Richard Nixon : By Abril Mejia
Richard Nixon had become Vice President in 1952, he then was renominated in 1956. He became the 37th president in 1969, serving from 1969-1974. In his first year term he made a promise to America that he would reduce US troop levels in Vietnam.
The election of 1968 , Republican Richard Nixon claimed to have a plan to end the war in Vietnam. However it took him five years to disengage the United States from Vietnam. About a third of the Americans who died in combat were killed during the Nixon presidency. Nixon persuaded a plan called Vietnamization. Vietnamization is when the US would gradually withdraw from the war, leaving the South Vietnamese. He American ground troop levels remained high in Vietnam, and the Nixon administration expanded the war into the countries of Laos and Cambodia. During Nixon's final year of office, the last Us combat soldiers returned home, but military advisers and some marines remained. |
Henry Kissinger: By Abril Mejia/Zoe Manalo
Henry Kissinger was born in Germany in 1923. He escaped the Nazi regime to become a powerful US and controversial US statesman. In 1969, Kissinger finally left Harvard when incoming President Richard Nixon appointed him to serve as his National Security Advisor. As National Security Advisor from 1969-7. Then as Secretary of State from 1973-1977, Kissinger would prove one of the most powerful statesmen in American history.
The great foreign policy trial of Kissinger's career was the Vietnam War. By the time Kissinger became National Security Advisor in 1969, the Vietnam War had become enormously costly, deadly and unpopular.
He negotiated arms treaty with the Soviet Union and earned a Nobel prize for ending US involvement in North Vietnam.
With trying to achieve "peace with honor," Kissinger combined diplomatic initiatives and troop withdrawals with devastating bombing campaigns on North Vietnam designed to improve the American bargaining position and maintain American credibility with its international allies and enemies.
With Kissingers "peace with honor" strategy lasted the war for four years, from 1969-73, during which 22,000 American troops and countless Vietnamese died. As a result he started a secret bombing campaign in Cambodia that ravaged the country and helped the genocidal Khmer Rouge take power there.
After leaving the Cabinet, he chaired the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America and served on the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
The great foreign policy trial of Kissinger's career was the Vietnam War. By the time Kissinger became National Security Advisor in 1969, the Vietnam War had become enormously costly, deadly and unpopular.
He negotiated arms treaty with the Soviet Union and earned a Nobel prize for ending US involvement in North Vietnam.
With trying to achieve "peace with honor," Kissinger combined diplomatic initiatives and troop withdrawals with devastating bombing campaigns on North Vietnam designed to improve the American bargaining position and maintain American credibility with its international allies and enemies.
With Kissingers "peace with honor" strategy lasted the war for four years, from 1969-73, during which 22,000 American troops and countless Vietnamese died. As a result he started a secret bombing campaign in Cambodia that ravaged the country and helped the genocidal Khmer Rouge take power there.
After leaving the Cabinet, he chaired the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America and served on the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.