Vietnam War: What was the most important issues/events of the time period 1969 to 1973 - Essay Example

Gathering of around 1,00,000 people in front of the White House in protest of the shooting incident was an unprecedented public move (Levy 2004, 59). In the same year, then National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger started, off the scene talks with Le Duc (Karnow 1997, 23). The US forces were facing the worst set back ever in Vietnam. The number of US troops stationed in Vietnam was reduced to 2,80,000 (Karnow 1997, 610). Reports on war crimes were pouring in from Vietnam in 1971. It was in this backdrop that “military court indicted Lieutenant William Calley and Sergeant David Mitchell for the massacre of South Vietnamese civilians in Mylai, a village in coastal Quangngai province” (Karnow 1997, 615).

This year was full of surprises as far as Vietnam war was concerned- revealing the deceptive aspects of the US policy on Vietnam, as New York Times published the Pentagon Papers (Levy 2004, 51). Pentagon Papers were the secret report prepared by US defense department analyzing the Vietnam War, and “showed that the Nixon and Johnson administrations had lied to the public about the war’s progress” (Levy 2004, 51). Despite the initiation of legal action by the US government, against publishing such sensitive material, the US Supreme Court vindicated New York Times’ stand on the matter (Levy 2004, 51). . Meanwhile, Thieu was re-elected as president of South Vietnam (Karnow 1997, 698).

The year, 1972 saw Nixon reducing the US troops strength in Vietnam to 70,000. This was prompted by the verbal attacks of the Democratic party’s presidential candidate alleging that Nixon was slow in finding a solution to Vietnam crisis. The government also lost its face when the secret peace talks between Kissinger and Vietnamese leader Le Duc were exposed in public eye (Karnow 1997, 698). In order to pressurize North Vietnam into a peace accord dictated by US, Nixon’s government also sent bomber aircrafts to disrupt supply and storage of fuel and essential commodities for war (Levy 2004, 63).

Places in and around Hanoi and Haiphong were heavily bombed (Levy 2004, 63). This military campaign was called Christmas bombing and “was the largest of the entire war” (Levy 2004, 63). Within two weeks, US military “dropped 40,000 tons of bombs on the Northern cities of Hanoi and Haiphong” (Levy 2004, 63). This unethical warfare was highly condemned by many world leaders (Levy 2004, 63). It was at the same time that the Watergate scandal broke out (Levy 2004, 65). As Nixon was facing reelection, some of his party men “were involved in a burglary of the Democratic campaign headquarters in the Watergate office buildings in Washington, D.C.” (Levy 2004, 65).

Though Nixon’s supporters tried to cover up this incident, the news paper investigations showed that Nixon’s office was involved (Levy 2004, 65). Soon when Kissinger announced that peace in Vietnam was at hand, Watergate scandal was forgotten for the time being (Levy 2004, 62). The talks had arrived at an agreement on stopping the war. The major condition in the agreement was that