Case-Church Amendment Deadline Halts All U.S. Bombing

August 15, 1973

Case-Church Amendment: U.S. House Code, Public Law 93-52, Section 108, July 1, 1973

Overview

All U.S. bombing in Southeast Asia officially ends in advance of the deadline set in the Case-Church Amendment.

Although the January Paris Peace Accords officially end direct U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, the United States continues to conduct supporting operations throughout Southeast Asia, including airstrikes in Cambodia. After President Nixon indicates in March that the United States might reenter Vietnam to ensure North Vietnamese compliance with the peace accords, Congress passes the Case-Church Amendment in June. It is a bipartisan measure that prohibits further U.S. military operations in Southeast Asia after August 15, 1973, without prior congressional authorization.¹

¹Tucker, ed., The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War, 174; Anderson, The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War, 190; Bills and Statutes, United States Statutes at Large: 93rd Congress, 1st Session, 1973 Vol. 87 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1974), 134, Public Law 93-52, sections 108–110; George R. Dunham and David A. Quinlan, The Bitter End, 1973–1975, U.S. Marines in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: History and Museums Division Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1990), 5; Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York: Penguin Books, 1983), 670–671; “48. Memorandum of Conversation,” February 25, 1970, in Edward C. Keefer, ed., Foreign Relations of the United States, 196 –1976: Volume XX, Southeast Asia, 1969 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 2006), 108–110; John Whiteclay Chambers, ed., The Oxford Companion to American Military History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 106.