Ellie Trott and Michael Wood
What is the message of the cartoon?
The cartoon is symbolising the decision that Richard Nixon had to make about the Vietnam
War in 1969. The decision was whether to keep American forces in Vietnam or whether to
train South Vietnamese forces in a process called Vietnamisation.
The cartoon is showing Nixon holding on to two horses. One horse is labelled No Surrender,
and the other is labelled Vietnamisation. No Surrender refers to keeping American forces in
Vietnam to fight out the remainder of the war themselves for the pride of the country. This
horse looks strong and healthy in comparison to the other horse, which represents the
strength of the Americans compared to the strength of the South Vietnamese forces. The
other horse labelled Vietnamisation represents these South Vietnamese forces.
Vietnamisation was a policy created by Nixon which involved training the South Vietnamese
forces to fight for America. However, they weren’t as powerful as the American military,
which is represented by the horse being weaker and looking much more tired than the
American horse.
The fact that the carton was published in 1969 is also important. 1969 was very much in the
middle of the war, and by this stage a lot of negative issues had occurred. The year
beforehand had seen two major events – My Lai and the Tet Offensive – and Lyndon
Johnson had also decided to leave the post of American president because of all the
negativity that the Vietnam war was receiving. He was replaced by Nixon, which is why he is
the person who is stuck in the middle of the two horses, as he was the person who was
burdened with making the decision.