Ending the War in Vietnam
In 1968, with mounting criticism of the Vietnam War at home and abroad, President Johnson announced that he would stop the bombing of North Vietnam and that he would not run for re-election the following year. He was succeeded in by Richard Nixon as President of the USA. Ho Chi Minh died in 1969 but it took a few more years for the war to conclude.
Vietnamisation
Nixon was a staunch anti-A classless society where all property is owned publicly., but he was concerned about the growing risk of nuclear war and wanted to ease the tensions of the Cold War – this was the period of ‘détente’. He set out to improve relations with China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - collection of states, also known as the Soviet Union..
These efforts to ‘manage’ the Cold War and to improve relations with the communist powers (Nixon also visited the USSR in 1972) along with the growing number of American casualties in Vietnam, may have shaped Nixon’s attitude to the war in Vietnam.
He introduced a policy of ‘Vietnamisation’, also known as the Nixon Doctrine, in a speech on 25 July 1969. This entailed building up the armed forces of America’s allies, until they could take responsibility for their own defence.
It meant that the USA was beginning the process of withdrawing troops from Vietnam, while helping to strengthen the South Vietnamese army with the aim of getting it to take over the war against communism.
At the same time, Nixon escalated the bombing campaign in North Vietnam, for two reasons:
- to disrupt the Ho Chi Minh trail and hit Vietcong bases in the neighbouring countries of Laos and Cambodia
- to force the North Vietnamese to negotiate after initial peace talks (from early 1969 on) broke down
The US in Vietnam: Kerry's speech to Congress
