President Richard Nixons Role in the Vietnam War - Essay Example

President Richard Nixon’s Role in the Vietnam War Introduction In the face of growing public resentment against the American involvement in the Vietnam War, it was not easy for Richard Nixon, the successor of President Andrew Johnson in the Oval office, to end the bloody war. It was because the United States reached the point of no return in the war which had already been perpetuated for more than two decades. During the Nixon presidency in the Oval Office, the US presence in Vietnam was a dilemma. On one hand, President Nixon was facing staunch Vietnamese defense in the battlefield of Vietnam and strong public protest at home and abroad against the US role in the Vietnam War. On the other hand, withdrawing the army from was essentially an act of moral defeat for the United States in the war against the soviet communist totalitarianism. Such withdrawal could have allured the procommunist blocs around the world. As a result, the most difficult task for Nixon Presidency was to find out a decent exit route from the war. Overview of the American Dilemma in the War In fact, President Johnson’s failure to find out a decent exit from the Battle of Vietnam played a crucial role in the presidential election in 1969. As a result, Nixon was elected. But several issues that were crucial to the interest of America at home and abroad and also of Nixon himself were, in some way or other, entwined with his success to end the war. In the first place Nixon was confronted with the massive casualties that occurred on either sides of the war. Furthermore, he has to confront with the mass protest at home and abroad against the moral decay of the US Army in the events like “My Lai Massacre”, “Green Beret Affair” and the operation “Speedy Express”, etc. The brutality of the army in these events infuriated the common Americans and provoked them to raise their voice against the war.1 Indeed, the US involvement in the war posed a great dilemma for the Nixon Presidency. On one hand, Nixon had to retain the superior image of his country in international power politics.2 But the dilemma was that a quick withdrawal of the army from the battlefield of Vietnam would certainly bruise the superiority of the United States. On the other hand, the outraged mob was becoming more and more insolent. Such public insolence could have turned against the ruling party in the next election, if he had have failed to find out a decent exit from Vietnam. In national politics, Nixon’s dilemma was -as it is said in an article, “Richard M. Nixon - The Vietnam war”: “If [Nixon’s] plan involved escalation, Democrats could charge that he was abandoning attempts to reach a peaceful solution and could point to mounting American casualties and prisoners of war. If he negotiated a solution that led to the fall of the government in Saigon, Democrats could charge that he had abandoned an ally”.3 Indeed, this dilemma of Nixon played crucial role in shaping his policy for the Americans’ role in the Vietnam War. Now, even though Nixon successfully retained his position in the Oval Office in 1973, he failed to find out a safe and decent exit from Vietnam. There is no doubt that by perpetuating the US presence in Vietnam, he had been able to retain the big-brother image for his country in international power politics. But obviously, he had paid a high price for it.4 Sacrificing the United States’ image as the savior, Nixon’s offensive stance as well as his “Madman” earned him a bad reputation. Scholars often claim that his defensive stance would have helped more the causes of South Vietnam to survive as a democratic state than the “Madman Doctrine” could do. What Started the War? The Vietnam War started, in 1955, as a conflict between the communists-backed North Vietnam and the US-ally-backed South Vietnam. But in the 1960s, the United States began to involve in the war increasingly. As a result, the war, which was initially a colonial struggle between the French and the pro-communist northern Vietnamese, finally turned into a conflict between the United States and Communism. Indeed, in the 1960s, the US Government showed much interest in the war because of its strategic value against the communist-expansion. The US involvement in the war was meant to thwart the communist-expansion in the Southeast Asian countries. But for the North Vietnamese, it was somewhat a national struggle against the colonial power. The common Vietnamese viewed the war as a war of liberation. But later it turned against the United States who was, then, backing South Vietnam. During the Cold War, the US Foreign Policy Makers concentrated their attention to hold the US control over the Southeast Asian region and to build up a defense line against the communist-expansion. As a legacy of this policy, President Johnson grabbed the opportunity to strengthen its hold on South Vietnam in the 1960s. Obviously, the propaganda behind the US Military presence was that “non-communist South Vietnam was invaded by communist North Vietnam and that the United States came to the aid of the “democratic” regime in the South”.5 But scholars like Pilger, Spencer, etc opine that the reason behind the US involvement in the war is still vague. These authors argue that the United States did not go there solely for a democratic purpose. In fact, the confusion about the true US motivation arose from the fact that though the US Army initially landed on Vietnamese land to support the French hold in 1950s, it turned its direction towards preventing Communism from taking over South Vietnam.6 The US policy makers believed that the communist control over South Vietnam would further strengthen the Soviet’s hold on the Southeast Asia. In fact, one of the major flaws of the US foreign policymakers part was that they failed to perceive the anti-colonialist and freedom-loving zeal of the common Vietnamese. Wrongly they marked North Vietnamese liberation movement as a pro-communism force. As a result, even though Ho-Chi-Min continually claimed that he was a non-communist, the Nixon’s predecessor started massive bombing operations both in North and South Vietnam in the mid 1960s. Referring to Ho Chi Min’s position in the Vietnam War, Pilger () says, Needing to get the French out of their country, Ho Chi Minh was still hoping for a U.S. alliance and he appealed again to President Truman while insisting to Patti that he was “not a communist in the American sense”….he warned that he “would have to find allies if any were to be found; otherwise the Vietnamese would have to go it alone.7 Indeed, Nixon as well as other US president’s failure to perceive the freedom-loving zeal of the Vietnamese rather displeased the common Vietnamese. These people began to hate the American. Consequently, the US-backed Government in Saigon lost the common Vietnamese people’s moral support. Such loss of support for Saigon in South Vietnam provoked Ho-Chi-Min to send troops to help the resenting South Vietnamese, as Pilger () says in this regard, “The scale of American bombing in the mid-1960s, both in the North and South, together with the American-directed terror of the South, eventually persuaded Ho Chi Minh to send regular army units south in support of those South Vietnamese opposing the American invasion”.8 Also some secret Pentagon Papers, which had been declassified later, reveal that one of the flaws of the United States’ Vietnam-policy was to seek for the military control over North Vietnam and to show less interest in supporting democracy, as Pilger notes, “the United States moved in secret to “disassociate” France from the levels of command, in southern Vietnam and to assume direct American control. This task was assigned to the newly formed CIA which, during the summer of 1954, invented a “republic of Vietnam” with Saigon as its capital”.9 Thus, the Vietnam War aggravated in utter confusion. Richard Nixon’s role in the Vietnam War Scholars like Kimball, Duiker, etc claim that Nixon’s role in the Vietnam War was full of duplicity and duality.10 Referring to the declassified secret papers on the Vietnam War, these scholars argue that Nixon was essentially concerned about his second term election. So he was not honest enough to end the war in the shortest possible time. Rather he wanted to prolong it; if not, he wanted to make use of a victory, won by muscular force, in the battlefield of Vietnam. Therefore, he attempted to implement his “Madman Policy”. But most of these scholars do not pay any attention to the fact whether his dual policy to the Vietnam War was truly deceptive or not. A bit of deep analysis of Nixon’s role will necessarily reveal that his duality was the outcome of the pressing demand of circumstances. Nixon had to play his role what he received as a legacy of his predecessors.11 A one-and-eighty degree about-turn in the Vietnam policy would be more devastating for the image of the United States in international power-politics during the Cold War. Therefore, Nixon’s policy of “decent interval and exit” seemed to be praiseworthy. In this regard, it is said in an article, “Nixon had to find a way to cut American commitments while preserving the non-Communist government in South Vietnam—at least for a "decent interval" so that he overthrow of the regime could not be blamed on the United States”.12 But the implementation of the “decent interval” and “Vietnamization” policies would need sufficient time and scopes of which he did not get any. On the way of implementation, Nixon had to confront with two important issues: first, he had to lead a massive diplomatic campaign to convince Soviet Union and People’s Republic of China to put pressure on the North Vietnamese Army and NLF to reach a truce with US backed South Vietnamese Government. Second, he needed to give enough scope to the South Vietnamese Government to be capable of surviving on their own.13 Indeed Nixon inherited the second issue as a legacy of his predecessor and Nixon failed to perceive that the idea of a strong Democratic North Vietnamese State was corrupted with the dual role of the US: first, a supporter of French Colonial Rule and second, the savior of democracy. Many critics mark Nixon’s “Madman” doctrine as a self contradiction to his “decent interval and exit” theory and promise of peace. But a close analysis will reveal the fact that Nixon’s “Madman” is both contradicting and complementary to his policy of “Vietnamization”. But Nixon’s policy of Vietnamization failed because of the earlier obscurity and confusion of the US position regarding Vietnam policy. Troops affected during and after Richard Nixon Presidency In the first half of Nixon Presidency in the Oval Office, the casualty rate on the US side was terrifyingly high. In support to the “Vietnamization” policy, the US Army opened continual air raid and ground attacks on the north. The US Generals hoped that the “Vietnamization” policy would give the South Vietnamese guerillas enough scope to lead sustainable offensives. But by the US time the Army took this step, the South Vietnamese force had already lost their moral strength. Those air raids and ground attacks substantially ended in smoke. Indeed, such failure exposed the inability of the South Vietnamese Army to defend the North. In 1969, on an average 776 US soldiers were dying monthly. But this rate dropped to 344 in 1970, to 123 in 1971 and to 22 1972. The only positive side of Nixon’s “Vietnamization” policy was to reduce the casualty rate during the withdrawal of the US Army during the years between 1969 and 1972. Also another positive effect of Nixon’s “Vietnamization” policy it was able to reduce the casualty rate in comparison with Johnson’s Presidency.14 (Source: Dennis M. Simon, “The War in Vietnam, 1969-1973”)15 (Source: Dennis M. Simon, “The War in Vietnam, 1969-1973”)16 (Source: Dennis M. Simon, “The War in Vietnam, 1969-1973”)17 Conclusion The withdrawal of the US Army from Vietnam did not happen in the way Nixon expected in his “decent interval and exit” policy. In 1972 and 1973, Nixon Government began to vacate the Army from the battleground of Vietnam at a high rate. Possibly, he did so in order to win popular votes in the next election. But such massive withdrawal of army rather provoked the North Vietnamese guerillas to attack Saigon violating the ceasefire.18 To the Americans’ surprise, the Vietcong resumed their dry-season guerilla attacks to regain their lost territories in January, 1974. Indeed, the success rates of the previous offensives, which were mostly led in 1973-74, encouraged the NLF guerillas to lead the major offensive of December, 1974 and Campaign-275 against the South. On 27 April 1975, Saigon was encircled by the North Vietnamese Army and on 30 April, Saigon collapsed.19 The end of the War could have been different but the cunning follies of Nixon pushed the American Army towards failure. References Berman, L. (2001). No Peace, No Honor: Nixon, Kissinger, and Betrayal in Vietnam. The Free Press. Dennis M. S, (n.d.) “The War in Vietnam, 1969-1973” available at http://faculty.smu.edu/dsimon/Change-Viet4.html Duiker, W. (1994). Sacred War: Nationalism and Revolution in a Divided Vietnam. New York: McGraw-Hill Co. Kimball, J. (1998). “Nixon and Kissinger Obfuscations About Vietnam: What the Documents Show”, available at http://hnn.us/articles/3073.html Pilger, J. (2001). Heroes. Jonathan Cape: Vintage. Profiles of US Presidents, “Richard M. Nixon - The vietnam war”, (October, 2010) available at http://www.presidentprofiles.com/Kennedy-Bush/Richard-M-Nixon-The-vietnam-war.html Spencer C. T. (1999). Vietnam. Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky. Read More