Excerpt from "Informal Remarks in Guam with Newsmen (Nixon Doctrine), July 25, 1969"

Originally published in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard M. Nixon, 1969, published in 1971

"As far as our role is concerned, we must avoid that kind of policy that will make countries in Asia so dependent upon us that we are dragged into conflicts such as the one that we have in Vietnam. This is going to be a difficult line to follow. It is one, however, that I think, with proper planning, we can develop."

Despite conflicts in Europe, particularly in Berlin, Germany, Indochina proved to be the region that consumed America's energies, finances, and resources during the midand late 1960s. Indochina is a region of Southeast Asia extending south from the southern border of the People's Republic of China (PRC), commonly referred to as China, along the...