0 - The Black Vault

THE BDM CORPORATION
"to take over an increasing share of combat operations" and specified that
the goal of military operations was to defeat the enemy's effort "to deny
self-determination" to the South Vietnamese people.70/
The president recognized that a milita-"y solution of the war was
net available; therefore, he set about to attain a stalemate on tne battlefield,
to give pacification a chance To work,
to isolate the DRV from their
communist benefactors, and to arrive at a political solution in the negotiations.
After finally getting the DRV and tl.e RVN to agree to a peace
accord in January 1973, the US rushed massive quantities of m litary equipment
and supplies into RVN to beat the tffective deadline date of the
agreement. The agreement was initialed on January 23 and signed on the
effective date four days later. President Nixon, in an address te the
nation after the signing, stated that the US would "continue to recognize
the government of the Republic of Vietnam as the sole legitimate novernmeit
of South Vietnam" and that the South Vietnamese "have been guaranteed the
right to determine their own future, without outside interference."71/
The US started to withdraw its last contingent of troops on
J-nuary 28, 1973, and phased out MACV headquarters less than ninety days
atr=. ,,F- the place of MACV, the USG established a Defense Attache's
Office (DAO) which became a part of the US Embassy with an authorized
strength of 50 military and about 1200 civilian personnel,
Although the US upheld its end of the Paris agreement, the DRV
reneged after the release of American POWs. The war did not stop; there
was no genuine ceasefire.
in the late spring of 1973,
concurrent with the beginn 4 ngs of the
Watergate scandal and the concern of the Congress that maybe President
Nixon would some&ow reinvolve the US in Southeast Asia, the US
branch began to actively involve themselves in the US
legislative
foreign policy making
process. If the President had intended to use US airpower in the event of
a breakdown of the agreements and the ceasefire, that course was soon
denied him. The Congress passed an amendment to an appropriations bill on
June 30, 1973, prohibiting aq of August 15 the use of any funds to finance
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