President Richard Nixon entered office in 1969 promising to end the Vietnam War. His first goal was to ease relations between the US, the USSR and China in order to dissuade the nations from supporting its communist ally North Vietnam. A new period known as Détente, or a cooling of international relations. But war continued to rage on, the American public called for a withdrawal of military forces and an end to the conflict. Nixon's policy of "Vietnamization" allowed the US to turn the war effort over to the South Vietnamese, but the US continued its military and economic aid. Nixon engaged in unsuccessful secret wars in Cambodia and in Laos. Finally, on January 27, 1973, the United States, North Vietnam and South Vietnam signed the Paris Peace Accords. This officially marked the end of the war for the United States in Vietnam. Unfortunately, the North Vietnamese defied the agreements and captured the South Vietnamese capital Saigon. After two decades of effort in Vietnam by the United States, the war came to a disappointing end.