Chapter 19- the limits of American world power Flashcards
Nixon and the Vietnam war- the election campaign.
Nixon felt that his role in Vietnam was not given sufficient credit, in the election of 1968 Nixon spoke of his secret plan to end the Vietnam war, he insisted that he couldn’t reveal what his plans were to avoid compromising the peace talks that were taking place in Paris
How did Nixon deal with the Vietnam war?
Nixon attempted to play a complicated game with the NV, he initially tried to end the war on favour able terms. But in secret negotiations that were conducted by Kissinger it was warned that if progress was not made by 1st November 1969 there would be consequences. These would include resuming the bombing in NV
Nixon also took the calculated risk of ordering the bombing of the Ho Chi Minh trail in Cambodia- this also led to the idea of the “madman theory”.
To make this theory believable, Nixon bombed Cambodia and he also talked about bombing the dikes that protecting the NV agricultural lowlands.
Unknown to the American people, he moved the military to fulll global war readiness alert.
how did the NV respond to the threats?
Minh rejected the threats that were put forward by Nixon, the NV did not yield and the secret plan did not bring closure.
what was the significance of the policy of Vietnamisation?
This was the policy of building up and training the SV to take over responsibility for their own defence, this was designed to enable to the drawdown of American troops, which Nixon knew would be politically popular. By 1970 250,000 troops had left V.
This was a policy that would allow Nixon to be popular with the electorate, yet in Cambodia a coup d’etat had meant that there was now a pro-america leader which Nixon wanted to take advantage of. Nixon sought troops to destroy the Ho Chi Minh trail and thus destroyed the south supply lined.
