Richard Nixon Influence On Vietnam

For most people, there comes a time in their life when they have to make a decision to choose the easy option or the right one. For Richard Nixon, this decision had the potential to cost many their lives. When Nixon took office on January 20, 1969 America was fighting someone else’s war. The war in Vietnam had been going on for 4 years by the time Nixon was inaugurated and there were no plans for peace underway. The negotiations in Paris between the United States and North Vietnam had reached a stalemate and neither party was ready to agree to the others terms. On top of all that was already happening, the war was beginning to cause deep divisions among the American people and support of the war was quickly deteriorating. Nixon was left with

Nixon tried exploring every private avenue to end the war in Vietnam and he sent personal letters to Ho Chi Ming through an individual who knew him well. Even still, the North Vietnamese made their position final. North Vietnam’s leader Ho Chi Ming “demanded our unconditional acceptance of their terms, which are that we withdraw all American forces immediately and unconditionally and that [American Troops] overthrow the Government of South Vietnam as they leave.” Exhausted and worn down because of North Vietnams unwillingness to negotiate Nixon became convinced that a major change was needed to break the deadlock in

We currently have men and women serving overseas in their sixth or seventh tour of duty. Those men and women put their lives on the line to protect the ideals we stand for and come home to less than admirable conditions. Therefore, the questions we are currently grappling with are powerfully similar to the ones Richard Nixon addressed in his speech. One of the most interesting parts of this speech to me was reading Nixon’s reasoning behind not announcing the deadline to pull his troops from Vietnam. Nixon explained, “I have not and do not intend to announce the timetable for our program. And there are obvious reasons for this decision which I am sure you will understand.” He then goes on to detail the three reasons but what stuck out to me was when he said “an announcement of a fixed timetable for our withdrawal would completely remove any incentive for the enemy to negotiate an agreement. They would simply wait until our forces had withdrawn and then move in.” I found this vastly insightful that Nixon not only took the time to plan out what might occur through his decision but also how the enemy might take his decision and what they might