ipl-logo

Richard Nixon Operation Linebacker Speech Analysis

715 Words3 Pages

During Richard Nixon’s speech in May of 1968, he spoke of pursuing a "victorious peace" in Vietnam. He coined the term "honorable peace" for the first time. Richard Nixon was determined that Vietnam would not ruin his presidency, as had been the case with Lyndon Johnson. The Nixon plan was to "de-Americanize" the war, an approach that became known as Vietnamization. It involved building up the South Vietnamese armed forces so that they could assume greater combat responsibility while simultaneously withdrawing U.S. combat troops; this would allow the South Vietnamese people the right to determine their own future, without outsider’s interference. This would allow U.S. military to shift its role from fighting to advising the South Vietnamese, …show more content…

It was a conventional military assault, designed to inflict a crippling blow against the army of the Republic of Vietnam; which lasted for six months. Nixon was determined not to repeat LBJ's mistakes. What followed, starting in May, was the most successful use of airpower during the Vietnam War and one of the largest aerial bombardments in world history—Operation Linebacker. Targeting roads, bridges, rail lines, troops, bases, and supply depots, the attack was the first large-scale use of precision-guided laser bombs in modern aerial warfare. In the short term, the offensive was clearly a military defeat for the North Vietnamese and would cost General Vo Nguyen Giap his job as chief strategist. A week before the 1972 presidential election, Kissinger stated that "peace is at hand," but was far from this and Nixon persuaded what was called jugular diplomacy. After 72’ election, Nixon moved swiftly against North Vietnam. In January 1973, the Nixon administration negotiated a peace agreement with North Vietnamese leaders. Under the terms of the settlement, the U.S. agreed to withdraw its remaining troops within 60 days in exchange for an immediate cease-fire, the return of American prisoners of war, and North Vietnam’s promise to recognize the legitimacy of South Vietnam’s government and submit future disputes to an international commission. In my opinion honorable peace was ever met as Nixon had intended and Nixon ended up using massive bombing and force to get his message across to the North

Show More
Related
716 Words | 3 Pages

Larry Berman's, No Peace, No Honor (Touchstone), argues that Richard Nixon wanted to be remembered as a great foreign policy president, however, his plans went array due to the Watergate scandal. Berman believes that with the aid of Henry Kissinger, President Nixon buried the truth about America's “honorable” pulling out of South Vietnam, thus leaving the South to fend off their northern counterparts. It is argued by Kissinger that the administration won the war and that it was Congress that lost it. Kissinger has said that it is evident that congress lost the war when they defunded any continued military activity that could have prevented the communist from taking over South Vietnam. Berman argues that Nixon and Kissinger both knew that with

Read More
212 Words | 1 Pages

This investigation will assess to what extent did Nixon achieved the ‘Peace with Honor’ in the Vietnam war? This investigation will focus on Nixon’s Peace with Honor statement given for Vietnam in the early 1970s after entering office. Whereas Nixon was involved within the combat in Vietnam for almost four years. During the Vietnam war, Nixon planned to ‘de-Americanize’, which also became known as Vietnamization plan. From this plan, Nixon built up the South Vietnamese armed forces to create a more improved combat responsibility, while he was withdrawing the American troops therefore Vietnam can create opportunity for its own political future.

Read More
777 Words | 4 Pages

Nixon wanted to end the war just like every other American. He had many plans for this war and one of them was called Vietnamization. Vietnamization was a policy that would replace U.S. troops with South Vietnamese troops and supply them with supplies and weapons (Rubel 182). It was a way to retreat U.S. troops and end involvement in the war. Even though he ended involvement in the Vietnam War by withdrawing U.S. troops, he decided to bomb enemy forces in Cambodia (Lillegard 71).

Read More
1212 Words | 5 Pages

With the US military helping South Vietnam against the North Vietnam. The South Vietnam didn’t not feel like they had support under the Western’s power, which South Vietnam didn’t because Nixon was trying to help the South Vietnam, but no involving US soldiers to fight in the war. Although, Nixon made the Vietnamization policy to stop US involvement it cause more of a uprise for the US position in the war. The New Economic policy and Nixon Doctrine both policies made by Nixon was only towards his presidency and not actually stopping the US involvement. Nixon said it would make a change in the US involvement to better but instead Nixon didn’t follow up upon his campaign promises.

Read More
165 Words | 1 Pages

In late night hours of January 30th, 1968, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) launched the largest battle during the Vietnam war. The U.S. and SVA defenses were unable to repeal the initial attack. By early morning hours of January 31st, over 80,000 NVA troops struck over 100 cities targeting every district capital, allied base and key military positions across the country (Willbanks, 2012). U.S. and SVA forces quickly assessed the situation, readdressed the defense issues and established a counter-offensive to bounce back the NVA forces. The defensive plans were in motion.

Read More
462 Words | 2 Pages

Also ended Westmoreland's focus on body counts and destroying the enemy and then focused to regaining control of villages. Abrams was joined by Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker and by William Colby, the new CIA chief in Saigon, who

Read More
858 Words | 4 Pages

In the presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson times were extremely confusing. Domestically, the civil rights movement was in full effect and the war in Vietnam was raging overseas. Another major implication on these two mens presidencies was the Cold War and the fight for democracy to rule over communism around the world. Thus, many of the stances these two presidents had on Vietnam involved being aggressive in the war and not letting communism defeat the “free” world. Their decisions were both aggressive and extremely stubborn when the scope of the war began to take shape.

Read More
1024 Words | 5 Pages

In an epic political move, a young Senator from California, Richard M. Nixon, took to the television, to apologetically address the accusations that he was using campaign donations for personal expenses. Through a brilliant speech, reaching over sixty million Americans, which is now known to all as the "Checkers speech," Nixon went live and blatantly informed the American people of his life's expenses, argued that public office candidates should not have to be wealthy in order to run for government; and even went as far as to quote the honest Abraham Lincoln with reference to the common people. On September 23rd, 1952, Nixon broadcast his courageous and triumphant speech. "I have a theory, too, that the best and only answer to a smear or

Read More
616 Words | 3 Pages

Nixon uses emotion to appeal to America in order to try and recover what little bit of dignity he still has. He states how he is not a quitter and would have preferred to carry through with the rest of his term (Nixon, 1974) and goes on to discuss the items on his agenda he would have carried out, but is now leaving to someone else to clean up. He appeals to the audience’s emotions by expressing his desire for nuclear weapons are destroyed and peace is attained (Nixon, 1974). As Americans, we want peace to be a universal idea that becomes a reality and by expressing how he wanted to destroy nuclear weapons worldwide, Nixon is able to appeal to the hope that still resides in his

Read More
1059 Words | 5 Pages

He increased the number of forces in South Vietnam. The war escalated then he decided to not run for reelection. Nixon used the war to his advantage. He promised to find a way to end the Vietnam War, pledging America would have “peace with honor”. Now he had to uphold this promise and implement a plan, but it didn’t work.

Read More
812 Words | 4 Pages

Nixon issued a policy of Vietnamization, which he hoped would decrease the need for American troops in Vietnam. However, this did not limit the war nor end the anti-war sentiment at home. Nixon, hoping to end North Vietnamese supply lines, launched American troops into the neutral Cambodia. This failed, and in the end brought widespread massacres and destabilized the region. As the war escalated, so did protests on college campuses.

Read More
1668 Words | 7 Pages

This helped Nixon in the election and many people learned to like the “new Nixon” (101). With his new image, Nixon won the election, and as he predicted, was back in the White House. Once Nixon took office, the major obstacle presented to him was what to do with the Vietnam war. This was a rocky road he had to try and overcome and many people were against some of his policies, but he did end up getting the “silent Americans” to speak up and voice their opinions who ended up being behind him. Nixon did not have a level head when it came to the war however, he did what he wanted even though it may have been against what everyone said.

Read More
1511 Words | 7 Pages

The US first started getting involved with Vietnam in 1960 under President Truman to prevent communism taking over all of Vietnam and would not end its involvement until 1973 under President Nixon. In the beginning of his term, Johnson approved NSAM 273 “which directed the U.S. government to assist the people and Government of South Vietnam to win their contest against the externally directed and supported Communist conspiracy" and NSAM 288 which increased US involvement (Germany, “Lyndon B. Johnson”). Johnson officially authorized the US entering the Vietnam war in 1965 where “its legacy was 58,220 American soldiers dead, a huge drain on the nation’s finances, social polarisation and the tarnishing of the reputation of the United States” (White, “Why did Lyndon”). Towards the end of the term he reflected “I knew from the start that I was bound to be crucified either way I moved” saying that he was torn between leaving the Great Society or letting communism take over Vietnam (White, “ Why did Lyndon”).

Read More
979 Words | 4 Pages

In 1969, President Nixon gave a speech introducing his plan to pull the United States out of the war. The plan, Vietnamization, would consist of building up the South Vietnamese forces while removing US troops from combat. This plan instilled that the South Vietnamese forces would assume more responsibility for the war while US troops went home, as Americans had demanded. April of 1970 proved to sway from Nixon 's plan of removing troops as he announced that US troops would be entering Cambodia. An explosion of protests resulted, including the Kent State Incident previously mentioned.

Read More
892 Words | 4 Pages

American troops had been slowly making their way out of Vietnam following the agreement in hopes to putting an end to the war and all of the violence. Though the Paris Peace Accords tended to serve as an agreement of peace between the United States and North Vietnam, there was still unfinished business especially on the North Vietnamese’s part, conquering the South and reforming it to a Socialist Republic which was governed by a Communist Party. The North was relentless, and whether they signed a peace treaty or not, they were still going to battle towards their goal of having complete power of all of Vietnam to reign their powerful

Read More

More about Richard Nixon Operation Linebacker Speech Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document