Richard Nixon won the November 1968 presidential election over Hubert Humphrey with only 43.5% of the popular vote (Schulzinger 275). Nixon campaigned with telling the public that he would end the Vietnam War. Nixon blamed President Johnson's actions of adding troops and criticized his decisions of escalating the war in Vietnam. Nixon adopted the technique of Vietnamization, which was a plan to replace American troops with South Vietnamese forces. The South Vietnamese army known as the ARVN, Army of the Republic of Vietnam, was virtually non- existent. In 1969, Nixon sent Defense Secretary Melvin Laird to South Vietnam to see what provisions the army would need. Laird found the ARVN to be extremely poorly equipped and very under manned. Laird concluded that the ARVN would need adequate training and armoring. Nixon met with the South Vietnamese President, Nguyen Van Thieu on Midway Island in June of 1969 to officially discuss and publicize the plans of Vietnamization. Nixon told Thieu that he planned on removing 25, 000 troops over the next couple months and would remove more at regular intervals (Schulzinger 278). Nixon made it clear that the United States would give its full support to South Vietnam, including the training of its troops, providing financial assistance and keeping the promise until all fighting ended. Nixon wanted to show the American public that he was in full support of South Vietnam and President Thieu by reiterating President Kennedy's words ". we want to see a stable government there, carrying on a struggle to maintain its national independence." Nixon soon began armoring the ARVN army as its forces increased from 850,000 to over 1,000,000 men (Schulzinger 277). He told Thieu that more men would join the ARVN army if more modernization would go in effect. Nixon .
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wanted to see Thieu modernize the promotion of the armed forces and system of soldier payment. He knew that Thieu was very capable of these suggestions, but got little response from him.