Of the washington history seminar. Historical perspectives on and national affairs. This afternoon, we focus on a new book by carolyn wood isenberg entitled fire and rain nixon and the wars in Southeast Asia, published by Oxford University press just ten days ago. Our discussants afternoon are Pierre Asselin of San Diego State university and frederick log of all of harvard. Im eric arneson from George Washington university, cochair of the washington seminar. Along with my colleague of the Woodrow Wilson center, the washington history seminars, a collaborative and nonpartisan venture of the Woodrow WilsonCenters History and Public Policy program, and the american historical association. And for over the past decade, the seminar has been meeting weekly in precovid, in person at the Wilson Center and since the pandemic and postpandemic era here in the virtual realm, a few phrases before we get started. First, todays session is sponsored by the Wilson Center, cosponsored by the Wilson Centers asia program. And we ask you to take note that next session will be on monday, the 6th of march, and focus on a recent book by claire riddell, our scientist, americas philosopher john locke in the American Intellectual life. Third, as always, like to recognize two people whos behind the scenes efforts . Make the seminars possible. Pete pierce decker of the Wilson Center and Rachel Wheatley of the h. And then finally on the logistics, please note that todays session, as always, is being recorded and can soon be found on our institutions websites. And when we get the question and answer section of the webinar, we ask those of you with questions. Use the raise hand function or the q a function on zoom and well call on as many folks we can with those preliminaries out of the way. I turn the screen over to my cochair, christian ostermann, who will be moderating todays session. Kristen, all yours. Thanks, eric. Delighted to introduce our featured speaker speaker carolyn isenberg. Carolyn rusty is a professor of u. S. History and American Foreign policy at hofstra university. Her previous book drawing the line the american decision to divide germany. 1944 to 1959 won, restored burnetts book prize and the Herbert HooverLibrary Prize and was a finalist for my a. L. Book award. Her book fire and rain, as eric just mentioned, fire and rain, nixon in the wars in Southeast Asia was published by University Press just a few days ago. Carolyn has lectured widely published articles on issues of war, peace, and she was a consultant. The New York Historical society, for their exhibition on vietnam, as well as to visiting historians from interested in using american. She has also, i should note for the Wilson Center. She has also worked with several congressional offices on, Foreign Policy issues and is present later has been engaged and served as legislative coordinator for historians, for peace and rest. A warm welcome to the washington history seminar. The zoom room is all yours. Okay, thank you so much. Kristen and i want to just thank the staff at the Wilson Center for their help with setting this up and and fred and pierre and eric as well for inviting me. Its really an honor to be doing this presentation. Ive been reading book for a long time, admittedly now and over many years people ask me periodically. Oh, hear youre writing a book. Well, thats interesting. What is it about . And then i say, nixon and the wars in and the vietnam war. And then its often this sort of awkward silence, which doesnt necessarily dissipate when i add relations with, russia and china, with varying degrees of tact, comes the follow up question. Either already a lot of on this subject is yours really different. So given experience, i had to answer question at least for myself many times. Why am i writing this . One easy answer pertains to the volume of declassified. Well never have such complete information. The policy making of any administrator again certainly, the thousands of president ial tapes from 1971 on and the thousands of transcripts of Henry Kissinger. His telephone calls are an extraordinary resource and from the specific features of administration, theres much to be learned about larger patterns of u. S. Decision making at the highest levels in writing book, i wanted to illuminate certain matters which had been relatively neglected, and im just going to briefly state what they were and then try to turn to the substance of my discovery. So let me mention these. I especially want to highlight the impact of policy actual people. What was happening on the ground in and South Vietnam, laos and cambodia. How decisions that were being made in washington affecting peoples lives. I was also interested in the role the Antiwar Movement which i was part. It was hardly news. Such a movement existed, but was this vast declassified, now available . Could we more learn about how the Peace Movement affected Administration Policy . Then the question of china and the soviet union . Many historians and journalists at the time forever after had noted irony that while brutal warfare was occurring in Southeast Asia at the same time, nixon and kissinger were being wined and dined in moscow and beijing, apparently having a fun time. Was this simple coincidence . Unlikely. But how exactly did these developments connect with each other . Much the existing leaders trade focused on an exclusively on nixon and kissinger themselves and their Colorful People in some ultimate sense were the deciders. But were not empowered to act alone. They were operating within the framework of Large National security bureaucracies. So how did their practices and decisions fit with those long standing powerful institutions and then looming over this entire story is, of course, the issue that historians, notably fred larger, are have wrestled with for over decade. Why did this flawed, costly ill fated, tragic vietnam continue over so many years . I should say from the outset that none of these questions were pulled out a hat. They came directly from my teaching and the issues that emerged in class discussion. 25 years ago, a student raised hand and said, i dont get it. If Richard Nixon was such a brilliant politician, why didnt he just blame his predecessor for vietnam . Mess and get out . And this time a lot. I want to cover a few points, but what was happening on the ground in constructing my i tried to identify experience as a particular people that illuminated important aspects of the war and i wanted to give names those people for potential readers of my book. I wanted to learn real ity to the consequences of policy decisions reached in washington in making that effort, i also found a partial answer. My last question, which is how why did this war go on . An important feature of the situation was the extraordinary detachment of the principals from the suffering by their decisions. When house emissaries went a Fact Finding Missions, they avoided places and sources who could clarify the damage for them by the end, al haig became the observer nixon and kissinger most trusted. But his Fact Finding Mission were limited to allied officials, to other military personnel. Overarching these practices is something so basic easily ignore it, which is life in the national bureaucracy entailed emotional disconnection. You can read through thousands of pages of government transcripts, which i did and find minimal upset or concern about costs to actual people not even americans. Privately, there had been an array of it may have been an array of unexpected and press feelings and presumably there were but the norms of Decision Making required silence. Their famous exceptions, for example the people at Henry Kissinger staff who quit protest over the invasion cambodia. It is one of these men, roger morris. Well, there was four staff members. The pernicious of discussing outrageous official policies in the cool, bloodless language of cost effectiveness and manliness. The culture of government seemed to demand. Not for the first or last time. Apollo in indian indochina. That to warrant screaming. Was to gently oppose. According to the declassified tokens on november 23rd, 1969, kissinger called secretary of defense laird me. Why the wanted to make sure he said that laird had a game plan. Whats game plan . Laird respond did. Didnt kissinger the pictures. He wanted to know. He didnt. The secretary asked kissinger, would you like to look at them . And kiss . Kissinger says, well, do you think i should . Theyre emeritus. You met. You might as well not. Theyre pretty terrible. Millions people around the country had already seen these terrific photos in life magazine. But kissinger is questioning he should open the pages. I assume he finally did. Look, and this example is perhaps apocryphal, but the moral indifference is stunning. My lai is a Public Relations problem, not a human tragedy. What made this and other news of atrocities a a Public Relations . What made this a Public Relations policy problem was, of course, the power of the antiwar. From day one, nixon had clearly in mind the fate of lyndon johnson, who was mortally damaged by this dissenter and from the outset, he and kissinger viewed the Peace Movement as dangerous. Within that context, they regard negative news. Stories like me lie as something to be discounted and. Nevertheless, Peace Movement had a profound effect policy in ways that many of fail to appreciate at the time. The most important effect was the removal of u. S. Troops from vietnam. Nixon had begun this process in summer of 1969, taking our troops out in increments of 30, 40, 50,000. Everyone know in the Peace Movement said this is a trick. Hes expanding the war. Hes accelerating the bombing. What hes doing in cambodia, laos, vietnamization nothing great about changing the color, the corpses, and certainly there was merit in these claims. But was the fact that by the fall of 1972, the had almost no combat in South Vietnam. And since both nixon and kissinger viewed arvin the South Vietnamese military as lacking in effectiveness. This created a necessity for administration to make a rapid Peace Agreement. I also one add here that kissinger recognized the danger troops withdrawals from the outset, as did the u. S. In saigon, and also. But this was one line nixon power. He believed that these withdrawals were absolutely to counteract the piecemeal and convince the country he ending the war were one step ahead of the share was the nixon phrase. And by this he meant congress, moderate groups. The Antiwar Movement had concentrated on political action, building candidacy of George Mcgovern for president in 72 and seeking to elect more antiwar people to the house and the senate. The more radical antiwar groups viewed this as wasted energy. Members of congress kept making speeches introducing resolutions that never pass. And then election day. George mcgovern was defeated by a landslide. However, when you look at the record this point of view seems myopic in his concession, mcgovern had uttered words more apt than he realized, quote, there can be no question at all that we have pushed this country in the direction of and if we have shortened the vietnam war, even by days, every minute, every hour, bone crushing effort in this campaign was worth it. Indeed, one comparable accomplishment of the mcgovern candidacy was to move the Democratic Party into antiwar position. And this mattered in congress where antiwar resolutions were gathering. And that goes back to the of troop withdrawals as grumpy as he was about taking thousands of troops out. Nixon believed it was a political necessity to defeat those antiwar resolutions he needed to keep preempting the peace advocates by taking more men out. Also buried under mcgovern landslide was the fact that antiwar candidates elected to congress with the result that in the weeks following the 1972 election, three of nixons strongest allies, senators stennis and goldwater, plus gerald ford, paid him a visit, say once the new congress came into session they would no longer have sufficient votes to pass appropriate actions for vietnam unless a peace was signed. Therefore, the message kissinger was to get this done regardless of the conflicts he had with the north and South Vietnamese, he needed to close the deal and give american troops and prisoners home. And so he did. Will go to his grave, insisting that domestic forces undermined his diploma. And because of his habit of lying those claims that often ignored. But they contain important truth that he was not free to handle negotiations vietnam in the way he would. For example in, december 1972. He wanted to extend the christmas bombing for an additional six months. Nixon was politically astute enough to say no, but the fallacy in and in kissingers repeated is in believe in that absent antiwar pressure that the United States would have won vietnam. But theres no reason think its true. It was limitations of time not able to diplomacy with the soviet union and russia except to say that many of the declassified transcripts are remarkable. Along with the detailed reports, Russian Ambassador dobrynin to his superiors in moscow. What is apparent from those dark events which neither brezhnev nor zhou enlai could miss, was the desperation of Nixon Kissinger to get their help and pressuring North Vietnam to accept u. S. Terms and in burnishing nixons message image as a man of peace. And to that end, you see kissinger making concessions on arms control and taiwan that were largely hidden at the time. What is the significance of that . From the outset, u. S. Military intervention in Southeast Asia had been justified by the need to demonstrate credibility to. The communist superpower, soviet union and china for of americans this was a worthy and tens of thousands had their sons off to war believing that the reason perhaps to at the beginning. But by 1972 this was no longer the case. Were not displaying strength to moscow and beijing. If anything, the opposite was true. And while news commentators may not have noticed the administrations rhetoric about credibility had so subtly shifted, instead of demonstrating credibility to the communist superpowers, the relevant audience was our allies, showing them the United States will be reliable in defending their interests. So why did this devastating project go on for four more years . Theres no answer to that question. A variety of factors converged, including the distinctive personalities and early allergy of nixon and kissinger. But that only takes its up a point. One simple point is the desire better than to avoid a joe biden moment. Except they didnt know about the budget. Joe biden moment. But theres like what just happened in the fear that a precipitous would have the enemy pouring into saigon was largely domestic. That would occur in that sense. This enterprises about domestic credibility than international concerns. Also significant was indifference to human cost which which among other made them oblivious to how the suffering they were caused was undermining the effectiveness of their policies. Theres a familiar college dichotomy that we see all the time in which morality and pragmatism counter posed as obstacles, as opposites inside. But in this instance, they coincide, not wanting to hear or credit the anguish of others nurtured a dangerous ignorance. Yet in explaining this ongoing vietnamese war, perhaps most important factor was the military nature of the National Security state. The dominance of the courier in Decision Making, the ideological commitment to military supremacy, the unwillingness accept the loss no matter the price paid by others with regard to the views of the joint chiefs of staff and of mafia in saigon weighed heavily as they entered office, nixon and kissinger did did a survey of Government Agencies and their attitudes towards the war. While there were varying and outlooks, nobody withdrawal or anything. It. It is certainly true. Nixon and kissinger were outsized who left their stamp on events. But its worth remembering that they were operating within an instant frame in which the killing of people, soldiers and civilians had been normalized and. Concluding, i want to say why i did this project. I decided i really know various people and why it seems even more meaningful today for many people. My generation. The vietnam war was a moral catas