書單: 致命的政治尼克森錄音帶、越戰和連任的傷亡

儘管尼克森公開承諾，美國軍隊只會在南越軍隊能夠取代他們之前留在越南，但他私下同意他的高級軍事、外交和情報顧問的觀點，即如果沒有美國地面部隊，西貢就永遠無法生存。由於擔心西貢在選舉前淪陷會破壞他連任的機會，尼克森將自己的連任置於美國士兵的生命之上。他推遲了不可避免的戰爭，使美國在其總統任期的第四年仍處於戰爭之中。同時，尼克森與共產黨達成了一項「適當間隔」協議，在他最終撤軍和西貢淪陷之間留出一兩年的時間來挽回面子。尼克森秘密向北越在莫斯科和北京的主要支持者保證，如果他們等待那麼長時間，北方就可以征服南方，而不必擔心美國會介入拯救它。這場恥辱性的失敗至今仍困擾著美國人，而它也被納入了尼克森的退出策略中。更糟的是，在國會「束縛住他的手腳」之前，尼克森已經贏得了戰爭，這種迷思導致決策者將美國在越南戰爭最後幾年採取的策略運用到21世紀伊拉克和阿富汗戰爭中，導致兩場戰爭都延長而沒有取得勝利。

西貢淪陷四十年後，經過十多年的研究，《致命的政治》講述了一個政治操縱和背叛的故事，它將改變美國人對越南的記憶。該書是歷史上最全面、最準確、最具啟發性的總統任期記錄，其中許多內容至今未曾轉錄。 《致命政治》也以電子書的形式提供，讀者可以從書中無縫切換到這些歷史對話的記錄和音訊檔案。

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Cover for Fatal Politics

Fatal Politics

The Nixon Tapes, the Vietnam War, and the Casualties of Reelection

Ken Hughes

Ebook $24.95

Apr 2015 288 pages ISBN: 9780813938035

Paper $16.95

Dec 2016 288 pages ISBN: 9780813939353

Exam Copy

Review for Course Use

Desk Copy

For Instructors who have already adopted this in their course

Series:

Miller Center Studies on the Presidency

subjects:

Modern American History

Political Science

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In his widely acclaimed Chasing Shadows ("the best account yet of Nixon’s devious interference with Lyndon Johnson’s 1968 Vietnam War negotiations"-- Washington Post), Ken Hughes revealed the roots of the covert activity that culminated in Watergate. In Fatal Politics, Hughes turns to the final years of the war and Nixon’s reelection bid of 1972 to expose the president’s darkest secret.

While Nixon publicly promised to keep American troops in Vietnam only until the South Vietnamese could take their place, he privately agreed with his top military, diplomatic, and intelligence advisers that Saigon could never survive without American boots on the ground. Afraid that a preelection fall of Saigon would scuttle his chances for a second term, Nixon put his reelection above the lives of American soldiers. Postponing the inevitable, he kept America in the war into the fourth year of his presidency. At the same time, Nixon negotiated a "decent interval" deal with the Communists to put a face-saving year or two between his final withdrawal and Saigon’s collapse. If they waited that long, Nixon secretly assured North Vietnam’s chief sponsors in Moscow and Beijing, the North could conquer the South without any fear that the United States would intervene to save it. The humiliating defeat that haunts Americans to this day was built into Nixon’s exit strategy. Worse, the myth that Nixon was winning the war before Congress "tied his hands" has led policy makers to adapt tactics from America’s final years in Vietnam to the twenty-first-century conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, prolonging both wars without winning either.

Forty years after the fall of Saigon, and drawing on more than a decade spent studying Nixon’s secretly recorded Oval Office tapes--the most comprehensive, accurate, and illuminating record of any presidency in history, much of it never transcribed until now-- Fatal Politics tells a story of political manipulation and betrayal that will change how Americans remember Vietnam. Fatal Politics is also available as a special e-book that allows the reader to move seamlessly from the book to transcripts and audio files of these historic conversations.

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