Secret US bombings of Cambodia
- President Nixon authorizes a secret bombing campaign in Cambodia, the western neighbor of Vietnam whose lawless eastern border regions housed many Viet Cong encampments. The bombings will continue through 1975. (ZMag)
"US officially stops work on bioweapons"
- Nixon orders an end to all US biological weapons research and orders all US stockpiles of biological weapons destroyed. The USSR continues to stockpile and perform research on biological weapons well into the 1980s. The US continues to perform secret biological weapons testing despite the presidential ban. Many US scientists believe that, when the USSR stops its biological weapons research after the end of the Cold War, many Soviet scientists will lend their expertise to other nations and organizations, building the infrastructure for what will become 21st century bioterrorism. (Karen Balkin)
- Republican congressman Donald Rumsfeld finally joins the Nixon White House, as the head of the Office of Economic Opportunity. Rumsfeld's task is to shut down the agency, but Rumsfeld, seeing it as a possible power base, and at least to some degree believing in its mission, keeps the agency afloat by transforming it: "He saved it, but he saved it by revolutionizing it, by changing it," remembers his deputy director, Frank Carlucci. While at the OEO, Rumsfeld hires a "quiet and unassuming" Capitol Hill intern named Dick Cheney to be his executive assistant, thus beginning a working partnership between the two men that lasts throughout both men's careers. Urged by friends to leave the OEO before it brings his career down, Rumsfeld leaves his post in 1971 and joins Nixon's staff as a special advisor. Rumsfeld privately urges Nixon to get US troops out of Vietnam as soon as possible: "[He] could see that we were not figuring out a strategy to win in Vietnam," remembers friend and colleague Robert Ellsworth. "Neither could we figure out a strategy to withdraw. And it was very frustrating." Though other White House aides view Rumsfeld with suspicion, and Henry Kissinger will advise Nixon to fire him, Nixon values Rumsfeld's advice and keeps him close. "Rumsfeld was the only guy in the White House that was a politician," says James Mann. "and Nixon could identify with someone who had to run for office, who had to take the hits, take the criticism.... And I think Nixon identified with Rumsfeld, the politician." The ambitious Rumsfeld repeatedly badgers Nixon for more powerful positions in the administration, even suggesting that he might make a popular replacement choice for Vice President Agnew in the 1972 campaign, but Nixon instead urges Rumsfeld to gain more experience in foreign policy, particularly in Japan, Russia, China or Europe, before seeking higher office. "Latin America doesn't matter," Nixon warns, "...[and]there's nothing you can do about the Middle East." Ironically, in light of Rumsfeld's later position, Nixon muses that the only cabinet job he doesn't think Rumsfeld is fit for is secretary of defense. (PBS)
- February 3: Fatah leader Yasser Arafat is elected chairman of the executive committee of the PLO. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, headed by George Habash, refuses to accept Fatah's leadership of the PLO and continues to operate independently. The PLO begins acting almost as a state within a state within its host country of Jordan, and Habash and other psuedo-Marxist Palestinians call for not only the demolition of Israel, but the overthrow of more moderate Arab leaders such as Jordan's King Hussein. Factionalism would create dissension within the ranks of the Palestinian resistance for years, and the Palestinians will lose much support across the Arab world. (Dawoud el-Alami)
- February 20: Lieutenant John Kerry, commanding a swift boat in the Mekong Delta, is wounded in the thigh during a gunboat battle and earns his second Purple Heart. (Bush-Kerry Timeline)
- February 28: While under fire, swift boat commander John Kerry braves enemy fire to charge a Viet Cong position that is threatening his boat, grounds his boat, goes ashore and pursues a Viet Cong fighter into a small hut, kills him, and retrieves his loaded rocket launcher. Kerry then leads an assault party to secure the area, killing 10 Viet Cong with no American casualties. Kerry is awarded a Silver Star "for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action." His tactics of turning his boat into the teeth of enemy fire and challenging enemies on the shore directly wins commendations and are adopted by fellow swift boat commanders. (Bush-Kerry Timeline)
- March 13: Patrolling the Bay Hap river with five other swift boats, Kerry's group is ambushed. Kerry is hit in the arm by fragments of an exploding mine while another boat is blown out of the water. Kerry turns his boat back toward the ambush to rescue survivors. "We were still under fire, and he was wounded at the time" recalls Jim Rassmann, a Green Beret. Kerry pulls Rassman into his boat and is awarded a third Purple Heart and a Bronze Star "[f]or heroic achievement [and] great personal courage under fire." (Bush-Kerry Timeline)
- March 16: Nixon meets with his security advisor Henry Kissinger, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, and Secretary of State William Rogers to discuss a new approach to Vietnam. Nixon says that the North Vietnamese need something "they will understand" to convince them to negotiate for peace; the next day, March 17, sees the beginning of the Nixon-authorized but highly illegal B-52 bombing of Cambodian targets, code-named "Operation Menu." Neither North Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh nor Cambodia's Prince Sihanouk publicly complain, Ho because he doesn't want to admit to the numbers of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese civilians living, working, and operating in Cambodia, and Sihanouk because he hopes the bombings will clear out most of the North Vietnamese from his border territories. (D.J. Herda, Vietnam War Timeline)
- April 30: US troop levels peak at 543,400. There have been 33,641 Americans killed by now, a total greater than the Korean War. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- May: The New York Times breaks the news of the secret bombing of Cambodia. As a result, Nixon orders FBI wiretaps on the telephones of four journalists, along with 13 government officials to determine the source of the news leak. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- May 10 - May 20: Forty-six men of the 101st Airborne die during a fierce ten-day battle at "Hamburger Hill" in the A Shau Valley near Hue. 400 others are wounded. After the hill is taken, the troops are then ordered to abandon it by their commander. NVA troops then move in and take back the hill unopposed. The costly assault and its confused aftermath provokes a political outcry back in the US charging that American lives are being senselessly wasted in Vietnam. One senator labels the assault "senseless and irresponsible." It is the beginning of the end for America in Vietnam as Washington now orders MACV Commander General Creighton Abrams, Westmoreland's replacement, to avoid such encounters in the future. "Hamburger Hill" is the last major search and destroy mission by US troops during the war. Small unit actions will now be used instead. A long period of decline in morale and discipline begins among American draftees serving in Vietnam involuntarily. Drug usage becomes rampant as nearly 50 percent experiment with marijuana, opium, or heroin, which are easy to obtain on the streets of Saigon and elsewhere in theater. US military hospitals later become deluged with drug-related cases as drug abuse causalities far outnumber causalities of war. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- May 14: During his first TV speech on Vietnam, Nixon presents a peace plan in which America and North Vietnam would simultaneously pull out of South Vietnam over the next year. The offer is rejected by Hanoi. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- June 8: President Nixon meets South Vietnam's President Nguyen Van Thieu at Midway Island and informs him US troop levels are going to be sharply reduced. During a press briefing with Thieu, Nixon announces "Vietnamization" of the war and a US troop withdrawal of 25,000 men. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- June 23: Warren Burger, a political appointee to the federal court of appeals, is sworn in to replace Chief Justice Earl Warren on the Supreme Court. Burger is named by Nixon, who promised to name a "strict constructionist" to the Court. Burger will disappoint many conservatives by his failure to lead a judicial charge against a number of recent, controversial decisions by the Warren court, most notably school desegregation and the invalidation of the death penalty. Burger will even vote with the majority to approve legalizing abortions in the landmark Roe v. Wade case. Burger will be instrumental in disallowing Nixon's attempt to hide documents and tapes related to the Watergate scandal. On the other hand, he will vote to reinstate the death penalty in 1976. With later appointees William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O'Connor, Burger will become the third leg of the "conservative troika" of the Court. Burger will avoid controversy as a justice, and will spend much of his energy on the lesser-known function of the Chief Justice, that of administering the nation's legal system. He will initiate the National Institute for State Courts, now located in Williamsburg, Virginia, the Institute for Court Management, and National Institute of Corrections to provide professional training for judges, clerks, and prison guards. In his later years on the Court, his unwillingness to provoke controversy and desire for consensus will often leave the liberals of the court, first led by William O. Douglas and then William Brennan, to make many of the decisions handed down by the Court. (Wikipedia, Vincent Bugliosi)
- June 23: Cleveland's Cuyahoga River, one of the most polluted rivers in the country, catches fire due to wastes dumped in it by riverfront industries. The fire burns over five stories high before fireboats can get the flames under control. This is the third time the river has caught fire; in August, Time magazine sarcastically notes, "some river! Chocolate-brown, oily, bubbling with subsurface gases, it oozes rather than flows. 'Anyone who falls into the Cuyahoga does not drown,' Cleveland's citizens joke grimly. 'He decays.'" Spurred by popular reaction to the fire and to a song by Randy Newman, "Burn On, Big River," federal agencies step in and begin the long-term project of cleaning the river up. Assisted by the 1972 Clean Water Act, federal and state agencies manage to get the river, which flows into the equally polluted Lake Erie, cleaned up to the point where the river is reclassified as "recovering." Conservative talk maven Rush Limbaugh will later point to the Cuyahoga cleanup as an example of "unfettered free enterprise" working to clean up the river, but as usual, Limbaugh is wrong; private enterprise is what is responsible for polluting the river and ignoring the environmental statutes in place to preserve rivers such as the Cuyahoga; it is federal and state governmental action that bring the river back to its cleaner state. (Pratie Place, Al Franken)
- June 27: Life magazine displays portrait photos of all 242 Americans killed in Vietnam during the previous week, including the 46 killed at "Hamburger Hill." The photos have a stunning impact on Americans nationwide as they view the once smiling young faces of the dead. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- July: President Nixon, through a French emissary, sends a secret letter to Ho Chi Minh urging him to settle the war, while at the same time threatening to resume bombing if peace talks remain stalled as of November 1. In August, Hanoi responds by repeating earlier demands for Viet Cong participation in a coalition government in South Vietnam. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- July 8: The very first US troop withdrawal occurs as 800 men from the 9th Infantry Division are sent home. The phased troop withdrawal will occur in 14 stages from July 1969 through November 1972. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- July 19: Late at night, Senator Edward Kennedy drives off a bridge in Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, and sends his car plunging into a creek. His companion, campaign worker Mary Jo Kopechne, drowns, but Kennedy manages to swim to safety. Kennedy leaves the scene of the accident and does not report the wreck for several hours. The death becomes a major scandal for Kennedy, who may have been intoxicated while driving, and may have been having an affair with Kopechne. Kopechne's death, and Kennedy's escape from any real legal punishment for his actions, effectively ruins his hopes to eventually be a serious presidential contender, and dogs his political and personal footsteps throughout his life. (CBS)
"Nixon Doctrine"
- July 25: The "Nixon Doctrine" is made public. It advocates US military and economic assistance to nations around the world struggling against Communism, but no more Vietnam-style ground wars involving American troops. The emphasis is thus placed on local military self-sufficiency, backed by US air power and technical assistance to assure security. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- August 4: Henry Kissinger conducts his first secret meeting in Paris with representatives from Hanoi. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- August 21: To replace the aging and ailing Abe Fortas on the Supreme Court, Nixon nominates Southern jurist Clement Haynsworth. Haynsworth's history as a vocal segregationist and allegations of misconduct (making decisions that favor him financially) torpedo his nomination in the Senate. Nixon will then name another Southern segregationist, Harold Carswell, to replace Fortas; Carswell will also be rejected. (Wikipedia)
- September 1: Colonel Moammar Qaddafi successfully deposes King Idris's government and becomes the new dictator of Libya in an apparently bloodless coup. From Turkey, Idris dismisses the coup as "unimportant," but both the Crown Prince and the British quickly recognize the new government, as do Egypt, Iraq, and other nations. Libya is formally renamed the Libyan Arab Republic. Idris will go into exile in Greece. The coup is initially seen as a reaction to the humiliating defeat of the Arab coalition against Israel in the recent Six-Day War. Qaddafi, who will assume the title of prime minister in 1980, leads a push for unification of the numerous Arab nations in Africa and the Middle East, and for decades will be one of the world's great supporters of Islamic terrorism. (BBC)
Ho Chi Minh dies
- September 2: Ho Chi Minh dies of a heart attack at age 79. He is succeeded by Le Duan, who publicly reads the last will of Ho Chi Minh urging the North Vietnamese to fight on "until the last Yankee has gone." (Vietnam War Timeline)
- September 5: The US Army brings murder charges against William Calley concerning the massacre of Vietnamese civilians at My Lai in March of 1968. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- September 16: Nixon orders the withdrawal of 35,000 soldiers from Vietnam and a reduction in draft calls. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- September 19: The US's policy towards Israel is, in the words of historian Dan Cohn-Sherbok, "incoherent." Secretary of State William Rogers presses for a cease-fire in the Middle East while National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger encourages Israel to keep up its offensives against Arab targets. Israeli ambassador to the US Yitzhak Rabin sends a telegram to Jerusalem informing the Israeli government that the US would supply Israel with military arms if it escalated its offensive against Egypt. Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir establishes direct communications through Rabin and Kissinger that bypasses both the US State Department and the Israeli Foreign Ministry. In October, Rabin recommends Israeli strikes deep in Egyptian territory, apparently on the advice of Kissinger and Nixon; however, the plan is curtailed somewhat by Rogers' proposal to the UN for an internationally established frontier between Egypt and Israel. The Nixon-Kissinger plan is carried out two months later, when the Israeli Air Force launches heavy air strikes inside Egypt. The air strikes are one reason why Egypt's Nasser eventually seeks arms and support from the Soviet Union. (Dan Cohn-Sherbok)
- October 15: The "Moratorium" peace demonstration is held in Washington and several US cities. Demonstration organizers had received praises from North Vietnam's Prime Minister Pham Van Dong, who stated in a letter to them "...may your fall offensive succeed splendidly," marking the first time Hanoi publicly acknowledged the American anti-war movement. Dong's comments infuriate American conservatives, including Vice President Spiro Agnew, who lambasts the protesters as Communist "dupes" comprised of "an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals." (Vietnam War Timeline)
- November 3: Nixon delivers a major TV speech asking for support from "the great silent majority of my fellow Americans" for his Vietnam strategy. "...[T]he more divided we are at home, the less likely the enemy is to negotiate at Paris.... North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that." (Vietnam War Timeline)
- November 3: Lebanon, under primarily Syrian control, grants the PLO the right to attack Israeli targets from within Lebanon. (Dan Cohn-Sherbok)
Massive anti-war demonstrations
- November 15: The "Mobilization" peace demonstration draws an estimated 250,000 in Washington for the largest anti-war protest in US history. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- December 1: The first draft lottery since World War II is held in New York City. Each day of the year is assigned a number. Those with birthdays on days with low numbers will likely be drafted. George W. Bush wins exemption from the Vietnam draft lottery due to his active status in the Texas Air National Guard. (Vietnam War Timeline, Ian Williams)
- December 3: Rhodes scholar Bill Clinton writes a letter from Oxford, England to the head of ROTC training at the University of Arkansas, Colonel Eugene Holmes. Far from being a cowardly, self-serving missive as later characterized by his enemies, the letter is a thoughtful, well-reasoned explanation of Clinton's opposition to the war and his reasons for not wanting to be drafted for Vietnam. (Clinton received his letter of reclassification as 1-A eligible in the spring of 1968, while preparing to graduate from Georgetown University and attend Oxford, as part of Nixon's cancellation of deferments for graduate students. He was granted a short delay so he could begin studies at Oxford, a routine request granted for any American on a Rhodes scholarship. He took his preinduction physical at a US military base in England, and received an induction notice in February, but because of mail delays, received it too late to report on the date stipulated. He returned home in the spring and arranged to join ROTC at the University of Arkansas, where he planned to transfer as a law student. Joining ROTC wouldn't exempt him from the draft, but it would delay the inevitable, and allow him to join the military as an officer. After a summer at home, he decides that he is morally opposed to going to Vietnam, returned to England in the fall, and, following the law, lets his draft board know that he is eligible again. He was reclassified in October. On December 1, he received his draft number, 311, high enough to ease his worries about being drafted.)
- Clinton challenges the right of any government to draft its citizens for a war they may oppose: "The draft system itself is illegitimate," he writes. "No government really rooted in limited, parliamentary democracy should have the power to make its citizens fight and kill and die in a war they may oppose, a war which even possibly may be wrong, a war, which in any case, does not involve immediately the peace and freedom of the nation." He does, however, admit that he does not become a self-declared peace resister for the purpose of "maintain[ing his] political viability within the system," and writes, "After I signed the ROTC letter of intent I began to wonder whether the compromise I had made with myself was not more objectionable than the draft would have been, because I had no interest in the ROTC program in itself and all I seemed to have done was to protect myself from physical harm. ...To many of us, it is no longer clear what is service and what is disservice, or if it is clear, the conclusion is likely to be illegal."
- The letter will be used by GOP opponents during the 1992 presidential campaign to paint Clinton as a draft dodger. Interestingly enough, one of Clinton's opponents, GOP political strategist Karl Rove, expresses a similar resistance to the draft and to his involuntary participation in the war during his college years. Says Rove's classmate Mark Gustavson, "He was opposed to compulsory service. He felt we don't need the damn government telling us what to do. We can do it on our own." Rove would state his libertarian-sourced opposition to the draft and to the war itself in debate after debate, though his 1969 opposition to the draft would not stop him from making as much hay as possible of Clinton's letter during his stint as George H.W. Bush's political advisor. Clinton will remind voters that he gave up his student deferment and indeed entered the draft, and it was the luck of the draw that he received a high draft number and was not called for service. This is confirmed by, among others, a Republican member of Clinton's draft board. Like so many others on both sides of the political fence, Rove will use student deferments to avoid service, and tells his friends at the time that he does not recognize the government's right to draft him.
- On September 7, 1992, the Bush/Quayle campaign releases an affidavit signed by from Holmes saying that Clinton had "purposefully deceived" him, accusing Clinton of joining ROTC to dodge the draft, and avowing that Clinton's actions "cause me to question both his patriotism and his integrity." It turns out that the affidavit is quite possibly fabricated. Holmes is confined to a nursing home, in poor physical and mental health; the affidavit is provided by his daughter, Linda Burnett, a former GOP campaign worker, who says she wrote the affidavit based on tapes of conversations with her father; she refuses to allow her father to be interviewed, nor will she allow the tapes to be heard. The affidavit is delivered to the Bush/Quayle campaign by attorney Cliff Jackson, a devoted Clinton hater who had smeared Clinton before and would do so again (Jackson will be a key figure in the infamous "Troopergate" stories of sexual transgressions by Clinton told by three disgruntled Arkansas state troopers, all of whom were debunked.) Moreover, Holmes himself has said repeatedly that he approved of Clinton's actions, and repeatedly told the press of their warm and friendly relationship. The suspicious affidavit will be used as prima facie evidence, not only of Clinton's supposed draft-dodging, but of his alleged lack of patriotism. It becomes a key element in the sensational and fantastical "Clinton Chronicles," hawked for years by Jerry Falwell, and Floyd Brown's defamatory biography, Slick Willie. The American media, of course, will reiterate the story of the Holmes affidavit time and time again, while failing to report on its dubious origins. (PBS, Moore and Slater, Mark Crispin Miller)
- December 18: Lieutenant Commander George Elliot gives Lieutenant John Kerry his final service record evaluation, and writes, in part: "In a combat environment often requiring independent, decisive action, LTJG Kerry was unsurpassed. ...LTJG Kerry emerges as the acknowledged leader in his peer group." In the 2004 presidential campaign, Elliot will recant his evaluation at the behest of a group of Bush campaign supporters called "swift Boat Veterans for Truth." Elliot then will retract his recanting, and subsequently go back and forth on the issue. (Bush-Kerry Timeline)
- December 31: The US military announces its intention to do random drug testing on all of its personnel beginning January 1, 1971. This includes National Guard units based in the US. George W. Bush completes flight school training in November, at his post at Moody AFB in Georgia. In December, he reports to Ellington AFB, Texas to begin training to fly F-102s. (AWOLBush, Mother Jones, John Covington)
- By year's end, America's fighting strength in Vietnam has been reduced by 115,000 men. 40,024 Americans have now been killed in Vietnam. Over the next few years, the South Vietnamese Army will be boosted to over 500,000 men in accordance with "Vietnamization" of the war in which they will take over the fighting from Americans. (Vietnam War Timeline)