Nixon’s Cambodian Incursion

During the spring of 1970, there was a threat to President Richard Nixon’s plan to end the war. In June 1969, he had announced an exit strategy focused on “Vietnamization,” a program to gradually transfer all of the war’s military operations to the South Vietnamese. At the same time, Nixon announced the beginning of phased U.S. troop withdrawals. Vietnamization was designed to strengthen the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and bolster President Nguyen Van Thieu’s government so the ARVN could stand on its own against the communist aggression from North Vietnam. At that point, all U.S. troops could be sent home.

On Aug. 15, 1969, the Nixon administration issued a new mission statement to Gen. Creighton Abrams, the head of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, in charge of all U.S. combat operations in South Vietnam. Nixon directed Abrams to provide “maximum assistance” to strengthen the armed forces of South Vietnam; to increase support for the “pacifica-tion” program (helping rural villages with social services, income-generating agriculture and security to build support for the Saigon government); and to reduce the flow of enemy supplies down the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos and Cambodia. Those two countries were technically neutral, but the NVA and Viet Cong had used them to establish “sanctuaries,” bases of troops and supplies used to launch attacks on South Vietnam.

The first U.S. withdrawals began in July 1969, when 25,000 troops departed, followed by 40,000 in December and 50,00 in spring 1970 through April. Meanwhile, the North Vietnamese leadership in Hanoi continued its long war of attrition, supported by the sanctuaries in Cambodia and Laos. Abrams became concerned that the American troop drawdown was occurring at a faster pace than the program to improve the South Vietnamese army.

Something had to be done to provide more time for the South Vietnamese to get their act together before U.S. troop levels were too low to provide significant assistance. In late 1969, Abrams proposed a limited operation to strike the communist sanctuaries in Cambodia. That idea had been proposed before but was disapproved every time it had been brought up.

Defense Secretary Melvin Laird and Secretary of State William Rogers were adamantly opposed to a U.S.-ARVN ground operation in Cambodia. They thought it would be political suicide to widen the war. Soon, however, events in Cambodia