On January 20, 1969, Nixon was sworn in as the 37th U.S. president.
In the previous year's episode, Nixon had promised to end the Vietnam War.
So** the result shows that the vast majority of Americans are tired of the endless Vietnam War and demand ** to get out of Vietnam.
However, the United States is, after all, the boss of the Western world.
If it is simply "gone" from Vietnam, it will mean that the United States "admits defeat". Shame on me and my grandmother's house.
In order to end the war "decimately", Nixon said in an interview that the United States would continue to assist its allies in their defense only when American help really worked.
To put it bluntly, the United States will only provide South Vietnam with first-class equipment and military assistance in the future, and as for whether or not it can win North Vietnam, it all depends on South Vietnam's own ability.
On June 8, 1969, Nixon and South Vietnamese Nguyen Van Thieu held talks at Midway.
After the talks, Nixon forcibly dragged Nguyen Van Thieu to hold a press conference, announcing that from August to the end of the year, the US military planned to withdraw from Vietnam 650,000 people.
At the same time, Nixon** provided assistance to the South Vietnamese regime on an unprecedented scale to accelerate the modernization of the South Vietnamese armed forces to compensate for the weakening of the American forces caused by the retreat of the American forces.
However, when the U.S. military directly participated in the war, it was because it only provided ** and aid, and South Vietnam was unable to compete with North Vietnam.
Now Nixon is doing this again, trying to "Vietnamize the war", which is actually no different from abandoning South Vietnam.
Of course, Nixon also knew very well in his heart that the South Vietnamese authorities were Adou who could not be supported.
In order to ensure that this Adou would not collapse during his tenure, Nixon** withdrew the US ground forces at the same time, and restarted the strategy of fighting in the south and bombing in the north.
That is, while clearing out the guerrilla forces in South Vietnam, bombing North Vietnam.
In this round of bombing, the US military followed the instructions of the White House and aimed the spearhead at the exit of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Vietnam is a long and narrow country, with the 17th parallel of north latitude, just stuck at the narrowest part of its country.
The North Vietnamese army moved south, and it was difficult to pass the temporary military demarcation line.
Therefore, after passing through the Mujia Pass, the Ho Chi Minh Trail turned into Laos, then entered Cambodia through Laos, and finally sneaked out of the Parrot's Beak area in Cambodia to South Vietnam.
The U.S. military is targeting the exit of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which means bombing Laos and Cambodia.
In addition to the bombing, the CIA staged a coup d'état in Cambodia to expel Sihanouk and bolster the Lon Nol regime.
Subsequently, Nixon sent ground troops to invade Cambodia in the name of protecting his allies.
This is the typical politician who will stop at nothing to achieve his ends.
At the beginning, Westmoreland advocated expanding the scope of the battlefield, burning the flames of war to Laos and Cambodia, and completely cutting off the southward passage of North Vietnamese forces. Angrily denounced by the Republican Party as a warmonger.
As a result, as soon as Nixon came up, he did what Westmoreland wanted to do but couldn't, and the Vietnam War escalated again.
Nixon backtracked, and the Democratic Party and the American people naturally did not agree.
In April 1970, the anti-war movement in the United States, which had been moderated, was on the rise again.
More than 400 colleges and universities across the country went on strike and marched, and 100,000 people poured into Washington.
The anti-war wave was loud and had a strong impact on Congress.
At the end of 1970, the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives passed resolutions prohibiting cross-border strikes by U.S. ground forces, including military advisers.
Under pressure, Nixon had no choice but to withdraw his troops from Cambodia.
The plan to block the exit of the Ho Chi Minh Trail had to be put to fruition.
However, the US Congress did not prohibit the US Air Force from cross-border strikes.
So on February 8, 1971, Nixon ordered the South Vietnamese to send 20,000 ground troops to invade Laos and seize the North Vietnamese-controlled town of Saibang in an attempt to cut off the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
During the operation, the U.S. military was responsible for providing air support.
Nixon intended to use this to prove that the "policy of Vietnamization" was feasible and that the South Vietnamese authorities were not a man to support.
But as expected, the South Vietnamese army was attacked head-on and returned with a crushing defeat.
After the war, Nixon chose to withhold the news, saying on television that the South Vietnamese soldiers were brave and the operation was successful, that the "Vietnamization policy" was working, and that the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam could be accelerated.
But Nixon's lies could only deceive his own people, not his opponents.
In order for the American troops to get out of the way, the North Vietnamese decided to launch an offensive.
In March 1972, North Vietnam, which had received tremendous assistance, returned to full blood.
Immediately, the North Vietnamese side gathered 200,000 troops and hundreds of Soviet-made tanks to launch the "Easter Offensive" against South Vietnam in three directions.
The Easter Offensive was fought from March 30 to October 22, 1972.
Before the U.S. military dispatched its air power, South Vietnam was vulnerable, and North Vietnam progressed very smoothly, once occupying Quang Tri Province and almost cutting South Vietnam into two sections on the highest plateau.
But this offensive of the North Vietnamese, lacking air cover.
When the United States dispatched its air force to bomb indiscriminately, the North Vietnamese tank forces were almost completely wiped out, and the offensive was also dismantled.
Afterwards, in order to prove the success of the "policy of Vietnamization," Nixon again lied that South Vietnam had repelled North Vietnam.
However, the United States broadcast the entire war, and Americans know what is going on.
Everyone understands that the "Vietnamization policy" has failed. As soon as American troops withdrew from Vietnam, the South Vietnamese authorities would collapse in two years at most.
However, no one cares about the truth anymore.
In Nixon's words: "Then let them fall, we can't let 4-year-olds continue to **".
Nixon's attitude toward South Vietnam gave the United States and North Vietnam a common language. As a result, the representatives of the United States and South and North Vietnam resumed negotiations in Paris, France.
But during the negotiations, Nixon won the re-election election.
Since the negotiations were no longer affected, the US position became tough again, and the negotiations were once again deadlocked.
On December 17, 1972, Nixon decided to apply new military pressure.
Since the United States had already withdrawn 500,000 troops from Vietnam by this time, only 2 of the ground forces remained60,000 people.
In such a situation, it is no longer possible to launch a ground offensive. Air strikes became the only option.
In order to give North Vietnam a strong shock, Thomas Mueller, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, put into practice the long-planned "Operation Defender 2" plan.
According to this plan, the US Air Force dispatched 193 B-52 bombers to carry out heavy bombing of the cities of Hanoi and Haiphong in Vietnam.
Prior to this, North Vietnam received air defense ** assistance from the USSR and China.
In addition to the SAM-2 surface-to-air missiles, the North Vietnamese had countless anti-aircraft guns and anti-aircraft machine guns.
In addition, North Vietnam also had information on the attempt of the US military to bomb Hanoi, Vietnam, so it made careful arrangements in advance.
In this way, Soviet-made missiles faced US planes, and a contest between the tip of a needle and a maimang began.
On the evening of December 18, 1972, 87 B-52s took off from Andersen Air Force Base in ** and 42 B-52s took off from U-Tapao Air Base in Thailand, heading for Hanoi and Haiphong, respectively.
When the B-52 attacked, the North Vietnamese side fought back with all their might.
On the advice of Soviet experts, the North Vietnamese always launched missiles at the moment when the B-52 bomb was dropped, when the group made a turn and the performance of the electronic jamming device was minimized. It's not a random shot.
However, even so, the SAM-2's attack was poorly effective.
Of the 200 SAM-2 missiles launched that night, only three B-52s were hit. One of them struggled to fly back into Thailand.
SAM-2 surface-to-air missile.
In addition to launching surface-to-air missiles, North Vietnam also dispatched MiG-21 fighter jets to intercept them.
But the effect was not good, and it was not possible to shoot down the enemy aircraft, but one MiG-21 was shot down, setting a record for the B-52 to shoot down a fighter.
Suffering a big loss, Soviet experts summed up their experience overnight.
They believe that the U.S. B-52 bomber relies on advanced electronic equipment, so the flight route is relatively fixed.
Therefore, the solution given by Soviet specialists was to expand the range of defenses, intercepting the B-52 on its way.
And it worked. During the bombing on December 20, six B-52s were shot down, four of which landed in North Vietnam and two in Thailand.
Downed B-52
Six B-52s were lost overnight, and the U.S. military also summed up its experience overnight.
After research, the Americans believed that North Vietnam had figured out the rules of their own formation flight. At the same time, none of the downed B-52s were installed with the latest electronic jamming devices.
So for the next few days, the B-52s, which did not have the latest electronic jamming devices installed, were grounded.
At the same time, the original formation flight method was abandoned, and the US military changed to attack the target in multiple directions and batches, so that the North Vietnamese could not figure out the direction of the main attack.
After the adjustment, the losses of the American troops were greatly reduced, and the air defense of the North Vietnamese suffered heavy losses.
During the 11-day "Operation Defender 2", the U.S. military dropped a total of 150,000 tons of bombs.
North Vietnam launched a total of 1,240 SAM-2 surface-to-air missiles, but only 15 B-52 bombers were shot down.
It is worth mentioning that it was Operation Defender 2 that made the Soviets realize that American integrated circuits overwhelmed their own tubes.
Therefore, after more than 20 years of miniaturization of electron tubes, the Soviet Union also began to turn to the research of integrated circuits.
However, due to the accumulation of difficulties, the Soviet Union's electronic technology theory and production technology have lagged behind the times.
Until the collapse, Soviet chips did not catch up with the United States.
And the backwardness of chips has also led to the Soviet Union becoming more and more powerless in the face of the American system.
In January 1973, North Vietnam, unable to fight any longer, reached an armistice with the United States.
At midnight on January 27, the agreement came into force. At this point, after 17 years and two months of involvement in the Vietnam War, the United States finally withdrew.
In these more than ten years, the United States paid $250 billion for the war and lost 580,000 and 300,000 people were injured, and more than 20,000 people were completely unable to take care of themselves and required lifelong medical care.
Vietnam's losses were even greater, and the United States was only 32 in this areaThe small country of 90,000 square kilometers dropped far more bombs than it had during World War II. Millions of Vietnamese were killed and wounded, and tens of thousands of Vietnamese became refugees.
Lao Mei withdrew, but the Vietnam War was not over.
At this time, no one could have expected that South Vietnam, which had a million-strong army, would be defeated like a mountain and be so completely defeated.