264 e lusive v ictories
Th ey began to taste success on December 29, 1970, when they passed
the aforementioned Cooper-Church ban on the introduction of Amer-
ican troops into Laos or Cambodia.
Given the unpromising political circumstances, Nixon had little
time. Th e opportunity to build a consensus in favor of post-withdrawal
“off shore” military support for South Vietnam would be brief. Th e
policy might have been sold as the essential foundation for Vietnamiza-
tion (which is exactly what it was). To be persuasive, the president in
1969 needed to take congressional leaders into his confi dence, agreeing
on a timetable that would promise a defi nitive end to the American
ground combat role. Nixon would have been negotiating with the
Democratic leadership from a position of strength, especially after his
“silent majority” address. With hundreds of thousands of American
troops still fi ghting the war at that point, he also might have sold a
postwar commitment to South Vietnam’s security as the quickest exit
from the confl ict and the best way to save American lives.
But the president let slip the chance. Possibly he convinced himself
that, through improved diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union
and China, he could persuade them to limit their resupply of Hanoi.
He and Kissinger believed in diplomatic “linkage,” the notion that
improved relations at the superpower level might have spillover ben-
efi ts in other parts of the world. It seems more likely, though, that
like his wartime predecessors, Nixon did not appreciate that he would
soon lose the capacity to shape the aftermath of the confl ict. He and
his advisors ignored the early warning signs of congressional res-
tiveness. They may have been misled, too, by the fading antiwar
movement, never to regain its May 1970 peak. Scarcely did Nixon
realize that the biggest obstacle to a security commitment to Saigon
was the growing apathy of the American people. Once the troops came
home, nothing could make the public care again about the fate of
South Vietnam. A Gallup poll conducted at the time of the January
1973 Paris peace agreement revealed starkly the degree to which Ameri-
cans had washed their hands of Southeast Asia: though most expected
North Vietnam to violate the agreement and seek to take over the
South, more than 70 percent opposed responding with renewed
bombing of the DRV and nearly four out of fi ve rejected a return of
American troops.