The low morale amongst the US troops was worsened by the fact that the US troops didn’t know what they were fighting for any more. This view came about when the US troops realised that they had no support from the South Vietnamese peasants. The soldiers understood that they had been sent into Vietnam to protect the South Vietnamese people, from North Vietnam and the communism that the North wished to impose upon the South Vietnamese people. However the soldiers asked themselves why they were trying to prevent this, since it was clear that most of the South Vietnamese people wanted to become communism. The fact that the soldiers didn’t know what they where fighting for and that the south Vietnamese people wanted to be communist would’ve made the US withdraw from Vietnam in 1973. This is because now their justifications and reasons for the war didn’t exist as the US troops were fighting for a country who’s residents resented the presence of the US troops, due to the fact that they wanted to become what the US were trying to prevent.
This failure or inability to win the war had severe effects back at home in the US.
For the first real time in history a war could be seen back home on the news. These clips and footage of the war were uncensored, unlike the clips of WWII. This meant that people not only saw the successes and failures of the US army, but they also saw the horrors of the war. All these pictures of horrors of the Vietnamese war had their own impact on the US people. As more people began to see how bad the war was, the more people there were attempting to avoid it, the most famous of these people was Muhammad Ali, the boxer, who refused to fight in Vietnam when his draft letter came through. These people were called draft dodgers. These people were called this because they attempted to avoid the draft, which was a letter, which came through the post telling you that you had to serve a tour of duty, which was one year’s service in Vietnam. There were many ways in which people could avoid the draft; if you were a teacher, lifeguard, in the police force or if you were in the fire service were among the ways in which you could avoid the draft. Another way people attempted to avoid the draft was to burn the letter when it came through the post.
On March 16th 1968, just South of Khe Sahn an American patrol approached My Lai. The battle for Khe Sahn and the Tet offensive were still raging. The patrol entered the village and killed 347 men, women and children. Some of the women had been raped first. Other reports say that the number of dead stands at over 500 innocent people. The My Lai massacre changed opinion in the US because it showed the atrocities of the war and what was really happening over in Vietnam. Also the massacre showed that American’s weren’t always the good guys, as here they are murdering innocent people. Some were now wondering how true it is that the Americans are the good guys if their soldiers were responsible for massacres like My Lai. However My Lai wasn’t an isolated incident as the picture of the suspected Vietcong was shot by an American without a trail. When the picture reached the US it looked like the execution of a man who hadn’t been tried.
All this and the horrors of the Tet offensive made the Americans back home question why there were US soldiers fighting and ultimately dying in Vietnam.
Pictures and events like My Lai caused lots of unrest amongst the US people. This unrest was shown through riots, marches and protests, which went ahead all over America. These demonstrations gave rise to the hippy movement, which favoured peace and love instead of war. One example of these protests is the Ohio university demonstration in which students were expressing their views when the US National Guard opened fire on the protesters killing some of them. Therefore because of the war Americans were killing Americans, which would’ve made the US withdraw from the war as this shows how bad people, thought the war was.
On the other hand the media was concentrating on the war and these demonstrations, which meant that the Civil Rights Movement lost its interest amongst the media. Therefore the Civil Rights Movement lost press interest and people became more interested in the war.
This point leads me onto the racially related reasons why the US withdrew from Vietnam in 1973. The black community were unhappy with the war because proportionally more blacks were being sent to Vietnam than any other social or ethnic group. This would have made the black community unhappy with the Vietnam War because it would’ve meant more blacks were being sent to Vietnam than were supposed to be.
We can tell that some blacks were upset because martin Luther king made a speech in which he expressed his view that he was concerned that the black US soldiers were being sent over to Vietnam. They were being sent in order to fight for a sense freedom for the Vietnamese people, which they do not even have for them selves. Still in today’s world proportionally more blacks are in the US army than any other ethnic group.
This wasn’t the only reason the black community had to be upset about; Johnson’s ‘great reform’ was cut back. The aim of the great reform was to end racial segregation and inequality in the US. The combination of all the social and racial reasons would have made the US withdraw from Vietnam, as the pressure on the government from the black community and the civil rights movement would have been immense. Also many people felt the war was pointless and more than good was coming from it.
Another reason why the US people would have been unhappy with the war was that no new public buildings were being built. For example no new schools, hospitals, swimming pools etc were being built.
These public buildings weren’t being built due to the fact that the government spending had been cut to fund the war effort. Therefore the US public were suffering direct effects of the Vietnam War, which they wouldn’t of liked, making them opposed to the war. The government had to cut their spending on the public buildings because the war was draining funds. In fact the war cost $120 billion overall and by the end of the war it was costing $30 billion per year. Cost however isn’t only measured in money; the cost can also be measured in human lives. An estimate at the end of the war stood at 58,132 US people lost their lives in Vietnam and many more were injured.
The cost of the war would’ve made the US withdraw from Vietnam because the financial cost of the war was severely denting the US economy and the US were keen to pull out so that they could save money. The death toll on the US people was getting to high.
So far I have only explained the long-term reasons why the US withdrew from Vietnam. On top of that I have given general reasons for why the US withdrew from Vietnam but the question asks why in 1973. To answer this part of the question there are a selection of short-term reasons. The first of these short-term reasons was presidential elections. Nixon wanted to stay in power for another four years and to do this he had to win the presidential elections in November 1972. To win Nixon knew he had to quit the war. This is because in the 1968 elections president Johnson decided not to stand at the elections because of the war. Nixon won the elections by promising to pull US troops out of the war, so to fulfil his promise he had to show that US troops were leaving or were on the verge of leaving. If Nixon didn’t sign a peace treaty and exit the war there was no way he would be able to win the elections. Therefore one reason why the US withdrew from Vietnam in 1973 was because president Nixon wanted to win the next election and he knew pulling out was the only way he could win the elections.
The fact that Nixon wanted peace was helped by the fact that the North Vietnamese were willing to agree peace terms with the US. To put pressure on the North Vietnamese government the US began a huge bombing campaign so that the North would submit to US demands. The campaign was massive; more bombs were dropped in the 11 days of this campaign than there had been in the rest of the Vietnam War. Eventually peace terms were agreed which included a cease-fire between both sides, US troops would leave within 60 days of this cease-fire, elections would be held in the South to choose a new government. Also in the terms was that all US Prisoners Of War would be freed, and there were almost 700 of these. This term let Nixon partly achieve his ‘peace with honour’ idea that the US would withdraw from Vietnam without total surrender.
However not everyone was happy with these terms, Thieu, president of South Vietnam, was upset by the terms of the cease-fire because he believed the terms would leave south Vietnam at the mercy of the North Vietnamese. He knew that the terms would ultimately lead to the end of South Vietnam as the North would invade the south and the North would easily win. Nixon overcame this by telling Thieu that if he didn’t sign the agreement then the US would sign it without him, Thieu was forced to sign it. This would’ve contributed to the US withdrawing from Vietnam in 1973 as they signed the peace treaty on 27th January 1973, which meant they could now withdraw as they had signed a peace treaty with the North.
Nixon could now withdraw from Vietnam, but if he simply just pulled all US troops out of Vietnam in one go then the South Vietnamese army would be easily beaten by the Vietcong. So what Nixon proposed to do was to introduce Vietnamisation, which was where US troops gradually withdrew from Vietnam and at the same time US troops would train up the South Vietnamese army so that they could carry on fighting the war once the US had left.
In 1971 the US approved an invasion of Laos by South Vietnam, which was aimed at blocking the Ho Chi Minh trail, which was the main supply route to the Vietcong. US had been bombing the trail since 1964 but these were the first ground forces. After six weeks the South Vietnamese withdrew, almost 50% of the soldiers were killed or wounded. This huge failure by the south Vietnamese army proved to many that the south Vietnamese couldn’t stand up to the Vietcong without the US. Due to this invasion the North Vietnamese felt that vietnamisation would be a good thing because they realised that the South Vietnamese army would be easy to defeat once the US withdrew from Vietnam.
I have explained why the US withdrew from Vietnam in 1973. The reasons for this ranged from racial reasons to the presidential elections of 1972. All these reasons fell into two categories: long term and short term reasons. These categories can be explained like a football game. The build up to a goal is the long-term effect of a goal, whilst the short-term effect of a goal is the shot. I have considered the significance of the reasons and concluded that factors working together have led to the point where the US feels they have to withdraw from Vietnam. However I have I felt the timing of the withdraw was significant. I say this because of the elections which where approaching. Nixon’s main reason to withdraw was that he wanted to win another session in power. Nixon also felt that these elections were a point where the US could move on from the Vietnam War. These facts therefore raise the question that would the US have withdrew from Vietnam that year if there weren’t any elections? My view on this is that I believe they wouldn’t have withdrawn from Vietnam if there hadn’t been presidential elections in that year. Another reason why I felt the timing of the withdraw was so significant was that a new super power had arisen onto the international stage. The US felt that if it pulled out of the Vietnam war it would be easier to make friends with China as they were next to Vietnam and wouldn’t have liked that fact that the US were waging a war so close to them. Also China was a communist country and they were trying to prevent communism spreading in Vietnam, which would’ve made China weary of the US, as they obviously didn’t like communism. This also raises the question what would have happened if China, a new super power, didn’t arise at that time. Would this have left the US with less incentive to leave the war and withdraw from Vietnam in 1973?
