End of the Vietnam War and Effects on America

U.S. Withdrawal

U.S. President Lyndon Johnson's decision not to seek reelection in 1968 prompted serious negotiations to end the war to began. Between 1968 and 1969, contacts in Paris between North Vietnam and the United States were expanded to include South Vietnam and the NLF. Under the leadership of President Richard M Nixon, the United States changed its tactics to combine U.S. troop withdrawals with intensified bombing and the invasion of Communist sanctuaries in Cambodia .

Due to the length of the war, the high number of U.S. casualties, and the exposure of U.S. involvement in war crimes such as the massacre at My Lai, the United States began to turn against war. Politically, the movement was led by Senators James William Fulbright, Robert F. Kennedy, Eugene J. McCarthy and George S. McGovern, and there were also huge public demonstrations in Washington, D.C., along with many other cities and college campuses in the United States.

Peace talks in Paris progressed, even as the war continued, with Henry Kissinger as U.S. negotiator. The talks were not thrown off track, even as a break in negotiations, followed by U.S. saturation bombing of North Vietnam. A peace agreement was reached and signed by the United States, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the NFL’s provisional revolutionary government on Jan. 27, 1973. The written