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Why Did It Take Nixon so Long to Withdraw from Vietnam?

In: Historical Events

Submitted By jxrdynhilton
Words 1149
Pages 5
There was four main factors that contributed to the long withdrawal from Vietnam. These include, Vietnamisation which started in 1969, military tactics, diplomacy tactics and the domestic situation at home. These were all extremely time consuming to stop the Cold War tensions from progressing.

In 1969, there was a withdrawal of 25,000 US Troops and strengthening of the ARVN in South Vietnam, to 1,000,000 by improved morale, pay and veterans’ benefits. They gave the ARVN updated technology such as the M16 replacing M-1 rifles, 12,000 M-60 machine guns and 40,000 M-79 grenade launches. The ARVN weren't trained properly, at first the USA disguised their entry to Vietnam against the Geneva accords as their reason for being there being they were training the ARVN, but when the time came for Vietnamisation, they didn't live up to the standard. Thus Nixon couldn't leave immediately as he wanted or else America's whole reason for going to Vietnam in the first place would have been for nothing, as a communist attack would come soon enough and the ARVN would be defenseless. By 1972, there was only 100,000 US troops stationed in Vietnam. However, the impact of Vietnamisation and military offensives was that there was low morale within the US Army as troops were withdrawn, 1012 fragging incidents (assassinations of unpopular officers) occurred, along with 36% of troops were using heroin. The Phoenix Program continued which was the capturing, torturing and assassinating of suspected VC leaders by 1969, 29,000 had been captured. When the press found out about the Phoenix Program there was outrage and it was therefore stopped.

Military tactics contributed for the prolonged withdrawal from Vietnam. For example, in March 1969, “Operation Menu” occurred, this was the secret bombings of NLF bases in Cambodia. In April 1970, the joint US-ARVN invasion of Cambodia and in February

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