January 1: Thousands of refugees flee to Phnom Penh following communist attacks on the outskirts of the Cambodian capital.

January 3: The Saigon military command reports NVA troops have fought their way into Phuoc Bình, the province capital of Phuoc Long, 75 miles north of Saigon. A Cambodian command spokesman says government troops killed 183 insurgents, many of whom were NVA and VC troops.

January 4: Fierce fighting continues in Phuoc Binh. In Paris, the Provisional Revolutionary Government rejects a State Department charge that the current North Vietnamese offensive is the worst violation to date of the 1973 peace accord.

January 7: At a press briefing, the Saigon command warns “the fall of the headquarters of Phuoc Long Province is now only a matter of hours.” NVA troops overrun the city in the late afternoon.

January 8: White House officials say President Gerald Ford will ask Congress to increase military aid to South Vietnam to $300 million for this fiscal year; he will request $1.3 billion in the budget for the coming fiscal year. The Thieu government calls the seizure of Phuoc Binh the “most blatant violation of the Paris agreement ever perpetrated.”

January 9: Sen. Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.) tells reporters Congress will resist the administration’s proposal to increase aid to South Vietnam and Cambodia. Armed Services Committee Chair Sen. John Stennis (D-Miss.) says he will not support the reintroduction of U.S. troops into South Vietnam or support any military action in the Middle East.

January 10: White House officials claim Secretary of State Henry Kissinger expressed disappointment the U.S. didn’t use a Navy task force in the Pacific as a signal to Hanoi.

January 11: Confirming U.S. planes have flown reconnaissance flights over Southeast Asia, American sources term as “nonsense” North Vietnam’s charge that U.S. aircraft are guiding South Vietnamese planes on bombing missions.

January 12: A Pentagon spokesperson acknowledges that reconnaissance missions are being carried out by the U.S. over South Vietnam and Cambodia but has no comment regarding flights over North Vietnam. Hanoi claims U.S. planes are flying reconnaissance missions over North Vietnam.

January 14: The U.S. accuses North Vietnam of a “flagrant violation” of the Paris peace agreement and urges China and the Soviet Union to persuade Hanoi to return to political talks with the South. The State Department claims the U.S. no longer needs to abide by the 1973 peace accord because of North Vietnamese violations. North Vietnam and the VC charge the U.S. with escalating military involvement in Southeast Asia.

January 15: During a Senate hearing, CIA Director William Colby admits his agency, as part of a counterintelligence program, amassed files on 10,000 American citizens associated with antiwar and dissident groups. He denies an allegation in The New York Times that the agency was involved in a “massive, illegal, domestic intelligence operation.”

January 16: Former CIA Director Richard Helms tells a congressional subcommittee the agency became involved in domestic intelligence gathering on presidential directive because of “the sudden and quite dramatic upsurge of extreme radicalism in this country and abroad.”

January 17: The U.S. Army reports that drug use by troops in Europe has declined because of expanding control measures. Four Johnson Administration officials deny Helms’ allegation that LBJ ordered the CIA to set up a special office in 1967 to monitor the activities of radical and antiwar groups.

January 18: A VC explosive thrown into a Saigon police station kills one police officer and wounds seven.

January 21: In a televised news conference, Ford denounces North Vietnam’s Paris accord violations and confirms reports he will ask Congress to increase military aid to South Vietnam.

January 23: Two of the convoy ships reach Phnom Penh. At least eight turn back because of heavy enemy fire.

January 24: Nine U.S. antiwar protesters are deported from South Vietnam following their demonstration outside the U.S. Embassy in Saigon.

January 25: A Senate subcommittee report claims that since the 1973 peace accord signing there have been 1.4 million new South Vietnamese refugees. It also states that at the end of 1974, Cambodian refugees numbered 3.3 million, more than half the country’s population.

January 26: Following an antigovernment convention, four Buddhist nuns are injured during a confrontation with Saigon police.

January 27: North Vietnam’s Lê Ðuc Tho, who, with Kissinger, signed the Paris peace treaty, accuses Ford of “giving a new path to war” by urging an increase in military aid to Saigon.

January 28: Hanoi says Washington must end reconnaissance flights and all “military involvement and intervention,” as well as provide reconstruction aid, to be able to obtain a peaceful resolution.

January 29: In protest against aid to South Vietnam, the Weather Underground phone in bomb threats of federal buildings to several media outlets. In Washington D.C., in the early morning hours, a bomb rips through the State Department, causing damage to part of one floor. In Oakland, California, a bomb is removed from a federal building.

January 30: Ford extends the deadline for deserters and draft evaders to apply for clemency to March 1.

February 1: Armed guards of the Hoa Hao Buddhist private army block a five-mile stretch of the highway near Phu Phong, ninety miles southwest of Saigon, following government orders to disband.

February 4: While returning from Phnom Penh to South Vietnam, convoy ships run into a communist mine field. As many as 10 vessels are believed sunk.

February 5: Non-communist opposition leader Duong Van Minh denounces the South Vietnamese government as “nothing but a tyranny.”

February 6: An enemy rocket lands near an elementary school in Phnom Penh, killing 14 children and wounding at least 25.

February 8: On the steps of the National Assembly, South Vietnamese opposition delegates cut themselves to sign in blood a petition to be sent to President Ford and to Thieu, asking the U.S. to “withdraw all support to the dictator.” In an interview, Ford says he will agree to cut off large-scale aid to South Vietnam within three years if Congress allocates sufficient funds during that time.

February 10: Opposition deputies burn photos of Thieu on the National Assembly steps and urge him to step down.

February 11: The Pentagon announces seven more planes will be added to Bird Air, which has a contract with the military to fly supplies from Thailand to Phnom Penh. The increased flights will be used to carry mostly ammunition and arms.

February 13: A Defense Department report says the U.S. armed forces can meet its manpower needs with the all-volunteer military.

February 19: The Pentagon reveals government and private teams, under contracts worth $727 million, are providing military technical training in 34 countries, including South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand.

February 20: Four opposition deputies and a photographer claim Saigon plainclothes police beat them as they tried to march to the courthouse to demand the release of journalists accused of being communist agents. The military command says communist forces have bombed population centers, bridges, and an International Commission of Control and Supervision compound in the Mekong Delta. Sixty people, mostly civilians, are reported killed.

February 23: On ABC’s “Issues and Answers,” Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger says the fall of Cambodia to the communists is imminent if Congress does not approve the $222 million requested by the White House.

February 24: The State Department tells a Senate subcommittee the U.S. will begin an airlift into Phnom Penh and will provide more than 17,000 tons of rice over 30 days. Insurgents intensify their attack on the Mekong River town of Neak Luong, 38 miles southeast of the Cambodian capital. Some 30,000 refugees are trapped in the besieged village. Sen. Dewey Bartlett (R-Okla.) and Rep. Paul McCloskey, Jr. (R-Calif.) arrive in Saigon on a fact-finding mission.

February 25: Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger urge Congress to appropriate $222 million for Cambodia, warning that the country is in danger of being overtaken by the communists within weeks.

February 26: From Beijing, exiled Cambodian leader Prince Norodom Sihanouk claims more U.S. aid will not prevent a “final and total” victory over Lon Nol.

February 27: The U.S. begins a rice airlift to Phnom Penh from Tan Son Nhut Air Base.

February 28: McCloskey accuses the U.S. Embassy in Saigon of “tacit acquiescence” in the arrest of political prisoners by the government.

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