Nixon announces that the United States will withdraw 40,000 more troops before Christmas. He had first announced his intention to withdraw U.S. troops from South Vietnam in June at the Midway Conference with President Nguyen Van Thieu. The first U.S. troops, from the 9th Infantry Division, had left Saigon in August. The troop withdrawals continued as the “Vietnamization” program turned fighting responsibility over to the South Vietnamese. By January 1972, there were less than 75,000 U.S. troops remaining in South Vietnam.
This Day In History: October 12
