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Reckless: Henry Kissinger and The Tragedy of Vietnam
This disturbing new account of Henry Kissinger's Vietnam years shows a blundering, self-serving man who led America to tragedy and Vietnam to waste in an unnecessarily dragged-out, ill-conceived war.
The American war in Vietnam was concluded in 1973 under the terms of a truce that were effectively identical to what was offered to the Nixon administration four years earlier. Those four years cost America billions of dollars and over 35,000 war deaths and casualties, and resulted in the deaths of over 300,000 Vietnamese. And those years were the direct result of the supposed master plan of the most important voice in the Nixon White House on American foreign policy: Henry Kissinger.
Using newly available archival material from the Nixon Presidential Library and Kissinger's personal papers, Robert K. Brigham shows how Kissinger's approach to Vietnam was driven by personal political rivalries and strategic confusion, while domestic politics played an outsized influence on Kissinger's so-called strategy. There was no great master plan or Bismarckian theory that supported how the US continued the war or conducted peace negotiations.
As a result, a distant tragedy was perpetuated, forever changing both countries. Now, perhaps for the first time, we can see the full scale of that tragedy and the machinations that fed it.
The American war in Vietnam was concluded in 1973 under the terms of a truce that were effectively identical to what was offered to the Nixon administration four years earlier. Those four years cost America billions of dollars and over 35,000 war deaths and casualties, and resulted in the deaths of over 300,000 Vietnamese. And those years were the direct result of the supposed master plan of the most important voice in the Nixon White House on American foreign policy: Henry Kissinger.
Using newly available archival material from the Nixon Presidential Library and Kissinger's personal papers, Robert K. Brigham shows how Kissinger's approach to Vietnam was driven by personal political rivalries and strategic confusion, while domestic politics played an outsized influence on Kissinger's so-called strategy. There was no great master plan or Bismarckian theory that supported how the US continued the war or conducted peace negotiations.
As a result, a distant tragedy was perpetuated, forever changing both countries. Now, perhaps for the first time, we can see the full scale of that tragedy and the machinations that fed it.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published September 4, 2018
16 people are currently reading
335 people want to read
About the author
Robert K. Brigham
19 books17 followersRobert K. Brigham, Shirley Ecker Boskey Professor of History and International Relations, joined the Vassar faculty in 1994. He is a specialist on the history of US foreign policy, particularly the Vietnam War. Along with several teaching awards, he has also earned fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for Humanities, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. In addition, Brigham has been Albert Shaw Endowed Lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, Mellon Senior Visiting Scholar at Cambridge University (Clare College), visiting professor of international relations at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, summer seminar faculty at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and Mary Ball Washington Professor of American History (Fulbright) at University College Dublin. Brigham was a professor on the spring 2014 Semester at Sea voyage where he was recognized with an award for his teaching by the students. He resides in Poughkeepsie New York with his wife. He has one college aged daughter.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 13, 2018
Contrary to current popular thought, there are unassailable facts. Unfortunately, these facts tell us little and when strung together in a list are dull and boring. Thus the need for historians: those who could provide color and context to our facts.
Reckless by Robert K. Brigham examines Henry Kissinger's management of the Vietnam War. Kissinger's War for Peace was an effort to combine military strategy with diplomacy to extract the US from the ongoing Asian war.
Using newly released information from the Nixon library, National Archives in Ho Chi Minh City, U.S. National Security Council files and Kissinger papers at Yale, Brigham examines Kissingers peace plan in light of it's accomplishments and failures. The verdict is not favorable for Kissinger.
The only thing to remain constant throughout is Kissinger's belief in his view as the only correct one. Kennedy, Johnson, the State Department, the Secretary of Defense, Watergate, Congress and Richard Nixon were discounted and controlled.
Reckless was a well written, well researched volume. It is however a difficult read - there is no hero, there is no happy ending..
Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. My reviews are unbiased and completely my own. #NetGalley #Reckless
Reckless by Robert K. Brigham examines Henry Kissinger's management of the Vietnam War. Kissinger's War for Peace was an effort to combine military strategy with diplomacy to extract the US from the ongoing Asian war.
Using newly released information from the Nixon library, National Archives in Ho Chi Minh City, U.S. National Security Council files and Kissinger papers at Yale, Brigham examines Kissingers peace plan in light of it's accomplishments and failures. The verdict is not favorable for Kissinger.
The only thing to remain constant throughout is Kissinger's belief in his view as the only correct one. Kennedy, Johnson, the State Department, the Secretary of Defense, Watergate, Congress and Richard Nixon were discounted and controlled.
Reckless was a well written, well researched volume. It is however a difficult read - there is no hero, there is no happy ending..
Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. My reviews are unbiased and completely my own. #NetGalley #Reckless
July 9, 2021
Daniel Ellsberg is the most dangerous man in America. He must be stopped at all costs.
—Henry Kissinger
===========
50th anniversary of the Pentagon Papers
Somebody had to show some courage....
“Yes, everybody was lying but for different reasons and for different causes. In particular, a very large range of high-level doves thought we should get out and should not have got involved at all. They were lying to the public to give the impression that they were supporting the president when they did not believe in what the president was doing. They did not agree with it, but had they spoken out it would have cost them their jobs and their future careers. None of them did that or took any risk of doing it and the price of the silence of the doves was several million Vietnamese, Indochinese, and 58,000 Americans.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/202...
========
more detail on Kissinger.....
https://thebaffler.com/civilification...
---------------
For me, this book was a detailed expansion of what I had learned about Kissinger in other books on the Vietnam War and in the Burns' documentary.
The picture that emerges is of Kissinger as a naïve egotist, obsessed with power, but who had little real-world experience when working in the Nixon Administration. He thought he could construct reality from books, Rand Institute reports, and what the little voices in his head told him was true.
Kissinger was something of a secretive loner. He saw himself as Gary Cooper in "High Noon."
"The main point stems from the fact that I’ve always acted alone,” Kissinger told Italian journalist and war correspondent Oriana Fallaci, in a revealing 1972 interview. “Americans admire that enormously. Americans admire the cowboy leading the caravan alone astride his horse, the cowboy entering a village or city alone on his horse."
It's well-known by now that Kissinger and Nixon developed into rivals for influencing events. Unfortunately, both lived in their own reality distortion fields when it came to the war and world politics.
Kissinger's naivete was in full bloom in his attempts to incorporate Soviet Russia and later China into back channel negotiations to bring peace in Vietnam through their influence over Hanoi. He understood neither Russia or China. They were far from chess pieces that Kissinger could move around on his imagined chessboard. He did not understand the conflicts between the two powers and how it reflected on their dealings with Hanoi.
In a weird way, the administration's ignorance was displayed in a letter Nixon wrote to DRV (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) leaders that was addressed to Ho Chi Minh, when Ho had not been involved in the day-to-day activities of the party because, for nearly two years, the party’s secretary-general, Le Duan, had successfully isolated Ho from important decisions.
Kissinger thought that he could create the world and the solutions he wanted from the Nixon White House if the president gave him the power to do so. Kissinger created a small foreign policy empire inside the National Security Council by cutting Defense and State out of most important foreign policy issues. Even in his own office, he concentrated power. His subordinates were denied direct access to the press, to diplomats, and, most important, to the president.
Kissinger presaged the delusions of the George W. Bush Administration when he said: “there are two kinds of realists: those who manipulate facts and those who create them. The West requires nothing so much as men able to create their own reality.”
We clearly understand that this approach never ends well, even as it continues today in the White House.
—Henry Kissinger
===========
50th anniversary of the Pentagon Papers
Somebody had to show some courage....
“Yes, everybody was lying but for different reasons and for different causes. In particular, a very large range of high-level doves thought we should get out and should not have got involved at all. They were lying to the public to give the impression that they were supporting the president when they did not believe in what the president was doing. They did not agree with it, but had they spoken out it would have cost them their jobs and their future careers. None of them did that or took any risk of doing it and the price of the silence of the doves was several million Vietnamese, Indochinese, and 58,000 Americans.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/202...
========
more detail on Kissinger.....
https://thebaffler.com/civilification...
---------------
For me, this book was a detailed expansion of what I had learned about Kissinger in other books on the Vietnam War and in the Burns' documentary.
The picture that emerges is of Kissinger as a naïve egotist, obsessed with power, but who had little real-world experience when working in the Nixon Administration. He thought he could construct reality from books, Rand Institute reports, and what the little voices in his head told him was true.
Kissinger was something of a secretive loner. He saw himself as Gary Cooper in "High Noon."
"The main point stems from the fact that I’ve always acted alone,” Kissinger told Italian journalist and war correspondent Oriana Fallaci, in a revealing 1972 interview. “Americans admire that enormously. Americans admire the cowboy leading the caravan alone astride his horse, the cowboy entering a village or city alone on his horse."
It's well-known by now that Kissinger and Nixon developed into rivals for influencing events. Unfortunately, both lived in their own reality distortion fields when it came to the war and world politics.
Kissinger's naivete was in full bloom in his attempts to incorporate Soviet Russia and later China into back channel negotiations to bring peace in Vietnam through their influence over Hanoi. He understood neither Russia or China. They were far from chess pieces that Kissinger could move around on his imagined chessboard. He did not understand the conflicts between the two powers and how it reflected on their dealings with Hanoi.
In a weird way, the administration's ignorance was displayed in a letter Nixon wrote to DRV (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) leaders that was addressed to Ho Chi Minh, when Ho had not been involved in the day-to-day activities of the party because, for nearly two years, the party’s secretary-general, Le Duan, had successfully isolated Ho from important decisions.
Kissinger thought that he could create the world and the solutions he wanted from the Nixon White House if the president gave him the power to do so. Kissinger created a small foreign policy empire inside the National Security Council by cutting Defense and State out of most important foreign policy issues. Even in his own office, he concentrated power. His subordinates were denied direct access to the press, to diplomats, and, most important, to the president.
Kissinger presaged the delusions of the George W. Bush Administration when he said: “there are two kinds of realists: those who manipulate facts and those who create them. The West requires nothing so much as men able to create their own reality.”
We clearly understand that this approach never ends well, even as it continues today in the White House.
September 8, 2018
Henry Kissinger is the grand doyen of the 'Realist' school of US Foreign Policy. One of the pillars of realism, along with an anarchic and security-centric view of states and their interests, is that high level bilateral negotiations by intelligent and empowered plenipotentiary, can achieve successful foreign policy. Kissinger's role in the the ending of the Vietnam War should be a prime example. After all, he got a Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the end, peace with honor and all of that. Anything that happened after the American withdrawal was not his fault. Right?
Yeah, right. In this book drawing on a close read of the historical record and new archival sources, Brigham shows that Kissinger failed in every single one of his major goals in the negotiations. His paranoid personal style cut key stakeholders out of negotiations, meaning that there was no broad support for his treaty in the American bureaucracy, the public mind, or especially South Vietnam. Kissinger was a major driver of military escalations, which caused immense suffering without commensurate military or diplomatic benefits. Kissinger had a weak hand, but he played it poorly, dragging out the end of the war.
The American objectives for a political resolution of the war was a peace covering Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, mutual withdrawal of American and North Vietnamese forces, the recognition of South Vietnam as an independent nation with a border at the DMZ, and return of American prisoners of war. Of these, he accomplished only the last. North Vietnamese goals were more flexible, but their essential core was recognition of NVA forces on the ground and a weak political outcome for South Vietnam that would lead to unification on Communist terms.
The major sticking point was the removal of South Vietnamese leaders Thieu and Ky. The hardline North Vietnamese position was that their removal was a prerequisite for negotiations and forming a provisional government that contained the National Liberation Front. Negotiations dragged on for years. For obvious reasons, Kissinger refused to throw Thieu under the bus, but he also never engaged with the possibilities of South Vietnamese politics. The South Vietnamese were very much junior partners in their own fate, and their job was to accept whatever deal Kissinger negotiated.
Meanwhile, with every month that passed, more American troops left South Vietnam, and Kissinger's military leverage deteriorated. Domestic political concerns drove the negotiating position. North Vietnam didn't need to agree to mutual withdrawals, they simply had to outwait the American public. As his military bargain cards slipped away, Kissinger was a strenuous advocate for enlarging the war; secretly bombing Cambodia, invading Laos, and area bombing of North Vietnam in Linebacker and Linebacker II. For what it's worth, Kissinger was right that a maximum pressure air campaign in Vietnam would not lead to Chinese intervention and World War III, especially as a response to the massive conventional Easter Offensive in 1972, but there were no diplomatic results from this coercion. The victims died for Kissinger's ambition.
In the end, as conventional wisdom puts it, "We bombed them into accepting their concession." The final treaty accepted the victories of the NVA, allowing ten divisions to remain in South Vietnam, along with the supply routes through Laos and Cambodia. The political resolution was deliberately vague, and a clear victory for North Vietnam. While they did not get their non-Thieu provisional government, there were no mechanisms to defend South Vietnam, aside from Nixon's word of honor. The political outcome would be settled, finally, as NVA tanks rolled into Saigon in 1975 and America did nothing.
Kissinger was a mediocre negotiator at the close of the Vietnam War. He was much more adept at managing upwards, playing to Nixon's distrust of bureaucracy, love of intrigue and military options, and siege-mentality paranoia. Kissinger has also been adept at shaping the historical record to conceal his basic failure in seeking a settlement. The facts on the ground were the facts on the ground, and Kissinger failed to change them militarily. Rather than bold genius, his negotiation tactics were ineffective and conventional, and ultimately a fig-leaf over a drawn out American defeat. The lessons here are lessons in what not to do.
Yeah, right. In this book drawing on a close read of the historical record and new archival sources, Brigham shows that Kissinger failed in every single one of his major goals in the negotiations. His paranoid personal style cut key stakeholders out of negotiations, meaning that there was no broad support for his treaty in the American bureaucracy, the public mind, or especially South Vietnam. Kissinger was a major driver of military escalations, which caused immense suffering without commensurate military or diplomatic benefits. Kissinger had a weak hand, but he played it poorly, dragging out the end of the war.
The American objectives for a political resolution of the war was a peace covering Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, mutual withdrawal of American and North Vietnamese forces, the recognition of South Vietnam as an independent nation with a border at the DMZ, and return of American prisoners of war. Of these, he accomplished only the last. North Vietnamese goals were more flexible, but their essential core was recognition of NVA forces on the ground and a weak political outcome for South Vietnam that would lead to unification on Communist terms.
The major sticking point was the removal of South Vietnamese leaders Thieu and Ky. The hardline North Vietnamese position was that their removal was a prerequisite for negotiations and forming a provisional government that contained the National Liberation Front. Negotiations dragged on for years. For obvious reasons, Kissinger refused to throw Thieu under the bus, but he also never engaged with the possibilities of South Vietnamese politics. The South Vietnamese were very much junior partners in their own fate, and their job was to accept whatever deal Kissinger negotiated.
Meanwhile, with every month that passed, more American troops left South Vietnam, and Kissinger's military leverage deteriorated. Domestic political concerns drove the negotiating position. North Vietnam didn't need to agree to mutual withdrawals, they simply had to outwait the American public. As his military bargain cards slipped away, Kissinger was a strenuous advocate for enlarging the war; secretly bombing Cambodia, invading Laos, and area bombing of North Vietnam in Linebacker and Linebacker II. For what it's worth, Kissinger was right that a maximum pressure air campaign in Vietnam would not lead to Chinese intervention and World War III, especially as a response to the massive conventional Easter Offensive in 1972, but there were no diplomatic results from this coercion. The victims died for Kissinger's ambition.
In the end, as conventional wisdom puts it, "We bombed them into accepting their concession." The final treaty accepted the victories of the NVA, allowing ten divisions to remain in South Vietnam, along with the supply routes through Laos and Cambodia. The political resolution was deliberately vague, and a clear victory for North Vietnam. While they did not get their non-Thieu provisional government, there were no mechanisms to defend South Vietnam, aside from Nixon's word of honor. The political outcome would be settled, finally, as NVA tanks rolled into Saigon in 1975 and America did nothing.
Kissinger was a mediocre negotiator at the close of the Vietnam War. He was much more adept at managing upwards, playing to Nixon's distrust of bureaucracy, love of intrigue and military options, and siege-mentality paranoia. Kissinger has also been adept at shaping the historical record to conceal his basic failure in seeking a settlement. The facts on the ground were the facts on the ground, and Kissinger failed to change them militarily. Rather than bold genius, his negotiation tactics were ineffective and conventional, and ultimately a fig-leaf over a drawn out American defeat. The lessons here are lessons in what not to do.
June 4, 2018
Read an advance copy. Tragedy is an understatement. A travesty that Kissinger got a Nobel Peace Prize for selling us all down the river.
January 30, 2019
A critical and mostly well-written look at Kissinger’s handling of the war and of the man’s own record in trying to spin it.
Brigham shows what Kissinger hoped to attain through negotiations and how he he was constantly foiled. He describes how Kissinger's own style cut his subordinates and other Cabinet members out of the picture and how this cost him support among the US government, the American public and the South Vietnamese. Brigham also describes Kissinger’s support for escalating the war and how these escalations failed in their objectives, how deceptive Kissinger could be, how much he encouraged Nixon’s worst instincts, how the South Vietnamese really were junior partners able to be discarded, and how American leverage grew weaker as more and more US troops were withdrawn. Brigham also does a great job bringing Kissinger’s siege mentality to life, and describing how unimaginative and conventional his strategy could be.
Brigham is great at examining Kissinger’s life and worldview and at bringing to life the dynamics of Nixon’s White House, and how Kissinger manipulated the president. The writing can get a bit dry, though (lots of facts and quotes, for example) and the narrative has no real conclusion. There also could have been some more insight into how and why Nixon chose Kissinger.
An insightful, well-researched work.
Brigham shows what Kissinger hoped to attain through negotiations and how he he was constantly foiled. He describes how Kissinger's own style cut his subordinates and other Cabinet members out of the picture and how this cost him support among the US government, the American public and the South Vietnamese. Brigham also describes Kissinger’s support for escalating the war and how these escalations failed in their objectives, how deceptive Kissinger could be, how much he encouraged Nixon’s worst instincts, how the South Vietnamese really were junior partners able to be discarded, and how American leverage grew weaker as more and more US troops were withdrawn. Brigham also does a great job bringing Kissinger’s siege mentality to life, and describing how unimaginative and conventional his strategy could be.
Brigham is great at examining Kissinger’s life and worldview and at bringing to life the dynamics of Nixon’s White House, and how Kissinger manipulated the president. The writing can get a bit dry, though (lots of facts and quotes, for example) and the narrative has no real conclusion. There also could have been some more insight into how and why Nixon chose Kissinger.
An insightful, well-researched work.
October 8, 2020
Reckless: Henry Kissinger's Responsibility for the Tragedy in Vietnam by Robert K. Brigham is a study of Kissinger's role in the Vietnam peace process. Brigham, Shirley Ecker Boskey Professor of History and International Relations, joined the Vassar faculty in 1994. He is a specialist on the history of US foreign policy, particularly the Vietnam War.
For students of international relations, Kissinger is a powerhouse. He is often credited with creating the modern Realist Theory that opposed the Wilsonian Idealist position. Kissinger is also responsible for volumes of work on historical foreign policy. American policy in most situations has been driven by the realist model. A notable exception is the first Gulf War where a where a large coalition worked together extending beyond traditional allies. The inconclusive results of that conflict seemed to further instill the realist theory as America's policy.
Kissinger is also known for his tough stance against North Vietnam and the relentless bombings. What is new in Brigham's book is a clearer role of Kissinger's involvement with the Vietnam peace process. Brigham shows a Kissinger that is unsure, untrusting, and secretive. He blocks others including Secretary of State Rogers and Secretary of Defense Laird. Both men had experience and the people under them to help settle the peace. Kissinger explained to Oriana Fallaci that he was a lone cowboy and that was admired in America. Kissinger believed only he knew what it took to end the war and worked against anyone who he disagreed with or would steal his spot.
Forty-five years after the direct involvement of US troops in the war, new information is coming to light. Kissinger has written volumes of information on the war and his role. His works secure his place a statesman, but there is more too it. Brigham makes the comment:
Like the internet, Kissinger provides huge amounts of apparent information, not all of it reliable. He's a conspiratorially minded theorist, and he often wanders far from the facts.
Reckless shows the costs and dangers of a "lone cowboy" running foreign policy. Although Kissinger thought back channels would provide a faster solution, our country had the channels for open communication and the bureaucracy that is not driven by ambition or personal emotions. Kissinger was very much like Nixon needing to be in charge and untrusting of almost everyone. He believed that his intelligence and America's military might could provide all of America's solutions in Vietnam. However, he lacked the understanding that the Vietnamese had been fighting outside powers since 1887 and were not about to give up. Reckless tells the story of hubris and failure in contrast to the polished history written the subject himself.
September 3, 2018
Thanks to Public Affairs Books and Netgalley for an advance reading copy of the book. The views expressed are my own.
This is a detailed critical account of Henry Kissinger's negotiations with the North Vietnamese from 1969 through to 1973. It's not a biography of Kissinger and draws on biographical work by Walter Isaacson, Niall Ferguson, and others as well as Kissinger's own writings. There's no input from Kissinger himself: no interview and no indication that one was requested. Kissinger's rebuttal would be interesting.
The book discusses the co-dependent relationship that existed between Nixon and Kissinger. Nixon thought Kissinger was too emotional. In turn, Kissinger thought Nixon was moody and unpredictable. Early on in his presidency, Nixon created the "Henry Handling Committee" (Haldeman, Erlichman and Mitchell) to keep him "calm". This was a fascinating relationship which affected the course of the negotiations; Kissinger told Nixon what he thought he wanted to hear in order to let Kissinger continue the secret talks.
The author argues that Kissinger has spent a lot of time since leaving office documenting a record of his time in office to make him look good, despite evidence to the contrary. There is a substantial amount of documentation that supports a view that many times Kissinger misrepresented to Nixon what was discussed and agreed upon with the North Vietnamese negotiators in Paris.
It is shocking that both NIxon and Kissinger ignored the South Vietnam government's views. They were never consulted about any of the substantial issues in the negotiations. South Vietnam was never a player in the talks. Similarly, Kissinger sidelined the U.S. State Department right from the beginning of the Nixon presidency. He worked to be sure Nixon did not follow advice from Defence Secretary Laird. Farther afield, Russia and China rebuffed Kissinger's efforts to have them pressure North Vietnam to soften their position. The result of all this was that Kissinger (and to a lesser extent Nixon) was left without allies. They did not have the support of the U.S. public. Kissinger thought he is the "smartest one in the room" (and perhaps he was) and therefore he believed he was the only one capable of solving the Vietnam "mess".
This book is a worthwhile read for students of world history as well as students of negotiation and conflict resolution. It's a real life "case history" of a negotiation with many lessons to be learned, an important one being to build alliances. It's a reasoned counterpoint to a substantial amount of what is written about Kissinger. Whether or not you agree with the author, it's worth the time and effort to read this book.
This is a detailed critical account of Henry Kissinger's negotiations with the North Vietnamese from 1969 through to 1973. It's not a biography of Kissinger and draws on biographical work by Walter Isaacson, Niall Ferguson, and others as well as Kissinger's own writings. There's no input from Kissinger himself: no interview and no indication that one was requested. Kissinger's rebuttal would be interesting.
The book discusses the co-dependent relationship that existed between Nixon and Kissinger. Nixon thought Kissinger was too emotional. In turn, Kissinger thought Nixon was moody and unpredictable. Early on in his presidency, Nixon created the "Henry Handling Committee" (Haldeman, Erlichman and Mitchell) to keep him "calm". This was a fascinating relationship which affected the course of the negotiations; Kissinger told Nixon what he thought he wanted to hear in order to let Kissinger continue the secret talks.
The author argues that Kissinger has spent a lot of time since leaving office documenting a record of his time in office to make him look good, despite evidence to the contrary. There is a substantial amount of documentation that supports a view that many times Kissinger misrepresented to Nixon what was discussed and agreed upon with the North Vietnamese negotiators in Paris.
It is shocking that both NIxon and Kissinger ignored the South Vietnam government's views. They were never consulted about any of the substantial issues in the negotiations. South Vietnam was never a player in the talks. Similarly, Kissinger sidelined the U.S. State Department right from the beginning of the Nixon presidency. He worked to be sure Nixon did not follow advice from Defence Secretary Laird. Farther afield, Russia and China rebuffed Kissinger's efforts to have them pressure North Vietnam to soften their position. The result of all this was that Kissinger (and to a lesser extent Nixon) was left without allies. They did not have the support of the U.S. public. Kissinger thought he is the "smartest one in the room" (and perhaps he was) and therefore he believed he was the only one capable of solving the Vietnam "mess".
This book is a worthwhile read for students of world history as well as students of negotiation and conflict resolution. It's a real life "case history" of a negotiation with many lessons to be learned, an important one being to build alliances. It's a reasoned counterpoint to a substantial amount of what is written about Kissinger. Whether or not you agree with the author, it's worth the time and effort to read this book.
March 21, 2021
Kissinger was a megalomaniac - I think most of us knew that - but this research really showed how he clearly felt like he [alone] could dictate and deliver a settlement to Vietnam. He often lied or misrepresented his efforts to Nixon, engineered illegal military action in Cambodia, consolidated power/influence in the NSC at the expense of DOS and DoD, and totally miscalculated North Vietnam's positions and willingness to endure ruthless US bombing/assaults. His negotiating positions were routinely diminished over time and he made many of the same mistakes and miscalculations of his predecessors.
He was awarded the Nobel peace prize... but his agreement was transparently flawed from the beginning, designed for the US to save face, and enabled the war to ESCALTE weeks after it was signed. To me, this just highlights the absurdity of the entire war, and the enterprise in general, back in the late 50s and early 60s - the fate of the South Vietnamese government and its preservation was deemed critical to national security and lead to the US's involvement. Despite the years of devastating war... at the very end the agreement signaled the US was NOT interested in preserving South Vietnam and would stay out of its affairs. Horrible and shameful. What the fuck is the point? Pathetic.
He was awarded the Nobel peace prize... but his agreement was transparently flawed from the beginning, designed for the US to save face, and enabled the war to ESCALTE weeks after it was signed. To me, this just highlights the absurdity of the entire war, and the enterprise in general, back in the late 50s and early 60s - the fate of the South Vietnamese government and its preservation was deemed critical to national security and lead to the US's involvement. Despite the years of devastating war... at the very end the agreement signaled the US was NOT interested in preserving South Vietnam and would stay out of its affairs. Horrible and shameful. What the fuck is the point? Pathetic.
October 5, 2020
Wow! Robert Brigham does not like Henry Kissinger. Seriously, the man should switch to decaff. It was hard to trust the book. The author's bias was obvious. I don' t doubt Kissinger's duplicity and complicity. I'm just not convinced that this man is the anti-Christ.
March 18, 2021
Unsurprising but fascinating that Kissinger's time since the White House has been exactly the same as it was while there--a mountain of self-aggrandizing lies under which hides pathetic, violent failure.
December 13, 2021
It was at the Dollar Tree for a reason.
March 29, 2022
Good question. The book's answers place a significant amount of the blame on a combination of Richard Nixon's weird personality, Kissinger's overpowering ego and desire to become Secretary of State, and Kissinger's back-room conniving to cut actual Secretary of State William Rogers and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird out of the negotiation process. Kissinger and Nixon tried to maintain the fiction that they were treating the South Vietnamese "honorably" when they were politely cutting their throats by negotiating an agreement that permitted North Vietnamese divisions to remain in South Vietnam. Honorable? Not exactly. Necessary? Go back to the question asked above. If we couldn't defeat the North Vietnamese, who looked at the war as a continuation of one which had gone on for two decades, with a half-million troops on the ground, why did we think we could negotiate successfully?
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews