An old post of mine from soc.history.what-if:
***
I was recently reading Larry Berman's *No Peace, No Honor: Nixon, Kissinger, and Betrayal in Vietnam* (New York: The Free Press 2001). Berman makes the point that neither Nixon nor Kissinger ever expected North Vietnam to obey the peace treaty signed in January 1973. They expected to respond to the anticipated violations with a vigorous bombing campaign. In short, the idea behind the peace treaty was not to make peace but to shift the war from a war involving U.S. ground troops to a war involving U.S. bombing.
Since the U.S. could withdraw its ground troops and bomb North Vietnam without any peace treaty, the question is therefore why Nixon considered it so important to get such a treaty. The answer is that he thought that U.S. public opinion would sustain a bombing campaign *only if* there were a peace treaty and he could point to North Vietnam's violations of it as justification for the bombing. (Also, a peace treaty would enable the U.S. to get its POWs back--though, as will be seen, Nixon's policy, if implemented, would have created new ones.) The line taken by Nixon and Kissinger is that this would have worked--in the sense that it would have preserved a non-communist South Vietnam--if not for Watergate breaking as a major scandal in April 1973, which caused Nixon to abandon his plans to bomb North Vietnam again. Or as Kissinger wrote, "I think it's reasonable to assume that he [Nixon] would have bombed the hell out of them during April." (Actually, Kissinger wanted to bomb the North in March, but Nixon decided that he did not want to jeopardize the return of the final group of American POWs.)
For now, I don't want to get into the question about whether bombing would by itself have preserved a non-communist South Vietnam. Rather, my question is, Is it true that U.S. public opinion would have supported such bombing if not for Watergate? Berman doubts that it would, even in the short run. Some interesting evidence in this regard is provided by a Gallup poll taken on the very day in January the agreement was signed. This, it must be remembered, was a pre-Watergate poll--not of course in the sense that the break-in hadn't already occurred, but in the sense that it was still a "third rate burglary"; it did not really become a major scandal until at least a couple of months later. As of January 1973, Nixon was still very popular.
Anyway, the poll asked the following questions:
(1) "When United States troops are withdrawn from Vietnam, do you think a strong enough government can be maintained in South Vietnam to withstand Communist political pressure, or not?" Fifty-four percent believed that the government in the South would not survive; 27 percent believed it would; 19 percent had no opinion.
(2) "After United States troops are withdrawn from Vietnam, do you think North Vietnam in the next few years is likely to try to take over South Vietnam again, or not?" Seventy percent thought that the North would try to take over the South, 16 percent though no, and 14 percent had no opinion.
(3) "Suppose when the United States troops are withdrawn, North Vietnam does try to take over South Vietnam again, do you think the United States should send war materials to South Vietnam, or not?" Fifty percent believed the U.S. should not send war materials, 38 percent said it should, and 12 percent had no opinion.
(4) "If North Vietnam does try to take over South Vietnam again, do you think the United States should bomb North Vietnam again, or not?" Seventy-one percent said no to bombing, while 17 percent said yes, and 12 percent had no opinion.
(5) "If North Vietnam does try to take over South Vietnam again, do you think the United States should send troops to help South Vietnam, or not?" Seventy-nine percent were opposed to sending troops, while 13 percent favored such an action, and 8 percent had no opinion. (Berman, p. 262)
In short, even before Watergate broke as a major scandal, the public was almost as overwhelmingly opposed to resumed bombing (in the event of North Vietnamese violations which it fully expected) as it was to sending back U.S. troops (which I think everyone acknowledges would have been politically impossible, Watergate or no Watergate).
You might say that the public might reply this way to a survey asking about hypotheticals, but that they would (if not for Watergate) support Nixon once he actually started the bombing. However, while it is true that the public does at first usually rally around the president when he orders the use of force abroad, this is different from most such cases--it is a case of a president re-starting a war which the public had assumed was (so far as the U.S. was concerned) over.
Furthermore, the air war would not have been like America's air wars of 1991 to the present. It would involve substantial U.S. casualties. Much is made of the effectiveness of the U.S. bombing in "Linebacker II" (the December 1972 bombing which brought Hanoi back to the bargaining table). It did indeed inflict heavy damage. But there is another side (Berman, p. 216, quoting the JCS *History*):
"But if the United States inflicted considerable damage in Linebacker II, it also received the same in terms of losses of aircraft and personnel. During the 12-day campaign (11 days, a day pause on Christmas, and another day of bombing), the enemy downed 13 U.S. tactical aircraft. More significantly, however, was the enemy destruction of B-52s. Heretofore, only one B-52 had been lost to enemy action in the Southeast Asian operations of November 1972, but during Linebacker II, enemy SAMs downed 15 of the strategic bombers. In addition, United States aircrew casualties during the expanded bombing of December amounted to 93 missing with 31 reported captured."
Would U.S. public opinion--and, more immediately, Congress--be willing to accept those kinds of casualties once the peace treaty had been signed? I doubt it, Watergate or no Watergate. But let's say that Congress does back Nixon at least to the extent of refusing to cut off funds for the bombing. Would it still do so after the 1974 elections? You may say the Democrats wouldn't have gained heavily in Congress if not for Watergate. But consider the other factors working for the Democrats in 1974:
(a) Even without Watergate, the administration wouldn't be scandal-free: after all, it isn't every day a vice-president is forced to resign...
(b) The economy--the energy crisis (remember gas lines?), and eventually a major recession--certainly worked against the party controlling the White House.
(c) Although Nixon's coattails in 1972 were unimpressive considering the size of his landslide, still he did manage to save some seats for the Republicans which would be in peril in a mid-term election.
(d) The very fact that Americans (though only pilots, not ground troops) would still be fighting, in some cases being captured, in some cases dying, could by itself cause the Democrats to gain at least as many seats as Watergate did in OTL.
So *even if* we assume that bombing could by itself preserve a non-communist South Vietnam, I am doubtful that the lack of Watergate could make such an outcome possible.
(BTW, Berman rejects the "decent interval" theory, at least for Nixon, though he thinks Kissinger may have been more cynical, or if you prefer, realistic. Nixon really seems to have thought that he could continue the bombing right through 1976 [p. 261]).
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/ErzAk60askM/8JPbk0mPOIkJ
