The+End+of+Vietnam

-Richard Nixon Elected -promises "peace with honor" in Vietnam -elected 1968 -plan was Vietnamization-Nixon's policy for winding down the war. -Vietnamization: troops withdrawn, training and equiment given to South Vietnamese, by 1972, only 24,000 troops remained. -Bombing raids increase, however it hurt supply lines of North Vietnam, and bombing expanded to other countries with Laos and Cambodia. -U.S. Ground forces invaded Cambodia in Spring 1970 -protest will increase. This leads to more domestic upheaval and student unrest on May 4, 1970. Kent State University. -Nixon loses support from the public and Congress. Gulf of Tonkin Resolution repealed. They take away his war power -The Pentagon Papers come out. Public wanted to publish what was really happening-over ruled in Supreme Court -Peace talks-1972. Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho. "Peace is at hand" -Nixon is re-elected and drops bombs again in December -January 1973, Nixon goes on TV to announce an end to the war. Agreement reached on ending the war and restoring peace in Vietnam. -Agreed all American Prisoners of war could be let go -POW- MIA (Prisoners of war, missing in action) -prisoners were tortured -most famous prisoner of war: Jon McCain ( today he can not lift his arms above his head) -in 1975 the North Vietnam military attacks Saigon -Americans are air lifted out of Vietnam by helicopter -the US can not say that they won the war -Legacy: Southeast Asia- 1.5 million Vietnamese deaths, agrarian society in shambles, ends up being Genocide in Cambodia, The Killing Fields, political prisoners Cambodia is not communist anymore, Vietnam remains communist -Americans Copes: 58,000 Americans killed, 365,000 wounded, America has to deal with losing, government abolishes the draft, War Powers Act: curb the power of the President, altered American foreign policy, overall cynicism in Americans, veterans extended a cold hand,some veterans suffer from stress, entire generation of Americans was affected, still trying to learn lessons from Vietnam