Vietnam War Ends

29.4

Main Idea

• President Nixon eventually ended US involvement in Vietnam, but the war had lasting effects on the US and Southeast Asia.

Vietnamization

• Nixon’s plan to train South Vietnamese soldiers to continue the war, while US with drawls.– Plan brings US troop numbers down to just 24,000

in 1972.

Laos and Cambodia

• Attempting to destroy the Ho Chi Minh Trail, Nixon authorizes the bombing of Cambodia and Laos in 1969.– Ground troops also invade Cambodia to target

communist bases.– News of this is kept secret from the press.– Wanted to show N. Vietnam that the US was

determined to win.– Strategy backfires, N. Vietnamese more determined.

Antiwar Movement

• 1970: antiwar protests get out of hand at Kent State University– National Guard called in to protect campus.– Protesters throw rocks at NG, which fires into the

crowd.– 4 people killed, many others injured.– Over the next few weeks more protests across the

nation end in violence.

Kent State

My Lai

• Recall: Guerilla warfare was brutal, difficult to identify enemy.

• US troops on a routine mission attempt to find Vietcong.

• Untrusting of villagers, commander ordered soldiers to execute everyone in the village: 450 women, children, and elderly men.

• Once US public hears this they turn even more antiwar.

Pentagon Papers

• 1971: Top secret documents that showed that the Johnson administration had exaggerated the Gulf of Tonkin Incident were published in the media.– Government loses SC case New York Times v. US, SC

states that top secret docs. Can be published.– Immediately Americans feel they were lied to about

the war.– Antiwar pressure at an all time high, Nixon must act.

New York Times v. US

26th Amendment

• Recall: Draft of young men one of the key antiwar protests.

• Must be 21 to vote, 18 to be drafted. What’s the paradox?

• 26th Amendment: 18 year olds can vote

1972 Election

• Nixon, who widened the war, campaigns on a platform of ending the war.

• Surprisingly wins very easily.

Paris Peace Accords

• For once, Nixon keeps his promise.

• US negotiates a withdrawal from war in 1973.

• War continues! North v. South

• Effects of Vietnam War– 1.5 million Vietnamese

dead– 58,000 US dead– Birth defects , increased

cancer from Agent Orange– US vets not treated like

heroes– post-tramatic stress– 700,000 flee SE Asia for US– Severe ecological damage

Legacy of Vietnam

• War Powers Act– Limits the president’s

use of armed forces without the exact permission of Congress.

– Direct result of power given to the president in the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

• US public and war– US government less

likely to use military today because of the credibility ruined by the Pentagon Papers, My Lai, and other antiwar efforts.

The Fall of Saigon

• 1975– 2 years after the US leaves,

South Vietnam falls to North Vietnam.

– President Gerald Ford attempts to get authorization to re-enter and aid S. Vietnamese, but Congress denies using the War Powers Act.

– Today, Vietnam is one nation- a communist nation.