Customer Reviews:
Factoids aren't facts.......2005-11-03
The previous review stated "Nixon refused to acknowledge African-Americans were over-represented in Vietnam. Today, this fact is a given." For many years I thought so too, until I saw the official statistics:
88.4% of the men who actually served in Vietnam were Caucasian: 10.6% (275,000) were African-American; 1% belonged to other races
86.3% of the men who died in Vietnam were Caucasian (includes Hispanics); 12.5% (7,241) were African-American; 1.2% belonged to other races
170,000 Hispanics served in Vietnam: 3,070 (5.2% of total) died there
70% of enlisted men killed were of Northwest European descent
86.8% of the men who were killed as a result of hostile action were Caucasian; 12.1% (5,711) were African-American; 1.1% belonged to other races
14.6% (1,530) of non-combat deaths were among African-Americans
34% of African-Americans who enlisted volunteered for the combat arms
Overall, African-Americans suffered 12.5% of the deaths in Vietnam at a time when the percentage of African-Americans of military age was 13.5% of the total population
Sources: Department of Defense casualty records
Labor Department
Department of Veterans' Affairs
National Personnel Records.
Ackowledgement of Defeat?.......2005-04-16
While a having a great deal of potential, this book begins to loose credibility in the initial pages. When writing this book in 1985, Nixon refused to acknowledge African-Americans were over-represented in Vietnam. Today, this fact is a given. By definition, Vietnam was a civil war. The Domino Theory never fell like it was supposed to. With this knowledge skewed in the first pages, much of the information in this book should be taken with a grain of salt.
The war protestors are the dominant image that comes to mind when one thinks of the Vietnam era. After essentially calling doves "communists" (p. 16), Nixon wavers as to the effects of the protestors. It is agreeable to say that they poisoned the nation's foreign policy and diplomacy attempts, but Nixon is reluctant to suggest that the protestors had a direct effect on the withdrawal. In his drive to present himself in a positive light, I believe he loses touch with reality in these discussions. This bias takes away from his excellence in discussing his insight to the war.
Nixon is highly critical of the Vietnam decisions made by Kennedy and Johnson. Nixon suggests LBJ failed to win the war because he failed to gain public support for the cause (p. 79). In this instance, he suggests the media poisoned the public's minds. Nixon never was a fan of the press. He suggests victory was made impossible when LBJ called for the 1968 bombing halt which exposed our poker face and willingness to end the war. We showed North Vietnam our strongest desire was to end the war which meant they only had to outlast us rather than defeating us. In reality, this logic is hard to argue. The only disagreement one could have with this is that there was so much about the war that was poorly planned. LBJ's mistake started a Domino Effect of another kind.
In the book, Nixon looses sight of something much bigger. Vietnam is not about the Nixon defination of morality and moral obligation. Many revolutions in African far outweigh the human rights violations that were occurring in Vietnam during this era. Yet the United States never intervened in an African crisis until the 1990's. Ask the soldiers who fought in Vietnam what the battle was about. Ask the mentally unhealthy and permanently disabled veterans if their sacrifice was worth it. As a fan of Nixon, I expected a more humble explanation of Vietnam, yet I should have known better. Communism is such a flawed system that it fell apart without a war. It is not the wave of the future, the wave is "good-bye". Based on this present day knowledge, it is easy to realize that the Vietnam war was a mistake. However, the insights provided by Nixon in this book still make it an interesting read.
Setting the record straight.......2003-09-07
Conventional wisdom dictates that the Vietnam war was a mistake, a clossal blunder from day one. It was not only a war America lost, but a war that was "unwinable." America was brutally opposing a peaceful peasant revolution that wanted nothing more than freedom and independence after years of foreign rule. This message has been constantly re-enforced by the mass media, through award-winning motion pictures, songs, plays, novels, and poems. The Vietnam war, or more specifically the war's underlying "injustice," has become an American cultural icon of epic proportions. And yet, as Richard Nixon so eloquently points out in this book, almost every single piece of "conventional wisdom" on the war is in fact blatantly wrong.
It's often argued by members of the left that conservative politicans are sheltered, ignorant, uneducated men, who could not five minutes in an intelectual foreign policy debate with some highbrow university professor. What really impressed me about this book was the degree to which Nixon knew all the allegations that had been launched against him, and against the war. Nixon goes through the lists of myths about the war one-by-one, catagorically dismissing the lies that have been spread by all the left-wing revisionists over the years.
He dismisses the myth of Ho Chi Minh as a benevolent "Vietnamese George Washington," and exposes him as the Stalinist thug he really was. Similarly, he defends President Diem of South Vietnam, acknowledging his faults, but at the same time giving him credit for being a true leader of an independent Vietnam, instead of trying to mold the country into a foreign totalitarian model, like Ho. He explains how the Vietnam war was never a mere "civil war" led by South Vietnamese uprisings against Diem, but instead a carefully calculated campaign of brutal terrorism, led by Ho Chi Minh's proxy agents stationed in the south.
Most importantly of all, Nixon also puts to rest the long-held leftist myth that the US and South Vietnam refused to hold scheduled elections to unite the country, as mandated by the Geneva convention. He explains that not only were these "scheduled elections" never even agreed upon by either of the Vietnams in the first place, it was the North, and not the South that actually provided the biggest resistance for this impractical pipe-dream to ever be implemented.
Nixon was a politician as partisan as they come, yet for the most part in this book he puts his political beliefs aside to defend a war that was tackled by presidents of both parties. Nixon defends Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson, and their actions, dismissing the critics claims that these men were "war criminals" or worse. He is a bit harsh on Kennedy at times, and regards the Kennedy-backed coup against Diem as a colassal blunder. But even then he is quick to paint Kennedy and other Democrats as gullible victims of the loud and intimidating anti-war movement.
The final chapter of the book is excellent, as Nixon carefully explains the strategic and moral importance of preserving the freedom and independence of "third world" nations. Though at the time he was talking about Communist subversion, his lessons can just as easily be applied to the current war on terror. Just as the United States fought for years to prevent the third world from falling under Soviet influence, so now must the United States fight to prevent the arab world from being exploited by terror networks in Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The Vietnam war failed, Nixon argues, because the various presidents failed to accurately make the case for war. That is an important lesson to be learned, and hopefully the current president will be careful to never let the American people lose sight of the reason for the war in Iraq.
Nixon was one of America's most brilliant presidents. It is a shame his personal failings brought down an administration with such truly noble goals for the world.
Eye opening.......2002-11-14
I'm a student and this book was a required reading. Easily the best required reading I've ever had to do. I had never fully understood Vietnam. Why we were there, what we did while there and why we left. This book was an excellent asset in understanding Vietnam and I recommend it especially to students since it can be easily read in 2 to 3 days. :)
Vietnam & Current Afghanistan: Similarities.......2002-02-20
During the height of the Vietnam war, I was a junior high/senior high school student and never really understood what was the purpose of the war. I have read many books since and have a fairly good understanding of the how's and why's of the war. However, reading Nixon's book was a real eye opener. He lucidates very well how the US got involved in Vietnam; the major mistakes the Kennedy and Johnson administrations made in running the war; the smear campaigns by the media against the Presidents and their policies; why Nixon bombed Vietnam in 1972 and mined Haiphong harbor; how the peace protestors played into Uncle Ho's hands. I was stunned to learn this information. Nixon was, by far, an exceptional and gifted statesman and writer. He even stated that the next threat to world peace and to the US will come from terrorism (this was written in 1985!). Nixon states that the "civilized world must develop a unified policy for dealing with terrorism" and that terrorists "may be deterred once they realize that by using terror they will spark the wrath of all nations that do not want to exist in a world riven by a tiny minority who have resorted to violence...." If you want to understand the current problems in Afghanistan with Al-Qaeda and O. bin Laden, Nixon's book has fascinating parallels from the Vietnam War to learn from. A book certainly worth reading!
Book Description
As America confronts an unpredictable war in Iraq, Stephen Randolph returns to an earlier conflict that severely tested our civilian and military leaders. In 1972, America sought to withdraw from Vietnam with its credibility intact. As diplomatic negotiations were pursued in Paris, President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger hoped that gains on the battlefield would strengthen their position at the negotiating table--working against the relentless deadline of a presidential election year.
In retaliation for a major North Vietnamese offensive breaking over the Easter holidays, the President launched the all-out air campaign known as Linebacker--overriding his Secretary of Defense and clashing with the theater commander in whom he had lost all confidence. He intended to destroy the enemy with the full force of America's "powerful and brutal weapons" and thus shape the endgame of the war. Randolph's narrative, based not only on the Nixon White House tapes and newly declassified materials from the National Security Council, the Pentagon, and the White House but also on never before used North Vietnamese sources, re-creates how North Vietnam planned and fought this battle from Hanoi and how the U.S. planned and fought it from Washington.
Randolph's intimate chronicle of Nixon's performance as commander-in-chief gains us unprecedented access to how strategic assessments were made, transmitted through the field of command, and played out in combat and at the negotiating table. It is a compelling story about America's military decision-making in conflicts with nontraditional belligerents that speaks provocatively to our own time.
Book Description
This is the astonishing account of America's secret and illegal war against Cambodia from 1969 to 1973.
Customer Reviews:
A must-read book to get to know this tiny country -and its powerful American "ally's"- behind-the-scenes relationships.......2007-07-02
I was living in Cambodia when I came across this book, following the recommendation of one of my English friends. I bought the book, opened it... and could no longer put it down! This book came as a complete eye-opener to me, on both how America had conducted its war across Indochina, but also on how Cambodia's history had/has been so intimately intermixed with Sihanouk's.
If you are into learning the backside of what we could all dub "official history", then this book's for you. You will no longer look at Kissinger, Nixon or Westmoreland with the same candid, obedient and servile eyes after reading it. Packed with previously unheard-of accounts, reports, testimonies, following a clean, highly intelligent argumentation methodology, Sideshow acts as a real bulldozer on the reader, repeatedly confronting him/her with loads of devastating illustrations of unsound decisions, hidden political actions, secret wars of influences etc. It is certainly one of the punchiest, journalism-based historical account I have ever read, whatever the subject.
It shed a completely new and intense light onto the poor -though touching- little country I was living in then, and forever changed the way I looked at politics, diplomacy and intelligence.
Essential.......2006-09-16
This book has managed to live on, which is perhaps unfortunate - historically speaking, it's far more relevant to contemporary geopolitics than it should be.
In any case, SIDESHOW has managed to stand as one of the better books on Cambodia, and America's involvement in Cambodia (Elizabeth Becker's WHEN THE WAR WAS OVER is a must-read as well). One could debate Shawcross' perspectives, but his research is meticulous and has withstood many attacks, and his depiction of the machiavellian darkness that can creep into foreign policy is chilling and ruthless, and - for better of worse - makes for hypnotic reading, all the more frightening as it's drawn straight from history, research, the Freedom of Information act.
Now more than ever, this is essential reading.
-David Alston
Congress was so much better then than now.......2006-01-16
On Junior Day, 2006, I would recommend SIDESHOW by William Shawcross. It contains information about the twentieth century that could be applied to situations that America faces in the world in 2006. The global superpower naturally thinks that everything will be resolved by the application of hyperpower, as Japan suffered a humiliating defeat at the end of World War II when it discovered that the United States was not just fighting a war against Japan, it would nuke their cities to bring about whatever result it wanted. When American troops openly invaded parts of Cambodia, Congress responded by imposing limits which were still in place on April 30, 1973:
"The justification for bombing Cambodia had been to protect Americans in Vietnam. Since October 1970 the Congress had included in every military appropriation bill a proviso expressly forbidding bombing in Cambodia except for that purpose. By the end of March 1973 there were no American troops left in Indochina. Still the bombing of Cambodia increased. The administration now based its case on Article 20 of the Paris Agreement. Rogers now claimed that American withdrawal from Vietnam did not affect the situation in Cambodia, and that Article 20 legalized the bombing `until such time as a ceasefire could be brought into effect.' " (p. 277).
One of the strange things about the invasion of Cambodia was that Nixon made an announcement on April 30, 1970 which attempted to keep all previous secret activities secret:
Ignoring Menu, Nixon began with the lie that the United States had "scrupulously respected" Cambodia's neutrality for the last five years and had not "moved against" the sanctuaries. This falsehood was repeated by Kissinger in his background briefings to the press. That same evening he told reporters that the Communists had been using Cambodia for five years but, "As long as Sihanouk was in power in Cambodia we had to weigh the benefits in long-range historical terms of Cambodian neutrality as against any temporary military advantages and we made no efforts during the first fifteen months of this administration to move against the sanctuary." The next day he said of Sihanouk's rule, "We had no incentive to change it. We made no effort to change it. We were surprised by the development. One reason why we showed such great restraint against the base areas was in order not to change this situation." (p. 146).
In his announcement of the invasion, Nixon stated that his action was taken "not for the purpose of expanding the war into Cambodia, but for the purpose of ending the war in Vietnam"; he would give aid to Cambodia, but only to enable it "to defend its neutrality and not for the purpose of making it an active belligerent on one side or the other." (p. 146).
Currently Iran has a militia of five million, and if Iran were to officially enter a war in Iraq as a result of bombings by Israel, as urged by Vice President Cheney, to remove Iran's nuclear capabilities, even if a bomb based on plans provided by the CIA wouldn't work, Iran has other ways it could strike back. Being subatomic is very much like Cambodia was in 1970, but we shall soon see what issues are about to be submitted to the UN security council, and if it helps or hurts. A blockade created by Iran so American supplies might have more trouble reaching Kuwait and Iraq; oil exports from the region could end; American dollars could fall; the interest on bonds could rise so high that the U.S. government couldn't balance a budget; and some of the world's banks might then be alarmed.
SIDESHOW by William Shawcross is the only book I have in which I can look up Lon Nil in the index. Lon Nil might well be Cambodia's forgotten man. His brother, Lon Nol, declared himself Chief of State as well as Prime Minister and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces when he dissolved the Assembly in October 1971 and assumed emergency rule. (p. 229). In December 1971, an American psychiatrist in the U.S. Army found "his close associates indicate his mental faculties have deteriorated markedly as a result of his February 1971 stroke" (p. 208). On April 1, 1975, at the urging of his brother Lon Non, Lon Nol took half a million dollars and moved to Hawaii. (pp. 357-358). But for me, the best picture of events in Cambodia is the final page of Chapter 8, The Coup, in March 1970, when Lon Nol overthrew Sihanouk, using the hostility of the urban elite and military officers to Sihanouk to justify a power grab by a former Minister of Defense who "had been the principal scourge of the Vietnamese Communists while privately profiting from the thriving covert business that they brought through Sihanoukville." (p. 113). Sihanouk responded by forming a government recognized by Peking on May 5, 1970, shortly after the American invasion announced by Nixon. Sihanouk had flown from Moscow to China on March 18, 1970, but Lon Nil was still in Cambodia:
Rioting broke out in several provinces; opposition was strongest in the market town of Kompong Cham, Cambodia's second city, fifty miles northeast of Phnom Penh. After Sihanouk's radio broadcast, the town filled with peasants, fishermen and rice farmers from the neighborhood. The townspeople refused the government's orders to remove the Prince's portrait, and they burned down the house of the new governor whom Lon Nol had appointed. Demonstrators gathered in buses and trucks to march on Phnom Penh. They were halted by an army roadblock, and after that . . . About ninety people were killed or wounded. (pp. 126-127).
The most vivid display of anger against Lon Nol occurred, again in Kompong Cham, when peasants seized his brother Lon Nil, killed him and tore his liver from his stomach. The trophy was taken into a Chinese restaurant, where the owner was ordered to cook and slice it. Morsels were handed to everyone in the streets around. (p. 127).
History to be reviewed over and over again.......2005-05-30
Shawcross gets into the minds of Kissinger and Nixon so well. His is a book to be read over and over again to see the working of the U.S. Government and how it can destroy a country. He talks about the 25 pound shark at the bottom of a swimming pool full of children -- and we understand how the USA's leaders destroyed a country. It is a lesson to be learned over and over again as we go about destroying other countries. This is one great read - worthy of the time it takes to understand it. A victory for the author over Mr. Kissinger.
The Madman Theory of War.......2005-02-17
Really bad decisions made by the Nixon administration toward Indochina and the Vietnam War are now fairly obvious. However, we must remember how difficult this type of investigation would have been back when Shawcross did his intensive research back in the late 70s. Here Shawcross builds a very hard-to-dismiss case against Nixon and Henry Kissinger, in terms of how their problematic military and diplomatic strategies at least indirectly led to the hideous destruction of Cambodia (in fact, one of Nixon's documented strategies was to make the Communists think he was a madman, assuming they'd get scared and give up).
During the earlier years of the war, Cambodia was a relatively tranquil nation that was trying to remain neutral. But the country was being used as a hideout by North Vietnamese soldiers, leading to bombing by the Americans. Here Shawcross shows how Nixon and Kissinger made use of political trickery and overhyped threats to keep the bombing going to an extent that was far more destructive than necessary. As a bonus, this book also documents the wire-tapping paranoia and unconstitutional shenanigans in the Nixon White House. Shawcross is especially tough on Kissinger, finding that he disregarded the integrity and safety of Cambodia (which he had only ever visited for four hours), in favor of short-term political advantages and unyielding ideology. The relentless bombing destabilized Cambodian society, leading indirectly to the hideous genocide and societal destruction enacted by the Khmer Rouge a few years later. It is difficult to argue with Shawcross' heavily researched conclusions, and the hellish wholesale collapse of Cambodia (of a type never before seen in modern history) becomes all the more poignant as a result.
Be sure to get an edition of this book from 1986 or after, in which Shawcross adds materials from the political firefight that the book ignited. Kissinger was obviously upset and went to great lengths, through articles written by his lackey Peter Rodman, to try and disprove Shawcross' assertions. If your copy of this book contains these articles, you'll be quite bemused by Rodman's evasive, dissembling, and downright condescending rebuttal attempts, which are easily shot down by Shawcross. This war of words in itself proves that Kissinger had, and always will have, a lot to answer for. [~doomsdayer520~]
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.
Download Description
On April 30, 1975, when military helicopters pulled the last U.S. soldiers off the roof of Saigon's American embassy, the question lingered: had American and Vietnamese lives been lost in vain during the prolonged conflict? When the city fell shortly thereafter, the answer was clearly yes. The Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam, signed in 1973 and hailed as "peace with honor" by President Nixon, had not brought peace. Now, in a shocking expose of Henry Kissinger's back-channel negotiations, Larry Berman reveals that it also did not bring honor. Kissinger has sealed many of the crucial documents concerning U.S. negotiations in the final years of the war, negotiations that led to his sharing the Nobel Peace Prize. Now, based on newly declassified American documents and a complete North Vietnamese transcription of Kissinger's talks, Larry Berman offers the real story of the peace negotiation for the first time. While Nixon said one thing in public and something very different in the private talks, Kissinger kept his own beliefs almost -- but not quite -- secret. There is only one word for America's actions toward its former ally, and toward its tens of thousands of soldiers who died in the final years of the war: betrayal.
Customer Reviews:
Harsh (Negative) Review in direct E-Mail exchange with the author.......2006-10-07
Attached is an extract of my letter to Larry Berman dated April 01, 2002.
Subject: "No Peace, No Honor"
Dr. Berman: I am reading (with great skepticism & disagreement) your above book. I have a keen interest in Vietnam War history (and pseudo history) and have recently received from my daughter (college librarian)the Choice heads up about your book....(I was a 1956 Political Science graduate of The University of the South and was a co-pilot in SAC until 1959. We, of course, Studied Dien Bien Phu, the Geneva Accords, SEATO and the then already identified Communist insurgencies in South Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Indonesia and other areas of South East Asia and were well aware of Communist Ho Chi Minh's plans to take over South Vietnam by covert and/or overt invasion, rigged elections, infiltrated agents, democratic [Communist] fronts, etc.). You surely knew all of this at one time (because I note that you too have read Nixon's "No More Vietnams" and his & Kissinger's memoirs...) Apparently you agree with hardly any of Nixon's assessments, or if you do, you have deliberately chosen to adopt the simplistic [straight leftist] history of gentle 'George Washington' Ho Chi Minh and his noble efforts to unify Vietnam [under ruthless totalitarian Communism] and his betrayals after the Geneva Accords..(p18 et seq). (I really think that you are too smart for this and what follows and that you have adopted the "Russian style of history writing" that you [and Zumwalt, Jr] attribute to Nixon & Kissinger at p9). In particular, although you do refer, without elaboration, to the Jan 2 & Jan 4 1973, Democratic caucus votes to cut off all funds to Indochina - with legislation to terminate the war speeding its way to the floor..., you do not make the obvious points that the antiwar movement and the determination of the Doves [predominately Democrats] to force an end to the war - with or without a negotiated agreement & whether or not 150,000 NVA troops remained in South Vienam, or Laos or Cambodia, or whether or not all of SE Asia would surely fall into Communist hands - totally under cut Kissinger's negotiation options and forced him to take the only Agreement available. Everyone knew that leaving 150,000 NVA troops in place was a terrible option and that continued US military support of South Vietnam would be essential, and that strict US enforcement of the Paris Agreement - by resumed bombing of strategic military targets might well be necessary. (As you well know, the North concluded in 1968, or earlier, that the growing antiwar movement and the outspoken Democrats would force an end to the war within a few years, or less, and that victory could be obtained - if only the North could hang on until Congress defunded the war. Gen Giap has confirmed this and has stated that he designed a strategy to avoid large & costly full scale engagements, but to hide in the jungles & Cambodian sanctuaries and initiate enough ambushes to keep the US body count high, and to stall the peace negotiations indefinitely...) You, of course, conclude [very much disingenuously, in my opinion] that Kissinger was out-negotiated, that the Paris Agreement & Nixon brought no peace, and no honor, and that he and Kissinger deceived the American people into thinking that the terms of the cease-fire would be the end of the American involvement [I don't know of anyone who thought that...] and that this was a dishonorable two-faced deception, and that Nixon [& not the US Congress] betrayed our South Vietnam allies by forcing them to accept an Agreement that could only be enforced by continued US monetary & air power support - which Nixon fully intended to provide (as well as secretly promised reconstruction aid to the North - as an economic incentive to abide by the Agreement...). Watergate, of course, prevented Nixon from re-introducing air power to enforce the Agreement, and light weight Ford had neither the leadership ability nor inclination to advocate for strict enforcement - absent Congressional willingness to do so. The betrayal of South Vietnam and the dishonoring of the American people was Congress' doing - at the urging of the Doves and antiwar protestors like John Kerry, et al. As you know - and conveniently failed to even discuss in your book that purports to assess blame for the betrayal - [Russian history style..] - Nixon very clearly & cogently [and convincingly, in my opinion] laid out the facts upon which he concluded that the US Congress "Lost the Peace". ("No More Vietnams", Chapter5) You also assert that Nixon & Kissinger deceived and misled the American people [and the Congress] and did everything they could to deny any independent access to the historical record and that only [now?] "This story of diplomatic deception and public betrayal has come to light only because of the release of documents and tapes that Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger sought to bury for as long as possible." This too is disingenuous, in my opinion. I find very little in your book that was not more comprehensively presented in Kissinger's 1979 book "White House Years". (He had at leased ten times [this is an exaggeration] more facts about the Paris negotiations than you did, and I do not find any place in your book where you demonstrate that any statement by Kissinger was false - or even misleading or deceptive. In other words, I find very little in your book that is new - other than your gratuitous assertions that you have uncovered new data that shows that Nixon & Kissinger were dishonorable and deceived and betrayed the American people....In my opinion, your slanderous assertions are not supported by the facts contained in - or conveniently omitted from - your sensational and poorly reasoned book. But this is just my opinion, and who cares?? John Ellis
Drivel.......2003-10-16
The Paris Agreement was doomed because no agreement of this kind can survive without enforcement. Congress wanted Vietnam to go away, and when they cut off all aid, South Vietnam did go away, as well as Cambodia as we knew it.
The DRVN had no reason to honor the agreement once we legislated that we would do nothing about violations.
The Hellish Truth Of What Nixon & Kissinger Did In Vietnam!.......2003-03-20
This stunning, smart, scholarly and incisive book neatly unravels the clever pseudointellectual reconstruction that many neo-conservative authors have bought into regarding the conduct of the Vietnam War by the Nixon administration. While few of us would quarrel with the idea that Nixon accomplished much on the world scene, we still must protest the idea held by many that he was so severely hampered in his prosecution of the war by a combination of internal and external constraints that he was unable to execute the compassionate, intelligent, and objective policies toward southeast Asia that he and Henry Kissinger had so painstakingly devised. Rather, we learn here that his Vietnam policies were as full of the 'sturm und drang' contradictions seen elsewhere in his administration. For Nixon, prosecution of the Vietnam War was just another case of "politics as usual", another opportunity to pit conservative against liberal, hawk against dove, for personal aggrandizement and short-term political gain.
Much of what he did and planned were based on domestic political considerations and the fear of being seen as weak on communism. he looked Le Duc Tho eye to eye, and Nixon blinked. For this he never forgave himself, and he was willing to do anything, lie to anyone, dissemble, connive, and betray the American people just to win in Vietnam. Far from flying with the angels, both Nixon and Kissinger bloodied their hands by instituting policies that resulted a dramatic increase in both American and Vietnamese casualties, instituting policies that continued the escalation of the war and its extension to new areas such as Laos and Cambodia. Using the conflict in Vietnam as a key element to engage both the Soviet Union and Communist China, Nixon seemed to lose sight of the need to deal with the specific factors propelling the war even as he became increasingly engaged with it, thinking he could simply "bomb" the North Vietnamese into capitulating regardless of the mounting evidence to the contrary.
At times his conduct of the war was not only irrational and extremely counter-productive, but also criminal and unnecessary, as with the incursions into Cambodia in 1970, which spurred an avalanche of student protest and increasing political resistance at home. indeed, much of the documentary evidence related here shows his entire strategy of seeming withdrawal while simultaneously secretly escalating the air war tells volumes about the levels of deceit and cupidity the Nixon administration had toward the war in Vietnam.
Nixon's presidency is a study in contrasts, a reflection of the internal contradictions propelling the President himself. Nixon is truly one of the most fascinating of our modern presidents, a remarkable amalgam of his genius, daring, and all-too human flaws, a man so haunted and tortured by his interior demons that he spent the balance of his post=presidency years attempting to reconstruct the truth about his conduct of the presidency and the war in Vietnam. Here is revealed a man so anxious to gain the presidency that he outrageously influenced the President of South Vietnam during the 1968 presidential campaign to disengage from an effort by sitting President Lyndon Johnson to end the war. How can we expect a man capable of such perverted motives to do "the right thing" to save life and treasure by bringing the war to an "honorable" conclusion?
Instead, we find the same irrational, pseduo-macho tendencies as led to the debacle of Watergate perpetrated onto the war in Vietnam, resulting in thousands of additional deaths and casualties. This is a wonderful book, one that lays bare the truth about the self-serving efforts by Nixon, Kissinger, and a number of over-eager neo-conservatives to reconstruct the truth about the conduct of the war in Vietnam in order to salve their structure of beliefs and also lay blame for the war at the doorsteps of sixties liberals. I found myself engaged and excited by the author's interesting approach, and was quite impressed by the interviews, documents, and research used to present the evidence included in the book. This is one I can heartily recommend, and enthusiastically give a full five star rating to. Enjoy!
Abandonment, Betrayal and Lies = Nobel Peace Prize?.......2002-03-11
How can "A Peace With Honor" claimed by Henry Kissinger result from a divided nation with 58,000 casualties and an ally with over 2 million dead? The only honor is bestowed upon the men and women who fought for an honorable cause, one that aimed for a free and peaceful South Vietnam. Presidents Nixon and Thieu are dead and Le Duc Tho never accepted his Nobel Peace Prize. The only remaining key player from the 1973 Paris sell-out of South Vietnam is Henry Kissinger. But his true legacy will be locked up for many years in vaults. Thanks to Dr. Larry Berman for this insightful revelation into one of the darkest times in our political history. "Return the Nobel Without Honor" should have been the title for this book...a must read for all Americans.
Nixon's Vietnam Duplicity.......2001-12-25
Larry Berman is the perfect person to expose President Richard Nixon's duplicity regarding his Vietnam War policy, wherein Nixon sought to promote a peace agreement he and Henry Kissinger both knew would accomplish nothing in thwarting North Vietnam's design to achieve a unified Vietnamese Communist nation. In the typical Nixon fashion, design was preeminent over ultimate reality as he heralded the agreement ending U.S. participation in the nation's most controversial war with the glorious phrase, "Peace With Honor."
"No Peace, No Honor" is the logical sequel to Larry Berman's earlier penetrating work, "Planning a Tragedy," which was a fascinating look inside the Johnson Administration and the mindset which brought about America's entry into the Vietnam conflict. Robert McNamara, despite his earlier assurances, proved to be a naive administrator, making mistake upon mistake in forcing America into an ever deepening hawkish posture. The wise counsel of State Department operative George Ball, who provided the beneficial hindsight input of French president Charles DeGaulle, whose country fought a war in Indo China between 1946 and 1954, was unfortunately spurned.
With Johnson gone and the Nixon Administration taking over in January of 1969, the scene is set for Berman's latest work. Taking advantage of recently declassified government documents, Berman presents a chaotic scene in which Nixon and Kissinger seek to find a way out of the Vietnam morass without conveying the impression that the U.S. was running out on an ally and leaving it vulnerably exposed to a successful Communist insurgency. Despite ferocious bombing, Nixon was ultimately confronted with a situation wherein public support for the war in America had reached its lowest level while his anticipated strategy of helping build Vietnam's fighting forces into a team formidable enough to hold off the insurgency from the North had notably failed. As a result, Nixon sought to convince Americans that the agreement he was able to achieve embodied "Peace With Honor" when Communist troops remained in place in the South, prepared to finish the job and achieve a unified Vietnam. Debate had persisted over the years over whether Nixon and Kissinger were aware of what ultimately would transpire, and that the agreement signed and put into place was nothing other than a facade meant to disguise an ultimate result of which they were well aware. The documents unearthed by Berman demonstrate an awareness of Nixon and Kissinger of the tragic nature of circumstances and the inevitability of a Communist triumph.
William Hare
Book Description
In contrast with most histories of this period, America's Uncivil Wars: The Sixties Era from Elvis to the Fall of Richard Nixon does not treat the 1960s as a single historical moment or as successive waves of activism. Rather, it employs a chronological narrative to identify three distinct phases during which events of the era unfolded. The first began with the cultural ferment of the 1950s and ended with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. During the second phase, from 1964-1968, the "uncivil" wars began in earnest: Americans disagreed about new social and cultural mores, protests against the Vietnam War increased in size and vehemence, and American cities erupted in racial violence. From 1967 through 1968, all of these forces combined to divide Americans more deeply than they had been since the Civil War. In the third phase, Richard Nixon promised to bring Americans together. However, a host of new value and identity movements--environmentalists, consumer advocates, feminists, gay, Latino, and Native American activists--frustrated his design. Only after the Watergate scandals forced this polarizing figure from office did a measure of civility return to the nation's public discourse. America's Uncivil Wars captures the broad sweep of this tumultuous era, analyzing both the cultural and political influences on the movements of the 1960s. Paying particular attention to Latinos, Native Americans, feminism, and gay liberation, it integrates the politics of gender and race into the central political narrative. The book also covers such topics as McCarthyism; the FBI; rock and roll; teen culture in the 1950s; the origins of SDS, SNCC, and YAF; and the environmental and consumer movements. With its engaging narrative style and broad cultural emphasis, America's Uncivil Wars brings a fresh approach to our understanding of not only the 1960s but also U.S. history since 1945.
Customer Reviews:
Why fact-checking matters.......2007-07-07
I cannot in good conscience recommend Mr. Lytle's "America's Uncivil Wars" due to several egregious errors which found their way past his fact-checkers (if any) and made it into print. To cite a few:
1. In citing the impact of the Beatles early in the book, he quotes the lyrics of "She Loves You" as "with a love like that, you know it can't be bad." The actual lyric, of course, is "you know you should be glad." This should be common knowledge among Lytle's (and later) generations; the misquote is puzzling at best.
2. He refers to George McGovern as the Senator from North Dakota. McGovern, of course, was from South Dakota.
3. Late in the book, he cites Lyndon Johnson's attempts to stymie Richard Nixon's "re-election" in 1968. Nixon, of course, was running for election, not re-election.
While taken individually, these mis-statements may appear innocuous. However, since Lytle purports to be writing a comprehensive overview of a contentious era in our history, a little more attention to the facts might have been in order.
The balance of the book, while a reasonably pleasant read, covers ground that has been covered in far greater detail and analysis by myriad writers such as Todd Gitlin, Stephen Ambrose, Tom Wicker, Woodward & Bernstein, and others. Readers interested in a more probing analysis of this period of our history are advised to seek out their works.
Most Balanced Account of the 60s Yet.......2006-10-21
This is the most balanced account of the 60s I've ever read. Too many authors are caught up in their own experience or continue to fight the battles of the era. America's Uncivil Wars recognizes that the 60s were more a generational experience than a discrete period of time. I fully agree with the division into three periods from 56-64, 64-68, and 68 through Watergate. A driving sense of narrative moves the book from event to event and brings to life the wide range of personalities who gave the 60s their flavor. The background material on the 50s and the growing attacks on consensus culture are rich and engagingly told. And no other book I've read gives such prominence to feminists, the Red and Brown Power movements, environmentalism, and Gay Rights. Conservative student and political movements get their due as well. My only regret is that the book, like the 60s, had to end because this is a good read.
Our Turbulent Years & Their Aftermath........2005-12-29
This was a most interesting book for me, as I must have slept through the Sixties; I remember the Fifties part and the happenings of the Seventies, when former President Richard Nixon was disgraced. He covers the times from 1954 (an important time in my history) to 1973 with the social, cultural and political upheavals. First came rock'n'roll which, he says, instigated teenage rebellion; I detested that 'junk,' as 'pop music' was a part of my young life -- the most important, I guess. Knoxville was not big on rock and roll, as it is primarily steeped in hillbilly and country. We've always been naturally musical here, but in a different way from the rest of the country.
This book gives us a journey back in memory to that unsettled era when parts of America were tearing itself apart. I'm glad I lived in a small town further South during the civil unrest which shook the country, and I honestly don't remember the atomic bomb protests of the late '50s. During the turbulent times of the '60s, Woodstock and the drug culture were not a part of my existence -- a vague memory of reading about it only. At our junior college, there were no protestors of the VietNam War; my neighbors (two old ladies) would tell me about the Vietnamese setting themselves on fire as a protest, which they saw on television. It was a time when "political activists mobilized vast numbers of dissidents against the war," as some are trying to do now with the lingering Iraq War.
At Kent State (only a photo in the news to me), there was campus unrest which resulted in an innocent person being shot and killed by the police. He gave bad descriptions of William Buckley (I admit, he is hard to take at times!) and Joseph McCarthy. McCarthyism was a part of life in 1950 and on past the death of its instigator. Extremist groups were around then, as they are now. The Watergate scandal was President Nixon's undoing, when he went on the defensive. "Only in the aftermath of Watergate, did the uncivil wars ... end." The late Jack White, a 'Time' magazine columnist, won the Pulitzer Prize for his exposure of Richard Nixom's underpayment of his income taxes. His 1973 story prompted the president (who paid more than four hundred thousand dollars in back taxes) to utter his famous remark, "I am not a crook." I remember vividly in 1973 when he was almost impeached, like another U.S. President Bill Clinton, and resigned under pressure.
Mark H. Lytle, history professor at Bard College, has also written AFTER THE FACT: THE ART OF HISTORICAL DETECTION and NATION OF NATIONS: A NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC.
Terrible.......2005-10-15
Lets say you were reading a book on the mafia, written by John Gotti, or perhaps some lesser-known mobster. And there was nothing but glowing accolades for the mob and it's activities. Furthermore, anyone who opposed the mafia and it's activities was labeled an "extremist" and in the text, their names were never more than about 4 or 5 words away from words like "Ku Klux Klan," "racist," "bigoted," or "paranoid," you'd begin to suspect that the book was a bit biased, wouldn't you?
"Americas Uncivil Wars" is a book written by Mark Lytle, a professor at Bard College. He documents events in American History, in this book, from the 1950's to about 1975. Practically every time a genuine conservative individual, or organization is mentioned in this book, it is associated to a racist organization, whenever Mr. Lytle doesn't add his own commentary. For example, on page 22, he says Joseph McCarthy revealed himself as a "mean-spirited slob." This is a far cry from the McCarthy I know, the McCarthy who wrote the brilliant "Americas Retreat from Victory" for example. And forget about anything good mentioned about the John Birch Society. Page 138: "Most Americans ignored the hooded Klansmen, the John Birchers, and other extremists..." never mind the fact that JBS is not and never was a racist or an extremist organization. But here is their name, sandwiched between the KKK and "extremist."
It is a typical tactic of the left to associate the opposition with the "stench of racism" as Stalin may have put it (I don't remember his exact quote). But you might ask, what about on page 89 where he refers glowingly to William F. Buckley as "the cornerstone of the anti-communist wing of conservatism...?" Keep in mind that this is the same Buckley who years later, in Lingua Franca magazine, confessed that he would be a "Mike Harrington Socialist" or a "Communist" if he were college brat today.
Now on the other hand, try to find anywhere in this book, the words "murderer," or even "extremist" in front of names like Mao Tse Tung, or Che Guevara or Tom Hayden, to name a few. There is a good reason for that, but I will leave it to your imagination, the reason why.
In summary, should you decide to read this book, take it with a grain of salt, or better yet some motion-sickness pills because unless you are prone to the same convictions as our professor Lytle is, you're going to need a barf-bag.
Book Description
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. Winner of the Robert H. Ferrell Book Prize and Selection of the History Book Club.
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Very unfair to Nixon and Abrams.......2005-03-11
Nixon's Vietnam War is a very polemical and questionable account of the Nixon Administration, the Vietnam War, and Nixon's Foreign Policy. First off, Dr. Kimball relies heavily on numerous discredited works, such as the Fawn Brodie's psycho-babble, H.R. Haldeman's The Ends of Power, all of Seymour Hersh's sensational works on Kissinger and the war (Kimball has even complemented Hersh as a "marvelous investigative reporter"), and Roger Morris's hatchet jobs on Haig and Kissinger.
Likewise, Kimball's sympathy for Hanoi surfaces frequently. Often, he describes the "North Vietnamese" as the "Vietnamese" and shows no interest in the welfare of Saigon. He also continues the old `new left' myth that Nixon was mostly responsible for Cambodia and attempts to minimize the role of the North Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge. In fact, there is not attempt at fairness on the part of the author and the entire work reads as a passionate attempt to justify the Hanoi regime and the anti-war movement.
One of the problems is that Kimball did not take the time to thoroughly research the new direction of the war from 1968-1974 under General Abrams. Kimball makes almost no mention of the shift from Westmoreland's Search and Destroy missions to the more successful Vietnamization of the conflict under Abrams. In Kimball's eyes, there is almost no difference between Saigon in 1964 and Saigon in 1968. For a fuller picture of the war on the ground, I would recommend Lewis Sorley's A Better War and Vietnam Chronicles. In the latter, Dr. Sorley was given access to Westmoreland's private tapes and provides an unprecedented picture of the war on the ground.
Perhaps the greatest problem with the work is that the author is a political activist who participated in the Anti-War movement, the nuclear Freeze movement, and various left wing political causes. Instead of trying to provide a balanced history, he is trying to prove many of his own beliefs. This is also a problem with his other work on Nixon, where he uses selective and previously available evidence and proclaims that he has new "archival evidence" that validates his theories.
Nonetheless, the book is essential reading for a historiographical perspective but is nowhere close to the final word on Nixon and the Vietnam War. Other important books are Larry Berman's No Peace, No Honor, Sorley's book, and Henry Kissinger's Ending the Vietnam War.
A great read........2004-06-05
Nixon's Vietnam War is stunningly informative. It is a tour de force and a joy to read.
A Balanced if marginal account.......2004-04-07
This was an anticipated read. Here for the first time is an account of the Vietnam war fought by the Nixon administration. Nixon began his experience with Vietnam with more then 500,000 men in Vietnam, and he inherited the massive protests from the LBJ administration. Nixon's first reaction, since the Army had crushed the Vietnamese in the aftermath of Tet, was to break the will of the enemy. Nixon's instincts led him into the Christmas bombing in 72, the bombing of Hanoi, the intervention in Cambodia and the mining of Haiphong harbor. All these acts came just short of crippling N. Vietnam. And then, just as the war was about to be won Kissinger signed the Paris accords. Why? Because Nixon had promised `peace with honor'. Nixon had ended the draft, re-instituted the volunteer army and eventually brought all the Americans back home. But in the end he ensured the end of the freedom of S. Vietnam. This book tries to blacken the Nixon legacy further by showing that he needlessly prolonged the war and that he caused undue destruction of the North.
Yet the book has several gaps. First and foremost it is a political, not a military account, which is unfortunate for anyone interested in the facts on the ground and the truth behind the `Vietnamization' of the war. So we don't learn much about the competence or abilities of newly trained S. Vietnamese units nor do we learn about the successes of programs like Phoenix. Also missing is the truth behind the fact that the protestors were actually looked to by the North as inspiration to keep fighting. In the end this is a necessary addition to the scholarship on the Nixon period 1968-72, but lacks many points.
Seth J. Frantzman
Phony scholarship no sub for the real thing.......2004-02-02
I'm writing a review because the rest of these reviews sound like they were all taken from the same dust jacket, which is where reviews like those belong!
The Kimball books all have in common that they are ideologically driven. All Kimball does is arrange the so-called "evidence" --- that is, the out-of context quotes, the out-of-context items and figures and so forth --- to suit a certain viewpoint of the Viet Nam war.
For instance, Kimball goes on at some length in attempts to "prove" the patently ridiculous theory that the relentless opposition to the war on the part of the press and the pro-Hanoi, communist-lead "anti-war" movement did not prolong the war, when in fact as those of us who were there clearly know from direct experience, the anti-war movement and protests enouraged the North Viet Namese.
Kimball's endorsement of and his zany attempts to "prove" that ridiculous theory clearly demonstrate the ideological fantasizing behind this book.
To make a claim to the contrary is just nothing more than ideological blather, wishful thinking on the part of "'60's liberals" who cr@pped on us in the war.
Whether Kimball is one of these or not, he certainly knows his audience and how to play them.
This book is not and will NOT be the last word on Viet Nam. Those of us who lived through it all will see to that.
Is Nixion a new particle with negative energy?.......2003-12-13
I just wanted to add a 5-star review to help buffer the earlier 2-star rating that said "nixion blows".
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- A pioneering new approach to Nixon and the EPA
- Review from "H-Net" Reviews
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Nixon and the Environment
J. Brooks Flippen
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Conservative Conservationist: Russell E. Train And the Emergence of American Environmentalism
ASIN: 0826319939 |
Book Description
No one remembers Richard M. Nixon as an environmental president, but a year into his presidency, he committed his administration to regulate and protect the environment. The public outrage over the Santa Barbara oil spill in early 1969, culminating in the first Earth Day in 1970, convinced Nixon that American environmentalism now enjoyed extraordinary political currency.
No nature lover at heart, Nixon opportunistically tapped the burgeoning Environmental Movement and signed the Endangered Species Act in 1969 and the National Environmental Protection Act in 1970 to challenge political rivals such as Senators Edmund Muskie and Henry Jackson. As Nixon jockeyed for advantage on regulatory legislation, he signed laws designed to curb air, water, and pesticide pollution, regulate ocean dumping, protect coastal zones and marine mammals, and combat other problems. His administration compiled an unprecedented environmental record, but antiÂ-Vietnam War protests, outraged industrialists, a sluggish economy, the growing energy crisis, and the Watergate upheaval drove Nixon to turn his back on the very programs he signed into law. Only late in life did he re-embrace the substantial environmental legacy of his tumultuous presidency.
Argues that despite the extensive legislation enacted during his presidency, Richard Nixon was no environmentalist. His policies were based solely on political expediency.
Customer Reviews:
A pioneering new approach to Nixon and the EPA.......2003-12-18
Richard Nixon, who had grown up in "idyllic" rural communities in Southern California in the early 20th Century, embraced the environment issues of his time with caution because of the possible backlash from the violent left and big business, but nonethelesss, as he did on so many issues such as Cambodia, he went with his gut and created the Environmental Protection Agency and the Endangered Species Act. Nixon never expected to be the beneficiary of fame for creating the EPA, so it was a surprise that it has become an important part of his legacy in the 21st Century.
Flippen also points out how unreceptive the Left was to Nixon's Environmental iniatives; mainly, because they came from the "voice of the establishment" and "the enemy of Uncle Ho." Of course, Muskie, McGovern, and Kennedy would also jump on Nixon to prevent even further progress. As the founder of Environmental movement, David Brower said: "we did not know how to say thank you (to Nixon). We could have advanced our cause. Nixon had great promise, but we deserted him."
Unfortunately, as good as 'Nixon and the Environment' is, there are several historical errors. For instance, One of Nixon's final books, 'In the Arena,'which is not mentioned or cited in the bibliography, clearly states Nixon's thoughts and afterthoughts on the EPA. In this work, Nixon states that his motivations for becoming involved with the Environmental movement were based on the idea of Big Business and the environmental enthusiasts coming together and agreeing on disputes. Nixon also could not believe that the EPA turned into the large, bureacratic organization that it is today. Other than neglecting to mention Nixon's thoughts on the EPA from 'In the Arena,' Flippen also made several annoying historical errors. For instance, on p. 17, Flippen states that Nixon was smart enough to tap into the same anti-communist vein of McCarthy, but was able to avoid his demogoguery. It is well known that the Hiss Case and the Campaign against Voorhis came before McCarthyism(For further details see Gellman's The Contender). In fact, it is often assumed that the Hiss case INSPIRED MCCARTHY and led MCCARTHY to abuse and exploit the issue. Other than minor oversights, I feel that 'Nixon and the Environment' is a great introductory text into an evolving subject matter
Review from "H-Net" Reviews.......2000-12-21
"All politics is a fad," President Richard Nixon informed the president of the Sierra Club in the spring of 1970. "Your fad is going right now. Get what you can and here is what I can get you" (p. 102). Despite this characteristic cynical approach or maybe because of it, Nixon approved of or signed off on more important environmental legislation than any other president in history. How this came about is the subject of J. Brooks Flippen's fine study, Nixon and the Environment.
Flippen's well-researched book, which had its origins as a dissertation at the University of Maryland under Keith Olson, is the first scholarly monograph on the subject. Considering the cottage industry that has developed around the examination of most every aspect of the life and times of Richard Nixon, it is surprising that we have waited so long for such a monograph. Indeed, although, as the author points out, Nixon took little pride in his environmental record, it may well turn out to be a far more important part of his legacy than his ballyhooed trip to China or his ending, albeit rather belatedly, the Vietnam War.
Flippen, who teaches at Southeastern Oklahoma University, mined the rich materials in the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Materials Project at the National Archives as well as the papers of two Democratic environmentalists, Senators Edmund Muskie and Henry Jackson. He also put to good use oral interviews, including sessions with Senator Gaylord Nelson, the organizer of the first Earth Day, Walter Hickel, Nixon's controversial Secretary of the Interior, and especially, John Whitaker and Russell Train, two of the key environmentalists in the administration. The outline of the story is simple -- Nixon had the misfortune to arrive on the scene just when the modern environmental movement took off. He was even more unfortunate when it turned out that the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in 1972 turned out to be Muskie, Mr. Environment in the U.S. Senate. Thus, a president who had wanted to devote most of his time to international affairs and who had never given the environment much concern, found himself a reluctant protector of the air, water, and forests. Flippen takes us month by month through the strategy sessions and meetings in the White House as Nixon "carefully crafted and cunningly planned" approaches to keep one step ahead of the environmentalists in Congress, while protecting as best he could his business-oriented party from what he considered the most economically unsound legislation (p. 62). Although the president saw the environment as a political issue, Hickel, Whitaker, and Train, and even John Ehrlichman who oversaw environmental affairs for the administration, were all to some degree true believers.
Flippen does not look at green issues in a vacuum. Throughout his volume, he alerts the reader to other matters on the president's agenda as he tried to catch the various environmental waves. One can almost sympathize with the beleaguered Richard Nixon, concentrating on international crises and related domestic turbulence, when he generally goes three-quarters of the way to meet the demands of the environmentalists, only to see the Democrats in Congress receive all the credit. Even more stinging was the rhetorical assault he faced from activists in the Sierra Club and other organizations who complained that he had supported only half-measures. No wonder, as Flippen demonstrates, by 1972, as the original enthusiasm for Earth Day and other such projects began to subside, Nixon turned his back on the movement and even planned to eviscerate it (it has "gone too far" and was "destroying the system" (pp. 136, 142)) as part of his move to the right on domestic issues during his second term. Thank goodness for Watergate!
Nonetheless, beginning from the premise that the president is responsible for whatever legislation leaves his desk with his signature, Nixon's environmental record is lustrous. On his watch, he and Congress approved the establishment of the EPA, Clean Air Act Amendments, the Population Research Act, an extension of the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act, and the dramatic extension of the National Park System, among other acts. That his motivation was almost always pragmatic and often cynical should be irrelevant to those who today breath cleaner air and who enjoy the glorious Golden Gate National Recreation Area. In an amazing coincidence, Nixon died on April 22, 1994, the twenty-fourth anniversary of the first Earth Day (and also Lenin's birthday).
Flippen has told the story well. Perhaps he should have wandered more frequently out of the White House to examine in greater detail business concerns about the new legislation and, on the other side, the political calculations of the environmental lobby. In addition, the author incorrectly has Daniel Patrick Moynihan leaving the Senate to join the Nixon White House and errs somewhat in his brief explanation for why Vietnam peace talks broke down after the 1972 election (p. 188). But these are very minor quibbles that always appear just before the end of favorable reviews. It took a while for a scholar to get around to writing a solid book on Nixon and the environment -- it will be a long while before someone will find the need to do another one.
Reviewed by Melvin Small, History Department, Wayne State University
Copyright © 2000 by H-Net, all rights reserved.
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- More relevant than ever. Good luck, Afghanistan!
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The Palace File
Gregory Tien Hung Nguyen , and
Jerrold L. Schecter
Manufacturer: Harpercollins
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ASIN: 0060156406 |
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More relevant than ever. Good luck, Afghanistan!.......2002-12-16
The Palace File should be number one on Hamid Karzai's reading list! The promises made in secret between one nation's leader and another have little value, it seems. Some would argue that such secret pledges should never be made by the elected leader of a true democracy. "Our" sincere pledges never to abandon an ally and never to waste the blood sacrifices of American troops are well-documented in The Palace File. The documents speak for themselves.
Those who doubt American staying power in the "war on terrorism" will find much ammunition for their arguments in a quick read of this sad tale of failed adventure in Vietnam. Our new but familiarly avid "nation builders" need to study The Palace File before they charge full-speed down the same slippery slope toward ignominy.
This book has also been published in the Vietnamese language, and is a wonderful learning tool for students of Vietnamese who are preparing for official assignments in Vietnam.
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Nixon, Ford and the Abandonment of South Vietnam
J. Edward Lee ,
H. C. Haynesworth , and
Toby Haynsworth
Manufacturer: McFarland & Company
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ASIN: 0786413026 |
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.
Books:
- None Shall Look Back (Southern Classics Series)
- None Shall Look Back (Southern Classics Series)
- One More River to Cross (Standing on the Promises, Book 1)
- Operation Barbarossa in Photographs: The War in Russia As Photographed by the Soldiers (Schiffer Military History)
- Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor (California Series in Public Anthropology, 4)
- Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
- Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present
- Robert E. Lee on Leadership: Executive Lessons in Character, Courage, and Vision (On Leadership)
- Soviet Lend-Lease Fighter Aces of World War 2 (Aircraft of the Aces)
- Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
Books Index
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1999: Victory Without War : Richard Nixon
