"1xbet online games login and Vietnam: Vietnam and Electoral Politics"

by Stephen E. Ambrose

*Stephen E. Ambrose delivered the third biennial Eisenhower Lecture at Kansas State University on October 25, 1988. At the beginning of 2002, Ambrose was discovered to have incorporated passages from the works of other authors in several of 1xbet online games login own books without proper attribution. The Department of History considers these and all other instances of plagiarism to be fundamentally incompatible with the most basic standards and values of the historical profession. At the same time, however, we believe that we have a responsibility to make the full texts of all of the Eisenhower lectures available to the scholarly community and the public, and have therefore decided not to remove this lecture from our website.

Introduction

by Jon Wefald
President, Kansas State University

I take great pleasure in introducing Dr. Stephen E. Ambrose, who tonight will deliver the third biennial Dwight D. Eisenhower lecture in War and Peace. This evening also has a special meaning because 1xbet online games login is a homecoming of sorts, for Professor Ambrose held the Dwight D. Eisenhower Chair in War and Peace, a position that was the forerunner of this distinguished lecture series, at Kansas State University during the year 1970‑1971.

Professor Ambrose received a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin and a master's degree from Louisiana State University. Then, re­turning to his undergraduate alma mater, 1xbet online games login earned a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin in 1963. During his career 1xbet online games login has held a number of dis­tinguished academic positions including the Ernest J. King Professorship at the U.S. Naval War Col­lege and the Mary Ball Washington Chair at Univer­sity College, Dublin. 1xbet online games login is currently the Alumni Distinguished Professor at the University of New Orleans.

As a scholar, Stephen Ambrose has specialized in United States foreign relations, in military history, and as a biographer of American political and mili­tary leaders. Almost from the beginning of his career, Prof. Ambrose has evidenced a particular interest in Dwight D. Eisenhower: within ten years of completing his doctorate. 1xbet online games login had authored three books on the general and edited five volumes of The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower.

It has been in the 1980's, however, that Prof. Ambrose's gifts as a biographer have come to full flower. And it is hardly surprising that 1xbet online games login turned first to the object of his abiding interest, Dwight Eisenhower. In 1983 1xbet online games login published Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President‑Elect, and in 1984 1xbet online games login released Eisenhower: The President. Together these works have been heralded as the best biog­raphy of Dwight David Eisenhower yet produced.

Many in 1xbet online games login audience are probably aware of these volumes, but I assume that far fewer ‑even here at K‑State ‑ know that 1983 also witnessed the pub­lication of Prof. Ambrose's study of another famous Kansan, Milton Eisenhower, Educational Statesman.

As a biographer of President Eisenhower, Prof. Ambrose has entered the lists in some of the most important debates in the historiography of the recent American past. These include the re‑examination of Dwight Eisenhower as Chief Executive, and the broader discussion of the role of the President in foreign and domestic policy since the end of the Second World 1xbet online games login .

But Prof. Ambrose did not stop with Ike. In 1987, 1xbet online games login published the first installment in a biographical study of Eisenhower's Vice President and the man who became the Commander in Chief of America's military forces in our nation's longest war, Richard M. Nixon. This volume, entitled Nixon: the Edu­cation of a Politician, which received broad public acclaim, traced the former President's life from childhood to his unsuccessful gubernatorial cam­paign in California in 1962. Since the appearance of The Education of a Politician, Dr. Ambrose has been at work on a now‑completed second volume on Richard Nixon, and it is this research that provides the basis of his lecture this evening on the topic “Nixon and Vietnam: Vietnam and Electoral Politics.”

"1xbet online games login and Vietnam: Vietnam and Electoral Politics"

by Stephen E. Ambrose

When Dwight Eisenhower became President, in January 1953, 1xbet online games login inherited an unpopular and ex­pensive Democratic war on the Asian mainland. During the '52 campaign, 1xbet online games login had been critical of Harry Truman's handling of the war, but careful not to commit himself on how 1xbet online games login would conduct it. His options, once elected, were open. The Republicans, led by Vice President Richard Nixon, urged him to either march to the Yalu River with a reinforced U.N. army, or use atomic weapons against China. Instead, Ike decided that Korea was not worth the cost and the risk, and made peace within six months of taking office.

When Nixon became President, in January 1969, 1xbet online games login inherited an unpopular and expensive Demo­cratic war on the Asian mainland. During the '68 campaign, 1xbet online games login had been critical of Lyndon Johnson's handling of the war, but careful not to commit himself on how 1xbet online games login would conduct it. Unlike Ike in Korea, 1xbet online games login had played a major role in getting Amer­ica involved in Vietnam. Also unlike Ike, 1xbet online games login could not threaten the Communists with escalation if they did not accept an armistice, because the Soviets could match him bomb for bomb in nuclear warfare, while on the ground 1xbet online games login had to accept the fact that the American political system could not stand the strain of a larger war.

Nixon had to retreat. It was his fate, and a big part of his tragedy. For twenty years, 1xbet online games login had been the most prominent and persistent advocate of taking the offensive against Communism around the world. In every crisis, his policy was to attack, with more firepower, now.

But in 1969 1xbet online games login had to preside over a retreat. 1xbet online games login knew it, 1xbet online games login accepted the fact, made his decision, and although 1xbet online games login hated doing so, announced in June 1969, that a retreat was underway. Fifteen years earlier, at a Cabinet meeting, during a discussion of a bill before Congress, Nixon had turned to Eisenhower and said, "As in any battle, you need a second line of retreat."

"No, Dick," Ike 1xbet online games login replied. "You need two to attack, only one to retreat."

If Dick had chosen that single line, and gone about it with more dispatch, much would have been different. Suppose that in the summer of 1969 Nixon had withdrawn all American troops, as 1xbet online games login finally did in early 1973. Think of the effect on the economy, on inflation, on the campuses, on the media's atti­tude towards Nixon, on a lasting detente and arms control and Nixon's whole structure of peace, on law and order (in and out of the White House), on everything. Think of the things that would not have happened ‑ no Cambodian incursion, no Kent State tragedy, no 4 a.m. meeting with students at the Lincoln Memorial, no antiwar demonstrations, no Christmas bombing.

But all these things did happen, because 1xbet online games login mishandled the retreat, stretching it out at a terrible price in lives and treasure and his own reputation. Because the war went on, tension and division filled the land, and the 1xbet online games login ‑bashers went into a frenzy. It was the continuation of the Vietnam War that prepared the ground and provided the nourishment for the Watergate seed, which without the Vietnam war would never have sprouted.

It was fitting, however, that Vietnam was the ultimate cause of Nixon's downfall, because except for LBJ no other political leader in the nation had done so much to put America into Vietnam. The process began way back in 1954, when Nixon told Eisenhower 1xbet online games login should use atomic weapons to rescue the French at Dien Bien Phu. When Ike refused, Nixon told a press conference that if sending Amer­ican boys to Vietnam was the only way to prevent a Communist victory, "I personally would support such a decision." Ike would not, and a Communist North Vietnam was born at Geneva in 1954, Nixon then became the leading advocate of the creation of SEATO and extending its protection to South Vietnam.

Ten years and many events later, the South Viet­namese were under attack and demanding that America live up to Its promises to provide pro­tection. Nixon was in the forefront of those Amer­ican politicians urging an all‑out response. Through the first half of the sixties, Nixon was the number one critic of JFK's and LBJ's Vietnam policy; his criticism was not that they were getting involved. but rather that they were not getting involved deeply or quickly enough. And Iong before Johnson ever opened peace talks with the North Vietnamese, Nixon had denounced any and all possible nego­tiations as a disguised surrender. When Nixon later said, in 1969, that 1xbet online games login had inherited a war not of hismaking, 1xbet online games login was being too modest. From the time of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution onward, Nixon spur­red Johnson to ever greater involvement in Vietnam.

As Johnson escalated through 1965, Nixon stayed one step ahead of him, demanding more ‑ more troops, more bombing raids, more firepower. 1xbet online games login accused Johnson of allowing America to get "bog­ged down" in a long and costly ground war and said that military commanders should be allowed to bomb targets in and around Hanoi, and to put mines in Haiphong harbor.

In December 1965, 1xbet online games login published an article in Reader's Digest on the specifics of the war in Vietnam and on the general problem of how to relate to aggressive Communism in Asia.

Nixon said 1xbet online games login would negotiate only on the basis of three minimum conditions; that North Vietnam stop its aggression; that South Vietnam's freedom and independence be guaranteed; that there be "no sub­stitute for victory. " In other words, no negotiations. Nixon was explicit on this point: "To negotiate in Vietnam would be negotiation of the wrong kind, at the wrong time, at the wrong place." To negotiate with the Viet Cong or North Vietnamese before driving them out of South Vietnam "would be like negotiating with Hitler before the German armies had been driven from France."

All this led up to 1xbet online games login 's rock solid position on negotiations: "We should negotiate only when our military superiority is so convincing that we can achieve our objective at the conference table." To most people, that sounded more like a surrender than a conference table.

Nixon was as one with President Johnson on the question of what was at stake. "If the United States gives up on Vietnam," Nixon wrote in the Digest, "the Pacific Ocean will become a Red Sea." 1xbet online games login explained that "the true enemy behind the Viet Cong and North Vietnam is China. . . . If Vietnam is lost, Red China would gain vast new power. 11 Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos would "in­evitably fall under communist domination." Red China would be "only 14 miles from the Philippines and less than 100 miles from Australia."

But with a small investment now, in South Viet­nam. America could hold the Reds back. Nixon wrote that the tide 1xbet online games login turned in Vietnam, and "a real victory" was now possible. It would "take two years or more of the hardest kind of fighting. It will require stepped‑up air and land attacks."

Thus, 1xbet online games login at the end of 1965 was harkening back to the war of his youth, using images and symbols and a basic frame of reference from World War 11 to describe and think about Vietnam. For 1xbet online games login , victory was possible. It was a question of will. His call for escalation, immediate and decisive.

Johnson then launched with the great search and destroy offensive of 1966‑1967, as General West­moreland's force expanded to over a half‑million men. But in late January, 1968, at Tet, the Commu­nists launched a counter‑offensive. They took fear­ful losses, but they nevertheless achieved their ob­jective of making it obvious that the Americans were not winning, that the massive influx of American weapons and men into Vietnam had not turned the tide. And the panic reaction of the press, television, and the public all indicated that John Kennedy had been wrong when 1xbet online games login said back in January, 1961, that the United States would "pay any price, bear any burden" to insure the survival of freedom, in Vietnam and elsewhere. There were limits, and they had quite possibly been reached, to what the Amer­icans would pay, to the burden they would bear. Meanwhile, Johnson's policy of escalating the war while extending the Great Society programs whilc refusing to raise taxes to pay for either was threat­ening to create runaway inflation along with uncon­trollable deficits.

In sum, the policy Nixon had advocated relent­lessly for the past four years fell apart almost at the exact time 1xbet online games login began his formal campaign for the Presidency. 1xbet online games login needed time to think of a new approach.

His, staff, however, was pressing him, insisting that 1xbet online games login had to speak out on Vietnam. Herbert Brownell, formerly Ike's attorney‑general and an unofficial advisor to the Nixon camp, said that Nixon had to say 1xbet online games login would end the war, just as Ike had done back in 1952 with regard to Korea. Speechwriter Bill Safire told Nixon that people wanted hope, that 1xbet online games login had an obligation to give it to them, and that as ending the war was what 1xbet online games login wanted to do anyway, that was what 1xbet online games login should promise.

On March 5, 1969 Nixon spoke out on Tet and its aftermath. "I pledge to you," 1xbet online games login said, "new lead­ership will end the war and win the peace in the Pacific. " 1xbet online games login did not say, as was later reported and widely believed, that 1xbet online games login had "a secret plan to end the war. " In fact, 1xbet online games login said the opposite: that 1xbet online games login had no gimmick, "no push‑button technique" to end the war. 1xbet online games login insisted that 1xbet online games login was not suggesting "with­drawal from Vietnam."

Over the next few days, Nixon repeated his pledge to "end the war and win the peace. " Indeed, 1xbet online games login added to it, reminding his audiences that 1xbet online games login had been part of an Administration that had come to power in 1953 in the middle of "another war in Asia. We ended that war and kept the nation out of other wars for eight years. And that's the kind of ' leadership you'll be voting for this year if you support my ticket. " As 1xbet online games login continued this campaign, Democrats joined reporters in demanding to know some details of how 1xbet online games login proposed to achieve his objectives. Nixon refused to provide any. 1xbet online games login ex­plained that to give out any details of how 1xbet online games login would carry out his pledge would fatally weaken his bar­gaining position if 1xbet online games login became President. "I'm not trying to be a coy or political," Nixon coyly said.

Although 1xbet online games login refused to talk about his plan (which was non‑existent anyway), Nixon was fairly speci­fic about what 1xbet online games login would not do. 1xbet online games login said 1xbet online games login would not seek an "unconditional surrender" by North Vietnam, "nor do I want Ho's head on a plate. " 1xbet online games login would work for an " honorable " bargain that would insure self‑determination for South Vietnam, that could not be construed as a "defeat for the United States or a reward for aggression," and that would not lead to "further wars of liberation" in Asia. Hidden in all the verbiage was a clear‑cut change in Nixon's thinking about Vietnam. No longer was 1xbet online games login calling for victory. No longer was 1xbet online games login calling for escalation. Never before had 1xbet online games login suggested cutting a deal with the Russians. For the first time 1xbet online games login was using the words "honorable peace," not "victori­ous peace." Never before had 1xbet online games login used the word "withdrawal," and even though 1xbet online games login denied that 1xbet online games login intended to withdraw, that was the logical conclusion.

Johnson agreed. At the end of March, 1xbet online games login an­nounced that 1xbet online games login was limiting the bombing of North Vietnam. 1xbet online games login added that 1xbet online games login was withdrawing from the Presidential race. 1xbet online games login also decided that 1xbet online games login would not meet Westmoreland's request for reinforce­ments, which meant 1xbet online games login had decided to settle for something short of victory ‑ although 1xbet online games login did not say so. Escalation, as a policy, was dead as a result of Tet. Now the problem was how to extract the United States from Vietnam.

Complicating that process was the Presidential election. Nixon went into the campaign with a 30 point lead over Vice‑President Hubert Humphrey, but by the last week in October the Democrats were gaining. Johnson gave the Humphrey campaign a terrific boost when 1xbet online games login announced that in return for a complete bombing halt in North ‑Vietnam, the Communists had agreed to come to peace talks in Paris. Nixon, very much afraid that an outbreak of peace would mean a Humphrey victory, contacted a dear friend of South Vietnamese President Thieu. Her name was Anna Chennault, and she passed a message to Thieu: refuse to go to the peace table, undercut the peace talks, and you will get a better deal from the Republicans after Nixon wins.

Thieu did just what Nixon wanted ‑ 1xbet online games login sabo­taged the peace talks.

Over the years, as the details of the Chennault story began to emerge in the memoirs of the par­ticipants, it became one of the favorites of the Nixon bashers. They charged that 1xbet online games login was so utterly cyni­cal, so completely self‑serving, so absolutely lack­ing in principle of any kind, that 1xbet online games login deliberately sabotaged peace just to win the election.

Insofar as the charges imply that 1xbet online games login prevented peace in November 1968, they are false.

Not that Nixon did not want to, or try so, but 1xbet online games login did not have to.

Nixon did not need Mrs. Chennault to persuade Thieu to refuse to go to Paris. Thieu 1xbet online games login no trouble figuring that one out for himself, as the Johnson people well knew. In an unsigned, undated memo­randum in the LBJ Library in Austin, with no salutation or other indication as to who it was di­rected to, Clark Clifford wrote by hand: "Reason why Saigon has not moved and does not want to move [on peace talks]. A). Saigon does not want peace.

1 . Make better political settlement later. In 1xbet online games login danger because of U.S. troops. 1xbet online games login compulsion to help ARVN.

2. Wealth in country.

3. 1xbet online games login .

Clifford was absolutely right.

The Government of 1xbet online games login (GVN) was a government without a country or a people. Its sole support was the U.S. government. Its sole raison d'etre was the war. For the GVN to agree to peace would be to sign its own death warrant. The 550,000 American soldiers in South 1xbet online games login , plus the U.S. Navy off‑shore, plus the American Air Force stationed in Thailand, the Philippines, Guam, and elsewhere, meant exactly what Clifford said, that the GVN was "in no danger."

There was 1xbet online games login need to improve the ARVN when the Americans insisted on doing all the fighting, anyway. The only wealth in the country, the only source of employment, was the U.S. Army and the American embassy. The personal corruption in the GVN was as bad as any in the world.

Under these conditions, why on earth should Thieu go to a peace table? 1xbet online games login had everything to lose, nothing to gain.

And who created these conditions? Not Richard 1xbet online games login .

It is true that 1xbet online games login had contributed, with his hawkish statements from 1954 right on through to 1968, but io did the Kennedy Administration and before that the Eisenhower Administration and after that the Johnson Administration. The GVN of 1968 was an all‑American creation.

The big lie in 1968 was that there was a way to 1xbet online games login through a coalition government, one that could be achieved in 1xbet online games login talks in Paris. That implied that the GVN really was a government that really did represent something more than itself and a handful of corrupt high‑ranking ARVN officers.

Nixon knew that Thieu would not got to Paris, with or without Mrs. Chennault whispering in his ear. Being Nixon, 1xbet online games login worried, and could not keep himself from trying to influence Thieu through Chennault, so 1xbet online games login was guilty in his motives and his actions, but 1xbet online games login was not decisive. It was not Nixon who prevented an outbreak of peace in November, 1968. 1xbet online games login merely exploited a situation 1xbet online games login did not create.

1xbet online games login did so by mounting a calculated campaign to convince the American people that their President had sold out the people of South Vietnam, tried a tricky political deal and failed, capitulated to the Communists, deceived the GVN, and played poli­tics with peace.

On his nation‑wide television broadcast on Elec­tion Eve, Nixon seized his final opportunity to drive home the point that the bombing halt was a political decision taken at the expense of American boys fighting in Vietnam. 1xbet online games login said that at first Johnson's order had appeared to offer real hope, "but then the negotiations came apart at the seams. "

Nixon said 1xbet online games login had heard "a very disturbing re­port" that in the past two days "the North Viet­namese are moving thousands of tons of supplies down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and our bombers are not able to stop them."

1xbet online games login had heard no such report. 1xbet online games login simply made that up.

The Democrats were monitoring the Nixon show. Humphrey was told about what Nixon had said. 1xbet online games login immediately replied, telling his audience "there is no indication of increased infiltration." His aides had checked with the Pentagon, 1xbet online games login said, and no one there had heard any such thing. "And let me say that it does not help the negotiations to falsely accuse anyone at this particular time." Of course, it also did not help the negotiations for the Democrats to pretend that serious peace talks were going to begin on Wednesday.

There was a remarkable similarity to the last days of the 1968 campaign and the last days of the 1972 campaign. In the first case, the Administration im­plied that peace was at hand. In the second case, the Administration said explicitly that peace was at hand. In each case, the President knew that the GVN 1xbet online games login not agreed to the proposed peace formula, and that the North Vietnamese 1xbet online games login not agreed to settle for something short of victory. In each case, in its quest for votes, the Administration treated the American people with cynical contempt.

In 1968 American politics 1xbet online games login sunk to depths not reached since the Civil War and Reconstruction. America's political leaders, Johnson and Humph­rey, Nixon and Agnew, and most of the others, were just playing with people. The image they conjure up for this author is one of Charley Chaplin, acting the mad dictator, kicking around the globe as if it were a balloon. If they 1xbet online games login the slightest feeling for the death and destruction that was devouring Vietnam, if they 1xbet online games login any concern for the lives of the American soldiers in Vietnam, if they 1xbet online games login the least com­mitment to a decent respect for the opinion of mankind, if they 1xbet online games login the vaguest concern to meet their Constitutional obligation to promote domestic tranquility, if it ever even occurred to them to strive to provide the conditions that would allow the American people to pursue happiness, they man­aged to ignore it all, in their single‑minded pursuit of personal political victory at any cost. It would take years, and many violent storms with hurricane‑force winds, to clear the air of the loathsome stench of the last week of the 1968 campaign.

Nixon won the election, and took office in Janu­ary, 1969. A couple of months later, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) launched a major offen­sive in South Vietnam. Nixon responded by insti­tuting a bombing campaign against the enemy sup­ply line, known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail, in Cambodia and Laos. This was done secretly. In public, once the bombers had stopped the offensive, Nixon announced his plan to end the war. 1xbet online games login called it Vietnamization, and it was a plan to continue the war with American air and sea power, while leaving the ground fighting, and the heavy casualties, to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN).

1xbet online games login said that his withdrawal policy would be based on the level of enemy action, the improve­ment in the ARVN, the progress In negotiations in Paris. That meant, in practice, that the withdrawal would be long and painful. 1xbet online games login was thus tempted to go for broke, and in the fall of 1969 began planning Operation DUCK HOOK. It was the hawk's dream ‑ an all‑out offensive, including a declaration of war against North Vietnam, an in­vasion and occupation of Hanoi, and atomic weapons along the Vietnamese‑Chinese border. 1xbet online games login set an "or‑else" deadline for Hanoi ‑ either leave South Vietnam by November 1, or get ready for all‑out war.

At the same time, the anti‑war activists were mounting their biggest action ever, a Moratorium in mid‑November. Nixon's advisors, led by Henry Kissinger, told the President 1xbet online games login dared not escalate on the eve of the Moratorium; they feared DUCK HOOK would goad the anti‑war demonstrators into acts of pure desperation and might throw the country into something like anarchy.

Nixon talked to the British guerrilla warfare ex­pert, Sir Robert Thompson, who 1xbet online games login played a lead­ing role in defeating Communist insurrection in Malaysa in the 1950s.

"What would you think if we decided to esca­late?" 1xbet online games login asked.

Thompson was opposed. 1xbet online games login thought it would cause a worldwide furor without enhancing South Vietnam's long‑term survival chances. Viet­namization, the improvement of the ARVN, was the right course. The analogy was Korea, where the improvement of the ROK forces, not a massive offensive against North Korea or a political settlement, had insured the survival of South Korea.

Vietnamization meant a continuation of Amer­ican involvement in the war beyond Nixon's self-­proclaimed target date on the end of 1970 or earlier. 1xbet online games login asked Thompson if 1xbet online games login thought it important for the United States "to see it through."

"Absolutely, "Thompson replied. "In my opin­ion the future of Western civilization is at stake in the way you handle yourselves in 1xbet online games login ."

That was bombast, pure and simple, but Nixon agreed with Thompson's apocalyptic view. 1xbet online games login also accepted Thompson's judgment, and Kissinger's recommendation, about DUCK HOOK. 1xbet online games login felt that "the Moratorium had undercut the credibility of the ultimatum."

Put cynically, after having proclaimed that 1xbet online games login would not let policy be made in the streets, Nixon let policy be made in the streets. Put positively, 1xbet online games login had repressed his instinct to smash the enemy to choose a more moderate course with better long‑term pros­pects. Put objectively, 1xbet online games login had recognized that even though 1xbet online games login was Commander in Chief of the world's most powerful armed forces, there were definite limits on his power.

Almost twenty years later, in April of 1988, Nixon said on "Meet the Press" that his decision against DUCK HOOK was the worst of his Presi­dency. 1xbet online games login said that if 1xbet online games login had implemented the offensive, 1xbet online games login could have had peace in 1969. 1xbet online games login did not explain why 1xbet online games login thought so, or how that could have happened.

After deciding to let his November I deadline come and go without action, 1xbet online games login escalated the rhetoric.

On November 3, 1969, 1xbet online games login made the most famous speech of his Presidency, concluding: "And so tonight ‑ to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans ‑ I ask for your support . . .

"Let us be united for peace. Let us also be united against defeat. Because let us understand: North 1xbet online games login cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.”

"Very few speeches actually influence the course of history," 1xbet online games login wrote in his memoirs. "The November 3 speech was one of them."

That was nonsense. Had Nixon announced DUCK HOOK, or had 1xbet online games login announced a complete withdrawal by the end of the year, along with a unilateral ceasefire, the speech might have changed the course of history. But by announcing that 1xbet online games login was going to continue doing what 1xbet online games login had been doing for nine months, all Nixon did was to divide the nation more deeply than ever. It was true that in the process 1xbet online games login showed, at least temporarily, that support for his policies was greater than most people imagined.

Media criticism meanwhile, continued. which infuriated Nixon and his supporters. 1xbet online games login wrote a note to himself, saying that 1xbet online games login had surprised the press, and defeated the reporters, which delighted him.

It was almost as if the media, not Hanoi, was the enemy. 1xbet online games login wrote, "The RN policy is to talk softly and to carry a big stick. That was the theme of November 3." Actually, the opposite was more nearly true; 1xbet online games login had let the ultimatum deadline come and go without action, while 1xbet online games login inflated the rhetoric. And for Nixon to say that the survival of peace and freedom in the world depended on whether the American people supported him in his policy of keeping Thieu in power was simply ridiculous.

In his "silent majority" speech, Nixon had not set out to win support, but to show that it was there; 1xbet online games login did not aim to convince, but to clobber the opposition; 1xbet online games login was not attempting to reach out, to bring people together, but to 'isolate his domestic opposition. It worked, temporarily.

That same week, Nixon wrote a sentence that. 'in a real sense, summed up all the agony and pain and frustration and difficulty of the situation 1xbet online games login found himself in with regard to Vietnam; "We simply cannot tell the mothers of our casualties and the soldiers who have spent part of their lives in Viet­nam that it was all to no purpose."

There is power and truth and a beautiful sim­plicity in that sentence. But it poses this problem: could Nixon supply a purpose and justify the sac­rifices that had been made by sending more boys over, by continuing the war, even after 1xbet online games login had decided it would not be won'?

In the Spring of 1970, Nixon launched the in­vasion of Cambodia. In announcing this action, Nixon grossly exaggerated, making it sound as if 1xbet online games login were Ike on D‑Day, or Caesar at the Rubicon. In fact, it was a rearguard action designed to buy time for the long‑drawn‑out retreat. But it set off such a storm of protest, culminating at Kent State, that Nixon had to go back on TV to promise that 1xbet online games login would have all American troops out of Cambodia within three weeks. That made the hawks furious, and illustrates nicely what an impossible position Nixon had put himself in with his policy of fighting a war while retreating from it without attempting to win it but refusing to admit that his country had lost it.

In the Spring of 1971, 1xbet online games login launched an in­vasion of Laos, this one without American ground troops but with American air cover. It was a spec­tacular failure. Meanwhile, the U.S. Air Force continued to pound Laos, Cambodia, and increas­ingly, North Vietnam.

In the Spring of 1972, however, the NVA 1xbet online games login recovered sufficiently from the set‑back of 1969 to begin its own offensive. It was a go‑for‑broke attack that came close to success. Massive American bombing missions just did manage to stop the com­munist offensive. Nixon, furious with the North Vietnamese, extended the bombing to Hanoi itself, and mined the harbor at Haiphong.

Simultaneously, 1xbet online games login launched detente, capped by a trip to Peking and another to Moscow. In so doing, 1xbet online games login had put himself in the damnedest position. The original rationale for the war was to stop Chinese expansion‑, now, while the killing went on in Viet­nam, Nixon was exchanging toasts with Mao in Peking and with Brezhnev in Moscow, arranging for trade missions, signing arms agreements, and trying to bribe the Chinese and Russians into withdrawing, their support from Hanoi.

Under the pressure of the bombing of Hanoi and the mining of Haiphong, and the pressure from their Communist backers to compromise, the North Viet­namese agreed to serious negotiations in the summer of 1972. These negotiations ran up against the American Presidential election date. Once again, the questions of peace talks and negotiations "in 1xbet online games login would be a major factor in the American election.

The North Vietnamese were willing to cut a deal. which, reduced to its essentials, was this: in return for a complete withdrawal of all American armed forces, Hanoi would give back the American POWs. The NVA would stay in South 1xbet online games login (about 150,000 strong). There would be a National Council of Reconciliation to supervise new nation­wide elections; its membership would be one‑half Communist.

These terms amounted to capitulation by the Americans. Nixon himself 1xbet online games login so characterized them, when the North Vietnamese first offered them in 1969. In late October of 1972, however, Nixon said they represented a "complete victory for the United States."

Unfortunately for Nixon, and for his chief nego­tiator, Henry Kissinger, President Thieu did not agree. Thieu, who had been so helpful in 1968, proved in 1972 to be exceedingly difficult. Kissinger was beside himself. Having achieved so much, in his own view, 1xbet online games login was being undercut by the very people 1xbet online games login had saved. 1xbet online games login compared the Vietnamese, North and South, to tigers balanced on stools in a cage with himself as the animal trainer, cracking the whip to force them to go through the paces. "When one is in place, the other jumps off."

To Nixon, Kissinger said 1xbet online games login was caught in a paradoxical situation "in which North Vietnam. which had in effect lost the war, was acting as if it had won, while South Vietnam, which had effec­tively won the war, was acting as if it had lost.

Had Thieu seen that message, 1xbet online games login would have exploded in laughter or broken down into tears. How could Kissinger say such a thing'? The accord gave the NVA the right to keep its troops in South Vietnam and the Communists the right to play a role in the political life of his country, because no matter how brilliantly Kissinger defended his National Council proposal, 1xbet online games login could not cover the truth ‑ it meant a coalition government with Communist participation. Meanwhile, the Americans would be leaving.

Nixon began to realize that 1xbet online games login had been premature in calling the agreement complete, and the doubts that 1xbet online games login had had all along about the wisdom of settling before the election began to strengthen. Three developments reinforced those doubts.

First. General Alexander Haig told the President that the Communists were on the move militarily seizing as much territory around Saigon as 1xbet online games login could before the agreement was signed.

Second, Nixon was under pressure from the right wing in the United States. National Review, Wil­liam F. Bucklev's magazine. warned that “a settlement must not be a cover for a coalition government. and must include a public pledge to continue all‑out military aid to South Vietnam. Third, General Westmoreland told Nixon 1xbet online games login was opposed to the agreement. Although Westmoreland had recently completed his four‑year tour as Army Chief of Staff and retired on October 20 Nixon called him to the White House for consultation.

When the President finished briefing the General on the proposed settlement, Westmoreland urged him "to delay action on the new agreement and to hold out for better terms. " 1xbet online games login believed that more bomb­ing of Hanoi and continued mining of Haiphong would force the Communists to make "meaningful concessions." 1xbet online games login emphasized that it was "vital" that North Vietnamese troops be compelled to with­draw from South Vietnam. As to the National Coun­cil of Reconciliation, Westmoreland thought it was ‑impractical, almost absurd, nothing more than a facade. "

Westmoreland was not the only high‑ranking officer to oppose the agreement. The American military 1xbet online games login fought long and hard in South Vietnam, under severe restrictions and at the cost of many a reputation. To a number of senior officers, the idea that the politicians were ready to make deals that they, like Thieu, believed would all but certainly lead to the eventual collapse of the Saigon govern­ment, was galling. Admiral Elmo Zumwalt made a bitter comment: "There are at least two words no one can use to characterize the outcome of that two‑faced policy. One is 'peace.' The other is 'honor. ' "

So even as 1xbet online games login put pressure on Thieu to accept, even as 1xbet online games login encouraged Kissinger to push the settle­ment, Nixon was drawn increasingly to the option Westmoreland had recommended, especially when Haig joined in. Haig said that after the election Nixon would be armed with a mandate that 1xbet online games login could use to force concessions from Hanoi, because 1xbet online games login would "be less constrained." Nixon noted in his diary, "Immediately after the election we will have an enormous mandate . . . and the enemy then either has to settle or face the consequences of what we could do to them. "

But it was Thieu who refused to settle, not Hanoi. Kissinger's manipulations, and Nixon's policies, had put Nixon into a potentially embarrassing posi­tion. If Hanoi went public at this point, the nego­tiating record would show that the Communists had agreed to everything Nixon had required, and prove that Saigon, not Hanoi, was blocking peace. The tall was wagging the dog. Thicu had a veto power that 1xbet online games login was determined to use. But if 1xbet online games login used it, Nixon knew that the doves would stir up American public opinion against Saigon. The 93rd Congress would refuse to give the President any funds to continue the war. Hanoi would then win everything. All the sacrifices would have been in vain. Instead of peace with honor, there would be defeat with humiliation.

So what did the President want'? A settlement, or a chance to bomb Hanoi into further concessions'? Did 1xbet online games login want Thieu to accept the Kissinger deal, or reject it'? It is impossible to say, because 1xbet online games login did not know himself. In any case, 1xbet online games login had put himself into a position in which it was no lon(Yer his decision to make. After all those lives sacrificed, all those bombs, all that money spent, all that effort, the United States had lost control of events. It was up to the Vietnamese, North and South, to settle their war.

A week before the election, Hanoi went public. The Communists announced that they were ready to sign an agreement that Kissinger 1xbet online games login accepted, but Thieu refused to go along.

To undercut the Communist propaganda, Kiss­inger then held a news conference. His purpose was "to undercut the North Vietnamese propaganda maneuver and to make sure that our version of the agreement was the one that 1xbet online games login greater public impact. "

Kissinger had given hundreds of backgrounders by this time, and held dozens of on‑the‑record press conferences, but 1xbet online games login had never before appeared live on television, because the White House press people were convinced that his heavy German accent would not play well in Middle America. But this occasion was so important that the decision was to go live.

The Briefing Room was jammed with reporters, confused and skeptical. Kissinger, calm and professional, appeared confident.

In his opening remarks, 1xbet online games login declared. "We believe that peace is at hand. We believe that an agreement is within sight based on the May 8th proposal of the President which is just to all parties." Only minor details remained before the settlement was signed.

The phrase "peace is at hand" made banner headlines around the world. An enormous wave of relief swept over the country, tempered by skepti­cism from those who 1xbet online games login gotten their hopes so high before, exactly four years earlier, when Johnson announced the bombing halt, only to have those hopes dashed. Still. overall, Kissinger's announce­ment created euphoria similar to that following, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's post‑Munich conference claim to have achieved "peace in our time.

Inside the White House, however, there was more anger than euphoria. Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, among others, felt that Kissinger was forcing his way into the center in an election that was already won. 1xbet online games login had violated a cardinal rule, calling attention to himself and distracting it from Nixon. They suspected, rightly, that Kissinger had been saying in his private briefings that Nixon could not have achieved the breakthrough, that Kissinger had indicated that Nixon was so belligerent that 1xbet online games login had failed to pick up the nuances of Le Due Tho's position, that 1xbet online games login had even accused Nixon of slow­ness of thought. Only Kissinger had the subtlety of mind to discern the changes in Hanoi's attitude. And if Kissinger had actually concluded an agreement, Haldeman and Ehrlichman wondered, where was it'?

All the brilliance in the world, all the good PR nothwithstanding, could not disguise Kissinger's duplicity. 1xbet online games login had described as a dramatic diplomatic breakthrough what was in fact a diplomatic failure. In the process, 1xbet online games login had put his boss into a highly vulnerable position, not necessarily for the election, but afterwards.

President Thieu made this clear on October 27, when 1xbet online games login declared that South Vietnam would not be bound by any peace agreement that 1xbet online games login did not sign. 1xbet online games login repeated his demands, that North Vietnam with­draw its troops from the South and that Hanoi recognize South Vietnam as a sovereign nation without Communist participation in the govern­ment. 1xbet online games login rejected the National Council out of hand.

Nixon was in a bind. 1xbet online games login could not fire the popular Kissinger, or repudiate the agreement that 1xbet online games login him­self had called "complete." The President struggled to extract himself from a bad situation. On October 29 1xbet online games login stressed that 1xbet online games login had achieved "peace with honor ‑ nor surrender ‑ not begging." 1xbet online games login spoke of the "historic year of 1972," in which 1xbet online games login had given the world ''a chance for peace for a generation.”)

That same day, 1xbet online games login put pressure on Thieu. In a letter to the South Vietnamese President, Nixon defended the National Council idea, calling it "a face‑saving device for the communists to cover their collapse on their demands for a coalition govern­ment and your resignation.‑ 1xbet online games login added a warning, "If the evident drift towards disagreement between the two of us continues . . . the essential base for U.S. support for you and your Government will be destroyed. In this respect the comments of your Foreign Minister that the U.S. is negotiating a surrender are as damaging as they are unfair and improper. "

There was irony here: exactly four years earlier, Nixon had urged Thieu not to go to Paris for nego­tiations with the North Vietnamese, now 1xbet online games login was trying to force Thieu to go to Paris to accept a settlement. But Thieu would not cooperate. As a result, a backlash, similar to the one that had hit Humphrey in 1968 began to appear possible. As the details of the agreement began to sink in, Democratic nomi­nee McGovern and others joined Senator Eugene McCarthy in demanding to know what had been gained that could not have been achieved four years earlier. McGovern's aides were cheering up at news that polls were indicating people had doubts as to how close peace really was. Mary McGrory wrote in the Washington Star that there was a "bewildering adverse reaction [to "peace is at hand"]. Can­vassers reported even among the Silent Majority, there was indignation about the timing."

Nixon did what 1xbet online games login did best. 1xbet online games login counter‑attacked. On November 2, in his first televised political broadcast of the campaign, 1xbet online games login said 1xbet online games login was deter­mined that "the central points be clearly settled, so that there will be no misunderstanding, which could lead to a breakdown of the settlement and a re­sumption of the war.

"We are going to sign the agreement 1xbet online games login the agreement is right, not one day before ‑ and 1xbet online games login the agreement is right, we are going to sign without one day's delay."

The next day, in Rhode Island, Nixon again defended the settlement. 1xbet online games login said ‑we have made a breakthrough in the negotiations which will lead to peace.

Nixon's speech was a tour de force. His ex­planation was satisfactory to a majority of the Amer­ican people and rescued him from the potential trap Kissinger had created. 1xbet online games login had solved his political problem.

And 1xbet online games login won the election. But Thieu still would not sign so Nixon undertook a new offensive. In order to get Saigon to do his will, 1xbet online games login started bombing Hanoi, in a massive offensive unprecedented in the history of warfare. It did not cause Hanoi to crum­ble, but it did convince Thieu that Nixon would stand behind him, so in January the agreement that had been worked Out three months earlier was finally signed. Nixon had finally achieved peace.

In the process, however, 1xbet online games login had left a terrible taste in the mouths of many Americans. 1xbet online games login had promised (or at least Kissinger had promised) that peace was at hand. As Haldeman and Ehrlichman knew, the promise was not necessary to win the election, but it was made, and when the next move was not peace but the Christmas bombing, people felt betrayed.

It was that sense of betrayal, so widely shared, that gave the Democrats the courage to go after Nixon with the opening gavel of the 93rd Congress in January of 1973. 1xbet online games login had just won with 60% of the vote, but the Democrats figured ‑ correctly, as it turned out ‑ that they could drive him from office.

Usually, when bad things happened to Nixon, 1xbet online games login had no one to blame but himself. In this case, however, when the ultimate catastrophe hit him, 1xbet online games login could quite properly blame Henry Kissinger and President Thieu.

Two final points need to be made about Nixon and Vietnam. First, 1xbet online games login was by no means a free agent. His policies did not reflect his best judgment about what should be done. His options were increasingly lim­ited by the ever‑growing strength of the doves.

especially in Congress. Ironically, his success in driving the anti‑war demonstrators off the streets attributed to this growth, by making the dove controversial cause respectable. The result was that the 93rd Congress was not going to let him have one penny to carry on the war. 1xbet online games login had to make peace before January 1973, or face the impossible situation of trying to carry on the war without funds.

Second, nearly all the names on the left‑hand side of the Vietnam Wall in Washington commemorate men who died in action while Richard Nixon was their Commander in Chief, and they died after 1xbet online games login had decided that the war could not be won.