Nixon (Foreign Policy) Flashcards
Approach to Vietnam
Nixon sought peace with honour with methods such as:
-Vietnamisation
-Diplomatic pressure on USSR and China
-Military pressure on North Vietnam
Bombing of Ho Chi Minh trail
Nixon bombed the trail to sever enemy supply lines and pressure north Vietnam into a peace agreement.
Nothing worked no peace was near and despite Nixon’s troop for draw millions participated in the anti war protests of the moratorium.
My Lai Massacre
347 unarmed citizens were beaten and killed by US soldiers.
Old men, women and children were killed.
Women were beaten raped and shot
The exposure of the massacre divided Americans further somewhere disgusted and other felt these things were inevitable during war time.
Escalation of the war
Nixon appeared to be escalating the war even as he withdrew troops.
He bombed North Vietnamese bases and the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos and Cambodia.
He sent through 30,000 American and south Vietnamese soldiers to Cambodia
-This caused many protests and much controversy
-Congress threatened to cut off Nixon’s money for the war
Vietnamisation
5000 south Vietnamese troop began the Lam son offensive in Laos, but communist routed them with the help of new Soviet equipment
American television viewers saw south Vietnamese soldiers hanging onto American helicopters to escape the battle
-This generated more protests in spring 30,000 March in Washington
The only progress Nixon made was in detente With USA the USSR and China urged north Vietnam to compromise but north Vietnam refused.
Increased bombing
In response to North Vietnamese offensive Nixon decided to bomb Hanoi.
North Vietnam was being driven towards settlement by:
-Destructive bombing
-Failure of the offensive
-Sino soviet pressure
Once re-elected in 1972 Nixon caused the worldwide uproar when he bombed Vietnam again over Christmas.
Several congressmen and newspapers questioned his sanity
Peace settlement
Settlement constituted:
A ceasefire of the war
-North Vietnamese forces could stay in south Vietnam but could not fight
-South Vietnam would continue to exist and Thieu would remain in power
-Nixon secretly promised billions of reconstruction is to North Vietnam
Successes of Nixon’s actions in Vietnam
-Troops were withdrawn from Vietnam
-No more soldiers would be killed
-South Vietnam survived
-Received majority good public opinion
-The detente led to a compromise
-Relations with USSR and China
Failures of Nixon’s actions in Vietnam
-Most troops who return home suffered psychological problems some addicts and lived with long-term injuries
-there were 300,000 American soldiers wounded and 10,000 died
-Huge number of Vietnamese killed
-Nixon failed to achieve much from bombs
Vietnam war death and destruction
-46,000 American soldiers died
-300,000 American soldier wounded
-2.5 million Vietnamese civilians died
-1.5 million were wounded
Chile
Nixon feared that socialist Allende might win the presidential election in Chile and American mining companies might suffer if Allende nationalised industries.
-Nixon decided Allende Regime was not acceptable and granted the CIA $10 million to prevent him from coming to power.
-When Allende was elected Nixon’s administration try to stabilise his government they stopped all aid and World Bank loans to Chile.
-Within Chile, the CIA funded media criticisms of Allende
In 1973 there was a bloody coup and Allende apparently killed himself.
-US economic policy under Nixon was a significant factor in Chile‘s economic problems.
Operation condor
Launched in 1975 by right wing dictatorships in Latin America.
-Aimed to get rid of socialist influence
-It was used to kill or terrorise political opponents.
-The countries involved cooperated closely in political assassinations and kidnapping of political refugees to their countries of origin.
-Operation condor ended in 1983 with the fall of Argentine dictatorship
-It was responsible for around 50,000 deaths, large scale torture and disappearance of thousands
-The operation was covertly encouraged by Kissinger
Detente
Reasons Nixon sought detente:
-it would help him win re-election by demonstrating he was peace loving
-it made sense to improve relations with communist powers and to play them off against each other
-US power was in declined due to financial and economic problems
-In the old bipolar world seemed only Soviet American relations mattered but in the new multipolar world China and the USSR were enemies.
China
When Nixon became president relations with china were hostile
-Nixon pursued detente with China
-China considered the Soviets the greatest enemy and wanted to counter them through improved relations with the US
-Nixon relaxed restrictions on Sino-American trade
-China resented Nixon’s insistence upon maintaining close relationship with Taiwan and worried about Soviet American detente
Soviet union
-Detente would be a new form of containment and would help slow the arms race.
-USA USSR, Britain and France signed the fourth power agreement which the Soviet recognised western access rights to West Berlin and West conceded that West Berlin was not a part of West Germany
-Treaty between West Germany and East Germany, which both recognised the validity of each other’s frontiers.
SALT agreement 1972- Both US and USSR agreed to end race over nuclear weapons
It froze the numbers of nuclear missiles
