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.
Operation Homecoming
On January 27, 1973, Henry Kissinger (then assistant to the President for national security affairs) agreed to a ceasefire with representatives of North Vietnam that provided for the withdrawal of American military forces from South Vietnam. The agreement also postulated for the release of nearly 600 American prisoners of war (POWs) held by North Vietnam and its allies within 60 days of the withdrawal of U.S. troops. The deal would come to be known as Operation Homecoming and was divided into three phases. The first phase required the initial reception of prisoners at three release sites: POWs held by the Viet Cong (VC) were to be flown by helicopter to Saigon, POWs held by the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) were released in Hanoi, and the three POWs held in China were to be freed in Hong Kong. The former prisoners were to then be flown to Clark Air Base in the Philippines where they were to be processed at a reception center, debriefed, and receive a physical examination. The final phase was the relocation of the POWs to military hospitals.