By the time Nixon started secretly taping his conversations in February 1971, about halfway through his first term, it was clear that he knew his announced strategy wouldn’t work as promised. troops withdrawn, as a step to securing “peace in our time.” Is there any indication from the tapes at what point the administration realized that the neither the plan nor peace would be successful?Ī. The Nixon Administration had hyped the so-called “Vietnamization” of the war, in which South Vietnamese troops would be trained and U.S. Miller Center presidential historian Ken Hughes has deeply researched the White House tape recordings from the Nixon administration. He said conversations show Nixon and then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were more concerned with reelection than the future of its ally when negotiating the agreement signed 50 years ago. The author of “ Chasing Shadows” and “ Fatal Politics,” Hughes has deeply researched the Nixon White House’s tape recordings. 27, 1973, peace accord, heralded by President Richard Nixon as “an agreement to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.”īut Ken Hughes, an American presidential historian with the UVA Miller Center, believes the effort was less about “peace and honor” and more about reelection. troops could be withdrawn, the South Vietnamese government remained in power for more than two years after the Jan. Unlike Afghanistan, which fell before all U.S. They had seen similar scenes in the Apfall of Saigon, as the North Vietnamese overran the former capital of South Vietnam, bringing an ignominious end to the Vietnam War. Many Americans of a certain generation had a sense of forboding and déjà vu at images of panicked civilians flooding the airport and swarming military aircraft to escape as Kabul, Afghanistan fell to the Taliban on Aug.
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