Word: viets
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Haldeman thought that an agreement was a potential liability; he was certain that Democratic Candidate George McGovern's support had been reduced to fanatics who would not vote for Nixon even if he arranged the Second Coming. On the other hand, an agreement might disquiet conservative supporters. The Viet Nam negotiations, in short, were not used to affect the election; the election was used to accelerate the negotiations...
...would be incompatible with our sacrifice, "he adds. Further, "we had to make Hanoi understand it would not be able to use our differences with Saigon to jockey us at the last moment into doing what we had refused for four years: overthrowing the political structure in South 'Viet Nam. "In any case, Kissinger goes on, "Thieu's reaction guaranteed that the war would not end soon." Kissinger was barely back in Washington when the North Vietnamese, hoping to force Nixon's hand, went public. They broadcast the terms of the proposed treaty, which had been kept...
...necessary. I favored resuming bombing over all of North Viet Nam, but using fighter-bombers over populated areas north of the 20th parallel. Haig favored B-52 attacks, especially north of the 20th parallel, on the ground that only a massive shock could bring Hanoi back to the conference table. Nixon accepted Haig's view. I went along with it-at first with slight reluctance, later with conviction. For Nixon and Haig were, I still believe, essentially right. We had only two choices: taking a massive, shocking step to end the war quickly, or letting matters drift...
...twelve days of bombing; many must have been military personnel, for antiaircraft batteries were a primary objective. I received incredibly bitter letters from erstwhile friends, from angry citizens. (None of them wrote me in January when the agreement was reached.) It seemed to be taken for granted that North Viet Nam was blameless and that we were embarked on a course of exterminating civilians...
...hurricane whose elemental force derived not only from the hatreds of the two Viet Nams and the hysteria of domestic critics, but also from a painful rift between Nixon and me [see box "Chagrined Cowboy"]. In early December, TIME magazine, with the best will in the world, added to earlier irritations by selecting Nixon and me as joint Men of the Year. I knew immediately how this would go down with my chief, whose limited capacity for forgiveness surely did not include being upstaged (and being given equal billing as Man of the Year with his assistant was tantamount...