January 2, 1963: South Vietnamese forces are soundly defeated by Viet Cong at Ap Bac. Echoing the complaints of U.S. military advisors, news reports by the New York Times' David Halberstam, UPI's Neil Sheehan and others begin to suggest that the entire U.S. strategy was flawed, and the only way to win was to take over the war from the Ngo Dinh Diem regime.