Hillstrom K., Hillstrom L.C. Vietnam war. Almanac

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ruthless and punishing military offensive against the North

if an acceptable peace agreement was not reached. This

strategy was based in part on the president’s genuine belief

that the United States had used its military ineffectively

over the previous few years in Vietnam. “Nixon felt that

military pressure had failed thus far because it had been

employed in a limited, indecisive manner,” writes George C.

Herring in America’s Longest War. The president abandoned

plans for a major increase in American military operations

only after being persuaded that it would not produce a

quick victory.

202 Vietnam War: Almanac

Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969) Vietnamese

Communist leader who led Viet Minh

forces in opposing French rule and

became the first president of North

Vietnam in 1954. He also led the North

during the Vietnam War until his

death.

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) After

serving as vice president under John

Kennedy, he became the 36th presi-

dent of the United States after Kennedy

was assassinated in 1963. Johnson sent

U.S. combat troops to Vietnam. Oppo-

sition to his policies convinced him not

to seek re-election in 1968.

Henry Kissinger (1923–) U.S. national

security advisor (1969–1975) and sec-

retary of state (1973–1977) during the

Nixon administration. Represented the

United States in peace negotiations

with North Vietnam

Lon Nol (1913–1985) Cambodian military

and political leader who overthrew the

government of Prince Norodom

Sihanouk in 1970. Despite U.S. military

assistance, he was removed from power

by Communist Khmer Rouge forces in

1975.

Nguyen Van Thieu (1923–) President of

South Vietnam, 1967–1973.

Richard M. Nixon (1913–1994) Elected as

the 37th president of the United States

in 1969, at the height of the Vietnam

War. Resigned from office during the

Watergate scandal in 1974.

Prince Norodom Sihanouk (1923–) Mem-

ber of the royal family that ruled Cam-

bodia, 1941–70. After his government

was overthrown by Lon Nol, he sup-

ported the Communist Khmer Rouge

forces that were trying to take control

of Cambodia.

People to Know

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Still, Nixon, National Security

Advisor Henry Kissinger (1923–), and

other administration officials contin-

ued to discuss options for expanding

the war. In addition, they came to see

the threat of escalation as a weapon

that could be used against the Com-

munists. At one point they even

resorted to a so-called “madman strat-

egy” in an effort to drag North Viet-

nam to the negotiating table. In this

scheme, Nixon administration officials

quietly told reporters that the presi-

dent was considering the use of nuclear

weapons against the North. The

administration hoped that rumors of

nuclear attack might convince North

Vietnam to end the war.

The North did agree to hold

peace talks with the United States. For

the most part, however, the Commu-

nists showed little interest in compro-

mise at the negotiations. The negotia-

tors for the North believed that sooner

or later the domestic unrest in the United States would force the

Americans to abandon South Vietnam, leaving the Saigon-

based government defenseless against the North. This belief

gave them the strength to continue the war, even though the

conflict had produced great devastation and loss of life in both

the North and the South. As North Vietnamese Premier Pham

Van Dong said, “Americans do not like long, inconclusive

wars—and this is going to be a long, inconclusive war. Thus we

are sure to win in the end.”

“Vietnamization”

After rejecting military options that required

increased U.S. commitments of troops and weaponry in Viet-

nam, the Nixon administration turned instead to a strategy

called “Vietnamization.” Under this new policy, American

forces would gradually transfer responsibility for Saigon’s

defense to the South Vietnamese military, freeing U.S. troops

Nixon’s War (1969–70) 203

In his first term as

president, Richard

Nixon carried out a

“Vietnamization” policy

to remove U.S. troops

from Vietnam and replace

them by members of

the South Vietnamese

army. Many U.S. troops

remained, however, and

the Nixon administration

even expanded the war

into Cambodia and Laos.

Reproduced by permission

of the Library of Congress.

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to return home. “The key new element in our strategy was a

plan for the complete withdrawal of all American combat

forces from Vietnam,” Nixon explains in No More Vietnams.

“Americans needed tangible evidence that we were winding

down the war, and the South Vietnamese needed to be given

more responsibility for their defense .... As South Viet-

namese forces became stronger, the rate of American with-

drawal could become greater.”

Nixon launched this policy in the spring of 1969

without consulting the South Vietnamese government of

President Nguyen Van Thieu (1923– ). Thieu and many other

South Vietnamese reacted bitterly to the decision. They

resented the suggestion that the South Vietnamese had been

nothing more than bystanders in the war over the previous

several years. They also worried that the United States was

using Vietnamization as a way to exit the war with its pride

intact, without regard for the future of the South. Thieu and

other South Vietnamese leaders recognized that when the

United States departed, their government would be more vul-

nerable to the Communist forces of North Vietnam.

Still, Thieu and South Vietnam’s military leadership

had no choice but to accept Nixon’s Vietnamization policy.

The Vietnamization process began over the next several

months. U.S. military personnel scrambled to prepare the

South’s armed forces to take on increased responsibilities for

the war effort. American advisors strengthened and modern-

ized many aspects of South Vietnam’s army, navy, and air

force. Their efforts helped improve the performance of South

Vietnam’s military in several critical areas, although high rates

of desertion (soldiers leaving the military illegally before their

term of services has ended), corruption in the officer corps,

and other problems remained.

In addition, U.S. ships transported huge quantities of

rifles, helicopters, planes, ships, grenade launchers, boots, and

other supplies to South Vietnam to outfit its armed forces.

Finally, U.S. troops launched a series of attacks on North Viet-

namese supply lines and military bases in order to keep the

enemy from taking advantage of this transition period. By

mid-1969, the process of “Vietnamization” was in full swing.

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The secret bombing of

Cambodia

But even as the Nixon adminis-

tration moved to reduce America’s

presence in Vietnam, it expanded its

wartime activities into Cambodia,

Vietnam’s neighbor to the southwest.

Ever since the early stages of the Viet-

nam War, Cambodia had adopted a

neutral position in the conflict. But as

the war progressed, the jungles of

Cambodia became an important base

for Communist Vietnamese activity.

Many of the North’s main supply

routes and military roads—including

the famous Ho Chi Minh Trail—ran

through eastern Cambodia.

In addition, many Viet Cong

and North Vietnamese Army (NVA)

units used the thick forests of Cambodia

for secret bases in their war against the

South. Finally, North Vietnam provided

significant assistance to Cambodian

Communists, who were fighting to overthrow Cambodian leader

Prince Norodom Sihanouk (1923–) and his government. By the

late 1960s, these Communist rebels—known as the Khmer

Rouge—had grown into a major threat to Sihanouk’s rule.

In early 1969, Sihanouk appealed to the United States

for help in dealing with the Khmer Rouge and their NVA allies.

Nixon responded by authorizing a major bombing campaign

against North Vietnamese sanctuaries in eastern Cambodia. He

and his advisors believed that they could accomplish many

goals by targeting key NVA bases in Cambodia. They could dis-

rupt Communist supply routes, prevent the North from taking

advantage of future U.S. troop withdrawals, and help Sihanouk

fight off the Khmer Rouge. But Nixon knew that the American

people would view his decision to bomb Cambodia as an esca-

lation of the war. After all, the U.S. military had not operated

in neutral Cambodia in the past. To avoid creating an uproar,

the president concealed this bombing campaign from both the

U.S. Congress and the American public.

Nixon’s War (1969–70) 205

Cambodia and surrounding

area.

Map by XNR Productions, Inc.

Reproduced by permission

of Gale Group.

Gulf of

Thailand

Phu Quoc

Island

Tonle Sap

SOUTH

CHINA

SEA

Khone Falls

C AMBODIA

AMBODIA

CAMBODIA

THAILAND

LAOS

VIETNAM

Kompong Chhnang

Pursat

BattambangBattambang

Phnom Penh

Prey

Veng

Kampong

Cham

KratieKratie

Kompong Som

Kampot

Kampong ThumKompong Thum

Stoeng TrengStung Treng

Siem Reap

05025 100 miles

VWAlm 187-294 7/30/03 3:09 PM Page 205

During the course of the bombing campaign, which

lasted from March 1969 to August 1973, American planes

dropped an estimated 110,000 tons of bombs on Cambodia.

The air strikes continued even after Sihanouk’s prime minister,

Lon Nol (1913–1985), displaced Sihanouk as the nation’s ruler

in a 1970 coup (overthrow of the government). After seizing

power, Lon Nol tolerated the continued U.S. air strikes because

his government was very dependent on American military and

economic aid. Many historians, however, believe that the

bombing campaign merely pushed the Communists deeper

into Cambodian territory, where they became an even greater

threat. In the meantime, Sihanouk joined with the Khmer

Rouge—his former enemies—in hopes of regaining power.

The death of Ho Chi Minh

On September 2, 1969, longtime North Vietnamese

leader Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969) died. His death attracted

worldwide attention and triggered a period of national mourn-

ing in the North. The government in Hanoi remained strong,

however. In fact, veteran revolutionaries like Le Duan, Pham

Van Dong, and Vo Nguyen Giap (1911– ) had assumed respon-

sibility for many of North Vietnam’s domestic and war policies

during the mid-1960s. “Like Ho, they regarded the defeat of

the United States and its South Vietnamese allies to be a sacred

duty,” writes Stanley Karnow in Vietnam: A History.

Despite the unyielding reputation of North Vietnam’s

political leadership, some members of the Nixon administra-

tion privately expressed hope that the death of Ho—the most

famous revolutionary leader in Vietnamese history—might

produce a change in North Vietnam’s negotiating position.

After all, the war had taken a heavy toll on Communist posi-

tions throughout the South, as well as the cities and towns of

the North, over the previous few years. Moreover, Nixon’s

decision to approve secret bombing runs in Cambodia showed

the North that the United States remained a dangerous enemy

that remained willing to use punishing force.

But the North’s leadership did not budge from its two

longtime conditions for peace: 1) unconditional withdrawal of

American troops from Vietnam, and 2) formation of a new

government in South Vietnam with Communist representa-

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tion. The North never wavered from these positions because it

continued to believe that it could outlast the United States in

the war. In fact, North Vietnamese confidence in an eventual

American withdrawal was so great that Northern diplomats

admitted that they were willing to sit at the negotiation table

“until the chairs rot” before they would compromise on their

basic goals.

Moratorium Day

Nixon’s promise to begin withdrawing American

troops from Vietnam in 1969 quieted some of the antiwar

protests that had rocked the United States during the final

years of the Johnson administration. In addition, disputes

within the antiwar movement over strategy and goals

decreased its effectiveness during this time. But the antiwar

movement remained a potent force in the United States. As the

weeks passed, its membership argued that Nixon was with-

drawing American soldiers too slowly. They noted that

between the time Nixon took office in January 1969 and the

first withdrawal of American troops in August 1969, another

7,000 U.S. soldiers had been killed in Vietnam.

In an effort to push Nixon to end the war more

quickly, members of the antiwar movement organized the first

of a monthly series of nationwide protests on October 15,

1969. During this protest, which came to be known as Mora-

torium Day, Americans signaled their antiwar feelings in a vari-

ety of ways. Millions of American workers and students took a

day off from work or classes to demonstrate against the war.

Huge antiwar crowds assembled in New York, Boston, and

other large cities, and smaller rallies were held in dozens of

other cities and towns across the nation. One of the most pub-

licized of these rallies took place in Washington, D.C., as

Coretta King (1927–)—wife of murdered civil rights leader

Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968)—led 30,000 people in a

silent candlelight vigil past the White House.

Nixon’s “Silent Majority”

The Moratorium Day demonstrations alarmed and

angered the Nixon administration. Some members of the

Nixon’s War (1969–70) 207

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Nixon White House privately shared the antiwar sentiments of

the demonstrators. But most others, including the president

himself, viewed the antiwar movement with great hostility. As

Jeffrey Kimball writes in Nixon’s Vietnam War, “the president

worried a great deal about the impact of protest on the ‘condi-

tion of the country’ and on his ability to wage the war effec-

tively.” As a result, the Nixon administration decided to

launch an all-out public relations campaign to reduce the

strength of the antiwar movement in the weeks following the

Moratorium Day demonstrations.

The first and most important element of the adminis-

tration’s new campaign was a speech delivered by Nixon. This

speech—later dubbed his “Silent Majority” speech—proved to

be a very effective weapon in the war to win the support of

America’s confused and war-weary population.

Nixon’s speech, delivered to a national television audi-

ence on November 3, 1969, was designed to rally public sup-

port for his policies in Vietnam. During this speech, the presi-

dent insisted that the war in Vietnam was of great importance

to America’s future. “For the United States, the first defeat in

our nation’s history would result in a collapse of confidence in

American leadership, not only in Asia, but throughout the

world,” he said.

Nixon also defended his strategy for ending the war.

He explained his Vietnamization policy in appealing terms,

describing it as a plan that would reduce American casualties

and eventually end U.S. involvement in the conflict, while

also preserving American pride. In addition, he tried to enlist

the support of average Americans by describing the war as a

patriotic struggle to defend American ideals. He assured listen-

ers that he could bring the war to a satisfactory conclusion

with the support of the nation’s patriotic “Silent Majority.”

Finally, he denounced the antiwar movement as a noisy

minority intent on leading the nation down the path of ruin.

Nixon urged the American public to resist the demonstrators.

“North Vietnam cannot humiliate the United States,” he

declared. “Only Americans can do that.”

In the days following Nixon’s “Silent Majority” speech,

the White House followed up with a series of demonstrations,

speeches, and other activities meant to generate additional

support for the president and his Vietnam policies. “Primarily

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targeted at energizing the Silent Majority, the campaign’s

major themes were support for the war, the president, the

country, veterans, and POWs,” writes Kimball. “The icon [sym-

bol] of the effort was the American flag, which was waved,

raised, reproduced on automobile bumper stickers, and worn

as a political button or lapel pin. Associating his Vietnam poli-

cies with the flag, America’s only universal symbol of patrio-

tism, Nixon identified the opponents of the war as unpatriotic

scoundrels.”

The Nixon administration’s attacks on the American

antiwar movement proved effective in some ways. The “Silent

Majority” speech and other actions produced greater support

for Nixon’s policies in Vietnam. The campaign also succeeded

in increasing negative public opinion of antiwar demonstra-

tors. But the administration’s efforts failed to silence the move-

ment or erase the doubts that millions of other Americans con-

tinued to hold about the war.

Nixon approves invasion of Cambodia

In March 1970, Nixon delighted the American public by

announcing his intention to withdraw 150,000 U.S. soldiers in

Vietnam by the end of year. To many Americans, his announce-

ment seemed to be the surest sign yet that U.S. involvement in

the nightmarish war was finally drawing to a close. Even veteran

antiwar activists reacted favorably to Nixon’s withdrawal notice.

But one month later, on April 30, Nixon told the American peo-

ple that he had authorized a major military operation into Cam-

bodia, Vietnam’s neighbor to the west. This decision stunned

the war-weary American public.

The move into eastern Cambodia was undertaken by a

joint U.S. and South Vietnamese force. During the invasion (or

“incursion,” as Nixon called it), American and South Viet-

namese units targeted enemy bases throughout the country’s

remote eastern forests. Their tanks, helicopters, and infantry

forces roamed through the region for two months before with-

drawing back into Vietnam.

Nixon claimed that he authorized the April advance into

Cambodia because of a growing Communist threat within its

borders. “A Communist-dominated Cambodia would have

Nixon’s War (1969–70) 209

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placed South Vietnam in an untenable [impossible] military sit-

uation and would have endangered the lives of thousands of

United States troops,” Nixon explains in No More Vietnams. “I

therefore decided the time had come to take action against the

Communist sanctuaries in Cambodia, both to relieve the pres-

sure on Phnom Penh [the capital of Cambodia] and to reduce the

threat these North Vietnamese bases posed to South Vietnam.”

After the operation was over, the Nixon administration

described it as a big success. In fact, Nixon later says in No More

Vietnams that the incursion into Cambodia “was the most suc-

cessful military operation of the entire Vietnam War.” He

claimed that the incursion saved Cambodia from falling under

Communist control and that it significantly damaged North

Vietnam’s military operations in the region. Many historians

agree with Nixon’s view. “From a military point of view, the

incursion was a success,” writes Harry G. Summers Jr., in Histor-

ical Atlas of the Vietnam War. “The pressure on Lon Nol had been

relieved and the NVA offensive had been set back for two years,

lessening the dangers to the U.S. withdrawal. As President

Nixon said on June 30, ‘We have bought time for the South Viet-

namese to strengthen themselves against the enemy.’”

But other historians claim that Nixon’s invasion of

Cambodia did not significantly change the situation in Viet-

nam. They also believe that American involvement in the

country helped usher in a horrible civil war that killed millions

of Cambodians during the 1970s. “The effect [of the invasion]

on the war in Vietnam was nil [zero],” claims Marilyn B.

Young, author of The Vietnam Wars: 1945–1990. “The effect on

Cambodia was devastating.”

Young and other critics charge that the invasion of

Cambodia, combined with the U.S. bombing campaign that

remained in effect, only drove the NVA deeper into Cambo-

dian territory. They also claim that Nixon’s 1970 invasion led

North Vietnam to increase its support for the Khmer Rouge

Communist rebels who were fighting to overthrow Lon Nol’s

U.S.-supported regime. “In the particularly brutal civil war that

followed [between Lon Nol and the Khmer Rouge], the United

States lavishly supported the Cambodian government and

unleashed thousands of tons of bombs on Cambodia,” states

Young. “The ultimate tragedy was that from beginning to end,

the Nixon administration viewed its new ally as little more

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than a pawn to be used to help salvage the U.S. position in

Vietnam, showing scant [little] regard for the consequences for

Cambodia and its people.”

Nationwide protests against Nixon

Nixon’s decision to invade Cambodia enraged the anti-

war movement and shocked the general public. Only days ear-

lier, the general feeling among the American people was that

Nixon was gradually guiding the United States out of Vietnam,

just as he had promised. For this reason, the president’s decision

to charge into Cambodia sparked anger and disillusionment

among many Americans. They suddenly became worried that

the Vietnam War might spread throughout all of Indochina.

Massive antiwar protests broke out at hundreds of col-

lege campuses all across the country in the days following the

invasion of Cambodia. Rallies against the war were also orga-

nized in dozens of other communities nationwide. These

protests triggered angry reactions from Nixon, who referred to

the protestors as “bums,” as well as millions of Americans who

supported the president’s Vietnam policies.

The turmoil on American college campuses came to a

shocking climax on May 4, 1970. A National Guard unit sta-

tioned at Kent State University in Ohio fired into a crowd of stu-

dent protestors, killing four students and wounding nine others.

Two days later, two more student protestors were killed at Jack-

son State College in Mississippi. The deaths of these students

sparked a new explosion of demonstrations at universities and

colleges from California to New England. More than 500 cam-

puses were temporarily shut down as a result of the demonstra-

tions, and 51 were closed for the remainder of the academic year.

Anger in Congress

Nixon’s decision to send troops into Cambodia also

aroused considerable anger in Congress, where antiwar senti-

ment was growing steadily stronger. In fact, “the Cambodian

incursion . . . provoked the most serious congressional chal-

lenge to presidential authority since the beginning of the war,”

writes George Herring in America’s Longest War. “The president

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