1. In 1970, President Nixon ordered a ground attack on Vietcong bases in Cambodia.

Pres. Nixon believed attacking in Cambodia was necessary to forestall communist forces from attacking South Vietnam from that direction. But his decision was unpopular with some senior staff members, who resigned in protest, as well as with the American public, which did not want further escalation of the war. This was seen as essentially an invasion of Cambodia by the US.

2. At My Lai, American soldiers killed hundreds of Vietnamese civilians.

More than 500 civilians were killed by US soldiers in what was essentially a massacre. Women and girls were raped also. It was an instance of soldiers losing control and acting with sheer brutality. The government initially sought to cover up the incident, but the truth came out. It caused further anti-war sentiment at home in the United States.

3. The Pentagaon Papers revealed that American leaders misled Congress and the American people about the war. 

Daniel Ellsberg was a military analyst who leaked "The Pentagon Papers" to the American press in 1971, revealing top secret information about US planning and decision-making in regard to the Vietnam War. This also had ties to the Watergate scandal which followed. The "Plumbers" group that perpetrated the Watergate break-ins were formed because of leaks of confidential information like the Pentagon Papers.

4. The effect of the Vietnam War on the American people: It undermined public trust in American leaders..

During the Vietnam War, a major credibility gap became apparent in regard to what the government was telling the American public vs. what was actually taking place. The term "credibility gap" was used already by journalists who questioned the optimistic picture that the Lyndon Johnson administration painted regarding how the war was going, when investigative reporting showed a much more negative reality. The credibility gap grew even larger when the Pentagon Papers were leaked to the press in 1971, showing that the government indeed had been deceiving the public about the plans and conduct of the war over the years.

5. President Nixon’s Vietnamization policy emphasized that the United States must empower South Vietnamese forces to assume more combat duties.

By the time the US was shifting emphasis to this sort of policy, it was too late to stave off the victory of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces. The US eventually withdrew its forces from Vietnam in 1973, and by 1975, Saigon (in South Vietnam) fell to the North Vietnamese communist forces..

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