26
THE VIETNAM WAR
Nixon had promised an end to the war and peace with honor, but his immediate steps were to follow the initiatives of his predecessor, Lyndon Johnson. In May 1968, formal peace negotiations between the United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam began in Paris, France. Three days after Nixon took office, the first full session to include not only representatives of the United States and North Vietnam, but the South Vietnamese and the NLF as well, opened. That spring, Nixon also announced a shift in American foreign policy. He stated that the United States would provide military, economic, and political aid to any nation resisting Communist subjection, but the United States could not be counted on to supply troops; we would help, but it would be up to the client nation to do its own fighting. In June, the White House finally revealed the first part of Nixon’s plan to achieve an American withdrawal and peace with honor: so-called Vietnamization entailed the United States training the ARVN to assume sole responsibility for fighting the war, as the United States slowly disengaged from the struggle. The United States would continue to provide much-needed logistical, air, and artillery support during this period. On June 8, 1969, President Nixon announced the withdrawal of 25,000 troops from Vietnam. Vietnamization had begun. As the number of troops declined, so did the number and scope of American operations in the war. Some, however, would still prove to be bloody and bitter affairs. From May 10 to 20, 1969, for instance, American forces fought the battle for Hamburger Hill near the A Shau Valley. U.S. forces finally took the hill, and incurred heavy losses in the process, only to abandon it shortly thereafter. The useless carnage contributed to declining morale and efficiency among U.S. forces throughout Southeast Asia. A year later, beginning on May 1, 1970, 30,000 Americans, along with the ARVN, invaded the so-called fish hook region of Cambodia to root out Vietcong. Fish hook had very limited results, and would prove to be the last major U.S. offensive of the war. MY LAI AND KENT STATE In 1970, the nation witnessed a series of large antiwar demonstrations, including the biggest to date on November 15, 1969, when 250,000 people gathered in the nation’s capital to protest the war. Nixon’s popularity, and his handling of the war, took another blow the following day, when the national press broke the story of the My Lai massacre and how U.S. troops had murdered at least 200 elderly men, women, and children in that hamlet on March 16, 1968. Both the atrocity itself and the fact that the army had suppressed news of it over a year further angered much of the American public, as did the government’s handling of the case. On March 21, 1971, Lieutenant William Calley was convicted at court-martial for the mass murders at My Lai and sentenced to life in prison. He served only three days in the stockade, however, before President Richard Nixon ordered him placed under house arrest. The invasion of Cambodia and the revelation that the United States had conducted massive bombing raids against an ostensibly neutral country led to another wave of massive antiwar protests, especially on college campuses, culminating in the killing of 4 students and the wounding of 11 others at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. Student protests and rioting over Cambodia and Kent State two days later forced over 100 colleges and universities to close due to the disruptions and demonstrations. A little over a month later, on June 24, the Senate repealed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution by a vote of 81 to 10. On November 12, 1971, President Nixon ordered the remaining American troops not to conduct any further offensive operations and to remain on the