History of the United States (1964–1980)
The growing Watergate scandal was a major disaster for Nixon, eroding his political support in public opinion and in Washington. However he did manage to secure large-scale funding for South Vietnam, much of which was wasted. The United States withdrew its troops from Vietnam before the Paris Peace Accords in 1973. However, Watergate resulted in significant Democrat gains in the 1974 midterm elections and when the new 94th Congress convened the following January, it immediately voted to terminate all aid to South Vietnam in addition to passing a bill forbidding all further US military intervention in Southeast Asia. President Ford was against this, but as Congress had a veto-proof majority, he was forced to accept. South Vietnam rapidly collapsed as the North invaded it in force, and Saigon fell to the NVA on April 30, 1975. Later nearly one million Vietnamese managed to flee to the U.S. as refugees. The impact on the U.S. was muted, with few political recriminations, but it did leave a "Vietnam Syndrome" that cautioned against further military interventions anywhere else. Nixon (and his next two successors Ford and Carter) had dropped the containment policy and were not willing to intervene anywhere.
United States assistance to Vietnam
After the victory of communist North Vietnam over South Vietnam in April
1975, the United States ended virtually all bilateral economic interchange, including
foreign assistance, with unified Vietnam. (Prohibitions on assistance to Vietnam were included in P.L. 94-41, a continuing
appropriations resolution signed into law by President Gerald Ford in the summer of 1975.) The restrictions included a halt to bilateral humanitarian aid, opposition to financial aid from international financial
institutions (such as the World Bank), a ban on U.S. travel to Vietnam, and an
embargo on bilateral trade. President Gerald Ford linked the provision of economic
assistance to Hanoi's cooperation in returning and accounting for POWs and MIAs.
In the FY1977 foreign aid appropriations bill Congress prohibited the use of any
funds to provide assistance to Vietnam, a provision that was repeated annually until
its removal in 1994.