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August 27 - September 6, 2025
The dishonesty of that claim had only garnered attention in July 1973, when retired Major Hal Knight testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that in his capacity as supervisor of radar crews in South Vietnam, he had helped falsify the flight records of at least two dozen missions by disguising American air strikes in Cambodia as attacks inside South Vietnam.
Unlike the other charges the Judiciary Committee had considered, the veracity of the Cambodia charge was not disputed.
He also contended that it was the desire to hide the bombing that had led to the “unparalleled” use of wiretaps and illegal surveillance of journalists and government officials.
congressman was referring to events prompted by a May 1969 New York Times article in which Pentagon correspondent William Beecher reported that American B-52s had struck Vietcong and North Vietnamese supply dumps in Cambodia.6 This story had gone nowhere, but had nonetheless infuriated Nixon and Kissinger. So eager were they to identify those who had “leaked” the story to Beecher that, at their behest, the FBI had placed warrantless wiretaps on thirteen government officials, several of whom were on Kissinger’s staff, and on four members of the press. In Conyers’ view, this was “the beginning
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through the final day of the proceedings, Rodino had pressured the Detroit congressman to drop it. Yet Conyers stood by Article IV, maintaining, “This is not frivolous, Mr. Chairman.”
Schanberg described the appalling conditions in this once beautiful capital city. Thousands of homeless children roamed its streets, begging for food. Five years earlier, Phnom Penh had a population of 600,000, but the mass arrival of refugees had swelled that number to more than two million, vastly exceeding the capacity of the residents to absorb them:
Shameful as the Watergate offenses were, they were hardly the most serious crimes. Yet they have largely determined the public’s historical understanding. The resulting amnesia has left intact many of the ideas, practices, and institutions that over decades have damaged the United States while inflicting needless suffering on foreign nations and people.
This reverses more familiar accounts, which assume that US military actions in Southeast Asia were the consequence of Cold War fears of the communist “superpowers.” While that description is arguably relevant to earlier decision-making, it is profoundly misleading when applied to the Nixon years. In fact, the administration’s mounting difficulties in solving its Vietnam problem increasingly shaped interactions with Moscow and Beijing.
However, decades of declassified records provide evidence that the waves of mass demonstrations, accompanied by growing resistance inside the military, ongoing electoral activity, and lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill imposed significant constraints on presidential decision-making.
ensuing narrative pays considerable attention to the pivotal role played by Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird.
Lam Son 719 was a mortifying failure. Confronted by thousands of North Vietnamese soldiers, those from the South stayed briefly in Tchepone and then hurriedly fled Laos, some clinging to the skids of American helicopters. For administration officials it was an alarming demonstration of ARVN’s inability to fight on the ground, at a time when American air power was still available.
As viewed from the White House, the most theatrical and dangerous development was the appearance of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
On key occasions, Kissinger chose to exclude American translators from high-level meetings in order to effectively conceal their content from his colleagues. More remarkable was his solicitation of Chinese and Soviet cooperation in deceiving Secretary of State William Rogers and other administration officials.
Yet the Soviet and Chinese governments continued to provide substantial military and economic assistance to the North and failed to exert meaningful pressure on their ally.
During the Nixon period of the war, more than 20,000 American soldiers died, and between one and two million Asians, including Vietnamese North and South, Laotians, and Cambodians
In the Oval Office, an inability or unwillingness to imagine the experience of people directly affected by the violence of the war reached epic proportions during those years. It was clear that the bearers of bad news, whether coming from staff of the CIA or the State Department or from knowledgeable journalists, were unwelcome.
As an example of sheer willful blindness, it is difficult to equal the moment when, as millions of Americans were examining the horrifying photos of the My Lai Massacre, National Security Advisor Kissinger asked the secretary of defense if he should look at them.
To antiwar activists, it seemed incredible that the American public deemed Nixon a more reliable peacemaker than George McGovern. What many failed to appreciate was that by November 1972, more than half a million US soldiers had been withdrawn,
Herein lies the most challenging question in this book: How can leaders of a democracy conduct an extended war on behalf of a repressive, unpopular regime when the human costs are enormous and defeat seems likely?
Troubled by Johnson’s stubbornness, Clifford unexpectedly convened a meeting of the “Wise Men”—an informal group of national security veterans who had moved in and out of high-level government positions since the early years of the Cold War. When they were last consulted in November 1967, these men had been enthusiastic supporters of the Vietnam effort. However, the losses in Tet and the perceived incompetence of ARVN had led many to conclude that any hope of military victory would require more time and resources than the American public was likely to accept.
Finally convinced of the need to shift his position on Vietnam, Humphrey outlined his new stance in a one-hour paid television advertisement.
Afterwards he enjoyed a notable increase in financial contributions and a decrease in the number of angry pickets at his campaign events. By late October, his candidacy seemed to be catching fire. In this final stretch, he also benefited from the waning support for George Wallace, who had been trading on his segregationist credentials to wage a third-party challenge. Encouraged by union leadership, many of Wallace’s white working-class backers moved into Humphrey’s camp.
Nixon had learned, the Vietnam War had destroyed the presidency of Lyndon Johnson. He would not let that happen to him.
To make his case for bombing Cambodia, on February 18 General Abrams dispatched a two-man briefing team to Washington to meet with high officials and describe his plans.
While Kissinger was positively disposed to General Abrams’ recommendation, there was resistance from Secretary of State William Rogers and the specialists in his department.
Secretary Laird opposed any bombing of the North, arguing that until this point Hanoi had honored its commitment to reduce their activity in the area of the DMZ, which had saved many American lives. A breach of the bombing halt would put that in jeopardy.
Unlike Nixon and Kissinger, Laird had quietly defined his mission as bringing the troops home.
Needing to sign off on some military initiative, Laird agreed to the secret bombing of Cambodia as least likely to result in US casualties or a public furor.
Laird’s future political strategy in the years to come. While using his using his authority to reduce the American suffering in the war, he refrained from questioning the overall enterprise or expending political capital to cut the casualties of Vietnamese, Laotians, or Cambodians.
When a second Special Forces unit was ordered into Cambodia, the men refused to go.
While acknowledging “improvements” in the South Vietnamese government and military, all parties agreed that ARVN “cannot now, or in the foreseeable future stand up to both the VC and sizeable North Vietnamese forces.”
Yet once again none of the respondents to the survey advocated for a rapid withdrawal, at least not on paper. The virtual silence on this option reflected an unspoken consensus within the “national security” bureaucracies: their task was to find ways of achieving existing goals, not ways of abandoning them.
Although Nixon did not specifically order the draw-down, his support of the concept was a relief to Laird, who encouraged his colleagues to use the term “Vietnamization” as a positive way to describe this new policy. For the moment, Kissinger was quietly furious, regarding the change as a dangerous mistake. In his view, the American military presence was his most powerful lever for obtaining North Vietnamese concessions once serious negotiations were underway. If it became clear that American troops were on their way out, Hanoi would lose its incentive to compromise.
as the administration’s Vietnam policy was taking shape, there was a lack of coherence in the overall strategy. If half a million American soldiers had proved incapable of preventing the enemy’s military challenge, there was no reason to think that the South Vietnamese army, which the United States had been unsuccessfully “building” for more than a decade, could rise to the occasion. Even
According to Kissinger, President Nixon “agrees with the Soviet Government that the foundations of the postwar order in Europe should not be changed.”27 Alterations would only cause instability and upheaval. Going forward, “you will not hear any statements from us” about the importance of liberating this portion of the continent. If the Soviet Union were equally respectful
Yet with regard to Vietnam, the Soviet ambassador was remarkably consistent in his communications: the Soviet Union could not under any circumstances cut off aid to North Vietnam, their influence with Hanoi was limited in any case, the obstacle to meaningful negotiations was an obstinate Saigon clique that was determined to hold on to power, and meaningful change would only come when the Vietnamese people were freed from foreign intervention.
Kissinger, who had already learned that by taking the toughest line he could ingratiate himself with the president and further marginalize the two cabinet officers, encouraged Nixon to take a strong stand while simultaneously pointing out that “we have to be ready to go very, very far in case it led to ground action.” He didn’t anticipate that matters would come to this, but if it happened “we might have to go to tactical nuclear and clear it up.”
Under the rubric of Operation Menu, there would be a series of attacks: Operation Breakfast would be followed by Lunch, Snacks, Dessert, and Dinner, ultimately totaling 3,600 bombing raids over Cambodia.
Hardest hit were rural small towns like Beallsville, Ohio where, out of a population of 450, 15 of their young men had gone to Vietnam; five had already returned, and six had been killed there.
The spiking casualty rate was due in part to General Creighton Abrams, who as head of MACV was pursuing an aggressive combat strategy.
However, they were horrified to learn from the warden that 200 children between the ages of 10 and 14 years of age and another 200 between the ages of 15 and 18 were in Chi Hoa awaiting sentences. When they asked to see the children’s section, they discovered another 47 youngsters under the age of eight:
One child 4 years old said he was in prison because he had been caught stealing a necklace.
it became abundantly clear that the gravest physical abuse was not occurring in the long-term facilities they visited but in the interrogation centers, where people could be held for months on end without clear charges or even a right to counsel. One common practice was to place a soaked cloth over the nose and mouth of the prisoner, who was tied to a bench. Just before the victim choked to death, the cloth was removed and then the sequence was repeated.
North Vietnamese and PRG insistence on the complete withdrawal of American troops and removal of the Thieu government as a prerequisite for free elections posed a formidable challenge. But it was clear to the senator that “there will be no negotiations in Paris worthy of the name until we stop our offensive operations and begin the systematic withdrawal of our forces.”
In fending off Laird, Abrams had a strong ally in Henry Kissinger, who was also skeptical about any progress that the South Vietnamese forces had made, a skepticism he thought the enemy would share.
this new language did not alter Nixon’s and Kissinger’s ongoing interest in some dramatic escalation of American military activity to impress the enemy.
By now nobody in the administration, including the president, was using the language of “victory.”
For months, Nixon and Kissinger had threatened North Vietnamese leaders with grave consequences if, by November 1969 (the one-year anniversary of the US bombing halt Lyndon Johnson had initiated), they did not modify their demands at the Paris negotiating table. In case they resisted, Kissinger’s staff was working out the details of DUCK HOOK, which included several possible punitive actions including aerial mining of Haiphong harbor and the use of B-52s over North Vietnam.
Excluded from this early planning were Secretary of State Rogers and Secretary of Defense Laird.
For Nixon, the militancy of protesters like those in SDS made them useful opponents.
