Video: 'President Richard Nixon's Press Conference on Increased American Troops in Cambodia'
(Friday, May 8, 1970, 10:00-10:33 p.m. EDT; during the Cambodian Campaign, part of the Vietnam War, Cambodian Civil War, Indochina Wars and the Cold War) — Strongly defending the United States troop movement into Cambodia, which has evoked a storm of protest by students and others throughout the country, President Richard Nixon said tonight that the operation would win six to eight months of time for the further training of South Vietnamese forces and thus shorten the war for the Americans.
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He said that most American troops would be out of Cambodia by the middle of June, and that the first units would leave in the middle of next week.
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Nixon said that he shared the objectives of his critics and that time would prove him to have served the cause of peace. He expressed understanding of the protesters and asked their understanding in return.
The President, visibly nervous at his first televised news conference in more than three months, said that he was not surprised by the intensity of the protest, but placed the blame on a misunderstanding of his intentions. He disclaimed responsibility for the war in Vietnam and reiterated that he had no intention of expanding it.
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Nixon said he foresaw neither revolt nor repression in the United States, citing his tolerance of dissent and efforts to communicate with younger Americans as the necessary “safety valve.”
The President offered, somewhat tentatively, to receive some of the demonstrators who were massing in the capital tonight for the protest rally out side the White House tomorrow. He thought that they were seeking peace, an end of the killing, an end of the draft and American withdrawal from Vietnam, and he said, “I agree.”
