Press release: “The Department of State has released Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, volume VI, Vietnam, January 1969-July 1970, the first of five volumes to cover the end of the Vietnam war. The Presidential election of November 1968 had demonstrated just how divisive Vietnam had become in American society and politics. Vietnam was the new President’s first priority. The volume demonstrates that in the early months of 1969 there was no specific plan to end the war. Rather, the Nixon administration searched for ways to demonstrate to the leaders in Hanoi that there was a new “firm hand at the helm” prepared to both talk and fight. Nixon and his advisers hoped to convince Hanoi that it was dealing with an adversary that would negotiate only from a position of strength. This volume documents the search for the formula to convince Hanoi: the secret bombing of Cambodia, Vietnamization and U.S. troops withdrawals, integration of the secret war in Laos with the conflict in Vietnam, covert operations against North Vietnam, and most importantly the U.S. and South Vietnamese attack on the enemy sanctuaries in Cambodia.”