Fire and Rain: Nixon, Kissinger, and the Wars in Southeast Asia

by Carolyn Woods Eisenberg

A less cheery outlook was coming from the State Department’s bureau of intelligence and research (INR). Their report noted that one result of the enemy offensive was that communist main-force units had “returned in strength to base areas deep inside South Vietnam” and had “significantly expanded” their influence in rural areas.25 The INR estimated that the percentage of the rural population under Saigon’s firm control had dropped from 74.4% to 58.9% during the previous six months,

According to the Pentagon’s own statistics, the United States had dropped more bombs in Indochina during the previous 21 months than the total allied tonnage released over Germany during the period 1940–1945. Given this massive effort, perhaps the more noteworthy consequence was the equivocal military outcome.

In anticipation of a possible breakthrough, Ambassador Bunker was instructed to show President Thieu the most recent US proposal. The South Vietnam leader was upset by the contents. Not only had the United States stopped insisting on mutual troop withdrawals, a concession Kissinger had made two years earlier, but troublingly had introduced a new entity—a tripartite Council of National Reconciliation (CNR)—which could be established quickly.

Moreover, Thieu had to realize that the US president was not omnipotent. American engagement of any kind had to be approved and funded by Congress. During the last round of budget decisions, the administration had barely scraped through by a margin of two senators.

According to Thieu, the alleged concessions were imaginary and the future grim. “We are on the edge of catastrophe, on the brink of the abyss,” he tearfully told the Americans.

Given the resistance in Saigon, the idea of postponing matters until election day, to be followed by a draconian strike on North Vietnam prior to a new peace settlement, held definite appeal.

At this juncture, neither man was fully aware of how far Hanoi was willing to go in accommodating some American concerns. By late September, the Politburo had made a definite decision to use the opportunity afforded by the US election to reach a rapid agreement. In the interests of speed, they had authorized Le Duc Tho to offer significant political concessions:

For once, Kissinger’s optimistic expectations were exceeded. With a few words, Le Duc Tho swept away his government’s longest lasting impediment: “We do not want to let the political issues of SVN, which are the most difficult, to prolong our negotiations.” Differences over the composition and function of the proposed CNR need not prevent a peace settlement. In fact, Hanoi was prepared to observe a ceasefire even before a tripartite council was put in place.

In the light of Kissinger’s favorable report, Nixon authorized him to fly back to Paris and nail down the deal. There was one caveat: the end product of his efforts could not be “a blowup” with President Thieu before election day. If the final terms of Kissinger’s agreement with Le Duc Tho proved unacceptable to Saigon, then he was to walk away.

Nixon’s dramatic visits to Moscow and Beijing, plus the undeniable fact that his administration had withdrawn 500,000 US soldiers from Vietnam, all contributed to this impression and his landslide victory.

To avoid a blowup before election day, Nixon scrapped the timetable Kissinger had agreed upon with Le Duc Tho. North Vietnamese officials were predictably incensed.

Oriana Fallaci, an Italian journalist who shrewdly ensnared him: “Dr. Kissinger how do you explain the incredible movie-star status you enjoy? How do you explain the fact that you are almost more famous and popular than a president?”10 He initially demurred but could not resist the temptation to preen: “Americans like the cowboy who leads the wagon train by riding alone ahead on his horse, who rides all alone into the town with his horse and nothing else. Maybe even without a pistol since he doesn’t shoot.” It was a ridiculous analogy, but one guaranteed to infuriate Nixon, who most certainly did not regard Kissinger as a lone actor.

Remarkably, more than 10 years after US military “advisors” had begun assisting Diem’s army, the instructors had identified major shortcomings:

After all, whose fault was it that the enemy controlled so much southern territory?

Nixon’s insistence that Kissinger keep negotiating reflected the intense pressures in Washington.47 His key congressional allies—Stennis, Goldwater, and Ford—were warning that without a rapid agreement, the new Congress was going to cut off the funds for the war.

By December 8 it was beginning to appear as though an accord might be reached. Together, Kissinger and Le Duc Tho identified trade-offs that each side might accept.

Unfortunately, back in Hanoi the mood was swinging in the other direction, as the Politburo had become angrier and more rigid—incensed by the continued American bombing south of the 20th parallel and by the flood of new American weapons, tanks, planes, and trucks flowing into South Vietnam since October 8.52

If Nixon was toasting the communists in Moscow, what sense did it make to be killing them in Vietnam? The paradox existed in plain sight.

By the end of 1972, at least one-third of the Laotian population of three million had become refugees.

Then came the rude awakening. On December 12, in a scalding address to the South Vietnamese people, President Thieu denounced the impending accord as a “cunning, crafty trick.”

He had received word of an airplane crash near Chicago’s Midway Airport killing Dorothy Hunt, the wife of defendant Howard Hunt.66 In her suitcase was $10,000 in neatly piled one-hundred-dollar bills. Fearing this must be the “hush money” paid to the Watergate burglars, the president realized that news of this cash might deepen suspicions that the defendants were being bribed to keep their silence, thus triggering a new round of public inquiries.

He joined Haig in urging the president to take strong military action against the North. Kissinger’s preference was for a time-limited approach, with perhaps seven days of airstrikes with B-52s and then a pause. Haig went further, insisting that the moment had arrived to implement a full-scale bombing campaign against Northern targets, unrestricted by location or duration.

For once, Nixon was cornered by his own hawkish advisors. Left to his own devices, he might have pushed ahead with negotiations and compelled the Saigon regime to accept the peace agreement or forfeit all American aid. However, Kissinger was his negotiator, and at this late date there was nobody to replace him. Furthermore, on matters of Vietnam policy the president had come to rely almost exclusively on these two men.

and their airplanes might be placed at unnecessary risk. Laird had predicted that once the bombing commenced, for every hundred B-52 strikes over the northern cities, three US planes would be downed. Almost immediately this warning was borne out.

In public, the rationale for Linebacker II kept changing: forcing the North Vietnamese back to the negotiating table; encouraging Thieu to sign the peace accord; demonstrating the administration’s commitment to “peace with honor.” Underneath these shifting explanations was a deeper truth: America’s Vietnam War was a failure.

On the morning of December 23, the North Vietnamese government announced that Bach Mai hospital, North Vietnam’s largest and most modern facility, had been destroyed by two separate B-52 raids. In Washington, the Pentagon was refusing to acknowledge that these attacks had occurred. When foreign observers got to the site, any doubt was removed. Everything was smashed.

Nixon had ordered Linebacker II acutely aware that time was short. Kissinger imagined they had another six months of bombing if the North Vietnamese proved stubborn, but Nixon knew better. Whatever happened in Hanoi or Saigon, he was determined to reach a peace agreement by early January. If this meant going back to Kissinger’s October deal, he was fully prepared to do this. And if President Thieu withheld his consent, Nixon would proceed bilaterally. However, knowing the time was limited, he was determined to inflict as much devastation on North Vietnam as possible.

In North Vietnam, the immediate result of the bombing was to make its government less tractable. The White House was promoting the falsehood that Hanoi had broken off the Paris talks, thus necessitating the air strikes. In truth, Le Duc Tho had been clear that he was returning home to obtain more flexible instructions and was leaving his technical advisors in Paris to continue work on the protocols. Ironically, on the day that American bombs started to fall, the Politburo had acceded to his recommendation. But now the North Vietnamese were enraged.

In one of the harshest statements, Swedish premier Olaf Palme compared the American campaign to the behavior of the Nazis. Among the denouncers was First Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, speaking at the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Soviet Union, who described this as “the dirtiest of all the wars known in American history.”

From its inception it was far from clear what this “Christmas bombing” was supposed to achieve. At best, it would open the door to a peace agreement that would look meaningful on the surface.

Of one thing President Nixon was certain: he could not continue the Vietnam War past his inauguration. His strongest allies in Congress had told him they no longer had the votes to fund the war, and there was simply no public support for its continuation. Nixon’s poll numbers were plummeting and would likely sink further if the brewing Watergate crisis finally burst through.

The danger, said Nixon, was that people like George McGovern and Mike Mansfield would say, “Well look, we could have had our withdrawal for prisoners long ago when these insane people wouldn’t do it.”

In light of this attitude, the president was aggravated by press reports, perhaps inspired by the national security advisor himself, that Kissinger had opposed the bombing on humanitarian grounds.

Nixon was aware that US forces were losing an average of three planes per day, but he had no appreciation of the poor morale among the airmen, who in order to fulfill his exacting requirements were losing rest periods and were flying perilous missions subject to attack by Hanoi’s arsenal of surface-to-air missiles.

For Nixon, the remarkable fact was that after years of American military and economic aid, totaling billions of dollars, the government of South Vietnam was so reluctant to stand on their own

Moscow and Beijing were disposed to assist the United States in its quandary. Both eagerly sought improved relations with Washington and considered the ongoing Vietnam War to be an impediment to significant progress. However, their rivalry with each other for leadership in the communist world constrained both.31 The practical result was that while officials from both nations increasingly counseled the North Vietnamese leadership to make a peace agreement, they notably refrained from using their most effective tool: the withdrawal of aid.

or a year, the situation would change. Behind a cordial veneer, the North Vietnamese bitterly resented the willingness of China and the Soviet Union to play into Nixon’s hands. However, irrespective of this outside pressure, the previous summer the leadership of North Vietnam seemed to have concluded on its own that it was time to make peace.

Linebacker II had inevitably harmed civilians. The estimated death toll was 2,196 civilians killed and perhaps another 1,557 wounded.

With both Kissinger and Le Duc Tho driving for an agreement, these items were resolved within a day.

While acknowledging the pressure for peace in the United States, they contended that as a defender of the “free world,” South Vietnam deserved Kissinger’s help in obtaining some North Vietnamese concession on troop withdrawal. Not possible, Kissinger replied:

It is not really a comfortable feeling for me to praise people so openly. I prefer to do it a little more discreetly. On the other hand, Henry expects it, and it is good that I did so.

In the lead-up to his inauguration there was no mistaking Nixon’s uncharacteristic edginess and fear of calamity.

advance of his speech, Kissinger had also cautioned Nixon to limit his claims.49 If he referred to the Paris negotiations, he should not “nail” himself to the phrase “lasting peace . . . because this thing is almost certain to blow up sooner or later.”

“Richard Nixon’s secret plan for peace killed my son and 25,300 GIs in Vietnam,” read one sign.

Nixon had made it clear that if by noon of that day the South Vietnamese government had not signaled its concurrence, he would drop any request to Congress for additional aid. Faced with this threat, the South Vietnamese leader had no choice but to go along.

Underpinning this mutual ill will was the “original sin” of the war itself—an American decision to bring into existence a South Vietnamese country where none existed, and to prop it up with vast infusions of military power when it was unable to stand by itself.

for Richard Nixon, this was his last unalloyed moment of triumph, as the daily drip of Watergate was slowly eroding his presidency. Adding to his consternation was the fact that Henry Kissinger was emerging as the hero of the hour.

On Kissinger’s staff, the head of his Vietnam team John Negroponte was sure this peace agreement was a sham.

America’s Indochina war did not end on January 27, 1973. Once a bombing halt was instituted for Vietnam itself, the White House directed that the B-52s and fighter jets be instructed to strike targets in Laos and Cambodia.

Whether Laird believed in the necessity of the American war in Vietnam was unclear, but he had relentlessly sought to limit its scope. His commitment to reducing the American troop presence was unwavering.