that he would resume bombing if peace talks remained stalled, as they had remained since 1968. In August, Hanoi responded to this letter by repeating earlier demands for the Viet Cong participation of coalition in the government of South Vietnam. As these attempts lead to nothing, Nixon decided it was time for his secret plan. On November 3, 1969 Nixon initiated Johnson's previous policy of "Vietnamization" . The belief was that if the U.S. backed South Vietnam through economic aid as well as militarily (in this case meaning the training of South Vietnamese soldiers), the Saigon government in time would be able to resist a Communist take-over from the North. Nixon sent the message to the American public that this would ultimately reduce American casualties and help the South Vietnamese government establish a self-sustained military. By the end of 1969, the fighting strength in Vietnam had been reduced with 115,000 men, to 359,400 men. It was Nixons intention to boost the South Vietnamese army to over 500,000 men, so they could take over the fighting from the Americans.A civil war started in Cambodia, when on March 18 1970 the former prince had been deposed by General Lon Nol. To regain power, the prince aligned with Cambodian communists, known as the Khymer Rouge. Two days later, Cambodian troops, under General Lon Nol attacked Khymer Rouge and North Vietnamese forces inside Cambodia. When the White House took notice of this, they planed to help Lon Nol to resist the communists and the North Vietnamese. On April 30 Nixon announced U.S. and South Vietnamese incursion into Cambodia. This came just 10 days after Nixon announced that an additional 150,000 troops were going home.What Nixon did was what Johnson had been probably already planned of doing, expand the war into Cambodia. His own motivation might have been to buy time for Vietnamization in South Vietnam but at a time when the United States was trying to scale down it's role in Vi...
