Day 5 – Vietnam War

As this war continued for 20 years a summary of the addresses during this time would be a book not a blog so I am just going to look at the years 1970-1972. For a more in depth look at the Vietnam War read this excellent book The Killing Zone: My Life in the Vietnam War.

As I am sure most of you know, Richard Nixon was the President during this time and in 1970 the Vietnam War was still at a stalemate. He did, however, state the end of the War was the goal for that year. Interestingly, his address also stated that it was not the responsibility of the USA to defend or aid other countries (a big turnaround from the addresses during the WWI and WWII years) and he insisted that other nations play a role. He mentioned the desire to develop relations with Russia, China and Poland and the huge growth in the economy although crime, inflation and social unrest were at an all time high and during the 60’s the Government had spent more than it had earned so budget cuts were inevitable. However, Nixon also wanted a complete reform of the welfare system, to make amends for eco pollution with a costly pollution control programme and was going to win the war against crime.

The 1971 address saw no mention of Vietnam and all the acts that had been called for in 1970 were still waiting to be completed. Government departments were to be reduced and again welfare, unemployment, the environment and health care were all mentioned. It was planned to renew local governments to share policy between Federal and State.

The only mention of Vietnam in 1972 was that the USA involvement was coming to an end. The address this year had a completely different flow and feel to it, no doubt as it was an election year. Crime and civil disorders had been reduced during the previous 12 months. Strangely, there was a request to increase the defence budget in order to help other nations with arms. Unemployment was still an issue so a Job Creation Programme was to be implemented and at this time USA workers were the highest paid in the world. There was to be a change to the local property tax regulations and as in the previous 2 years, the welfare system reform and eco system reform were still not implemented.