An authoritative history showing the perils of “selective vision of people in power.”
A comprehensive history of the late stages of the Vietnam War.
Eisenberg, a professor of U.S. history and foreign relations, is nothing if not thorough in her coverage of the nasty politics, frustrating diplomacy, and stormy homefront. She makes regular detours to the battlefield but emphasizes the roles of two larger-than-life American leaders—Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger—who aimed to bring matters to a satisfactory conclusion and failed. The author draws on a vast amount of declassified documents, “an avalanche of material about [the Nixon] presidency that has appeared over the previous fifteen years,” offering “more insights into the foreign policy operations of an administration than we are likely to see again.” Eisenberg, a veteran scholar of the era, delivers these insights in mostly lucid prose, creating a meticulously researched narrative about a deplorable episode in American history that, with more information, becomes even more deplorable. Nixon took office in 1969 with the promise of ending U.S. involvement in Vietnam. A few years later, the last American soldier had left, but even readers who experienced that period will squirm at Eisenberg’s expert account of how it happened. Although she cuts away regularly to the war, this is mostly a geopolitical history emphasizing the actions of Nixon and Kissinger, his pugnacious national security adviser. Both agreed with military leaders that North Vietnam would accept a satisfactory peace only in response to painful losses on the battlefield. At the same time, Nixon announced that troop withdrawals would begin immediately, infuriating the military but pleasing Congress, the media, and the widespread anti-war movement. This mixed message failed to discourage the North Vietnamese, and Eisenberg’s compelling yet painful text never fully explains why Nixon and Kissinger persisted for four years in a policy guaranteed to fail—at the cost of another 20,000 Americans and “between one and two million Asians,” mostly civilian and innocent.
An authoritative history showing the perils of “selective vision of people in power.”Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-19-763906-1
Page Count: 632
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.
Four decades after Watergate shook America, journalist Woodward (The Price of Politics, 2012, etc.) returns to the scandal to profile Alexander Butterfield, the Richard Nixon aide who revealed the existence of the Oval Office tapes and effectively toppled the presidency.
Of all the candidates to work in the White House, Butterfield was a bizarre choice. He was an Air Force colonel and wanted to serve in Vietnam. By happenstance, his colleague H.R. Haldeman helped Butterfield land a job in the Nixon administration. For three years, Butterfield worked closely with the president, taking on high-level tasks and even supervising the installation of Nixon’s infamous recording system. The writing here is pure Woodward: a visual, dialogue-heavy, blow-by-blow account of Butterfield’s tenure. The author uses his long interviews with Butterfield to re-create detailed scenes, which reveal the petty power plays of America’s most powerful men. Yet the book is a surprisingly funny read. Butterfield is passive, sensitive, and dutiful, the very opposite of Nixon, who lets loose a constant stream of curses, insults, and nonsensical bluster. Years later, Butterfield seems conflicted about his role in such an eccentric presidency. “I’m not trying to be a Boy Scout and tell you I did it because it was the right thing to do,” Butterfield concedes. It is curious to see Woodward revisit an affair that now feels distantly historical, but the author does his best to make the story feel urgent and suspenseful. When Butterfield admitted to the Senate Select Committee that he knew about the listening devices, he felt its significance. “It seemed to Butterfield there was absolute silence and no one moved,” writes Woodward. “They were still and quiet as if they were witnessing a hinge of history slowly swinging open….It was as if a bare 10,000 volt cable was running through the room, and suddenly everyone touched it at once.”
Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1644-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2015
Chronology, photographs and personal knowledge combine to make a memorable commemorative presentation.
Jackie Kennedy's secret service agent Hill and co-author McCubbin team up for a follow-up to Mrs. Kennedy and Me (2012) in this well-illustrated narrative of those five days 50 years ago when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Since Hill was part of the secret service detail assigned to protect the president and his wife, his firsthand account of those days is unique. The chronological approach, beginning before the presidential party even left the nation's capital on Nov. 21, shows Kennedy promoting his “New Frontier” policy and how he was received by Texans in San Antonio, Houston and Fort Worth before his arrival in Dallas. A crowd of more than 8,000 greeted him in Houston, and thousands more waited until 11 p.m. to greet the president at his stop in Fort Worth. Photographs highlight the enthusiasm of those who came to the airports and the routes the motorcades followed on that first day. At the Houston Coliseum, Kennedy addressed the leaders who were building NASA for the planned moon landing he had initiated. Hostile ads and flyers circulated in Dallas, but the president and his wife stopped their motorcade to respond to schoolchildren who held up a banner asking the president to stop and shake their hands. Hill recounts how, after Lee Harvey Oswald fired his fatal shots, he jumped onto the back of the presidential limousine. He was present at Parkland Hospital, where the president was declared dead, and on the plane when Lyndon Johnson was sworn in. Hill also reports the funeral procession and the ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery. “[Kennedy] would have not wanted his legacy, fifty years later, to be a debate about the details of his death,” writes the author. “Rather, he would want people to focus on the values and ideals in which he so passionately believed.”
Chronology, photographs and personal knowledge combine to make a memorable commemorative presentation.Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4767-3149-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
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