Fatal Politics

The Nixon Tapes, the Vietnam War, and the Casualties of Reelection

Ken Hughes

• Publisher: University of Virginia Press
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9780813938035
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

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.

INDEX

ABC Evening News: Kissinger’s “Peace Is at Hand” briefing covered, 131; Nixon’s speech carried by, 2; soldier’s son’s story on, 21; on Thieu’s demands, 126–27, 138; on Vietnam settlement nearly complete, 158

Abrams, Creighton W.: bombing offensives and, 58–59, 61, 63, 68, 69; failure of, 198–99; negotiations with Saigon, 113–14, 123; Nixon on, 67, 68; Nixon’s order countermanded by, 58–59; on South Vietnam’s inability to survive, 14–15, 49, 72, 198, 205, 228n31; strategies of, 59–61, 200

Afghanistan War (2001–): “Nixonian approach” in, 202–6; strategies used in, 200; unasked questions about, 206–9; withdrawal of troops from, 254n6

Agnew, Spiro T., 60, 67, 68, 139

aid-cutoff myth, 200–202

Ambrose, Stephen E., 215n9

American POWs. See POWs

American Society of Newspaper Editors, 24–25

American troops: as advisers, x, 25–26, 59–60, 61–62, 162, 204–5; call for bombing vs. boots on the ground, 64–66; commander in Vietnam (see Abrams, Creighton W.); costs of Nixonian approach for, xii, 86, 196–97, 200–209; dilemmas concerning, after Vietnam settlement signing, 161–63, 245–46n5; educational benefit increased for, 126; effects of prolonged war on, 7–8; Ted Kennedy on Nixon’s disregard for, xi, 45, 49, 82–83; Nixon’s actual position on, 27–28; Nixon’s public position on, 17–18, 181, 189; “search and destroy” vs. “clear and hold” strategies of, 200, 207; in unwinnable war, 189, 191–92, 199. See also casualties, US; POWs; Vietnamization; withdrawal of troops

Anderson, Jack, 229n44

anti-Communism: liberals’ belief in Nixon’s extreme, 49–54; Madman Theory linked to, 163, 174, 245–46n5; “Peace Is at Hand” briefing as vindication of, 134

antidrug campaign, 4

anti-Semitism, 2–3

antiwar movement: attitudes toward losing war in, 23–24; Beatles in, 4; blamed for defeat, 74–75; Hanoi’s link to, 7; Nixon on, 143; Nixon’s credibility and, 71

“any means necessary” message, 70–74, 230n3

Arlington National Cemetery, Veterans Day ceremony, 124

Army of the Republic of [South] Vietnam (ARVN): advances of, 69; breaking under Easter Offensive, 57–58; inability to survive without US support, 14–15, 27, 49, 72, 198, 205, 228n31, 229n44; incursion into Laos, 11, 12–14; Nixon’s refusal to dis...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Epigraphs
• Contents
• Introduction
• Half Title
• Fatal Politics
• Vietnamization
• “A Nightmare of Recrimination”
• “A Hell of a Shift”
• How to Kill a Withdrawal Deadline
• “I’m Being Perfectly Cynical”
• “We Want a Decent Interval”
• Meeting Zhou
• “Old Friends”
• “He Deserves Our Confidence”
• JFK v. Nixon
• The Kennedy Critique
• The Liberal Mistake
• “Super Secret Agent”
• Sixty-Six Percent for Six Months
• “One Arm Tied Behind”
• “Why Does the Air Force Constantly Undercut Us?”
• The Appearance of Success
• “Any Means Necessary”
• “A Russian Game, a Chinese Game and an Election Game”
• “It Could Be a Bit Longer”
• The Democrats
• “No One Will Give a Damn”
• “Idealism with Integrity”
• “Our Terms Will Eventually Destroy Him”
• Blowup 1968
• “We’re behind the Trees!”
• “Saving Face or Saving Lives”
• “Brutalize Him”
• Kissinger v. Thieu
• “No Possibility Whatever”
• “The Man Who Should Cry Is I”
• “The Fellow Is Off His Head”
• No Coalition Government
• “Peace Is at Hand”
• “A Little Bit Diabolically”
• The Chennault Affair
• “The Clearest Choice”
• Election Day 1972
• Promises and Threats
• Christmas Bombing
• “Let Us Be Proud”
• The Prisoners Dilemma
• The Final Cutoff
• Stabbed in the Back
• “We Can Blame Them for the Whole Thing”
• Nixon’s Dolchstoßlegende
• Unearthing Nixon’s Strategy
• The University of Virginia’s Miller Center
• Decision Points
• The Nixon Tapes
• Interpretive Inertia
• Last Days in Vietnam
• A Better War
• The Aid-Cutoff Myth
• How Wars Don’t End
• Questions Unasked
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Index
• A Note on the Links in This Ebook