Jan. 26, 1965 - Former Vice President Richard M. Nixon said today that “we are losing the war in Vietnam.” He added, “If our strategy is not changed, we will be thrown out in a matter of months — certainly within the year.”
Security requires the U.S. to “end the war in Vietnam by winning it,” or all of Asia will be lost to the Communists, Nixon declared.
He proposed that the U.S. commit the Navy and Air Force to “quarantine” the war by cutting Communist supply lines to South Vietnam and destroying Communist staging areas in North Vietnam and Laos.
It would not be necessary to employ either nuclear weapons or American ground troops, he said.
The former Vice President spoke at a luncheon of the Sales Executive Club of New York at the Roosevelt Hotel. He conceded that the stepped-up direct action he advocated would be unpopular and that it might risk war with Communist China. But he said that to “negotiate” a settlement with the Viet Cong or to “neutralize” the country, as some are suggesting, would be “surrendering on the installment plan.”
President Johnson’s decisions on the Vietnam problem are the most important he will have to make in his Administration, Nixon said.
“If he makes the right command decision — to end the war by winning it,” he said, “he could well go down in history as one of our greatest Presidents.”
Republican leaders have been critical of the Democratic Administration’s handling of the Vietnam problem, and some have suggested that the war be extended beyond the borders of South Vietnam.
Nixon’s proposal differed from others in that he insisted the U.S. Navy and Air Force be given the direct responsibility of “isolating” the war by cutting off the Viet Cong’s links to its Communist allies.

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