ABSTRACT
During the 1968 presidential campaign, Nixon had frequently criticized Johnson’s gradualist use of military force in Vietnam because it had produced neither military victory nor a negotiated settlement of the war. In his first inaugural address, the president conceded that winning a military victory “over any other people” was no longer possible. But he would end the war and win the peace. He would bring an end to the fighting while avoiding defeat; that is, he sought to maintain a noncommunist government in Saigon and prevent it from being replaced by a communist regime. Achieving his goal in Indochina required that he win a military and political victory over the Communist forces in the Republic of South Vietnam (RVN) and a diplomatic victory over the DRV at the Paris negotiations.1
