Ken Hughes (3)

The author is a scholar who studied the Nixon tapes for years, making him an expert. In this book he looks at Nixon’s decisions regarding the Vietnam War and how they affected his presidency as well as the nation’s history. The author supports his arguments with quotes from Nixon and his aides from Nixon’s own tapes. His arguments and positions are compelling, and frightening. According to Hughes, in an effort to win the 1968 election, Nixon used back channels to stop President Johnson’s attempts to reach peace in Vietnam through the Paris peace talks, an action that would have helped Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey. While Hughes acknowledges that peace most likely would not have occurred before the election, Nixon’s actions were certainly unethical. Then Nixon delayed withdrawal of American troops until after the 1972 election in order to win that one as well. In doing so, in order to avoid “losing Vietnam,” Nixon had Kissinger negotiate a “decent interval” with the North Vietnamese so he could avoid being blamed for the loss of Saigon. This happened approximately two years later. According to Hughes, Nixon used the new diplomacy with the Chinese as well as agreements with the Soviet Union to accomplish this, thus selling out an ally without any remorse. Nixon’s paranoia and guilt ultimately lead to Watergate and the toppling of his presidency. Hughes looks at the progression of Nixon’s unethical behaviors that kept a nation at war for much longer than necessary resulting in tremendous loss of life and more suffering for POWs, his abuse of government institutions to punish those who did not support him and his overall unethical character as president. He looks at the myth of training Vietnam’s troops so they would take over the fight and how that was simply not ever going to be successful. This is important because that is what we are attempting to do in the Middle East with similar results. This is a compelling and frightening look at one of our presidents.… (meer)