After his narrow victory over Hubert Humphrey was secured in the November 1968 election, Richard Nixon initiated contacts before his Inauguration with the North Vietnamese in hopes of reaching a settlement to resolve the conflict. These contacts through private sources, however, received discouraging replies that, in Nixon's words, "...called in effect for our surrender before negotiations." Nixon's approaches to Soviet and Chinese leaders for intervention to help promote negotiations, an initiative that was part of the "secret plan" to end the war he vaguely outlined during the presidential campaign, also were unproductive, despite his strategy of employing the "Madman Theory"--attempting to make the Communist nations think that he was so unstable and dedicated against Marxist expansion that he might use nuclear weapons if sufficiently provoked.

Following his Inauguration, President Nixon sent Defense Secretary Melvin Laird to South Vietnam to begin the implementation of the so-called "Vietnamization" plan to substantially increase the training and equipment of South Vietnamese forces to allow gradual withdrawal of U.S forces. In July 1969, on Nixon's own visit to Vietnam, the President issued new orders directing that the primary mission of U.S. troops was to enable the South Vietnamese forces to assume full responsibility for the security of South Vietnam. President Nixon with South Vietnamese soldier. Image Source: Library of Congress

The President also announced the first reduction in American troop strength, including a 20 percent cut in combat forces by the end of 1969 and a cutback in air operations by 20 percent.

While reducing the scale of the U.S. military presence, the Nixon Administration also attempted to exert pressure on the North Vietnamese by launching in 1969 the secret bombing of Cambodia and Laos in an attempt to slow the passage of infiltrators from the north. The expanded bombing campaign evidently had little impact on the negotiations in Paris to end the war, despite secret meetings of Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese officials. A personal letter sent by Nixon to Ho shortly before Ho's death on September 9 also received a curt response in which Ho simply reiterated demands for a unilateral and unconditional American withdrawal. Ho's successor, Le Duan, publicly reads Ho's will that urges the North Vietnamese to fight on "until the last Yankee has gone." Faced with mounting criticism of his policies on college campuses and within the media, President Nixon gave a televised address on November 3--his so-called "Silent Majority" speech--in which he reviewed the progress of the war since he had succeeded President Johnson and called for support from the "silent majority" he viewed as endorsing his policies:

In view of these circumstances there were some who urged that I end the war at once by ordering the immediate withdrawal of all American forces.

From a political standpoint this would have been a popular and easy course to follow. After all, we became involved in the war while my predecessor was in office. I could blame the defeat which would be the result of my action on him and come out as the peacemaker. Some put it to me quite bluntly: This was the only way to avoid allowing Johnson's war to become Nixon's war.

But I had a greater obligation than to think only of the years of my administration and of the next election. I had to think of the effect of my decision on the next generation and on the future of peace and freedom in America and in the world.

....Let historians not record that when America was the most powerful nation in the world we passed on the other side of the road and allowed the last hopes for peace and freedom of millions of people to be suffocated by the forces of totalitarianism.

And so tonight-to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans-I ask for your support.

I pledged in my campaign for the Presidency to end the war in a way that we could win the peace. I have initiated a plan of action which will enable me to keep that pledge.

The more support I can have from the American people, the sooner that pledge can be redeemed; for the more divided we are at home, the less likely, the enemy is to negotiate at Paris.

Let us be united for peace. Let us also be united against defeat. Because let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that....

Richard M. Nixon, Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam
November 3, 1969 Source: PBS.org

When bombing failed to stop the flow of men and goods to the South, on April 30, 1970, the President announced the armed invasion of Cambodia, a speech that provoked widespread protests. Over one third of all colleges and universities in the country shut down as staff and students joined in the protest.

At Kent State University in Ohio, a protest demonstration against the Cmabodian invasion led to the deaths of four students on May 4 who were shot by National Guardsmen who were called out to restore order on campus after the protesters had burned the Reserve Officer Training Corps Centre.

National Guard troops confront students on campus of Kent State University. Image Source: Kent State University Archives

In February 1971, the South Vietnamese suffered heavy casualties in an attempt to attack enemy bases in Laos, losing over 9,000 killed or wounded with the destruction of two thirds of the South Vietnamese Army's armored vehicles, raising doubts over the readiness of the South Vietnamese to assume the greater combat responsibilities assigned under Nixon's Vietnamization plan.The American reduction in troop strength continued, however, and South Vietnam assumed full control of defense for the area immediately below the demilitarized zone in July 1971. By the end of the year, only 133,000 U.S. servicemen remained in South Vietnam, a cutback of two thirds during the Nixon presidency.

On Sunday, June 13, 1971, the New York Times published an article disclosing the existence of an extensive study by the Department of Defense of the history and evolution of the war. On the next day, Attorney General John Mitchell phoned and wired the editors of the Times to warn against publishing further details from the study, soon labeled "The Pentagon Papers", on the ground that the documents included sensitive and confidential information that could affect national security if disclosed publicly. The Times had received the material from Daniel Ellsberg, a former Department of Defense analyst who had received a copy of the study while employed at the RAND Corporation, a contractor for the Pentagon. The 7,000-page study, completed in mid-1969, had initially been commissioned during the Johnson Administration by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to develop a comprehensive review of the decision-making relating to the U.S role in the war. On June 15, the Department of Justice obtained a restraining order against the Times--an injunction subsequently extended to the Washington Post when that paper also received the study independently from Ellsberg and began to publish its contents. On June 30, 1971 the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision ruled in favor of the Times and the Post, rejecting the government's position that the specific documents posed a significant enough threat to override the First Amendment to allow a prior restraint of the press. New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 17.

In early January 1972, while confirming that U.S. troop withdrawals would continue, President Nixon promised that a force of 25,000-30,000 troops would remain in Vietnam until all American prisoners of war were released. On March 24, 1972 President Nixon declared indefinite cessation of open meetings of the Paris Conference on VietnamOn March 30, 1972, the North Vietnamese Army launched the Easter Offensive, its most widespread attack since the Tet Offensive of 1968. Over 20,000 troops cross the Demilitarized Zone, pushing the South Vietnamese units into a chaotic retreat. The most intense attack focused on the city of Hue, which was defended by single divisions of the South Vietnamese and the U.S. Marines. After weeks of fighting and heavy losses, the South Vietnamese and American troops managed to regain control of the city. Meanwhile, the North Vietnamese forces mounted other offensives at Quang Tri City, and by the beginning of May seized control of Dong Ha and Quang Tri City. On May 8, 1972, President Nixon ordered an escalation, expanding the war against North Vietnam by air and also laying mines to block Haiphong seaport and river sanctuaries along the coast. In July, the South Vietnamese Army with U.S. air support commenced a counter-offensive to recapture the cities of Dong Ha and Quang Tri City that lasted until September 15.. Also in July, the previously suspended Paris peace talks were resumed.

In the early fall of 1972, a tentative peace agreement worked out by U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representatives Xuan Thuy and Le Duc Tho fell through after the draft terms were rejected by the new leaders in Saigon, President Nguyen van Thieu and Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky, and also by the National Liberation Front, the coalition of anti-government forces in South Vietnam. Frustrated by the failure of the peace negotiations, in December 1972 the U.S. mounted the most intensive bombing raids of the war against North Vietnam's largest cities, Hanoi and Haiphong. These attacks, now known as the "Christmas bombings", led to heavy civilian casualties, provoking widespread condemnation from the international community.

In early January 1973, the Nixon White House pressured the Thieu-Ky government in Saigon to accept a modified peace plan after reassuring the South Vietnamese that the U.S. would not abandon South Vietnam following the signing of the peace accord. Similarly, the North Vietnamese also convinced leaders of the National Liberation Front that the peace agreement should be approved to allow the release of all political prisoners. On January 23, the final agreement was signed, ending open hostilities between the United States and the DRV. The principal provisions provided that American forces would be withdrawn within 60 days after the signing; U.S. bases would be dismantled; the two sides would exchange prisoners of war; and the cease-fire between North and South Vietnam was to be overseen by two separate and neutral commissions.

As many predicted, however, the Paris Peace Agreement did not end the conflict. Following the exchange of prisoners completed in April 1973, Communist forces soon resumed their military actions in South Vietnam. In June, the U.S. Congress passed the Case-Church Amendment, a rider to the 1974 budget bill, requiring a halt to combat air operations in Southeast Asia effective August 15, 1973. Without the prospect of U.S. bombing, North Vietnam expanded its invasion of the South.On November 7, 1973, the War Powers Act was passed by Congress prohibiting the president from sending U.S. combat troops to any foreign country for more then 60 days without congressional approval. Weakened by the ongoing Watergate investigation, the President was unable to generate sufficient Congressional support to oppose further mandatory restrictions on assisting the South Vietnamese. In the summer of 1974, shortly after formal impeachment proceedings were begun against the President that would lead to his resignation on August 9, Congress cut U.S. aid to South Vietnam from $1 billion to $700 million.

The end of the conflict finally occurred in 1975. At the end of March, South Vietnam's second largest city, Danang, was encircled and fell to the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong. Attacks also expanded to provinces west and north of Saigon. While visiting South Vietnam, General Frederick C. Weyand, the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, conveyed the "assurances of President Ford's strong support in the determined resistance of the people of South Vietnam to the massive invasion by a North Vietnamese expeditionary corps in flagrant and cynical disregard of the provisions of the Paris agreement." Despite shipment of emergency U.S. aid, the South Vietnamese military retreated in panic, with many seeking ways to escape the country. On April 21, President Thieu resigned his position, replaced by Duong Van (Big) Minh. North Vietnamese tanks continued south along National Highway One, and 1,000 remaining Americans and some 5,000 South Vietnamese who had worked for or with the U.S. were hurriedly evacuated by plane or helicopter to U.S. carriers waiting offshore. On the morning of April 30, the fall of Saigon was completed as Communist forces captured the presidential palace and President Minh unconditionally surrendered.

South Vietnamese scale wall of U.S. Embassy in Saigon seeking to board helicopters as North Vietnamese troops approach city.

Resources

The Vietnam War Internet Project

The American Experience: Vietnam Online >> PBS.org

Vietnam: Echoes from the Wall

The Pentagon Papers >> Vietnam Veterans of America

US Army Center for Military History

"Lessons of Vietnam" (draft memo prepared for signature of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, ca. May 12, 1975, but never submitted to President Ford) >> Gerald Ford Presidential Library

Educational Tools

Teaching With Documents Lesson Plan: The War in Vietnam -
A Story in Photographs >> National Archives

The Vietnam Experience Online, Simulation of the 1964-1965 Escalation >> Associated Colleges of the South

The Wars for Vietnam >>Vassar College

The Twilight of Liberalism: The Nixon Years >> History 102: Professor Stanley K. Schultz, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The Fall of Saigon >> New York Times

America Since 1945—E-Seminar 7, The Vietnam War >> Columbia American History Online

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