Author:
Eisenberg, Carolyn Woods, author.
ImprintNew York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2023]
Descriptionxi, 615 pages : map ; 25 cm
Note:"Mired in stalemate" -- "We will hit them with no warning" -- "I see death coming up the hill" -- "It makes our position murder" -- "Blow their candles out" -- "You shouldn't kill that many" -- "The idealists are the builders" -- "Hit 'em in the gut" -- "The great mystery of life" -- "The greatest success" -- "Enjoy the breeze" -- "We might have burned your house" -- Something like a moron..." -- "Take a stinking hill" -- "Everyone was crying" -- "Bring our brothers home" -- "You've only got one card" -- "Man of peace" -- "Knock the shit out of them" -- "Seize the hour! seize the day!" -- "The whole ground shakes" -- "Let us think of Tanya" -- "Four more years" -- "You're three for three, Mr. President!" -- "Miserable, filthy people" -- "A terrific letdown" -- "Let the Americans see me".
Bibliography Note:Includes bibliographical references (pages 583-596) and index.
Note:This book offers a narrative of the way national security decisions formed at the highest levels of government affect the lives of individuals at home and abroad. By drawing these connections, the text looks at policy decisions about Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and conveys their significance. It contextualizes Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger's decisions within a wider institutional and societal framework. While recognizing the distinctive personalities and ideas of these two men, the study broadly conveys the competing roles and impact of the professional military, the Congress, and a mobilized peace movement. Drawing upon a vast collection of declassified documents, the text presents an important reinterpretation of the Nixon administration's relations with the Soviet Union and China vis a vis the war in Southeast Asia. It argues that in their desperate effort to overcome, or at least overshadow, their failure in Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger made major concessions to both nations in the field of arms control, their response to the India-Pakistan war, and the diplomacy surrounding Taiwan - much of this secret. Despite policymakers' claims that the Vietnam War was a "national security" necessity that would demonstrate American strength to the communist superpowers and "credibility" to friendly governments, the historical record suggests a different reality.
