…and a brief summary of how the Cold War came to a close,

* Because American soldiers were forced to contend not only with the North Vietnamese Army, but also with the Viet Cong – South Vietnamese soldiers who were opposed to American intervention in Vietnam – there was an ever- present threat of guerrilla warfare.

While searching for members of the Viet Cong, soldiers led by Lt. William Calley came across a village of women and children who would not – or could not – help to locate the men of the community. Hundreds of Vietnamese women, children, and elderly were arbitrarily killed.

Students who were protesting against the Vietnam War – and particularly the bombings of Cambodia and Laos by Nixon – were shot at by National Guard members. Four students died.

The French controlled almost all of Southeast Asia before World War II. After the war, they attempted to re- establish themselves as colonial rulers of the region, but to no avail. The movement for Independence in Vietnam undermined their efforts to regain control over the region.

Richard Nixon explains his secret plan for “Vietnamization” of the war. Critics say he declared victory and left.

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave President Lyndon Baines Johnson the power to conduct the war in Vietnam. In this picture, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara explains the details of the incident. He later admitted that the attack by a North Vietnamese gunboat may not have happened at all.

The Ho Chi Minh Trail was the supply line from North Vietnam to South Vietnam. Weapons from North Vietnam, food, supplies, and medicine were all brought along the secret, hidden trail. Americans attempted to find and bomb the Ho Chi Minh Trail throughout the war. Napalm and Agent Orange were both used with devastating consequences. Yet the supply lines remained open throughout the war.

From Richard Nixon to the Collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 – a short version of the Cold War’s Demise.

In an effort to calm down tensions during the Cold War, Richard Nixon made a visit to China, where he sat down to negotiate with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. The meeting was not a perfect success, but the Soviet Union soon wanted to meet with Nixon as well – to calm down the rhetoric and peacefully coexist with the USA.

Richard Nixon became the first American President to ever visit Moscow to meet with Leonid Brezhnev in the early 1970s. The two men hoped to end the frightening rhetoric and posturing of the Cold War Era, so that the United States and the USSR could peacefully co-exist.

Mikhail Gorbachev simply admitted that the communist system the Soviet Union had lived with for so long was not working as well as the American way. He did everything in is power to bring down tensions between his nation and the United States, and he ended the arms race for good.

When Revolutions began in 1989, they were peaceful. New democratic governments were not challenged by the Soviet Union. The Cold War was ending.