Golda Markowitz- Vietnam War, 1969

In January 1969, Richard Nixon took office as the new President of the United States. He promised to achieve “peace with honor” in regard to Vietnam. His aim was to negotiate a settlement that would allow the half million US troops in Vietnam to be withdrawn, while still allowing South Vietnam to survive. In February 1969, Nixon authorized an Operation Menu, which was the bombing of North Vietnamese and Vietcong bases within Cambodia. (During the next four years, the US forces dropped more than a half a million tons of bombs in Cambodia.) In later February, assault teams and artillery attacked American bases all over South Vietnam, killing 1,140 Americans. At the same time, South Vietnamese towns and cities were also hit. The heaviest fighting was around Saigon, but fights raged all over South Vietnam. Eventually American artillery and airpower overwhelmed the Vietcong offensive. In April, the US combat deaths in Vietnam exceeded the 33, 629 men that were killed in the Korean War. In June, President Nixon met with South Vietnamese President Thieu on Midway Island in the Pacific, and announced that 25,000 troops would be withdrawn immediately.

http://www.pbs.org/battlefieldvietnam/timeline/index3.html