As you all know, President Johnson was a starch anti-communist and the American people, as a majority, were against the Vietnam war. What this meant was that Johnson had to wait until after the 1964 elections before he could start escalating military actions.
In December 1964, the Viet Cong had demonstrated their capabilities and the weakness of the South's Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN) forces by carrying out a successful operation around the village of Binh Gia, an area close to Saigon. On Christmas eve a terrorist bomb in the Brinks Hotel in Saigon killed several American personnel. .
By the end of January, most of Johnson's advisors agreed that the threat to south Vietnam required the United States to bomb the north. On February 7, 1965 NLF units attacked a U.S. Army barracks at the Pleiku Airfield where 9 Americans were killed and 5 aircraft were destroyed. That evening the Johnson administration held a meeting and in less that 2 hours they decided to strike back. With in hours the President ordered operation Flaming Dart, which was a plan of retalitory strikes already draw up. So, for the next 2 days American aircraft struck NVA military installations just accross the 16 parallel.
Then on February 10th the NLF attacked a US hotel in Qui Nhon, where 23 US advisors were killed. After that Johnson ordered an even heaver series of air strikes which continued until March 2nd when the administration initiated Rolling Thunder. .
Rolling Thunder was a restricted but massive bombing campaign against North Vietnam. This massive bombing campaign intended to place pressure on the North Vietnamese leadership to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the war. The idea was to strike just above the Demilitarized zone and then progressively hit targets further north as the campaign went on.
The Bombing was more favorable among civilians at home due to the fact that it was cheaper in lives lost.
