Fatal Politics: The Nixon Tapes, the Vietnam War, and the Casualties of Reelection

Miller Center Studies on the Presidency

by Ken Hughes

In his widely acclaimed Chasing Shadows ("the best account yet of Nixon’s devious interference with Lyndon Johnson’s 1968 Vietnam War negotiations"-- Washington Post ), Ken Hughes revealed the roots of the covert activity that culminated in Watergate. In Fatal Politics, Hughes turns to the final years of the war and Nixon’s reelection bid of 1972 to expose the president’s darkest secret. While Nixon publicly promised to keep American troops in Vietnam only until the South Vietnamese could take their place, he privately agreed with his top military, diplomatic, and intelligence advisers that Saigon could never survive without American boots on the ground. Afraid that a preelection fall of Saigon would scuttle his chances for a second term, Nixon put his reelection above the lives of American soldiers. Postponing the inevitable, he kept America in the war into the fourth year of his presidency. At the same time, Nixon negotiated a "decent interval" deal with the Communists to put a face-saving year or two between his final withdrawal and Saigon’s collapse. If they waited that long, Nixon secretly assured North Vietnam’s chief sponsors in Moscow and Beijing, the North could conquer the South without any fear that the United States would intervene to save it. The humiliating defeat that haunts Americans to this day was built into Nixon’s exit strategy. Worse, the myth that Nixon was winning the war before Congress "tied his hands" has led policy makers to adapt tactics from America’s final years in Vietnam to the twenty-first-century conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, prolonging both wars without winning either. Forty years after the fall of Saigon, and drawing on more than a decade spent studying Nixon’s secretly recorded Oval Office tapes--the most comprehensive, accurate, and illuminating record of any presidency in history, much of it never transcribed until now-- Fatal Politics tells a story of political manipulation and betrayal that will change how Americans remember Vietnam. Fatal Politics is also available as a special e-book that allows the reader to move seamlessly from the book to transcripts and audio files of these historic conversations.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Us Presidents, War, Biography

288 pages, Hardcover

First published April 15, 2015

Reviews

[Rose Paluch · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in three days. Great follow up to Chasing Shadows. Changes my teaching approach to Vietnam and Watergate. The e-Reader version had the audio recordings which was wonderful

[Ronnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Later

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I read Hughes' second volume on recently declassified Nixon tapes, I recalled what one of my old Ithaca College history professors once wrote me about why he held his nose and voted for Hubert Humphrey, a candidate he hardly supported, in 1968: because, my old professor said, Richard Nixon was a man of entirely no character.

If only he and the rest of the nation knew then what we know now about Nixon and Vietnam. Thanks in part to University of Virginia researcher Ken Hughes, those interested in a more complete understanding of the historical record can see exactly what Nixon meant for thousands of American and Vietnamese lives, and for politicians today who are looking for ways to delay defeat in, not win, our endless wars.

Hughes has mastered the Nixon tapes and the spate of scholarship on his presidency and Vietnam. He makes the convincing argument -- an argument present-day neoconservatives must ignore as they twist the historical record to justify prolonged commitments in places where our troops do not belong -- that Nixon 1) deliberately timed American withdrawal to his re-election bid in 1972, 2) knew all along that the policy of Vietnamization was a farce, and 3) needed a "decent interval" before the North conquered the South to avoid or shift the blame for "losing" South Vietnam to the Communists.

Nixon extended an unwinnable war at the cost of 20,000 American and countless Vietnamese lives to save his own political hide, a tactic repeated by George W. Bush in 2007 with the Iraq troop surge. Unless we learn the proper lessons of Vietnam, Hughes argues, more presidents will copy the Nixonian playbook, something Americans are helpless to stop without the facts that only slowly emerge in the following years and decades as documents become declassified.

Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger were and remain to this day an utter disgrace to our nation who still -- despite evidence to the contrary -- continue to fool people who should know better. That the myth that Nixon successfully settled (or won!) the war and created a lasting peace only to see it ruined by Congress still carries weight among some scholars and foreign policy intellectuals is as depressing as Nixon's war strategy was disgraceful.

Hughes' study is a must-read.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author is a scholar who studied the Nixon tapes for years, making him an expert. In this book he looks at Nixon’s decisions regarding the Vietnam War and how they affected his presidency as well as the nation’s history. The author supports his arguments with quotes from Nixon and his aides from Nixon’s own tapes. His arguments and positions are compelling, and frightening. According to Hughes, in an effort to win the 1968 election, Nixon used back channels to stop President Johnson’s attempts to reach peace in Vietnam through the Paris peace talks, an action that would have helped Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey. While Hughes acknowledges that peace most likely would not have occurred before the election, Nixon’s actions were certainly unethical. Then Nixon delayed withdrawal of American troops until after the 1972 election in order to win that one as well. In doing so, in order to avoid “losing Vietnam,” Nixon had Kissinger negotiate a “decent interval” with the North Vietnamese so he could avoid being blamed for the loss of Saigon. This happened approximately two years later. According to Hughes, Nixon used the new diplomacy with the Chinese as well as agreements with the Soviet Union to accomplish this, thus selling out an ally without any remorse. Nixon’s paranoia and guilt ultimately lead to Watergate and the toppling of his presidency. Hughes looks at the progression of Nixon’s unethical behaviors that kept a nation at war for much longer than necessary resulting in tremendous loss of life and more suffering for POWs, his abuse of government institutions to punish those who did not support him and his overall unethical character as president. He looks at the myth of training Vietnam’s troops so they would take over the fight and how that was simply not ever going to be successful. This is important because that is what we are attempting to do in the Middle East with similar results. This is a compelling and frightening look at one of our presidents.

[Kenneth Barber · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book deals with the deception of Nixon and Kissinger in ending the Vietnam War. During the 1968 campaign Nixon ha thwarted the bombing halt of Johnson from bringing a peace settlement. Using Anna Chenault as a go between Nixon got Theiu to reject any attempt at a peaceful settlement. After his election Nixon used his policy of Vietnamization of the war to keep from pulling out the troops until after the 1972 election. In the process he secretly bombed Cambodia to stop the North Vietnamese from sending supplies and men o the south. This resulted in the destabilization of the neutral government and the eventual communist take over. In the peace talks to end the conflict Nixon and Kissinger negotiated the decent interval clause into the treaty. This provided for removal of all U.S. Troops, return of our POW's, and a cease fire in place. In return Nixon promised that if North Vietnam would wait a decent interval ie 18-24 months after U.S. forces left to take over the south that the U.S. would not re-enter the conflict.
Nixon did all this so that South Vietnam wouldn't collapse before he was re-elected. If the north waited to take over the south then Nixon couldn't be blamed for Laing the war.
The author uses the Nixon papers and tapes to back up his contentions in a convincing argument.

[Bryan Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good installment by Presidential Recordings scholar Ken Hughes. He lays a good argument for the "decent interval" in which Nixon held up the Vietnam peace until after the 1972 election and made sure that there was a fair amount of time before South Vietham would fall so he would not get blamed for losing the war. Well written and insightful.

[Abby Reddig Moser · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love history. I appreciated the clear and concise writing by Ken Hughes about a subject he is well informed of. It is unfortunate that the American public did not know these truths at the time, but sadly this is always the case when studying a countries history years later as the truth does emerge.