Sponsors: The Wilson Center History and Public Policy Program and Cold War International History Project
Description:
In analyzing Nixon and Kissinger’s failed Vietnam policy, Carolyn Eisenberg emphasizes the competing pressures of the national security bureaucracies on the one hand and the role of the antiwar movement and Congress on the other. Her narrative reveals how a systemic indifference to suffering on the ground led to faulty decision-making. By closely examining Nixon and Kissinger’s diplomacy with the Soviet Union and China, she reveals the falsity of the “credibility” justification of their decision-making.
