Cold War Files: All Units: Events: Kennedy Assassinated as Involvement Escalates

President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas. Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as the 36th U.S. President. He is the fourth President coping with Vietnam and will oversee massive escalation of the war while utilizing many of the same policy advisors who served Kennedy.

By year's end, there are 16,300 American military advisors in South Vietnam which received $500 million in U.S. aid during 1963.