The summits in Beijing and Moscow reflected this strategy, though the Communist powers continued their material support of Hanoi. The North Vietnamese opened a three-pronged offensive in South Vietnam, known in the United States as the Easter Offensive, in late March , expecting that a victory on the battlefield would translate into a triumph at the negotiating table. Rather than accept the prospect of defeat, Nixon sent massive air force and naval reinforcements to bases in Indochina and Guam.
On October 11—12 Kissinger and Le Duc Tho reached agreement on a peace settlement, both sides working to reach that end before the U. President Thieu rejected the settlement, refusing to accept a peace that left North Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam, and legitimized the Hanoi-controlled Communist shadow government, the Provisional Revolutionary Government.
His rejection forced Kissinger to resume negotiations with Le Duc Tho. Kissinger was unable to find any common ground acceptable to both Vietnamese parties in two renewed rounds of negotiations. Negotiations resumed on January 8, , and the United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam initialed the agreement on January Thieu reluctantly accepted the settlement despite his continued misgivings, and the peace agreement was signed on January The peace settlement enabled the United States to withdraw from the war and welcome the American prisoners of war back home.
Neither of the Vietnamese parties abided by the settlement, however, and the war continued. In the end, these commitments were not upheld due to a combination of factors—domestic and Congressional reluctance to re-engage in the war, economic constraints, and finally the Watergate scandal, which weakened and distracted Nixon.
Having rebuilt their forces and upgraded their logistics system, North Vietnamese forces triggered a major offensive in the Central Highlands in March Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek left for the island the following day.
This action marked the beginning of By this point in the Civil War, it was clear that Lincoln needed to make some preliminary plans for postwar The Americans hoped to capture the British-occupied city and with it win support for the American cause in Canada.
In June, Congress decided to Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Cold War. Great Britain. Art, Literature, and Film History. World War II. Sign Up. This Day in History. Civil War. American Revolution. He rejected calls from the anti-war movement to order an immediate withdrawal of U.
Toward this end, Nixon and his advisors—including Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird—developed a new strategy they called Vietnamization. The Vietnamization plan provided for a gradual, phased withdrawal of American combat forces, combined with an expanded effort to train and equip South Vietnam to take over military responsibility for its own defense.
The president announced his Vietnamization strategy to the American people in a nationally televised speech on November 3, In this administration, we are Vietnamizing the search for peace. In addition to U.
He offered U. At the same time that the Vietnamization plan was put in place, however, the Nixon administration also escalated U. In April , for example, the president secretly authorized bombing campaigns and a ground invasion of Cambodia, a neutral country.
When his expansion of the war came to public attention, Nixon asserted that the incursion into Cambodia was necessary to keep pressure on the enemy until the Vietnamization strategy took root. Nixon gradually reduced the number of U. The March Easter Offensive, for instance, highlighted the poor performance of the South Vietnamese army and its heavy reliance on U.
In January , the Nixon administration negotiated a peace agreement with North Vietnamese leaders. Under the terms of the settlement, the U. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present.
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