands of others were imprisoned.

August 4: Pentagon officials say North Vietnam has almost completed a new fuel pipeline from China.

August 5: Reports say the White House has been quietly developing Operation Egress Recap to help with the eventual release and rehabilitation of more than 500 POWs believed to be held in captivity. Nguyen Van Thieu issues a strict new press law widely seen as designed to shut down the opposition dailies in Saigon. The South Vietnamese command announces a new drive into the Parrot’s Beak, Cambodia against VC and NVA forces.

August 6:In a Hanoi radio interview, Ramsey Clark tells of the damage he witnessed to the dike system and urges the U.S. to stop all bombing raids on the North.

August 7: The Allied command reports U.S. aircraft have knocked out fourteen tanks supporting a new enemy drive against the Cambodian town of Kompong Trabek. The State Department says that on April 29 and 30, NVA troops intentionally shelled refugees leaving Quang Tri City, killing 1,000-2,000.

August 8: Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Elmo Zumwalt lifts the ban against women serving aboard warships.

August 10: The Defense Department discloses renewed bombing raids and other military activity will cost an additional $1.1 billion for the fiscal year. The House rejects an amendment designed to end the war. Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wisc.) questions granting a 70 percent disability rating to Lt. Gen. John Lavelle, dismissed in March as U.S. Air Force commander in Vietnam after ordering unauthorized bombings of the North.

August 11: The U.S. command announces the last two infantry combat units — the 3rd Battalion/21st Infantry, and G Battery of the 29th Field Artillery — have been withdrawn from the field.

August 12: The 3rd Battalion/21st Infantry departs Vietnam, leaving 43,500 American troops in-country. B-52s carry out, according to one spokesman, “probably their heaviest raids ever” over North Vietnam. Documents smuggled out of Saigon prisons and interviews with former captives reveal widespread torture by the government since the beginning of the enemy offensive.

August 14: Kissinger again meets with Tho and Thuy.

August 15: Kissinger flies to Saigon. U.S. B-52s carry out heavy raids against enemy positions outside of Saigon. Former Army Cpt. John Eric Engstrom discloses he helped prepare a 1971 report which found that an estimated 25 percent of low-ranking enlisted men in Vietnam were heroin addicts. He says the report was withdrawn and replaced with a “watered-down” version.

August 16: Kissinger meets with Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker and MACV Commander Gen. Frederick Weyand. Shriver calls Kissinger’s mission to South Vietnam late, “frenetic,” and political.

August 17:Kissinger meets twice with Thieu. South Vietnamese sources contend B-52 raids on Quang Tri Province have killed and wounded more civilians than enemy activity.

August 18:Kissinger again meets with Thieu before heading to Tokyo, but does not disclose what the two discussed. Enemy gunners pound Da Nang Air Base and a nearby residential area, killing one American soldier and twenty-seven South Vietnamese civilians.

August 20: NVA troops are reported to have seized control of the western half of Que Son Valley, 25 miles south of Danang, including the district capital of Que Son

August 22: Republicans entering the party’s National Convention in Miami Beach are greeted by 3,000 antiwar protesters. About one-third of Saigon’s 43 dailies do not publish in protest of Thieu’s strict press decree. In Paris, NLF spokesman Ly Van Sai calls Rogers’ optimism on an early settlement “entirely false.”

August 23: In Miami, 900 antiwar demonstrators are arrested after they attempt to block traffic by slashing tires, ripping out distributor caps, and throwing paint.

August 24: China asserts U.S. planes attacked a Chinese merchant ship’s lifeboat, killing five, including the captain, off Hon Ngu Island, North Vietnam.

August 25: Que Son is reported back in South Vietnamese hands. The U.S. command reports it has no evidence that a 30-foot boat sunk by U.S. planes was a Chinese lifeboat.

August 26: American officials say the rate of civilian casualties has increased 100 percent since the start of the enemy offensive. U.S. Navy aircraft, in some of the heaviest raids of the war, bomb Haiphong Shipyard West and MiG air bases in the area.

August 28: The Pentagon says a Chinese minesweeper has slipped into Haiphong harbor. Nixon announces that the draft will end by July 1973 if Congress approves legislation to complete the move to an all-volunteer force.

August 29: White House Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler announces that 12,000 troops will be withdrawn over the next three months to bring U.S. troop strength down to 27,000. The U.S. Navy command discloses a four-ship task force had conducted a night raid on Haiphong, shelling sites within two miles of the city.

August 31:The U.S. command reports the lowest weekly casualty toll of the war—five killed and three wounded—since it began keeping records on January 1, 1965.

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