Existing comment:
1972
* President Nixon takes steps to ease tensions with major communist powers China and the Soviet Union
* North Vietnam launches the Easter Offensive, an invasion of South Vietnamese territory[fig.]
* The U.S. government announces that no new draftees will be ordered to Vietnam
* The American public reelects President Nixon with almost 61 percent of the popular vote[fig.]
* President Nixon orders the "Christmas Bombing" of North Vietnam in the hopes of forcing concessions at the negotiating table. The effort is unsuccessful
* U.S. troop levels in Vietnam at the end of 1972: 24,200 |