The Great Silent Majority: Warfare Quotes

This is the million-dollar question. Short answer: it's complicated. But Nixon does let his audience in on some of the key events that got America more and more involved in the war. Some may argue that his perspective is a little one-sided. Others may argue that he plays a little bit of the blame game.

Here's the second million-dollar question. Again, the answer depended on one's perspective. According to Nixon, the best way to end the war is an American defeat (with the help of the South Vietnamese) of the North Vietnamese forces. Was this the only solution? No, but it's the one that Nixon supported the most.

Speaking of alternate solutions, this short but sweet statement represents Nixon's desire to completely shoot down one of the alternate paths to ending the war: just leave and end the war. This was the anti-war perspective, and Nixon wants none of it.

To give Nixon a bit of credit, he did want to see the end of the Vietnam War. He also believed that his plan for Vietnamization was the best route to get this goal achieved. When he ran for president, he ran under the promise of ending the war, which he was unable to do. But he did immediately start removing American troops when he first came into office.

Here's where Nixon really starts laying out his war strategy. Basically, he wants to get the Vietnamese to fight the Vietnam War. It may sound a little obvious to say that, but American troops were in so deep in Vietnam that they were doing the vast majority of the fighting.