Supporters of the American empire proclaim the U.S. military invincible unless stabbed in the back by politicians. They say the US military won the war in Vietnam, but claim victory was lost after politicians cut off aid to South Vietnam. This is fake history. The Vietnam war was lost by 1963 after the CIA failed to establish a new nation that became known as South Vietnam. The arrival of American troops prevented a defeat, but only caused more death and destruction until they left.
Soon after the Americans departed, the fragile, corrupt puppet regime of South Vietnam collapsed. After this retreat, supporters of the American empire began to spread lies that South Vietnam collapsed in 1975 only because Democrats in Congress cut military aid. This deception begins with the half-truth that the 1968 Tet Offensive was a major defeat for the Vietnamese. This was true on the tactical level but it was a strategic disaster for the US military.
There are 3 key parts that change this version. If it weren’t for China, I am quite sure we would still be in Vietnam. Protests and the press had zero effect. You think Nixon cared what they thought?
We now know Mao had made it clear Nixon couldn’t meet with him until he began removing American troops from the Nam. Kissinger saw an opportunity to create an alliance with China against Russia. There had been border clashes with Russia at the Chinese border, and Russia threatened to attack China. The Russians were going to launch a nuclear attack. Nixon warned the Soviets he would destroy 130 Russian cities in the first strike if they launched an attack on China.This threat warmed China to Nixon.
Next came the problem with North Vietnam. How to get them to accept a peace deal. Nixon used the tactic Barry Goldwater had proposed years before- threaten them with a nuclear strike. Nixon did, and they backed down immediately.
That left what to do with South Vietnam. Nixon had promised them a coalition government, but China would not accept that. Now we get into conjecture ( I can back up all the other claims). The CIA as we left “forgot” a list of all South Vietnamese who had helped us. Thousands upon thousands of names. A good will gesture. Those folks were executed by the thousands after we left, others ended up in prisons (re-education camps).
Nixon got seriously started withdrawing troops from Vietnam in August 1969. Discussions between Nixon and the Chinese, about the possibility of a Nixon-Mao meeting, did not get seriously started until 1971.
There is no evidence of any nuclear threat having played any role in North Vietnam’s acceptance of the peace deal in 1973. We know a lot about Nixon’s policies, thanks to his idiotic decision to put a tape recorder in his office without an on-off switch. If he had made a nuclear threat in 1973 we would know about it.
Why would China make this up? QUOTE: Nixon intervention saved China from Soviet nuclear attack
Mao Zedong moves to Wuhan , Lin Biao to Suzhou and the general staff to a nuclear bombproof bunker in the western hills outside Beijing. The country’s warplanes are scattered around northern China, runways at the main airports blocked and workers given weapons to shoot Soviet airmen when they land.
It is October 1969: China is preparing for a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union. Lin, second to Mao, orders 940,000 soldiers, 4,000 planes and 600 vessels to scatter from their bases and the transfer of major archives from Beijing to the southwest.
Then US president Richard Nixon intervenes. Secretary of state Henry Kissinger tells the Soviet ambassador in Washington that as soon as the Soviets set off their first missile against China, the US will launch nuclear missiles at 130 Soviet cities.
This is the dramatic account in an official magazine of the closest China has come to a nuclear war. The latest issue of Historical Reference, published by the People’s Daily, mouthpiece of the Communist Party, describes in detail the five occasions in the post-1949 period when China was threatened by nuclear attack. UNQUOTE
https://www.scmp.com/article/714064/nixon-intervention-saved-china-soviet-nuclear-attack
The Telegraph also reported this. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/7720461/USSR-planned-nuclear-attack-on-China-in-1969.html
I said you had been wrong about the American troop withdrawal from Vietnam, and about an American nuclear threat against North Vietnam. Your quote says nothing about either topic. It does not contradict anything I said.
This has been declassified since 2014. When Richard Nixon Threatened to Nuke Vietnam
https://warisboring.com/when-nixon-threatened-to-nuke-vietnam/
This article says that Nixon made nuclear threats in 1969, but these had no visible effect on the North Vietnamese position in the peace talks. The peace agreement was signed in 1973. This does not look like good support for your claim that when Nixon made nuclear threats, North Vietnam “backed down immediately.”
I might add that even in 1973, it was not really North Vietnam that backed down. Nixon backed down. His nuclear threats in 1969 had been designed to force North Vietnam to sign an agreement under which all North Vietnamese forces would withdraw from South Vietnam. In 1973, Nixon signed the Paris Agreement, under which only American forces, not North Vietnamese forces, were required to withdraw from South Vietnam.
Nixon nuclear threat was part of his “Madman theory” a bluff to scare Russia, China, N Vietnam into thinking he would be crazy, irrational and volital. enough to nuke…He had no intention to us nukes with thousands of US service personnel in S. Vietnam and S Korea. Paris peace talks dragged on for years. In the end US left…N Vietnam moved in a took it back. US lost. We totally failed to realize the commitment NV had in reunifying Vietnam. They told us they were willing to go it the long-term betting the US would not…they were right.