The year 1961 saw a new American president, John F. Kennedy, attempt to cope with a deteriorating military and political situation in South Vietnam. The Viet Cong (VC) with assistance from North Vietnam made substantial gains in controlling much of the rural population of South Vietnam. Kennedy expanded military aid to the government of President Ngô Đình Diệm, increased the number of U.S. military advisors in South Vietnam, and reduced the pressure that had been exerted on Diệm during the Eisenhower Administration to reform his government and broaden his political base.
The year was marked by halfhearted attempts of the United States Army to respond to Kennedy's emphasis on developing a greater capability in counterinsurgency, although the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) began providing counterinsurgency training to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and other security forces. The Kennedy Administration debated internally about introducing U.S. combat troops into South Vietnam, but Kennedy decided against ground soldiers. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) began assisting Montagnard irregular forces, American pilots began flying combat missions to support South Vietnamese ground forces, and Kennedy authorized the use of herbicides (Agent Orange) to kill vegetation near roads threatened by the VC. By the end of the year, 3,205 American military personnel were in South Vietnam compared to 900 a year earlier.
North Vietnam continued to urge the VC to be cautious in South Vietnam and emphasized the importance of the political struggle against the governments of Diệm and the United States rather than the military struggle.
January
4 January
United States Ambassador to South Vietnam Elbridge Durbrow forwarded a counterinsurgency plan for South Vietnam to the State Department in Washington. The plan provided for an increase in the size of the ARVN from 150,000 to 170,000 to be financed by the United States, an increase in the size of the Civil Guard from about 50,000 to 68,000 to be partially financed by the United States and a number of administrative and economic reforms to be accomplished by the Diệm government.
The counterinsurgency plan was a "tacit recognition that the American effort...to create an [South Vietnamese] army that could provide stability and internal security...had failed.
6 January
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev announced that the Soviet Union would support Wars of national liberation around the world.
14 January
Counterinsurgency expert and Diệm friend General Edward Lansdale returned to Washington after a 12-day visit to South Vietnam. Diệm had requested the Lansdale visit. Lansdale concluded that the U.S. should "recognize that Vietnam is in a critical condition and...treat it as a combat area of the cold war" Lansdale pushed for Durbrow to be replaced. He called for a major American effort to regain the initiative, including a team of advisers to work with Diệm to influence him to undertake reforms.
17 January - 30 September 1974
Operation Momentum was a secretive Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) program to raise a guerilla army from the Hmong tribes in Laos.
19 January
In a meeting between outgoing President Eisenhower and President-elect Kennedy, Eisenhower did not mention Vietnam as one of the major problems facing the U.S. Eisenhower described Laos as the "key to Southeast Asia."
20 January
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was inaugurated as the 35th U.S. president and declared, "...we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to ensure the survival and the success of liberty."
21 January
General Lansdale wrote to Secretary of Defense designate Robert McNamara about his recent visit to South Vietnam. "It was a shock," said Lansdale, to find that the VC "had been able to infiltrate the most productive area of South Vietnam and gain control of nearly all of it except for narrow corridors protected by military actions."