0 - The Black Vault

THE BDM CORPORATION
CHAPTER 6
US WITHDRAWAL
A. INTRODUCTION
For four years General Abrams had performed with
Qignity, one of the most thankless jobs ever assigned
to an American general. He took over a force of
540,000 men in 1968 but was immediately shackled by
mounting restrictions, He was continually given
assignments that made no military sense. Starting in
1969 he was asked to dismantle his command at an everaccelerating
rate while maintaining the security of
South Vietnam and putting the South Vietnamese forces
into a position from which they could uný'ertake their
own defense l/
- Henry A. Kissinger
White House Years, 1979
The initial withdrawal OT US Forces in South Vietnam -- 25,000 combat
troops from a peak level of 543,000 personnel -- was announced by President
Nixon in his meeting with President Thieu on Midway T sland 8 June 1969.2/
So
began the irreversible process of an accelerated unilateral withdrawal
of US military forces,
Efforts to strengthen South Vietnamese forces and to negotiate with
the North Vietnamese to end the conflict were begun by the Johnson Administration
in the summer of 1967. The Nixon Administration reaffirmed the
priorities of the Johnson Administration policies as part of the strategy
for endinq the war and withdrawing US troops in National Security Decision
Memorandum 9 (NSDM 9) on April 1, 1969. The three-point memorandum outi
ned Vi etnami zati on 3/, negoti ati on and wi thdrawal:
0 Rapid and effective preparation of the RVNAF to stand alone,
i.e., Vietniamization
0 Insistence on mutual withdrawal of DRV and US trooos with adequate
inspection procedures in negotiations with the North
Vietnamese
* Development of a specific timetable for the progressive withdrawal
of US trocps regardless of progress made at the Paris
Peace
ables.4!
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