Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and the Retreat from Vietnam

Abstract

By the time the presidential primaries were underway in 1968, the Vietnam War had split the Democratic Party. On March 12, 1968, antiwar Democratic candidate Eugene McCarthy came within seven percentage points of defeating the incumbent president at the New Hampshire Democratic primary. Shortly thereafter, Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not run for reelection. Robert Kennedy by then had stepped down as attorney general and had become the junior senator from New York. He entered the race, won the California primary in June, and was assassinated that same night. At the Democratic convention held in Chicago in late August, antiwar protesters failed to prevent the nomination of Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey as the party’s candidate. By then, the Republican Party had already anointed Richard Nixon as its presidential contender on the first ballot in Miami.

“In the life of a nation, as of human beings, a point is often reached when the seemingly limitlessness possibilities of youth suddenly narrow and one must come to grips with the fact that not every option is open any longer.” —Henry Kissinger¹