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The Vietnam War Files: Uncovering the Secret History of Nixon-Era Strategy (Modern War Studies)

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Kimball's Vietnam War Files is a followup book to his award-winning Nixon's Vietnam War (1998). Both books break new ground on the history of the Nixon-Kissinger phase of the Vietnam War inasmuch as they both draw on a treasure trove of declassified documents from both sides of the conflict, clarify controversies about Nixon-Kissinger strategy, and reveal new information about the Nixon administration's handling of the war and about Communist Vietnamese strategy. The Vietnam War Files is briefer than Nixon's Vietnam War, but it includes numerous additional documents that were declassified between 1998 and 2004. Many of these documents consist of Kimball's own transcriptions of conversations between Nixon and Kissinger in the Oval Office about key strategies and decisions. There is new information about Nixon's highly secret nuclear alert of 1969, the Madman Theory, détente with the Soviet Union, the opening to China, and many other issues, including the Nixon-Kissinger decent-interval exit strategy. All of the documents in The Vietnam War Files make fascinating reading. More importantly, they demonstrate how solid, smoking-gun evidence (here reproduced in the form of substantial excerpts from paper files and transcribed conversations) can help readers break through the long-standing, politically charged debate about Nixon, Kissinger, and the Vietnam War. This was one of Kimball's purposes in writing the book: to substitute good evidence and sound logic for biased argument. The Vietnam War Files is Kimball's third book about Vietnam. His past writings have also included articles and essays about war and diplomacy. He has also interviewed some of the key policymakers on both sides of the war.

At less than 370 pages, THE VIETNAM WAR FILES / UNCOVERING THE SECRET HISTORY OF NIXON-ERA STRATEGY by Jeffrey Kimball is a small book, compared to the size of the ax which it is attempting to grind on how poorly American policy works in those areas of the world where a quick victory is not in the cards. The longer version of the story, told in NIXON'S VIETNAM WAR (1998) by Jeffrey Kimball attempted to cover the years 1953 to 1973. The events of those years were rather awesome in leading up to the final situation, which is covered in depth in this book, described in the Prologue as carrying the analysis onward "from 1969 to 1975" (p. 3) to show how events conformed to expectations in the way Robert McNamara had expected the odds to be about even already in December, 1965, when considering how the war was going to present even tougher choices down the road.

Those who were most interested in how awful Vietnam turned out as a big step on the road to American hyperpower status will not be surprised that Kimball's epilogue to this book begins with insights on `historical myth' and `mythical tale' from those times before declaring that Nixon's and Kissinger's memoirs "were self-serving, incomplete, and obfuscatory, and they took legal and administrative steps that delayed the release of relevant documentary evidence about their policies, strategies, and motives." (p. 297). There was no good reason to tell Americans that power could make us more hyper than we already had been, but Kimball is good at finding the secrets which show how hyper the drive for American power has become.

I like books which make secret policies a major quest in the historical area, and this one laments the fact that not much has been found yet about Cambodia. History is such a dynamic pursuit, with odd quirks popping out from weird angles, that I doubt any adequate explanation of that bit of secret policy will ever be forthcoming. People who thought that Americans needed to fight in Nam so San Francisco would be safe see that argument fail when it is applied to Cambodia, South Vietnam's only neighbor south of Laos, where a peaceful situation prior to 1970 rapidly turned into a victory for enemies of civilization in any form advanced enough to unleash a massive bombing campaign, as a demonstration of hyperpower capabilities when bombs were dropping like the cards in a game of 52 pick up.

This book is most game-like in its use of card terminology for the Nixon strategy, which even carries over to "Mao Zedong and other Chinese leaders had coincidentally decided that it was time to rejoin the world of nations, play the American card against the Soviet Union, and, especially, use the opportunity to get U.S. forces out of Taiwan." (p. 299). That might seem like a bit much for the Chinese to hope for, but a tape on Nam reveals Nixon saying, "Oh, I don't mean to tell, tell Thieu we're getting out in the fall. But it's moot, because we are without question gonna get out . . ." (p. 168). That was from Oval Office Conversation no. 527-16, Nixon, Haldeman, Kissinger, and John Ehrlichman, 9:14-10:12 a.m., June 23, 1971, in which Kissinger said, "Now, our cards, starting now, our cards are going to start falling." (p. 167). Three weeks before, a press conference brought up antiwar sentiment `that American intervention was immoral' (p. 160) and a tape of the following morning, June 2, 1971, reveals that Nixon was "very agitated during the conversation. Pounding his desk at one point, he vowed, . . . He would use his `card' of massive bombing." (p. 161). Since American troops were there, "it is certainly immoral to send Americans abroad and not back them up with American power!" (p. 162). Nixon might be a bit unclear about what actually happened after the French left North Vietnam, but he was worried about allowing "the bloodbath in South Vietnam that they had in North Vietnam where 50,000 of our good Catholic [unclear] of Danang [a city shown on the map facing page 1 along the coast southeast of Quang Tri and Hue in South Vietnam] were murdered, 500,000 were starved to death in slave-labor camps [pounding his desk]." (p. 162). In the next page of the transcript, it is a footnote that describes "Nixon is shouting and pounding his desk, while Kissinger is trying to speak." (p. 163). Like Khrushchev taking off his shoe to pound on a desk at the United Nations, hyperpowers believe in their ability to emphasize what they say when considering options like "We're gonna take out the dikes, we're gonna take out the power plants, we're gonna take out Haiphong, we're gonna level that goddamn country!" (p. 163).

Sometimes it is difficult to make sense of the conversations contained in pages 127-294, from Le Duc Tho's observation "It will take an unlimited time. We don't know when, or whether, it will be done. If it does not work, you will have the choice to remain in Vietnam or leave." (February 21, 1970, p. 129) to "It is a tragic situation. I am deeply troubled by what has happened . . ." (a proposed response on April 3, 1975, p. 294). Nam was unique in being a country in which the United States found itself opposing an established government with a lot of half measures which Nixon didn't want to limit himself to:

KISSINGER: Mr. President, if you had been in office '66, '67--

NIXON: --The war would be over--

KISSINGER: the war would be over, and, and, they'd be fewer casualties--
(p. 162). In '67, even General Westmoreland thought we were winning, but he was never sure the war was over. As far as policy goes, Nam is like an intelligence test that never quits for people looking for vicious evidence of American cruelty. Even Osama knows about Nam.

Much of this book is predicated on the newly released Nixon tapes; thus, it offers many new insights. However, on page 20, the author implies that the first draft lottery was held in 1971. The first draft lottery was held Dec. 1, 1969 and took effect in Jan. 1970.