ABSTRACT
Public opinion polls taken in early 1969 showed that large majorities of Americans wanted a quick end to the US war and favored an early withdrawal of all US forces. Richard M. Nixon stressed the importance of ending the war honorably and in such a fashion that the US withdrawal from Vietnam would never be or even appear to be an American defeat. Discovering that military escalation would probably not be effective, unwilling to make concessions that compromised his notion of peace with honor, and facing rising domestic opposition and impending peace demonstrations, Nixon found himself without a Vietnam policy. While Nixon sought a Vietnam War policy, liberal antiwar activists organized the Moratorium and the New Mobilization, the largest antiwar demonstrations ever staged in America. Nixon sold the American people a policy that he claimed would produce an honorable peace and save American lives.
