Many of Nixon's obituaries refer to his success in ending the war in Vietnam, "peace with honour". Kissinger argues that "when Richard Nixon took his oath of office, 550,000 Americans were engaged in combat in a place as far away from the United States as it was possible to be ... When Richard Nixon left office, an agreement to end the war in Vietnam had been concluded."R.W. Apple likewise simply writes that "after at first broadening and intensifying the conflict in Indochina, he ended American involvement in the fighting there".

But as James Perry notes, "As president, he slowly began to wind down the nation's military involvement in Vietnam, despite a secret bombing campaign and an invasion of Cambodia."Hunter S. Thompson is far more uncompromising, "a merciless war criminal who bombed more people to death in Laos and Cambodia than the U.S. Army lost in all of World War II".

In Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia, William Shawcross details the many secret manouvres taken by both Nixon and Kissinger, in violation of the Constitutional requirement that Congress authorise wars, to use Cambodia to attack the North Vietnamese, resulting in widespread social disintegration and ethnic cleansing in that country.