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Kissinger's Betrayal: How America Lost the Vietnam War
What really happened in Vietnam?
For five decades, conventional wisdom about the Vietnam War has been that it was lost because it never could have been won. South Vietnam was doomed to defeat. The American effort was a foreign intrusion forever incapable of winning the “hearts and minds” of the South Vietnamese people.
But what if South Vietnam was defeated not because of its own shortcomings but because it was betrayed by a secret deal made behind its back?Deeply researched and compellingly argued, Kissinger’s Betrayal uses once-secret files of the American ambassador to South Vietnam and long-overlooked documents from official government archives―including the foreign ministry of the Soviet Union―to reveal for the first time how Henry Kissinger personally and secretly schemed to irrevocably compromise South Vietnam’s chances for survival.
Without informing his president, other American leaders, or US allies in South Vietnam, Kissinger unilaterally made a horrendous―and ultimately completely unnecessary―diplomatic concession that allowed Communist North Vietnam to leave its army inside South Vietnam and then freely resume its war of invasion and conquest at a time of its own choosing.
In an unprecedented account, historian and global executive director of the Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism Stephen B. Young provides new insight into both genuine Vietnamese Nationalism and the French colonialism that marginalized and decentered the right of the Vietnamese people to live freely in an independent country of their own choosing.
Kissinger’s Betrayal reveals a fresh and more truthful history of the Vietnam War that restores dignity to America as well as the people of Vietnam.
For five decades, conventional wisdom about the Vietnam War has been that it was lost because it never could have been won. South Vietnam was doomed to defeat. The American effort was a foreign intrusion forever incapable of winning the “hearts and minds” of the South Vietnamese people.
But what if South Vietnam was defeated not because of its own shortcomings but because it was betrayed by a secret deal made behind its back?Deeply researched and compellingly argued, Kissinger’s Betrayal uses once-secret files of the American ambassador to South Vietnam and long-overlooked documents from official government archives―including the foreign ministry of the Soviet Union―to reveal for the first time how Henry Kissinger personally and secretly schemed to irrevocably compromise South Vietnam’s chances for survival.
Without informing his president, other American leaders, or US allies in South Vietnam, Kissinger unilaterally made a horrendous―and ultimately completely unnecessary―diplomatic concession that allowed Communist North Vietnam to leave its army inside South Vietnam and then freely resume its war of invasion and conquest at a time of its own choosing.
In an unprecedented account, historian and global executive director of the Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism Stephen B. Young provides new insight into both genuine Vietnamese Nationalism and the French colonialism that marginalized and decentered the right of the Vietnamese people to live freely in an independent country of their own choosing.
Kissinger’s Betrayal reveals a fresh and more truthful history of the Vietnam War that restores dignity to America as well as the people of Vietnam.
432 pages, Hardcover
First published May 22, 2023
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July 7, 2023According to the book Kissinger's Betrayal: How America Lost the Vietnam by Stephen B. Young that Bright Quang would point out that some of American leaderships have been related with the Vietnam war with who were criminal treason which 18 US Code 2381-Treason_Law.Cornell. Edu. To prove, first, Treason IEncyclopedia.com- Three key elements are necessary for an offense to constitute treason: an obligation of allegiance to the legal order, and intent and action to violate that obligation. Plaintiff's Bright Quang would summarize this Federal United States Code: first the Vietnam War enact to order H.R. 7885.Public Law 88-205 that section 407 said, " No department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States shall, under authority of this Act, execute any direction, supervision, or control over, or impose any requirements or conditions with respect to, the personnel, curriculum, methods of instruction, or administration of any educational institution. Approved. December,16,1963, 11. Am. This is why the American leadership has self-distorted this Act by the United States Congress. More importantly, Secretary of State Kissinger has not only declared and said, " Vietnam failures we did to ourselves." Second, General Westmoreland declared and said, "On behalf of the United States Armed Forces, I would like to apologize to the Veterans of the South Vietnamese Armed forces for abandoning you guys." And third, President Kennedy has self- recorded the tape while he has ordered his CIA to assassinate President Ngo Dinh Diem when the United States Congress has not only approved the sovereignty of the Republic of Vietnam including three multilateral and thirty-seven bilateral treaties signed with the Republic of Vietnam. As a result, these American leaders have self-violated 18 USC.2381- by their written law. Finally, why does great powerful America have disloyalty, unjust cause, and injustice with the Republic of Vietnam ally of the United States? And why hasn't the United States of America enforced any international law, which is 75 UNTS. On October 21, 1950, the Hague Convention, 75 UNTS 135, and the United States Constitution in the Fourteenth Amendment, and laws with the Republic of Vietnam like 50 USC 4101-Foreign Claims Settlement Commission of the US and 28 USC 1346-United States as Defendant by Cornell.edu, and 50 USC 4105- Prisoners of war because the United States Congress has approved H.Res. 309, the forty - fourth anniversary of the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975 while General Westmoreland says apologizes to the South Vietnamese Armed veterans? What does the United States of America enforce the American and Constitution with the Republic of Vietnam ally during the United Nations Organization would like to approve in all? (See Contents of the Book Justice for Vietnam of the Author Bright Quang-ISBN 978-1-n6624-6387-7. Page Publishing) As a result, Author Stephen B. Young of the book Betrayal's Kissinger: How America Lost the Vietnam hasn't made by Kissinger when General Westmoreland has testified hearing before the United States Congress by President Johnson ordered General Westmoreland for hearings. As a result, President Johnson created his new doctrine that Salesmanship campaign (Opinion Vietnam"67 Johnson, Westmoreland and the 'Selling of Vietnam by Gregory Daddis on May 9, 2017." Therefore, the lack of details of the book Kissinger's Betrayal: How America Lost the Vietnam War is every important book. ~ author of the nineteen book is Bright Quang.
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April 17, 2023
Kissingers Betrayal uses formerly classified documents to portray Secretary of State Henry Kissinger as a deeply arrogant and amoral man. Was Kissinger truly a hater of Communism as he would like to be believed? How could it be explained that he undermined the Anti-Communist movement by supporting the recognition of Communist China? This new work of history paints an even darker and possibly more complex portrait of Secretary Kissinger. Is it an accurate portrait that is for the reader to decide? Would the South Vietnamese Government survive if Kissinger had not meddled? YOu can not prove what has not happened only look at what has and judge that. Read this book, then go read more about the time for a fuller view.
May 25, 2025
Demonizes the antiwar movement! "loss of the Vietnam War brought us the shame of dishonor"! Well-researched! Alfred W. McCoy! Tim Weiner!
December 5, 2024
Kissinger's Betrayal: How America Lost the Vietnam War. Stephen A. Young. RealClear Publishing, 2023. 432 pages.
Henry Kissinger's recent death at age 100 marked the end of a roughly 70 year career as academic historian, National Security Advisor, Secretary of State, and advisor to a dozen presidents. He shaped much of America's Cold War policy and history, and he became one of the most powerful and influential men in all of American history, credited with overseeing detente with both the USSR and the People's Republic of China and negotiating the Paris Peace Accords that ended US involvement in Vietnam. His legacy is incredibly complicated, and historians will be struggling to unpack it and sort it out for decades. Was he a genius diplomat who worked tirelessly to achieve peace or was he a war criminal whose actions brought death and suffering on a huge scale, ultimately thwarting peace and stability?
Author Stephen A. Young's book tackles this question of legacy head-on, and one can correctly infer from the title what his opinion is. Young was on the ground during the Vietnam War, tasked with building support for South Vietnam's government amongst the local populations as part of the US-sponsored CORDS program. He went on to become an academic and think tank director. Here, he relies on formerly classified documents in American, Vietnamese, and Russian archives, numerous interviews, and especially the personal papers of U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam, Ellsworth Bunker to accuse Kissinger of turning his back on the people of South Vietnam, deceiving President Nixon and other Cabinet members, along with the South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu, causing the collapse of South Vietnam when it could have survived otherwise. He makes a compelling case, and the background and history of the Vietnam conflict are phenomenally presented. However, it is obvious that Young does have a particular agenda, and his interpretations differ from the accepted view. For example, while conventional wisdom often portrays Nguyen Van Thieu as extremely corrupt and incompetent, I think Young portrays him almost as admirable, even heroic. And, of course, we will never know for sure if South Vietnam could have survived American withdrawal under different conditions. Biased as the author as, I still think the book adds to the history of the Vietnam War.
Henry Kissinger's recent death at age 100 marked the end of a roughly 70 year career as academic historian, National Security Advisor, Secretary of State, and advisor to a dozen presidents. He shaped much of America's Cold War policy and history, and he became one of the most powerful and influential men in all of American history, credited with overseeing detente with both the USSR and the People's Republic of China and negotiating the Paris Peace Accords that ended US involvement in Vietnam. His legacy is incredibly complicated, and historians will be struggling to unpack it and sort it out for decades. Was he a genius diplomat who worked tirelessly to achieve peace or was he a war criminal whose actions brought death and suffering on a huge scale, ultimately thwarting peace and stability?
Author Stephen A. Young's book tackles this question of legacy head-on, and one can correctly infer from the title what his opinion is. Young was on the ground during the Vietnam War, tasked with building support for South Vietnam's government amongst the local populations as part of the US-sponsored CORDS program. He went on to become an academic and think tank director. Here, he relies on formerly classified documents in American, Vietnamese, and Russian archives, numerous interviews, and especially the personal papers of U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam, Ellsworth Bunker to accuse Kissinger of turning his back on the people of South Vietnam, deceiving President Nixon and other Cabinet members, along with the South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu, causing the collapse of South Vietnam when it could have survived otherwise. He makes a compelling case, and the background and history of the Vietnam conflict are phenomenally presented. However, it is obvious that Young does have a particular agenda, and his interpretations differ from the accepted view. For example, while conventional wisdom often portrays Nguyen Van Thieu as extremely corrupt and incompetent, I think Young portrays him almost as admirable, even heroic. And, of course, we will never know for sure if South Vietnam could have survived American withdrawal under different conditions. Biased as the author as, I still think the book adds to the history of the Vietnam War.
July 4, 2023
This is an extraordinary book, passionate in narrative and detailed in the political, social, and military history based on archival documents, many just recently released in the last few years.
The author devotes an entire chapter to the actual documents he references. By the authors admission, this book was 40 years in the making. The author is well positioned to write such an authoritative account. He served with he CORDS program in the Republic of Vietnam from 1967 to 1971 as a Deputy District Advisor in Vinh Long province and as a chief, Village Governments Branch. His service was recognized by President Richard Nixon, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker and CIA Director William Colby. He is fluent in Vietnamese language and culture and has written several books.
This book is the kind of history that needs to be required reading at the US War Colleges’ and at the US Army Command and General Staff College. Through detailed White House transcripts, it is a story of duplicity and intrigue by the Presidents National Security Advisor and should be read in accompaniment with Dereliction of Duty by H.R. McMaster and A Better War by Lewis Sorley.
This book will take you deep into the minds and culture of Vietnam and the key players associated with this conflict. This book is a very unique combination of testimony taken from transcripts and archives and presents more than a persuasive and compelling argument of betrayal and why this is undoubtedly the single most important source for understanding why America went to war, why it was important, and why it all went south.
Unequivocally, Kissinger, the French advisors, the military, and many foreign service offices, not only did not understand Maoist strategy and its interpretation of Clausewitz – albeit from interpretations by Lenin, Marx and Engels – it was a masterly game of Go that the French, nor the West ever understood.
This book is a master class, a playbook, on why and how politics and policy are intimately tied to the conduct of war and a war’s success or failure. Certainly, the many contributions to American failure are found in the hundreds of already published volumes – McNamara, the news media, Congress, Ho Chi Minh, Ngo, Dinh Diem, De Gaulle, Vo Nguyen Giap and a host of others. “This was the first time that the professoriate, supported by journalists and other intellectuals came up with (concocted) its own narrative about America was doing wrong…a false story about the origins of the war … and imposed it on the American people (as dogma) through the control of cultural and educational institutions. Sound familiar??
Lastly, this book clearly demonstrates play-by-play, with the benefit of previously highly classified documents and in perfect 20/20 hindsight, why history – social, cultural and political – is critical to understanding the character of the war that one is engaged in. This story is also one of intrigue by a man entrusted with public office and the abuse of power and position to his own ideological ends. The multiple intentional errors of omission, commission and duplicity are criminal by degrees of separation and its exceptionally sad that, like today, the news media played more than a major role in perpetuating misinformation.
I Highly recommend this book!
The author devotes an entire chapter to the actual documents he references. By the authors admission, this book was 40 years in the making. The author is well positioned to write such an authoritative account. He served with he CORDS program in the Republic of Vietnam from 1967 to 1971 as a Deputy District Advisor in Vinh Long province and as a chief, Village Governments Branch. His service was recognized by President Richard Nixon, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker and CIA Director William Colby. He is fluent in Vietnamese language and culture and has written several books.
This book is the kind of history that needs to be required reading at the US War Colleges’ and at the US Army Command and General Staff College. Through detailed White House transcripts, it is a story of duplicity and intrigue by the Presidents National Security Advisor and should be read in accompaniment with Dereliction of Duty by H.R. McMaster and A Better War by Lewis Sorley.
This book will take you deep into the minds and culture of Vietnam and the key players associated with this conflict. This book is a very unique combination of testimony taken from transcripts and archives and presents more than a persuasive and compelling argument of betrayal and why this is undoubtedly the single most important source for understanding why America went to war, why it was important, and why it all went south.
Unequivocally, Kissinger, the French advisors, the military, and many foreign service offices, not only did not understand Maoist strategy and its interpretation of Clausewitz – albeit from interpretations by Lenin, Marx and Engels – it was a masterly game of Go that the French, nor the West ever understood.
This book is a master class, a playbook, on why and how politics and policy are intimately tied to the conduct of war and a war’s success or failure. Certainly, the many contributions to American failure are found in the hundreds of already published volumes – McNamara, the news media, Congress, Ho Chi Minh, Ngo, Dinh Diem, De Gaulle, Vo Nguyen Giap and a host of others. “This was the first time that the professoriate, supported by journalists and other intellectuals came up with (concocted) its own narrative about America was doing wrong…a false story about the origins of the war … and imposed it on the American people (as dogma) through the control of cultural and educational institutions. Sound familiar??
Lastly, this book clearly demonstrates play-by-play, with the benefit of previously highly classified documents and in perfect 20/20 hindsight, why history – social, cultural and political – is critical to understanding the character of the war that one is engaged in. This story is also one of intrigue by a man entrusted with public office and the abuse of power and position to his own ideological ends. The multiple intentional errors of omission, commission and duplicity are criminal by degrees of separation and its exceptionally sad that, like today, the news media played more than a major role in perpetuating misinformation.
I Highly recommend this book!
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