ABSTRACT
When he took the oath of office in January 1969, President Richard M. Nixon was determined to extricate the United States from the military stalemate in Indochina before the rapidly growing antiwar movement wrecked his administration. Having failed to frighten Hanoi into complying with his wishes, Nixon fell back on the Vietnamization policy that he had inherited from Lyndon B. Johnson. Despite his desire to stifle the antiwar movement in the United States, Nixon refused to authorize a rapid withdrawal of American troops from South Vietnam. Nixon realized that huge military expenditures were eroding the commercial supremacy of the United States in the global marketplace. Using a French intermediary, Nixon proposed the mutual withdrawal of North Vietnamese and American troops from South Vietnam as a first step toward an enduring peace. The president spelled out his plan for the gradual withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam as army of the Republic of Vietnam units steadily gained strength.
