Withdrawing the Troops from the Vietnam War- Politics in the 1970's

After three years of the Vietnam War’s proceedings President Lynden B. Johnson’s determined to not seek reelection in 1968, allowing the election of Richard Nixon. Serious negotiations began and continued throughout the next five years. 

The United States war movement in Vietnam triggered the largest anti-war movement in the nation’s history. Initiated by the bombing of North Vietnam in 1964 and the introduction of the draft for combat troops, war protest steadily increased for the next ten years. Students, government officials, labor unions, church groups and middle class families increasingly opposed the war as it climaxed in 1968, forcing a gradual withdrawal of U.S. forces. Some opposition was merely vocal at the start; however, it continued to escalate as the war progressed. Several examples led to violence such as the Kent State shooting in 1970.
Many factors played into this war’s great unpopularity with the people. The length of the war, the high number of U.S. casualties, and the exposure of U.S. involvement in war crimes such as the massacre at My Lai, helped to turn many in the United States against the war.

In September of 1969, Nixon attempted a new tactic to slowly begin the withdrawal of troops. His idea was proceed in force and intensify bombings directly of the communist sanctuaries in Cambodia. Lack of internal support made Nixon’s popularity difficult, though progress continued.
A battalion of the U.S. 9th Infantry Division left Saigon in the initial withdrawal of U.S. troops. These soldiers were the first of 25,000 troops that were withdrawn in the first stage of the U.S. disengagement from the war. There would be 14 more stages in the withdrawal, but the last U.S. troops did not leave until after the Paris Peace Accords were signed in January 1973.

In January of 1973 the United States, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the Vietnam Congress all signed a peace treaty that would withdraw the rest of the American troops with in a time frame of sixty days. This also created a political process and a transition into a peaceful ending and the resolving of the conflict in South Korea. This agreement did not end the fighting, however. 

The main goal if the US withdrawal of troops was called ‘Vietnamization’. This term was simply the idea in which South Vietnam would need to take on larger role in this fight against communism. The United States government simply wanted to enable to South Vietnamese to be able and take full control of their country.