Analysis: Henry Kissinger to Nixon
The relationship between Henry Kissinger and President Richard Nixon was pivotal during the Vietnam War era, particularly in the context of U.S. foreign policy and military strategy. In 1969, Nixon initiated plans for withdrawing American troops through a strategy known as "Vietnamization," which aimed to empower South Vietnam to defend itself. As national security advisor, Kissinger played a crucial role in shaping this policy while navigating domestic pressures from the antiwar movement. However, he expressed skepticism about the feasibility of achieving a quick and successful resolution to the conflict, highlighting the challenges posed by political instability in South Vietnam and the resilience of North Vietnam.
Kissinger's pragmatic approach to foreign policy often prioritized U.S. interests and credibility over ethical considerations, which led to complex decisions regarding support for South Vietnam and its leadership. His memorandum to Nixon reflected a deep concern about the potential consequences of a hasty withdrawal, indicating that a balance between military engagement and diplomatic negotiations would be necessary. The dynamics of Kissinger's strategy foreshadowed later U.S. compromises with major powers, emphasizing the interwoven complexities of ideology, warfare, and diplomacy during a tumultuous period. Understanding this relationship provides insight into the broader implications of U.S. foreign policy and its impact on international relations during and after the Vietnam War.
Analysis: Henry Kissinger to Nixon
Date: September 10, 1969
Author: Henry Kissinger
Genre: memorandum
Summary Overview
President Nixon began phased withdrawals of American armed forces in 1969; South Vietnam needed to assume responsibility for its defense in a process called “Vietnamization.” As national security advisor, Henry Kissinger worked with Nixon in the goal of preserving the United States' credibility as a military giant in global leadership, while satisfying the antiwar proponents who called for withdrawal. However, Kissinger noted in this private memorandum from Nixon's first year as president that the present US plan for de-escalating the war and winning was too optimistic. Domestic political divisions and corruption in South Vietnam were providing the North Vietnamese ample opportunities to entrench themselves in their positions. Kissinger recognized that there was no middle ground in American policy: unilateral withdrawal meant defeat; continued military operations could preserve the South Vietnamese government only if President Nguyen Van Thiêu improved it. Kissinger's early concerns in this memorandum would prove true by 1975, when North Vietnam captured Saigon.
Defining Moment
In 1968, Richard Nixon portrayed himself as a candidate with a plan for negotiating “peace with honor” in the Vietnam War. Not only would Nixon bring the troops home, but he would also keep US promises to their South Vietnamese allies to preserve their sovereignty. The idea to have “phased withdrawals” of US armed forces did not begin with Nixon, but it would be inextricably tied to his administration under the name “Vietnamization.” Compared to policy after the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964, the United States would take a less active role in preserving Southeast Asian peace.
Henry Kissinger, an academic and defense strategist until Nixon's presidency, was essential to this new state of US policy. Even before Nixon appointed Kissinger the national security advisor, the intellectual German immigrant wrote articles in the journal Foreign Affairs about how a government's interests justified the means used to accomplish those interests. Kissinger was willing to use this philosophy before Nixon was sworn in as president. In an event known as the “Chennault Affair,” Kissinger and Nixon cooperated in legally dubious contact with President Thiêu in South Vietnam: if Thiêu delayed peace negotiations with the North Vietnamese, the Nixon administration would negotiate better concessions for South Vietnam. The counterpoint to Kissinger's pragmatic philosophy, however, was a willingness to abandon allies after they became a liability. In this private memorandum to the president, Kissinger illustrates all the features that would define the Nixon administration in subsequent years: a disdain for the antiwar movement, pessimism, and pragmatism.
This memorandum is an outline of the dangerous political game that the Nixon administration needed to play domestically and globally. Antiwar protestors are sentimental opponents in this scheme, and the North Vietnamese are cunning manipulators, who knew that they could exploit South Vietnam's overdependence on United States armed forces. Time was on the side of the Politburo, the collective leadership that replaced Ho Chi Minh after his death on September 2, 1969. Kissinger's memo late in 1969 is proof that he had significantly tempered his expectations that American diplomacy could accomplish a victorious peace quickly. As early as Nixon's first year, Kissinger doubts that Vietnamization will provide the leverage he needed in negotiations.
Author Biography
Henry Kissinger came from a family of immigrant Jews who escaped Nazi Germany in 1938. As a private in World War II, Kissinger entered politics when he administered the city of Krefeld. After the war, Kissinger attended Harvard and received his PhD in political science in 1954. He would go on to assemble a network of contacts in the US government, while also publishing frequently. Kissinger's Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy was a bestseller in 1958; the book established his credentials as a respectable defense specialist. The Harvard intellectual became an important figure in the Nixon administration. As national security advisor, Kissinger made changes to the National Security Council system that made Kissinger the principal foreign policy advisor to the president. Both Nixon and Kissinger subscribed to a realist ideology: they believed strongly in the importance and maintenance of power at any cost in domestic and foreign relations. Despite charges of being a courtier, chameleon, and flatterer, Kissinger has remained an important and visible figure in American foreign policy for decades after the Vietnam War.
Document Analysis
In this memo, Kissinger illustrates to the president that Vietnamization is an idealistic and likely unsuccessful program for ending the Vietnam War. These doubts were a rationale for the president to delay an immediate unilateral withdrawal from Vietnam in 1969: South Vietnam simply was not ready to defend itself. Kissinger divides his concerns into three interrelated topics: domestic divisions, problems within the power structure in Saigon, and Hanoi's advantages. Kissinger wanted to chasten any optimistic notions the president had of a quick solution to the war through de-escalation and diplomacy. This memo also foreshadows Nixon's significant compromises with Soviet Russia and China in 1972. From the beginning of Nixon's first term, Kissinger advocated a multifaceted approach to a conflict his predecessors tried to solve only by military force.
First, Kissinger points out that Vietnamization will not mend the division between pro- and anti-war contingents in the US government (“the Hawks and the Doves”). It was very possible for Nixon to suffer the same backlash of public opinion that destroyed the public's faith in his predecessor's administration. Instead of addressing that the crisis of faith originated in sentiment, Kissinger compares this desire for troop withdrawal to a trivial craving for unhealthy food. He says, “withdrawal of U.S. troops will become like salted peanuts to the American public.” Opponents have used such statements to condemn brutal pragmatics of Nixonian foreign policy.
Next, statements about Saigon's efficacy reveal Kissinger's political philosophy further. For Kissinger, utility and expediency are more important than ethics. Vietnamization was only the appearance of a united front, as the Presidents Nixon and Thiêu wanted to portray between their countries. Kissinger characterizes Thiêu's government (GVN) as a series of “failures” and “disturbing” in its lack of action. Yet, Kissinger does not advise abandoning Thiêu to his fate: supporting an ally, even if he is a poor leader, is more important for US diplomacy than self-determination for Vietnam.
Finally, Kissinger addresses the enemy's strategy. The war is “psychological, rather than military.” Bombings were only useful as long as the enemy did not have a more powerful communist ally. The third and last part of Kissinger's memo advises Nixon that he needs to recover their ideological losses on the ideological front of the Vietnam War for an effective diplomacy strategy. Kissinger's statement that “barring some break like-Sino-Soviet hostilities” is prescient for this ideological combat. Tensions ran high between Soviet Russia and China already, and Nixon would use this as leverage when he reopened contact with Chairman Mao in 1972. As a result of cooling relations with Hanoi's former supporters, Kissinger was able to finalize the Paris Peace Accords soon thereafter.
At no point in this memo does Kissinger express a positive belief that the United States can maintain both the moral high ground and victory in Vietnam. This memo exemplifies the early pessimism about the war that would eventually devolve into the “decent interval” practice. Diplomacy, for Kissinger, was a waiting game: either for the enemy to give in, or for the home front to forget about the losses it suffered.
Bibliography and Additional Reading
Dallek, Robert. Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power. New York: HarperCollins Pub., 2007. Print.
Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. New York: Penguin, 1991. Print.
Kimball, Jeffrey P. Nixon's Vietnam War. Lawrence, KS: U of Kansas, 1998. Print.
Kissinger, Henry & Clare Boothe Luce. White House Years. Boston: Little, Brown, 1979. Print.
Prados, John. “Kissinger's ‘Salted Peanuts’ and the Iraq War.” National Security Archive. National Security Archive & George Washington University, 2006. Web. <http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/20061001/>.