ABSTRACT

Richard M. Nixon's campaign funding came from wealthy California businessmen who wanted a congressman more friendly to their interests than was the incumbent Democrat. The Nixon Doctrine, a variation on traditional US interventionism, was designed to allow the United States to continue its globalist policies while accepting some of the revolutionary changes in the world since 1945. Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, believed that a US withdrawal from Vietnam would have a devastating effect on US credibility and would encourage widespread revolution elsewhere. As a bankrupt and crippled nation began the uphill struggle toward rebuilding and reconcilation, Richard Nixon ordered a policy designed to inflict as cruel and horrible a punishment on Vietnam as could be managed without the recommitment of US troops. Vietnam would receive no loans from multilateral agencies or private investment.