Why Were Us Forces Withdrawn From Vietnam In 1973?

When Johnson was in power, he was committed to negotiate an end to the war and the Hanoi government agreed to talks to be held in Paris. Now that Nixon came into power, he directed his National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger, to begin secret talks in Paris with the North Vietnamese. US intensified to aerial bombing of North Vietnam in the peace talk to out pressure on North Vietnamese in the peace talk. US also bombed Cambodia as there were bases for the Communists there.

In May 1970, ARVN troops and US invaded Cambodia and this caused mass destruction but did not wipe out the Communist bases. The invasion was not a long-term success. Huge quantities of weapons and other supplies were captured and thousands of the enemies were killed, but when the troops left the communists simply moved back into the area and started to rebuild. Furthermore, large parts of Cambodia had been bombed heavily and many thousands of Cambodian people were killed. Cambodia was a broken nation and some people hated the Americans and this led to the Cambodian communists coming to power in 1975.

Students in many American colleges and universities demonstrated on campus. They became more violent in 1970 after US troops invaded Cambodia. Anti-war protesters in California set fire to a bank in February and threw rocks and bottles at police. There were protest marches and demonstrations at colleges and universities across America. Sadly, in some states, part-time soldiers-called National Guardsmen - were brought in to help the police keep order. More were inexperienced and easily panicked. This led to confrontation at Jackson State University in Mississippi where two students were shot dead by these inexperienced police. This put even more pressure on the government.

In 1971, the morale of the soldiers became low. 61% of the soldiers were against the war. This is because the US army has withdrawn 400000 troops leaving behind only 140000 soldiers. Even though Nixon promised all of the soldiers would leave Vietnam in 1972, they did not want to be the last one to die in the battle. Also, some of the soldiers thought it was pointless to fight and they did not want to kill the civilians. Search and destroy missions became a search and avoid operations. Over enthusiastic officers were threatened and even murdered. As a result of this, the US could see that they should let the soldiers go back to American quickly. There was no point for them staying in Vietnam because there was conflict in their army and some refused to co-operate.

The number of dishonourable soldiers back home in American contributed to the rising tide of opinion against the war. In 1971 the Pentagons papers, the government papers about the handling the war, leaked the to the press and helped turn public opinion further against the war.

With American groups pulling out of Vietnam, Nixon's strategy required continued US bombing to keep the communists from making too many advances. The huge American bombers whom the Vietnamese called them the whispering death was an important part of military strategy. Throughout 1971 and 1972, bombing increased in the North Vietnam.The bombing affected North Vietnam greatly, the environment was destroyed, many people were killed.

In eater 1972, the communists launched a major offensive throughout the South. Because of the communist domination since the Tet offensive, the NVA has 150000 people and 75000 Vietcong regular. Soviet also supplied with weapons and tank which was the feature of the offensive. The communists took the northern city called Quang Tri by late April but by May the ARVN had started a counter offensive in conjunction with heavy American bombing. Quang Tri was recaptured in the middle of September. The Easter offensive showed the communist leadership that these were no hope for a quick victory against a well-supplied ARVN and massive US firepower.

Another reason that made the US pulled back was Détente. It was the relations between the East and West has been improving during the 1960s despite the American commitment to Vietnam. Détente has already led to important agreement. At the same time, the USA had also improved its relationship with china and the Soviet Union. Nixon even visited china in February 1972 and the Soviet Union three months later in May. Lack of unity in the Communist camp made it easier to negotiate a cease-fire.

This made the chance for a negotiated peace was looking brighter than they had for many years. In October of 1972, the talks between Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, a Hanoi leading member the North Vietnamese government, was a success. Hanoi and the USA agreed to a cease-fire in place in South Vietnam. This meant that the soldiers of both sides would remain in their positions when the fighting stopped.

The cease-fire proposal proved to be unacceptable by president Thieu and the Saigon regime. They saw the agreement as a sell out by the Americans. After President Nixon won a landslide victory in the election of November, his government persuaded Thieu into accepting the terms of the agreement by threatening to reduce US aid.

Protests were getting very enormous and violent in Washington. Therefore, Nixon was determined to achieve an agreement in the quickest possible time. He ordered a massive escalation in the bombing of the north to try to force the communists back to the negotiating table. Nixon was also showing president Thieu that he could rely on US support even after withdrawals. The Christmas bombing of 1972 lasted eleven days and 200000 bombs were dropped on the cities of Hanoi and Haiphong.

Although North Vietnam denies it, the bombing probably did force North Vietnam to the talks and a cease-fire was finalised quickly on 23 January 1973.