Nixon's Vietnam War

Modern War Studies

by Jeffrey P. Kimball

Robert H. Ferrell Award Ohio Academy of History Book Award The signing of the Paris Agreement in 1973 ended not only America’s Vietnam War but also Richard Nixon’s best laid plans. After years of secret negotiations, threats of massive bombing, and secret diplomacy designed to shatter strained Communist alliances, the president had to settle for a peace that fell far short of his original aims. This is the first book to focus exclusively on Nixon’s direction of the Vietnam War. Based on extensive interviews with principal players and original research in Vietnam, it goes behind the scenes in Washington and into the minds of America’s leaders to provide the most complete and balanced analysis of Nixon’s and Kissinger’s complex and tortuous strategy and diplomacy. Jeffrey Kimball has conducted exhaustive research into recently declassified files and has reexamined Nixon’s and Kissinger’s postwar writings to depict a hidden reality quite different from that previously presented. The author’s absorbing tale traces Nixon’s involvement with Vietnam back to 1953 with his advocacy of interventionist policies and demonstrates how the foreign policy lessons he learned before his election served as the basis for the goals he pursued in office. He describes Nixon’s struggle to appease his hawkish supporters while making good on his campaign promise to end the war and how in the face of other foreign and domestic problems, Vietnam became the major preoccupation of his presidency. Kimball explores Nixon’s peculiar psychology and his curious relationship with Henry Kissinger to reveal how they influenced his pursuit of globalist goals in Vietnam. He reveals how the Nixon-Kissinger relationship worked-and how it almost fell apart. He also describes the keystone in Nixon’s strategy—the “Madman Theory”—which he employed to make the Communist nations think he could be provoked into fits of irrationality that might lead him to use nuclear weapons. Compellingly written and painstakingly researched, Nixon’s Vietnam War combines grand synthesis with new information and revealing insights, including the perspectives of the Vietnamese and their Chinese and Soviet allies. As more is disclosed about the war, it will serve as an indispensable resource for understanding both that tragic conflict and the troubled mind of the leader who ultimately prolonged it.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

512 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1998

Reviews

[Jerome Otte · Rating 4 out of 5]

A careful, well-researched history of US policy in Southeast Asia under Nixon.

The book is a bit dated, but it does a good job explaining what happened and in correcting the narrative that Nixon and Kissinger put out. Kimball explains the illusions the administration operated under, the decisions made, and how these affected US policy.

Kimball discusses Nixon’s desperation for a formula that could end the war and still maintain US credibility by keeping the Saigon government in power. He covers the strong belief that firm military pressure could achieve breakthroughs in diplomacy, the inconsistent “madman theory,” the “linkage” concept, and how tightly Nixon wanted control of policy. Kimball also discusses how these led to the the bombing and invasion of Cambodia, the bombing of Hanoi, the mining of Haiphong, and 1972 Christmas bombing, and how they all came just short of crippling Hanoi (Nixon and Kissinger did claim that the bombing coerced Hanoi to accept peace, but Kimball points out that Hanoi did not make any new, important concessions because of it)

The book is not always particularly well-written, and bogs down in detail at times. Also, at one point Kimball writes, inaccurately, that James Gritz commanded the Son Tay raid. Still, a great synthesis overall.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meticulous, scathing critique of Richard Nixon's cynical attempts at achieving "Peace With Honor" in Vietnam. Kimball, author of several books on Vietnam (most recently Nixon's Nuclear Specter), concludes that Nixon, far from his later spin (still propagated by apologists) that he made the best of a bad hand inherited from his predecessors, exacerbated things with an erratic policy based on expediency, political calculation and, it often seemed, the President's own whims. Hence the "Madman Theory" of threatening North Vietnam with massive retaliation if they failed to surrender while simultaneously pushing for Vietnamization; hence the Cambodian and Laotian "incursions," the former a tactical success but a political disaster, the latter a debacle on all fronts. Nor did Nixon or Henry Kissinger care about prolonging the war or "saving" South Vietnam from Communism after Nixon's reelection, as Kimball (and later authors like Larry Berman and Ken Hughes) makes painfully clear. Perhaps Kimball overstates his thesis in a few particulars, downplaying ARVN's generally solid performance during the Spring Offensive of 1972 (albeit backed by heavy American air power) and the degree to which any President taking office in 1969 would have struggled to extricate the country from Vietnam, with or without "honor." Still, this book provides a devastating rebuttal to those stubborn revisionists who claim that Nixon "won" the war only for those damn liberals to punt it away.

[Michael Norwitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kimball tracks the involvement and thinking of Nixon with the US invasion of Vietnam, from 1953-1973. Immensely detailed and well-researched, although sometimes so involved with the specifics that I was left without an overarching sense of what was happening on the ground or politically. Still worth reading, with incisive views on Nixon's character and how it affected world politics.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A better portrait of Kissinger and Nixon w/o the smarmy crap intermixed; potent.