The+End+of+Vietnam

The End of Vietnam

Richard Nixon elected in in 1968
 * Promises "peace with honor" in Vietnam

Vietnamization - Nixon's policy for winding down the war
 * Withdraw troops
 * training and equipment given to South Vietnamese
 * by 1972 only, 24,200 in Vietnam
 * Bombing raids increased however
 * Hurt supply lines of North Vietnam
 * Bombing expanded to other countries - Laos and Cambodia

U.S. ground forces invaded Cambodia in Spring 1970

This leads to domestic upheaval and student unrest
 * Most colleges colse, there was a large riot at the Kent University in Ohio and shots were fired, 4 college students killed.
 * Nixon loses support from the public and Congress Gulf of Tonkin Resolution repealed, Nixon no longer has power to wage war.

The Pentagon Papers
 * Pentagon did an investigation and evaluated the reasons for the war and the reasons they told the public for the war
 * New York times gets hold of it and puts it on the front page.

January 27, 1973
 * Agreement reached on ending the war and restoring peace in Vietnam.
 * U.S. gets a promised that all the POW's will be returned
 * Vietnamese did not follow the international rules for POW prisons.

But in 1975
 * North Vietnam military attacks, Saigon falls Vietnam is reunited under communism
 * U.S. lost the war, never lost on the battle field but in the living rooms of America and the halls of washington DC.

Legacy of the War

In Southeast Asia
 * 1.5 million Vietnamese deaths
 * Countless Vietnamese civilians wounded, homeless
 * Agrarian society in shambles
 * Southeast Asia left highly unstable
 * Cambodia fell to communism after terror

America Copes
 * 58,000 Americans killed
 * 365,000 wounded
 * $150 billion in direct costs
 * U.S. attempts to come to gripes with a "loss" - blow to self-esteem
 * They can defeat to huge powers but cant take a small strip of land fighting a primitive enemy.