Nixon, Ford and the Abandonment of South Vietnam

Nixon, Ford and the Abandonment of South Vietnam PDF Author: J. Edward Lee
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786483849
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
South Vietnam fell because of events occurring thousands of miles away from the battlefields—in China, the Soviet Union, Latin America, the Middle East, and Washington’s corridors of power, along protest lines, and around America’s dinner tables. These other wars being fought by American presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford profoundly impacted what happened in Vietnam. This work examines those other conflicts and the political, social, and economic factors involved with them that distracted and crippled the presidencies of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and led to the eventual abandonment of the U.S.-supported South Vietnamese regime. Nixon entered office with the goal of bringing the world together, but saw that goal ruined by the 1973 war in the Middle East, preoccupations with China and the Soviet Union, a weak economy, Watergate, and his disgraceful exit from the White House. Ford’s presidency was tainted almost from the beginning because of the pardon he granted to Nixon, but the American public, tired of war and concerned about the economy, was ready to hear that the war had come to an end. An argument is presented that the war could have been won if the “other wars” had been fought by presidents willing to honor the American commitment to its allies in South Vietnam.

Nixon, Ford and the Abandonment of South Vietnam

Nixon, Ford and the Abandonment of South Vietnam PDF Author: J. Edward Lee
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786483849
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
South Vietnam fell because of events occurring thousands of miles away from the battlefields—in China, the Soviet Union, Latin America, the Middle East, and Washington’s corridors of power, along protest lines, and around America’s dinner tables. These other wars being fought by American presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford profoundly impacted what happened in Vietnam. This work examines those other conflicts and the political, social, and economic factors involved with them that distracted and crippled the presidencies of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and led to the eventual abandonment of the U.S.-supported South Vietnamese regime. Nixon entered office with the goal of bringing the world together, but saw that goal ruined by the 1973 war in the Middle East, preoccupations with China and the Soviet Union, a weak economy, Watergate, and his disgraceful exit from the White House. Ford’s presidency was tainted almost from the beginning because of the pardon he granted to Nixon, but the American public, tired of war and concerned about the economy, was ready to hear that the war had come to an end. An argument is presented that the war could have been won if the “other wars” had been fought by presidents willing to honor the American commitment to its allies in South Vietnam.

Abandoning Vietnam

Abandoning Vietnam PDF Author: James H. Willbanks
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
Drawing upon both archival research and his own military experiences in Vietnam, Willbanks focuses on military operations from 1969 through 1975. He begins by analyzing the events that led to a change in U.S. strategy in 1969 and the subsequent initiation of Vietnamization. He then critiques the implementation of that policy and the combat performance of the South Vietnamese army (ARVN), which finally collapsed in 1975.

No More Vietnams

No More Vietnams PDF Author: Richard Milhous Nixon
Publisher: William Morrow
ISBN:
Category : Developing countries
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
"In writing No More Vietnams, Richard Nixon-with the unique perspective of the man who served us America's commander-in-chief during the war's most difficult stage-has set out to dispel the myths of Vietnam, to show why we failed in Vietnam, and to contribute to the development of policies that will help avoid such failures in the future. In doing so, President Nixon analyzes the role that four presidents, the military, the Congress, the media, and the antiwar movement played in the Vietnam debacle." -- Front jacket flap

Nixon's Vietnam War

Nixon's Vietnam War PDF Author: Jeffrey P. Kimball
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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Book Description
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.

No More Vietnams

No More Vietnams PDF Author: Richard Nixon
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476731780
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
“He is just about the only American leader who ever did anything right in Vietnam.…Nixon makes a strong case.” —Chicago Tribune In his bestselling No More Vietnams, Richard Nixon analyzes America’s military involvement in Southeast Asia—including his own role as commander-in-chief from 1969 to 1974—and presciently calls for a new American approach to conflicts in the Third World.

No Peace, No Honor

No Peace, No Honor PDF Author: Larry Berman
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 074321742X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
In 1973, Henry Kissinger shared the Nobel Peace Prize for the secret negotiations that led to the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam. Nixon famously declared the 1973 agreement to be "peace with honor"; America was disengaging, yet South Vietnam still stood to fight its own war. Kissinger promptly moved to seal up his personal records of the negotiations, arguing that they are private, not government, records, and that he will only allow them to be unsealed after his death. No Peace, No Honor deploys extraordinary documentary bombshells, including a complete North Vietnamese account of the secret talks, to blow the lid off the true story of the peace process. Neither Nixon and Kissinger's critics, nor their defenders, have guessed at the full truth: the entire peace negotiation was a sham. Nixon did not plan to exit Vietnam, but he knew that in order to continue bombing without a congressional cutoff, he would need a fig leaf. Kissinger negotiated a deal that he and Nixon expected the North to violate. Ironically, their long-maintained spin on what happened next is partially true: only Watergate stopped America from sending the bombers back in. This revelatory book has many other surprises. Berman produces new evidence that finally proves a long-suspected connection between candidate Nixon in 1968 and the South Vietnamese government. He tells the full story of Operation Duck Hook, a large-scale offensive planned by Nixon as early as 1969 that would have widened the war even to the point of bombing civilian food supplies. He reveals transcripts of candidate George McGovern's attempts to negotiate his own October surprise for 1972, and a seriocomic plan by the CIA to overthrow South Vietnam's President Thieu even as late as 1975. Throughout, with page-turning dialogue provided by official transcriptions and notes, Berman reveals the step-by-step betrayal of South Vietnam that started with a short-circuited negotiations loop, and ended with double-talk, false promises, and outright abandonment. Berman draws on hundreds of declassified documents, including the notes of Kissinger's aides, phone taps of the Nixon campaign in 1968, and McGovern's own transcripts of his negotiations with North Vietnam. He has been able to double- and triple-check North Vietnamese accounts against American notes of meetings, as well as previously released bits of the record. He has interviewed many key players, including high-level South Vietnamese officials. This definitive account forever and completely rewrites the final chapter of the Vietnam war. Henry Kissinger's Nobel Prize was won at the cost of America's honor.

The War After the War

The War After the War PDF Author: Johannes Kadura
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 150170379X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
In The War after the War, Johannes Kadura offers a fresh interpretation of American strategy in the wake of the cease-fire that began in Vietnam on January 28, 1973. The U.S. exit from Vietnam continues to be important in discussions of present-day U.S. foreign policy, so it is crucial that it be interpreted correctly. In challenging the prevailing version of the history of the events, Kadura provides interesting correctives to the different accounts, including the ones of the key actors themselves, President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger foremost among them. In so doing, Kadura aims to forge a synthesis between orthodox and revisionist interpretations of this important period. Kadura finds that the strategy employed by Nixon and Kissinger centered on the concepts of "equilibrium strategy" and "insurance policy." That approach allowed them to follow a twofold strategy of making a major effort to uphold South Vietnam while at the same time maintaining a fallback strategy of downplaying the overall significance of Vietnam. Whether they won or lost on their primary bet to secure South Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger expected to come through the crisis in a viable strategic position.

Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War

Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War PDF Author: David F. Schmitz
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442227109
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
In Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War, accomplished foreign relations historian David F. Shmitz provides students of US history and the Vietnam era with an up-to-date analysis of Nixon’s Vietnam policy in a brief and accessible book that addresses the main controversies of the Nixon years. President Richard Nixon’s first presidential term oversaw the definitive crucible of the Vietnam War. Nixon came into office seeking the kind of decisive victory that had eluded President Johnson, and went about expanding the war, overtly and covertly, in order to uphold a policy of “containment,” protect America’s credibility, and defy the left’s antiwar movement at home. Tactically, politically, Nixon’s moves made sense. However, by 1971 the president was forced to significantly de-escalate the American presence and seek a negotiated end to the war, which is now accepted as an American defeat, and a resounding failure of American foreign relations. Schmitz addresses the main controversies of Nixon’s Vietnam strategy, and in so doing manages to trace back the ways in which this most calculating and perceptive politician wound up resigning from office a fraud and failure. Finally, the book seeks to place the impact of Nixon’s policies and decisions in the larger context of post-World War II American society, and analyzes the full costs of the Vietnam War that the nation feels to this day.

Ending the Vietnam War

Ending the Vietnam War PDF Author: Henry Kissinger
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743245776
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 641

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Book Description
Now, for the first time, Kissinger gives us in a single volume an in-depth, inside view of the Vietnam War, personally collected, annotated, revised, and updated from his bestselling memoirs and his book Diplomacy. Many other authors have written about what they thought happened—or thought should have happened—in Vietnam, but it was Henry Kissinger who was there at the epicenter, involved in every decision from the long, frustrating negotiations with the North Vietnamese delegation to America's eventual extrication from the war. Here, Kissinger writes with firm, precise knowledge, supported by meticulous documentation that includes his own memoranda to and replies from President Nixon. He tells about the tragedy of Cambodia, the collateral negotiations with the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, the disagreements within the Nixon and Ford administrations, the details of all negotiations in which he was involved, the domestic unrest and protest in the States, and the day-to-day military to diplomatic realities of the war as it reached the White House. As compelling and exciting as Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, Ending the Vietnam War also reveals insights about the bigger-than-life personalities—Johnson, Nixon, de Gaulle, Ho Chi Minh, Brezhnev—who were caught up in a war that forever changed international relations. This is history on a grand scale, and a book of overwhelming importance to the public record.

No Peace, No Honor

No Peace, No Honor PDF Author: Larry Berman
Publisher: Free Press
ISBN: 9780743223492
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
NO PEACE NO HONOR takes readers inside the negotiations that lead to the agreement Nixon famously called 'peace with honour' and reveals that the entire process was a sham. Through exhaustive, meticulous research, Larry Berman provides conclusive evidence that Kissenger crafted a deal he and Nixon expected and actually wanted North Vietnam to violate because it would allow them to continue the bombing with no threat of a congressional cut-off. Their secret plans to extend the war, he argues, were aborted only with the onset of the Watergate debacle. Tracing the step-by-step deception of both the South Vietnamese and the American public from initiatives that began as early as 1969, through the disgraceful peace agreement that cost the country it's honour, this extraordinary book is a benchmark in the literature of Vietnam.