1968 in the Vietnam War Adams' iconic image of South Vietnamese General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan's execution of a Viet Cong operative was taken in 1968. The year also saw Walter Cronkite's call to honourably exit Vietnam because he thought the war was lost. This negative impression forced the US into the Paris peace talks with North Vietnam. US troop numbers peaked in 1968 with President Johnson approving an increased maximum number of US troops in Vietnam at 549,500. The year was the most expensive in the Vietnam War with the American spending US$ (US$ in 2019) on the war. The year also became the deadliest
1972 in the Vietnam War The United States Joint Chiefs of Staff assessed the performance of South Vietnamese armed forces thus far in the Easter offensive as "encouraging." The city of Quang Tri was captured by the communist forces, the only provincial capital to fall to them during the Easter Offensive. The preceding week saw South Vietnamese casualties, especially near Quang Tri, reach their highest level of the entire Vietnam War. Two combat divisions of South Vietnam collapsed and fled the fighting. President Nixon withdrew his demand for a withdrawal of all North Vietnamese forces from South Vietnam as a precondition for a peace agreement.