Fall of Vietnam & Watergate

The final outcome of the war was primarily the result of historical events outside the realm of strategic thinking. In the United States the antiwar movement created sufficient turmoil that the functioning of government was altered if not impaired, and the Watergate scandal, which must be seen as a war-related event to be understood fully, created an environment that doomed the President's Vietnam policy to failure. Political weakness in the face of an assertive Congress and a population grown tired of the war prevented Richard Nixon from implementing a program for the protection of Vietnam based on the use of American firepower instead of manpower. The impact of Watergate could not be calculated in advance, but in the end it was decisive. Although clearly in the realm of speculation, the argument that, without Watergate, President Nixon might have successfully defended the RVN through the continued use of American air power and aid cannot be easily dismissed.

Read chapter 7 of John M. Gates, The US Army and Irregular Warfare