Christmas Bombing

Of the many controversies that swirl around the American role in the Vietnam War, one of the most contentious centers on the Christmas bombing of Hanoi in December 1972. This event followed Henry A. Kissinger’s October news conference in which he said, “Peace is at hand,” and President Richard Nixon’s triumphant reelection in November. It preceded the signing of the armistice in January 1973 and the release of the American POWs.

According to Nixon and his supporters, the Christmas bombing forced the North Vietnamese to make concessions, accept an armistice, and release American POWs. It was a great U.S. victory that brought peace with honor.

According to Nixon’s critics, the armistice agreement signed in January 1973 was identical to the one reached in October 1972. The bombing brought no concessions from the enemy, nor was it intended to; its purpose was to persuade the South Vietnamese to go along with an armistice to which they were violently opposed. The bombing ended not because the enemy cried “enough” but because American losses of B-52s were becoming intolerable. In addition, conservative critics called the bombing an American defeat that brought a temporary cease-fire at the cost of a free and independent South Vietnam.

Eastertide Offensive

By 1972 American in-country strength had fallen from a peak of 550,000 to some 75,000. The only U.S. Army ground combat units left in Vietnam were the 196th Light Infantry Brigade and the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). U.S. Air Force and naval units had been drawn down as well.

It appeared that a classic center of gravity had been created — the relationship between South Vietnam and its American ally. Not only had the majority of U.S. military forces been withdrawn but American congressional and public opinion had shifted dramatically against the war, and the chance of U.S. reintervention appeared to be nil. All that remained was for the NVA to administer the coup de grace.

And that’s what their Operation Nguyen Hue was designed to do. Better known as the ‘Eastertide Offensive,’ it dropped all pretense of guerrilla war.

Operation Enhance

Operations Enhance and Enhance Plus in the Vietnam War transferred large quantities of United States military equipment and bases to the South Vietnamese government in advance of the Paris Peace Accords which ended American involvement in the war. The two operations were conducted between May and December 1972.

Operation Linebacker

Operation Linebacker took place from May 9 to October 23, 1972 during the Vietnam War (1955-1975). In March 1972, with the United States working to transfer responsibility for fighting on the ground to the South Vietnamese, the North Vietnamese launched a major offensive. With South Vietnamese forces under pressure and giving ground, Operation Linebacker was launched with the goal of slowing the enemy advance by striking transportation and logistical targets. These air attacks proved effective and by June, North Vietnamese units were reporting that only 30% of supplies were reaching the front. An effective campaign, Operation Linebacker helped halt the Easter Offensive and aided in restarting peace talks. Operations Enhance and Enhance Plus in the Vietnam War transferred large quantities of United States military equipment and bases to the South Vietnamese government in advance of the Paris Peace Accords which ended American involvement in the war. The two operations were conducted between May and December 1972.

Operation Thunderhead

As Written by: Timothy Carlson

The mission was so highly classified that the world didn’t know about Operation Thunderhead until 36 years after Moki Martin and a small group of SEAL teams set out for the North Vietnam coast on June 3, 1972.

His military ID read “Philip L. Martin,” but his SEAL team and all his friends knew him as Moki, a nickname given to him when he was a skinny kid in Maui. He was an accomplished free diver, swimmer and surfer with a taste for adventure that led him to the Navy — and eventually to play a significant role in the early days of triathlon.

The mission was to rescue American prisoners of war attempting to escape a North Vietnamese prison in Hanoi. The initial thrust called for several four-man SEAL teams to embark in darkness in mini-subs to a small island 4,000 yards offshore to await a rendezvous with the escapees. Warrant Officer Martin and Lt. Dry, members of an Underwater Demolition Team element of the SEALs, led one of the teams that embarked from the submarine USS Grayback.

Their 20-foot-long Swimmer Delivery Vehicle (SDV) fought strong surface and tidal currents, and ran out of battery power which left them unable to reach shore or return to the Grayback. Dry and Martin and the rest of their team swam the SDV out to sea to prevent it from falling in enemy hands. When a Navy rescue helicopter arrived 7 hours later, they sank the damaged SDV and were ferried to the cruiser Long Beach.

Immediately, Martin and his team decided to return to the Grayback to warn the other SEAL teams about the currents.

Ballistic Missile Treaty

Negotiated between the United States and the Soviet Union as part of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, the now-defunct Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty was signed on May 26, 1972, and entered into force on October 3, 1972.

The treaty, from which the United States withdrew on June 13, 2002, barred Washington and Moscow from deploying nationwide defenses against strategic ballistic missiles. In the treaty preamble, the two sides asserted that effective limits on anti-missile systems would be a “substantial factor in curbing the race in strategic offensive arms.”

Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger’s record as a statesman is surely mixed. As national security adviser and then secretary of state he understood the need to adapt U.S. foreign policy to a more even distribution of global power, and he shared with his boss Richard Nixon an ability to think in broad conceptual terms about America’s place in the world. Some genuine diplomatic successes resulted, notably, in the miracle year of 1972, when remarkable summit meetings in Beijing and Moscow were followed by a preliminary peace settlement in Vietnam. (By Fredrik Logevall, Laurence D. Belfer professor of international affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School and author of Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam)

Space Shuttle Program

NASA Administrator James Fletcher and NASA Deputy Administrator George Low met with President Nixon for 45 minutes at the “San Clemente White House” on January 5, 1972. A decision had already been made based on previous correspondences between NASA and the President. At 11:15 a.m. Pacific Time on January 5, 1972, President Nixon announced his commitment to fund the development of the Space Shuttle. Just 19 days later, his budget was presented to Congress. Necessary funding for the Space Shuttle was ultimately approved. NASA still lacked a firm design for the Space Shuttle. Mathematica reported that two options remained economically feasible for the Booster stage. Either a large solid rocket booster system or a high-pressure liquid fueled Booster system were considered feasible.

Watergate

In the early morning hours of June 17, 1972, a night guard at a D.C. hotel and office complex was making his rounds when he noticed a suspiciously taped-open exit door.

He quickly alerted authorities, setting off a series of events that would forever change the nation.

More than 40 years later, the word Watergate is synonymous with political crime and corruption. In fact, it has become so ingrained in our country’s collective conscience that just adding “-gate” to the end of a word instantly signifies a scandal.

On the day of the break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray was notified by teletype of the incident and that one of those arrested was the security officer for the Committee to Re-Elect the President.