President Richard Nixon's
"Silent Majority" Speech
November 1969[In November 1969 United States president Richard Nixon responded to mounting criticism of the war in Vietnam by trying to undercut demonstrators who had recently staged a nationwide day of protest. In a television address to the American people, Nixon contrasted the antiwar dissidents with “the great silent majority” who, he claimed, supported U.S. objectives in Vietnam. Nixon planned to achieve his campaign goal of “peace with honor” in Vietnam by gradually shifting the burden of the fighting to the South Vietnamese. He believed that this would make the war more acceptable at home.]
Nixon’s “Silent Majority” Speech November 3, 1969
Good evening, my fellow Americans:
Tonight I want to talk to you on a subject of deep concern to all Americans and to many people in all parts of the world -- the war in Vietnam.
I believe that one of the reasons for the deep division about Vietnam is that many Americans have lost confidence in what their Government has told them about our policy. The American people cannot and should not be asked to support a policy which involves the overriding issues of war and peace unless they know the truth about that policy.
Tonight, therefore, I would like to answer some of the questions that I know are on the minds of many of you listening to me.
Let us all understand that the question before us is not whether some Americans are for peace and some Americans are against peace. The question at issue is not whether Johnson’s war becomes Nixon's war.
The great question is: How can we win America’s peace?
At the time we launched our search for peace I recognized we might not succeed in bringing an end to the war through negotiation. I, therefore, put into effect another plan to bring peace -- a plan which will bring the war to an end regardless of what happens on the negotiating front.
It is in line with a major shift in U.S. foreign policy which I described in my press conference at Guam on July 25. I laid down in Guam three principles as guidelines for future American policy toward Asia:
-- First, the United States will keep all of its treaty commitments.
-- Second, we shall provide a shield if a nuclear power threatens the freedom of a nation allied with us or of a nation whose survival we consider vital to our security.
-- Third, in cases involving other types of aggression, we shall furnish military and economic assistance when requested in accordance with our treaty commitments. But we shall look to the nation directly threatened to assume the primary responsibility of providing the manpower for its defense.
After I announced this policy, I found that the leaders of the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea, and other nations which might be threatened by Communist aggression, welcomed this new direction in American foreign policy.
The Vietnamization plan was launched following Secretary [Melvin] Laird's visit to Vietnam in March. Under the plan, I ordered first a substantial increase in the training and equipment of South Vietnamese forces.
In July, on my visit to Vietnam, I changed General [Creighton] Abrams' orders so that they were consistent with the objectives of our new policies. Under the new orders, the primary mission of our troops is to enable the South Vietnamese forces to assume the full responsibility for the security of South Vietnam.
Our air operations have been reduced by over 20 percent.
And now we have begun to see the results of this long overdue change in American policy in Vietnam.
Let me now turn to our program for the future.
We have adopted a plan which we have worked out in cooperation with the South Vietnamese for the complete withdrawal of all U.S. combat ground forces, and their replacement by South Vietnamese forces on an orderly scheduled timetable. This withdrawal will be made from strength and not from weakness. As South Vietnamese forces become stronger, the rate of American withdrawal can become greater.
And so tonight -- to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans -- I ask for your support.
I pledged in my campaign for the Presidency to end the war in a way that we could win the peace. I have initiated a plan of action which will enable me to keep that pledge.
The more support I can have from the American people, the sooner that pledge can be redeemed; for the more divided we are at home, the less likely the enemy is to negotiate at Paris.
Let us be united for peace. Let us also be united against defeat. Because let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.
Fifty years ago, in this room and at this very desk, President Woodrow Wilson spoke words which caught the imagination of a war-weary world. He said: "This is the war to end war." His dream for peace after World War I was shattered on the hard realities of great power politics and Woodrow Wilson died a broken man.
Tonight I do not tell you that the war in Vietnam is the war to end wars. But I do say this: I have initiated a plan which will end this war in a way that will bring us closer to that great goal to which Woodrow Wilson and every American President in our history has been dedicated -- the goal of a just and lasting peace.
[Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Richard Nixon, 1969. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.]
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