Ending the War in Vietnam

• In 1965 the USA launched Operation Rolling Thunder: the bombing of military targets in North Vietnam
• In 1968, with mounting criticism of the Vietnam War at home and abroad, President Johnson announced that he would stop the bombing of North Vietnam and that he would not run for re-election the following year
• Ho Chi Minh died in 1969 but it took a few more years for the war to conclude
• Vietnamisation


  Nixon's policy of building up the armed forces of America's allies, until they could take responsibility for their own defence
• Nixon escalated the bombing campaign in North Vietnam, to disrupt the Ho Chi Minh trail and hit Vietcong bases in the neighbouring countries of Laos and Cambodia, and to force the North Vietnamese to negotiate after initial peace talks broke down
• The US table tennis team visited China in 1971 for a friendly game of table tennis and were followed by Nixon himself in 1972. Trade between the US and China improved and tensions were reduced. This strategy became known as 'ping pong diplomacy'
• Nixon was a staunch anti-communist, but he was concerned about the growing risk of nuclear war and wanted to ease the tensions of the Cold War – this was the period of 'détente'
• Nixon set out to improve relations with China and the USSR
• Vietnam War Supplies being carried through jungle routes from North Vietnam to the South on the Ho Chi Minh trail