How did the USA get out of Vietnam

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How did the USA get out of Vietnam?

• What was the policy of Vietnamisation?

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Learning Objectives

• How did President Nixon get American troops out
  of Vietnam?
• What was his policy of Vietnamisation?
• How successful was his policy?
• How did the war end in Vietnam?

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Richard Nixon as President

• In 1968, Lyndon Johnson decided to end the
  bombing of North Vietnam and not going to stand
  for re-election. He also ordered his officials
  to begin peace talks with the Communists.
• Richard Nixon was elected after promising to get
  America out of the war in Vietnam.
• However, he could not just say that the Americans
  had decided that it was all too much trouble and
  that they were going to leave.
• Since 1965, the American government had been
  persuading the people that the war was vital to
  American interests.
• Thousands of Americans had died fighting for
  their country and it would have been an insult to
  their memory merely to withdraw troops.

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How could America get out of Vietnam without it
looking like a defeat?

• From 1969-1973 Nixon and his National Security
  Adviser, Henry Kissinger, worked tirelessly to
  end US involvement in Vietnam.
• This was not easy because the bigger question of
  how to contain Communism had not gone away.
• They did not want to simply hand Vietnam to the
  Communists.
• They used a range of strategies..

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Peace negotiations with North Vietnam
Pressure on the USSR and China
Nixons Strategies
Vietnamisation of the war effort
Bombing
Use Walsh textbook p. 362 to make notes on each
of this strategies.
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Ending the war in Vietnam

• In Paris, January 1973 the North Vietnamese peace
  negotiator, the South Vietnamese President and
  Nixon signed a peace agreement.
• Nixon was jubilant. He referred to it as peace
  with honour.
• Others disagreed but the door was now open to
  pull the rest of the US troops out.
• By 29th March 1973, the last of the American
  forces had left Vietnam.

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The fall of South Vietnam

• At first the new policy seemed to be working.
• Half the male population of South Vietnam was in
  the army and a major offensive by the Vietcong
  was resisted.
• In February 1973 a cease-fire was agreed.
• The Americans suspected this would not last and
  had promised South Vietnam further support if
  fighting broke out.
• They did not keep this promise. When war broke
  out again in 1974, the Americans sent supplies
  but no troops.
• During 1975, Communists troops over-ran much of
  South Vietnam and Saigon fell in April.
• In 1976, North and South Vietnam were united I a
  single Communist country under the rule of Ho Chi
  Minh.
• The American policy of containment in South-East
  Asia had failed.

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Your Task

• Why did the USA pull their troops out of the
  Vietnam War in 1973?
• In your notes make sure you include information
  about the following
• The Failure of their military tactics
• Unpopularity of the South Vietnamese regime
• The experience of the Vietcong and the
  inexperience of the American troops
• Opposition to the war in the USA
• Chinese and Soviet support for the Vietcong
• The cost of the war