Reckless: Henry Kissinger and the Tragedy of Vietnam

by Robert K. Brigham

Overview

Henry Kissinger's role in the Vietnam War prolonged the American tragedy and doomed the government of South Vietnam

The American war in Vietnam was concluded in 1973 after eight years of fighting, bloodshed, and loss. Yet the terms of the truce that ended the war were effectively identical to what had been offered to the Nixon administration four years earlier. Those four years cost America and Vietnam thousands of lives and billions of dollars, and they were the direct result of the supposed master plan of the most important voice in American foreign policy: Henry Kissinger.

Using newly available archival material from the Nixon Presidential Library, Kissinger's personal papers, and material from the archives in Vietnam, Robert K. Brigham punctures the myth of Kissinger as an infallible mastermind. Instead, he constructs a portrait of a rash, opportunistic, and suggestible politician. It was personal political rivalries, the domestic political climate, and strategic confusion that drove Kissinger's actions. There was no great master plan or Bismarckian theory that supported how the US continued the war or conducted peace negotiations. Its length was doubled for nothing but the ego and poor judgment of a single figure.

This distant tragedy, perpetuated by Kissinger's actions, forever changed both countries. Now, perhaps for the first time, we can see the full scale of that tragedy and the machinations that fed it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781610397025
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	09/04/2018
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	731,605
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Robert. K. Brigham is the Shirley Ecker Boskey Professor of History and International Relations at Vassar College. He is a specialist on the history of U.S. foreign policy. His fellowships include the Rockefeller Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for Humanities. Brigham is author or co-author of nine books, among them Iraq, Vietnam, and the Limits of American Power (PublicAffairs, 2008) and Argument Without End (PublicAffairs, 1999).

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acronyms xiii

Key Players xiv

Map xviii

Chapter 1 The Apprentice, 1965-1969 1

Chapter 2 The Lone Cowboy, 1969 43

Chapter 3 Bold Moves, 1970 82

Chapter 4 The Standstill Cease-Fire, 1970-1971 121

Chapter 5 A War for Peace, January 1-August 31, 1972 160

Chapter 6 Peace Is at Hand, September 1972-January 1973 200

Acknowledgments 245

Notes 247

Index 283

Editorial Reviews

07/23/2018
Brigham—who teaches U.S. history and international relations at Vassar—offers a persuasive argument that Nixon’s national security adviser (and later secretary of state) Henry Kissinger lied, misled, and deceptively outmaneuvered other policy makers in setting Vietnam War policy from 1969 to 1975, with disastrous results. Drawing on new primary sources from Vietnam and the U.S., Brigham demonstrates that Kissinger and Nixon bungled four years of negotiations with the Vietnamese communists, agreeing to virtually the same peace terms in 1973 that were on the table in 1969. Among other perfidies Brigham cites, Kissinger repeatedly prevented others—including leaders in the State and Defense departments and members of Congress—from making Vietnam War policy. And he lied to Congress and other administration officials about the ongoing peace talks and the military situation in Vietnam. This all-but-total condemnation of Kissinger (and Nixon), while dryly written, confirms what many Kissinger skeptics have believed for decades and may change the minds of some who have believe him to be a foreign policy guru. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"One of the most compelling elements of the book is Brigham's portrayal of Kissinger's manipulation of an emotionally insecure Nixon. The president often responded by expressing doubts about Kissinger's methods, but he did Kissinger's bidding more often than not out of desperation to win over the American electorate during the 1972 election cycle."—Kirkus Reviews

"A welcome, much-needed reexamination of the secret negotiations that led to America's withdrawal from the Vietnam War. Using impressive new research, Robert K. Brigham skillfully analyzes the origins of the 1973 Paris Agreement and persuasively debunks the myth of Henry Kissinger as a diplomat of rare ability."—George C. Herring, author of America's Longest War: The United States andVietnam, 1950-1975

"Robert K. Brigham, drawing on many previously unpublished official transcripts and records, makes a scholarly and convincing case that Henry Kissinger's policymaking on Vietnam during the Nixon Administration was 'reckless.' Both in the secret peace negotiations with the North Vietnamese in Paris and in ordering massive bombing raids on their forces in Cambodia and Laos, and on Hanoi itself, Kissinger was ignorant of their determination to reunite their country at all costs. Ultimately, with no consultation with the US-supported regime in Saigon, he negotiated a peace agreement that freed US prisoners of war and completed the American military withdrawal in 1973, but allowed North Vietnamese military forces to remain in territory they had occupied in South Vietnam-dooming it, as President Nguyen Van Thieu knew it would, to defeat, which came two years later."—Craig R. Whitney, Saigon correspondent andbureau chief of the New York Times,1971-1973

"Brigham offers a persuasive argument that [Kissinger] lied, misled, and deceptively outmaneuvered other policy makers in setting Vietnam War policy from 1969 to 1975, with disastrous results.... This all-but-total condemnation...confirms what many Kissinger skeptics have believed for decades and may change the minds of some who have believe him to be a foreign policy guru."—Publishers Weekly

"Vietnam-era scholars and informed audiences fascinated by Kissinger will welcome the author's insights."—Library Journal

"Brigham makes a strong case that Kissinger's war policy-making was 'a total failure'....Making good use of new primary source material...he destroys Kissinger's carefully and deceptively cultivated image as a foreign policy guru....[Reckless] should change the minds of those who have believed Kissinger's deceptive, self-aggrandizing re-writing of Vietnam War history."—Vietnam Veterans of America Magazine

"It's a clapback 15 years in the making, and offers insight into how Kissinger's machinations were less brilliance than guesswork and ego, with disastrous results....[Reckless] squarely assigns the blame."—Progressive Populist

From the Publisher

2018-06-18
A historian specializing in American foreign policy mines newly available archives to expose Henry Kissinger as a lying, self-serving, and incompetent presidential adviser who collaborated with Richard Nixon to allow the North Vietnamese victory against the American-backed South Vietnamese.Although countless words have been published about the Vietnam War, Brigham (History and International Relations/Vassar Coll.; The United States and Iraq Since 1990: A Brief History with Documents, 2013, etc.) explains that his book is the first to use certain material from Kissinger's papers housed at Yale University, the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, and "South Vietnamese sources contained in the National Archives in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam." As Brigham evaluated the fresh material, he compared it to Kissinger's publicly stated definition of American "success" in Vietnam. The touchstone of Kissinger's definition could be stated as "peace with honor" before the U.S. military withdrew troops; he had hoped to achieve peace with honor tactically by waging "war for peace." In section after section throughout the book, Brigham quotes from specific Kissinger documents and then comments on how and why Kissinger's tactics failed. The evidence builds chronologically as each of the lengthy chapters explores how each failed tactic led Kissinger to double down on his lying while becomingly increasingly reckless with military lives and budgetary resources. One of the most compelling elements of the book is Brigham's portrayal of Kissinger's manipulation of an emotionally insecure Nixon. The president often responded by expressing doubts about Kissinger's methods, but he did Kissinger's bidding more often than not out of desperation to win over the American electorate during the 1972 election cycle. As the author methodically chronicles the turmoil inside the U.S. government, his research is especially illuminating about how Kissinger sabotaged the credibility of Secretary of State William Rogers and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird.If readers accept Brigham's evidence, which is considerable, the still-living Kissinger deserves to be disgraced.

Kirkus Reviews

This audiobook, based on newly released archival material, helps to explain, in part, why the war in Vietnam became the morass it was. The documents reveal that Henry Kissinger, the supposed architect of peace, actually caused the war to be extended by thousands of lives and millions of dollars. Narrator Jeff Bottoms sets the perfect tone for this indictment of the lead U.S. negotiator, who always considered himself the smartest man in any room. Bottoms sounds cool and analytical as he provides the knowing voice of hindsight. Listeners can hear the author’s disapproval of the political infighting that exacerbated the conflict. This fascinating study shows the ill-conceived steps that led down the path to ignoble American defeat. It's a shame that today’s U.S. decision-makers have learned little from this cautionary tale. D.E.M. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2018 - AudioFile

This audiobook, based on newly released archival material, helps to explain, in part, why the war in Vietnam became the morass it was. The documents reveal that Henry Kissinger, the supposed architect of peace, actually caused the war to be extended by thousands of lives and millions of dollars. Narrator Jeff Bottoms sets the perfect tone for this indictment of the lead U.S. negotiator, who always considered himself the smartest man in any room. Bottoms sounds cool and analytical as he provides the knowing voice of hindsight. Listeners can hear the author’s disapproval of the political infighting that exacerbated the conflict. This fascinating study shows the ill-conceived steps that led down the path to ignoble American defeat. It's a shame that today’s U.S. decision-makers have learned little from this cautionary tale. D.E.M. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2018 - AudioFile