In a speech on the floor of the Senate, George Aiken
(R-Vermont), senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, urges the Nixon administration to begin an immediate
"orderly withdrawal" of U.S. forces from South Vietnam. Aiken
said, "It should be started without delay." The speech was
widely regarded as the end of the self-imposed moratorium on
criticism that senators had been following since the Nixon
administration took office. Nixon responded on several occasions
that ending the Vietnam War was his "first priority." His first
public act in response to the mounting criticism was to announce
in June 1969 that he would begin an immediate withdrawal of
25,000 troops from South Vietnam with additional withdrawals to
follow at specified intervals. In order to do this, he
instituted his "Vietnamization" program, which was designed to
increase the combat capability of the South Vietnamese forces so
they could eventually assume responsibility for the entire war
effort.