October 31, 1968 - President Johnson Ends Operation Rolling Thunder

On this day in history in the year 1968 President Johnson announced a halt to Operation Rolling Thunder, a bombing operation against the North Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. The end of Operation Rolling Thunder was an attempt at peace, to hopefully stop the war between the Viet Cong and the United States. In Operation Rolling Thunder, U.S. military aircraft attacked targets throughout North Vietnam from March 1965 to October 1968. Operation Rolling Thunder lasted three years before the dissection off the halt be for it came to an end in 1968. Part of the reason for the bombing mission was to destroy North Vietnam's transportation system, industrial base, air defenses, and to cease the flow of men and materiel into South Vietnam. The U.S. didn’t want to risk thousands of troops by sending them in to fight one-on-one.

Johnson wanted to stop the bombing and the war. These were his intentions when he considered the halt. Johnson didn’t do it right a way he looked in to it to make sure no one would be affected by this. That’s why Johnson was playing it safe. He didn’t want to show that his guard was down and because we could get surprised attacked. There was no knowledge on what will happen if Johnson stopped Operation Rolling Thunder. Many people kept telling him that nothing major couldn’t happen since the Viet Cong didn’t have a big air force unit, so they wasn’t able to attack us through air support. The bombing halt of Operation Rolling Thunder made President Johnson reputation bad with the U.S citizens. Johnson already know that if he ran for president again no one would vote for him because of the bombing. Not that many were pleased of the decision he has made on the bombing halt. Johnson made a good decision because it did bring peace.