President Richard M. Nixon Says His “Nixon Doctrine”, Which Provided for Vietnamization of the War, But Also Signaled Detente With China and the Soviet Union, Is “an accurate reflection of my personal convictions with regard to our national security.”

Richard Nixon was elected in 1968 on the basis of his claim to have a plan to end the War in Vietnam, which had dragged on for years and deeply divided the country. However, once in the White House, he continued the war, and on July 25, 1969 set forth what became known as the Nixon Doctrine: “The United States would assist in the defense and developments of allies and friends,” but would not “undertake all the defense of the free nations of the world.” This meant in general that allies would share defense burdens with the U.S., and in specific Vietnamization of the war (having South Vietnam forces continue the war with U.S. help, as the U.S. began to withdraw some ground troops). He confirmed this approach on November 3, 1969, in a televised address, outlining Vietnamization of the war and asking that it be given a chance. This led to massive anti-war demonstrations in mid-late November. On April 30, 1970, Nixon asked the American people to support his decision to widen the war by sending troops into Cambodia in response to North Vietnam’s presence in that country. That decision led to more dissent, anger on both sides of the issue, and to the shootings at Kent State in May. And so the war, and a severely divided nation, continued (perhaps hobbled) into 1971.

On February 9, 1971, Nixon issued his Second Annual Report to Congress on American Foreign Policy, which confirmed the Nixon Doctrine and expanded on it in crucial ways. The report maintained: “The Doctrine seeks to reflect these realities: –that a major American role remains indispensable. –that other nations can and should assume greater responsibilities, for their sake as well as ours. –that the change in the strategic relationship calls for new doctrines. –that the emerging polycentrism of the Communist world presents different challenges and new opportunities.” Thus, as far as Vietnam, the report meant that the U.S. would not abandon its military role, though it would expect South Vietnamese forces to pull their weight so that U.S. ground troops could be withdrawn. And that would take time, which would not satisfy those with doubts about the war. On the other hand, it clearly maintained that there must be a change in relations between the United States, and both China and the Soviet Union, stating: “I wish to make it clear that the United States is prepared to see the People’s Republic of China play a constructive role in the family of nations,” signaling that the U.S. was ready to a detente with China. In fact that very month feelers went out that would soon lead to Nixon’s being invited to Beijing. As for the Soviet Union, the report said: “There need be, in all this, no irreconcilable conflict between Soviet interests in Asia and our own,” signaling a willingness to thaw out the Cold War with them as well.

Then in a radio address to the nation on February 25, Nixon summarized the report. Because American allies and friends had “gained new strength and self-confidence” and were “able to participate much more fully not only in their own defense” Nixon said, and because American “adversaries no longer present a solidly united front,” the United States no longer had to be the leader and “the primary supporter and defender” of the free world.  Thus, although the United States would keep its commitments and would “make sure our own troop levels or any financial support to other nations is appropriate to current threats and needs”, it would “look to threatened countries and their neighbors to assume primary responsibility for their own defense.”  Nixon threw a sop to widespread anti-war sentiment by saying, “We have learned in recent years the dangers of over-involvement,” but countered with a plea for continued involvement: “The other danger—a grave risk we are equally determined to avoid—is under-involvement. After a long and unpopular war, there is temptation to turn inward—to withdraw from the world, to back away from our commitments. That deceptively smooth road of the new isolationism is surely the road to war.” He added a claim that the United States was succeeding in its plans to withdraw from the war in Vietnam, but that North Vietnam refused to accept American peace proposals. In fact, by the end of two more months, he said, the United States would have brought home 260,000 of the 550,000 American soldiers who were in Vietnam when he took office. With American air support but without either American ground troops or advisors, Nixon said, South Vietnamese troops were disrupting the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the Communist supply line, which would “save lives and insure the success of our withdrawal program next year.” The United States, he added, had tendered a broad, five-point peace proposal, and that proposal was “supported by every government in Indochina except one – the Government of North Vietnam.” This all amounted to a continuation of the war until the North Vietnamese would withdraw their forces, which they would not do, and the South Vietnamese could defeat them without many American ground troops. All this he claimed would take just another year.

Nixon viewed his knowledge of foreign affairs as his “political strong suit.”  Foreign policy issues, he said, are “the most important decisions a President faces.” One of his advisors on these issues was Lewellyn E. Thompson, who was one of the most important American diplomats of the 20th Century.  Thompson was the United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, serving two separate tours in the administrations of Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson. Few Ambassadors faced as many crises as Thompson did in Moscow – the shooting down of a U.S. U-2 reconnaissance aircraft over Russia, the great confrontation between the U.S. and Soviet Union over Berlin and the building of the Berlin Wall, very difficult summits between Soviet Premier Khruschev and Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, the August 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and tensions over the Vietnam War. Thompson ended his first tour in Moscow in 1962, when President Kennedy brought him home to Washington to become his Ambassador-at-Large, as a member of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, advising the President on Soviet affairs. Shortly after returning to Washington, Thompson provided Kennedy with advice that was crucial to avoiding nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. President Johnson reappointed him to the ambassadorship to Moscow in 1967, when he arranged for the Glassboro summit between LBJ and Soviet Premier Kosygin, and he served until 1969.

Nixon knew Thompson well and appreciated his “strong and active interest in our countryʼs efforts to further the cause of peace and international understanding.”   In 1956, Thompson, then the Ambassador to Austria, assisted then-Vice President Nixon on his 1956 inspection trip to survey the refugee situation when 180,000 Hungarians fled to Austria as the Soviet Union militarily crushed the Hungarian Revolution.  Three years later, Thompson accompanied Vice President Nixon at the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, part of a cultural exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union.  It was at that exhibition that Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev engaged in a series of impromptu hard-hitting ideological debates that covered the range of Soviet-American relations from the threat of atomic war, to the economic progress in both nations. Thompson again helped Nixon when, as a private citizen, Nixon visited the Soviet Union in March 1967 in the first of four foreign study trips that he used as the springboard to launch his campaign for the 1968 Republican presidential nomination. As president, Nixon brought Thompson out of retirement to advise him on the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) negotiations with the Soviet Union, with Thompson representing the United States in the SALT talks from 1969 until his death in 1972.

Typed Letter Signed, on White House, Washington, March 10, 1971, to Thompson, sending him his Annual Report to Congress on American Foreign Policy, and very unusually, personally endorsing it by tying it to his own career and experience. “On February 25 I sent a special message on the American foreign policy to the Congress.  This report describes our approach to a changing world, notes the progress we have achieved during the past year, and sets forth our assessment of the tasks that lie ahead.  In view of your strong and active interest in our country’s efforts to further the cause of peace and international understanding, I wanted you to have a copy of the report.

“While this document is long, over 60,000 words, I would strongly urge when you have a free evening that you read it carefully. Not only does it set forth in depth the Administration’s policies and the reasons for these policies; it also is an accurate reflection of my personal convictions with regard to our national security after almost twenty-five years in public life – as a Congressman, as a Senator, as a participant in decision-making and policy determination at the highest level,  and also as one who reflected often on these problems during the years between as a private citizen.  I also want to emphasize that the review does not simply represent the views of the President and the White House.  The State Department, the Defense Department and other agencies in government, where their interests were involved, participated fully in the months of discussion which resulted in our final conclusions.  Consequently, it can truly be said that this document represents the views of the entire Administration.”

The Nixon Doctrine articulated here was in part a success and in part proved wishful thinking. The successes related to his sage realization that the Communist world was not monolithic, and was in fact fragmenting; and that this fragmentation presented an opportunity for the U.S. On July 15, 1971, Nixon announced that he has been invited to China, ending a quarter of a century of hostility in Sino-American relations. And on October 12 of that year, there was a joint announcement issued in Washington and Moscow confirming that Nixon would visit the Soviet Union three months after returning from China. These visits were widely seen as paradigm-shattering and beneficial. The failure: South Vietnam proved unable to survive without American troops.