In Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War, accomplished foreign relations
historian David F. Shmitz provides students of US history and the
Vietnam era with an up-to-date analysis of Nixon's Vietnam policy in a
brief and accessible book that addresses the main controversies of the
Nixon years. President Richard Nixon's first presidential term oversaw
the definitive crucible of the Vietnam War. Nixon came into office
seeking the kind of decisive victory that had eluded President Johnson,
and went about expanding the war, overtly and covertly, in order to
uphold a policy of "containment," protect America's credibility, and
defy the left's antiwar movement at home. Tactically, politically,
Nixon's moves made sense. However, by 1971 the president was forced to
significantly de-escalate the American presence and seek a negotiated
end to the war, which is now accepted as an American defeat, and a
resounding failure of American foreign relations. Schmitz addresses the
main controversies of Nixon's Vietnam strategy, and in so doing manages
to trace back the ways in which this most calculating and perceptive
politician wound up resigning from office a fraud and failure. Finally,
the book seeks to place the impact of Nixon's policies and decisions in
the larger context of post-World War II American society, and analyzes
the full costs of the Vietnam War that the nation feels to this day.
