Nixon Prolongs The Vietnam War To Win An Election
Nixon, pictured here injecting a slow-acting poison into Elvis’s hand. (Not really, but it wouldn’t be surprising.) Source: Nixon Library
Recently, 47 American senators have sparked international outrage and posed a potential security threat by writing a letter to Iranian leadership, asking them not to make a deal with President Obama. It seems they’ve taken this move right out of Richard Nixon’s playbook.
The Vietnam War had killed over 36,000 Americans by the end of 1968, and then-president Johnson was attempting to make concessions with North and South Vietnam, agreeing to stop the bombing of North Vietnam if South Vietnam agreed to de-escalate as well. (This would form the basis for the Paris Peace Accords).
“Thanks, Dick.” Source: Horst Faas
During the 1968 Presidential elections, without the knowledge of LBJ or the American government at large, Richard Nixon tasked a senior adviser named Anna Chenault with contacting the South Vietnamese President, Nguyen Van Thieu, and assuring him that South Vietnam would get a better deal if it waited for Nixon to take office rather than negotiate a cease-fire right away with LBJ. (Seriously. Nixon did this.)
The fledgling peace process collapsed, and another 21,000 Americans would die before the United States pulled out of the conflict in 1973. Two years later, Saigon fell, and communist-controlled North Vietnam took over the entirety of Vietnam.
