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1971 newsreel about the peace talks. Following the strong showing of anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy in the New Hampshire primary, in March 1968 U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson halted bombing operations over the northern portion of North Vietnam (Operation Rolling Thunder), in order to encourage Hanoi (the perceived locus of the insurgency) to begin negotiations.
A Gallup poll showed that 48% of Americans approved of Nixon's Vietnam policy while 41% disapproved. [3]: 333 12 April - May. Two PAVN battalions attacked Dak Pek Camp and the defenders were forced back to a small fighting position before air support forced the PAVN back. The PAVN then besieged the camp until early May when they withdrew.
On March 29, 1973, the last U.S. soldier left Vietnam. On 30 April 1975, Saigon was taken by North Vietnamese troops. [2] Closely connected with the phrase is the idea that Nixon claimed in 1968 to have a secret plan to end the war. Nixon never made such a claim during his campaign, but neither did he explain how he would achieve peace.
Vietnamization was a failed policy of the Richard Nixon administration to end U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War through a program to "expand, equip, and train South Vietnamese forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily reducing the number of U.S. combat troops". [1]
[3]: 27 With respect to the then-ongoing Vietnam War, the president declared that "As our involvement with the war in Vietnam comes to an end, we must go on to build a generation of peace". [4]: 189 (The war actually ended with the Fall of Saigon in 1975, three years later, making the president's declaration read as premature in retrospect.
April 20, 1970 - Nixon announces a second withdrawal of 150,000 U.S. troops from South Vietnam over the span of 12 months. April 30, 1970 - Nixon announces that U.S. troops were sent into Cambodia, reversing his April 20 decision to withdraw 150,000 troops. [28] [better source needed]
During Nixon's first year in office, from January 1969 to January 1970, about another 10,000 Americans were killed fighting in Vietnam. [3] Though Nixon talked much in 1969 of his plans for "Peace with Honor" and Vietnamization, the general feeling at the time was that Nixon's policies were essentially the same as Lyndon Johnson's.
The Nixon Administration embarked upon a policy of "Vietnamization", or turning over ground combat to the South Vietnamese. Despite the name, significant numbers of American troops continued to fight in Vietnam in 1969 and onward; the scaling back was gradual, and the US continued to support South Vietnam heavily in supplies and with air power.