Nixon’s War: Peace With Honor 1969

Abstract On 20 January 1969, Richard Milhous Nixon took the oath of the office as president of the United States. “Johnson’s War” had now become “Nixon’s War,” and it became his task, aided by his national security adviser, Dr. Henry Kissinger, to lead the country out of the war which he had inherited. During his presidential campaign, Nixon had repeatedly stated that he had a plan to end the war. This was political hyperbole, for Nixon had only a vague, generalized approach to getting out of the war which combined the ideas of weakening the enemy, strengthening the RVNAF, and beginning United States troop withdrawals. The first concrete plan for the conduct of the war was devised after the Nixon administration had been in office some four months.