How Did Nixon End The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War established the credibility gap in the 1960s. Debates over the nation’s participation in Southeast Asian conflicts rose while the US, a rising world power, struggle to contain the spreading communist values of the Soviet Union. As the Civil War stretches through the 1900s, presidents of the latter half of 20th century America began inheriting the foreign problem. Looking straight towards US victory, Lyndon B. Johnson began taking drastic attempts of ending the war. These efforts, however, as seen through the heightening of the Vietnam War in 1968 with the Tet Offensive, only brought further damage to the US government’s dependability and amplified the already heavy challenges that his successor were to face. Although Nixon’s foreign policy from 1969 to 1974 was successful at decreasing US involvement in the Vietnam War, his overall duplicitous
Nixon’s Vietnamization strategy that made way for the safe return of thousands of US soldiers such as POW Lt. Col. John Dramesi (DOC. 3) helped the US government to garner support from its citizens once again. The 80,000 telegrams and letters sent to the White House (DOC.4) further reveal the successes of Nixon’s foreign policy that united the nation with a common goal of ending the war. Furthermore, the decreasing numbers of US troops sent to war each year (DOC. 6) bolstered public support for the government in the early 1970s. Along with Vietnamization, Nixon’s policies inspired by détente such as the SALT I proved to be popular to the Americans of the late 1900s. The accomplishments of the Nixon administration in reducing the damages imposed by US involvement in war were undoubtedly successful. These triumphs, however, foreshadow the impediments that inevitably came, difficulties that allowed the existence of the credibility gap to