According to Kendrick,
The
Wound Within: America in the Vietnam Years 1945-1974:
In 1950 there were 35 tasked to the Military Assitance Advisory Group
(MAAG) in Vietnam. There were 700 soldiers/Green Berets in Laos in 1959.
April 14, 1961--three days before the Bay of Pigs--Rostow suggests Vice
President Johnson visit Saigon, number of Americans in MAAG increased from
685 to 785. After the Bay of Pigs, JFK speech links Cuba and Laos, DOD task
force asks for "a modest commitment" of US ground combat forces "with the
nominal mission" of establishing two additional training centers; Joint
Chiefs support the request but don't yet send troops. Instead, 400 Special
Forces are sent, for training, financed by CIA (hence no public discussion
or oversight).
Rostow and Taylor visit South Vietnam, request 10,000 troops for
"self-defense" and, contingent on continued North Vietnamese incursion,
direct operations. JFK sent 1000 "advisers" w/ support units, helicopters,
coastal patrol, air reconn.
summer-fall 1961 Berlin Wall goes up. JFK sends 5000 troops to Thailand,
with the goal of adding pressure towards a cease fire in Laos.
50,000 in Korea.
End of 1961, USS Cord delivers 33 helicoptors, plus spotter planes,
transport aircraft, and 400 troops. First U.S. casualty: Spec 4 James T.
Davis (Special Forces. A mine blew up the truck he was in, then he was shot
in the head by a guerrilla ambush of the ARVN troops he was with.)
Start of 1962: 2,646 American service personnel in Vietnam, two helicopter
companies for combat support, F-101s doing surveillance out of Thailand and
the Seventh Fleet offshore, six defoliant aircraft, five minesweepers.
At a press conference, the President denied that US troops were in combat
in Vietnam. Permission was given to fire first and to strafe. The White
House still denied combat involvement after one of fifteen helicopters was
shot down during an attack on Hung My, in the Mekong Delta.
By spring, MAAG has become MACV (Military Assistance Command Vietnam) and
numbers 6000. By the end of 1962 there are 11,300 deployed as part of MACV,
in addition to some number of thousands of personnel doing "economic aid"
and in Laos and Thailand.
By Nov 1966: 358,000 American troops in Vietnam + 33,000 in Thailand.
