1972 in the Vietnam War 1972 in the Vietnam War 1972 in the Vietnam War saw foreign involvement in South Vietnam slowly declining. Two allies, New Zealand and Thailand, which had contributed a small military contingent, left South Vietnam this year. The United States continued to participate in combat, primarily with air power to assist the South Vietnamese army, while negotiators in Paris tried to hammer out a peace agreement and withdrawal strategy for the United States. One American operation that was declassified years after the war was Operation Thunderhead, a secret mission that attempted to rescue POWs. U.S. military personnel in South Vietnam numbered
Soviet Middle Eastern foreign policy during the Cold War fledgling Communist regimes while attacking an Islamic nation. Shuttle diplomacy was instrumental in brokering a Middle Eastern peace. U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger spent considerable time at Middle Eastern peace talks as a neutral party. He explained the reasons behind the need to pull out of Vietnam, which complicated the Middle Eastern talks and the nascent nuclear-nonproliferation-treaty talks. President Richard Nixon used the Sino-Soviet split to begin ending the Cold War by breaking down political and economic barriers between the U.S. and China, further isolated the Soviets. Kissinger spoke about his roles in brokering peace between the Arabs and