Vietnam War

V

Ending the War: 1969-1975

Promising an end to the war in Vietnam, Richard Nixon won a narrow victory in the election of 1968. Slightly more than 30,000 young Americans had been killed in the war when Nixon took office in January 1969. The new president retained his predecessor’s goal of a non-Communist South Vietnam, however, and this could not be ensured without continuing the war. Nixon’s most pressing problem was how to make peace and war at the same time. His answer was a policy called “Vietnamization.” Under this policy, he would withdraw American troops and the South Vietnamese army would take over the fighting.

A

Nixon’s Vietnamization

During his campaign for the presidency, Nixon announced that he had a secret plan to end the war. In July 1969, after he had become president, he issued what came to be known as the Nixon doctrine, which stated that U.S. troops would no longer be directly involved in Asian wars. He ordered the withdrawal of 25,000 troops, to be followed by more, and he lowered draft calls. On the other hand, Nixon also stepped up the Phoenix Program, a secret CIA operation that resulted in the assassination of 20,000 suspected NLF guerrillas, many of whom were innocent civilians. The operation increased funding for the ARVN and intensified the bombing of North Vietnam. Nixon reasoned that to keep the Communists at bay during the U.S. withdrawal, it was also necessary to bomb their sanctuaries in Cambodia and to increase air strikes against Laos.

The DRV leadership, however, remained committed to the expulsion of all U.S. troops from Vietnam and to the overthrow of the Saigon government. As U.S. troop strength diminished, Hanoi’s leaders planned their final offensive. While the ARVN had increased in size and was better armed than it had been in 1965, it could not hold its own without the help of heavy U.S. airpower.

B

Failed Peace Negotiations

Johnson had initiated peace negotiations after the first phase of the Tet Offensive. Beginning in Paris on May 13, 1968, the talks rapidly broke down over disagreements about the status of the NLF, which the Saigon government refused to recognize. In October 1968, just before the U.S. presidential elections, candidate Hubert Humphrey called for a negotiated settlement, but Nixon secretly persuaded South Vietnam’s president, Nguyen Van Thieu, to hold out for better terms under a Nixon administration. Stating that he would never negotiate with Communists, Thieu caused the Paris talks to collapse and contributed to Humphrey’s defeat as well.

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Nixon thus inherited the Paris peace talks, but they continued to remain stalled as each faction refused to alter its position. Hanoi insisted on the withdrawal of all U.S. forces, the removal of the Saigon government, and its replacement through free elections that would include the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG), which the NLF created in June 1969 to take over its governmental role in the south and serve as a counterpart to the Saigon government. The United States, on the other hand, insisted that all North Vietnamese troops be withdrawn.

C

Invasion of Cambodia

In March 1969 Nixon ordered the secret bombing of Cambodia. Intended to wipe out North Vietnamese and NLF base camps along the border with South Vietnam in order to provide time for the buildup of the ARVN, the campaign failed utterly. The secret bombing lasted four years and caused great destruction and upheaval in Cambodia, a land of farmers that had not known war in centuries. Code-named Operation Menu, the bombing was more intense than that carried out over Vietnam. An estimated 100,000 peasants died in the bombing, while 2 million people were left homeless.

In April 1970 Nixon ordered U.S. troops into Cambodia. He argued that this was necessary to protect the security of American units then in the process of withdrawing from Vietnam, but he also wanted to buy security for the Saigon regime. When Nixon announced the invasion, U.S. college campuses erupted in protest, and one-third of them shut down due to student walkouts. At Kent State University in Ohio four students were killed by panicky national guardsmen who had been called up to prevent rioting. Two days later, two students were killed at Jackson State College in Mississippi. Congress proceeded to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Congress also passed the Cooper-Church Amendment, which specifically forbade the use of U.S. troops outside South Vietnam. The measure did not expressly forbid bombing, however, so Nixon continued the air strikes on Cambodia until August 1973.

Three months after committing U.S. forces, Nixon ordered them to withdraw from Cambodia. The combined effects of the bombing and the invasion, however, had completely disrupted Cambodian life, driving millions of peasants from their ancestral lands. The right-wing government then in power in Cambodia was supported by the United States, and the government was blamed for allowing the bombing to occur. Farmers who had never concerned themselves with politics now flooded to the Communist opposition group, the Khmer Rouge. After a gruesome civil war, the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975 and became one of the bloodiest regimes of the 20th century.

D

Campaign in Laos

The United States began conducting secret bombing of Laos in 1964, targeting both the North Vietnamese forces along sections of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Communist Pathet Lao guerrillas, who controlled the northern part of the country. Roughly 150,000 tons of bombs were dropped on the Plain of Jars in northern Laos between 1964 and 1969. By 1970 at least one-quarter of the entire population of Laos were refugees, and about 400,000 Lao had been killed.

Prohibited by the Cooper-Church Amendment from deploying U.S. troops and anxious to demonstrate the fighting prowess of the improved ARVN, Nixon took the advice of General Creighton Abrams and attempted to cut vital Communist supply lines along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. On February 8, 1971, 21,000 ARVN troops, supported by American B-52 bombers, invaded Laos. Intended to disrupt any North Vietnamese and NLF plans for offensives and to test the strength of the ARVN, this operation was as much a failure as the Cambodian invasion. Abrams claimed 14,000 North Vietnamese casualties, but over 9,000 ARVN soldiers were killed or wounded, while the rest were routed and expelled from Laos.

The success of Vietnamization seemed highly doubtful, since the Communist forces showed that the new ARVN could be defeated. Instead of inhibiting the Communist Pathet Lao, the U.S. attacks on Laos promoted their rise. In 1958 the Pathet Lao had the support of one-third of the population; by 1973 a majority denied the legitimacy of the U.S.-supported royal Lao government. By 1975 a Communist government was established in Laos.

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