Nixon's Vietnam War (Modern War Studies) - Hardcover

Kimball, Jeffrey

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0700609245 ISBN 13: 9780700609246

Publisher: University Press of Kansas, 1998

Synopsis

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 book focuses 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 aiming to provide a complete and balanced analysis of Nixon's and Kissinger's complex and tortuous strategy and diplomacy. Jeffrey Kimball has conducted exhaustive research into declassified files and has re-examined Nixon's and Kissinger's postwar writings to depict a hidden reality quite different from that previously presented. The author's 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. The book 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, the book aims to serve as a valuable resource for understanding both that tragic conflict and the troubled mind of the leader who ultimately prolonged it.

About this title

Review:

"An enormously impressive work that lays bare the real Nixon and, along the way, reduces Nixon's version of the war to a legend of his own making. Will be the standard for understanding Richard Nixon and Vietnam-both central to our contemporary history."--Stanley Kutler, author of Abuse of Power and The Wars of Watergate "A major accomplishment. Far and away the best study of Nixon's Vietnam policies we are likely to have for some time."--George Herring, author of America's Longest War and LBJ and Vietnam "Kimball explains, as no historian has before, how Nixon and Kissinger conducted their complicated and devious Vietnam War diplomacy. Making brilliant use of new documentary sources and interviews from the American as well as the North Vietnamese side, he has made a singular contribution to our understanding of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and, even more important, to our understanding of that most fascinating of presidents, Richard M. Nixon."--Melvin Small, author of Johnson, Nixon, and the Doves "An important contribution to our understanding of a tragic period in American politics and diplomacy."--Herbert S. Parmet, author of Richard Nixon and His America "The most balanced and comprehensive study of the subject that we are likely to have for some time."--David Anderson, editor of Shadow on the White House: Presidents and the Vietnam War, 1945-1975 "A deeply necessary in-depth look at Nixon. Let us not soon forget."--Oliver Stone

From the Publisher:

Winner of the following prizes:
Winner of the Robert H. Ferrell Book Prize. Sponsored by SHAFR, the Society for the History of American Foreign Relations, the Ferrell Prize is given for the best book on the history of American foreign relations, broadly defined.

Winner of the Ohio Academy of History Book Award. Judges in the Ohio Academy competition called Kimball’s work "an impressive and elegantly written synthesis."

About this edition

• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0700609245
• ISBN 13: 9780700609246
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 528