SOURCES

The endnotes to the book cite the sources for the quotes and facts on which my narrative account is based. Most of the book rests on a large body of material drawn from the Richard Nixon Presidential Materials Staff, which is the title given to the Nixon presidential papers and tapes at National Archives II in College Park, Maryland. The various categories of presidential papers in this collection, including principally memoranda of conversations in national security files, are identified in the notes. Taped conversations are cited by numbers assigned to them by the Archives. These citations should lead any interested reader to the specific documents available to everyone in the Archives.

The most important collateral collections are Henry Kissinger’s office memos, memoranda of conversations, and transcripts of telephone conversations made by aides listening in on a “dead key or undetectable extension.” The transcripts were opened to researchers in May 2004. H. R. Haldeman’s diaries and the files of Alexander Haig in the National Security Files and the White House Special Files (WHSF) are also indispensable collections for reconstructing the history of the Nixon-Kissinger relationship and the making of foreign policy.

A variety of interviews, conversations, newspaper, and magazine articles enriched my ability to reconstruct an accurate account of Nixon’s presidential actions. The various secondary studies used in the book are listed in the bibliography, but specific materials drawn from those books are cited by page numbers in the endnotes with an eye to ensuring that proper credit is given to the pioneering research of earlier Nixon-Kissinger biographers and historians.

ABBREVIATIONS

AHCHF	Alexander Haig Chron Files
AH, WHSF	Alexander Haig, White House Special Files
ANS	Annotated News Summaries
CF	Confidential Files
DDE	Dwight David Eisenhower
FIAB	Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board
FOIA	Freedom of Information Act
FRUS	Foreign Relations of the United States
GVN	Government of South Vietnam HK Henry Kissinger
HKOF	Henry Kissinger Office Files
JFK	John F. Kennedy
LBJ	Lyndon B. Johnson
LC	Library of Congress
Memcon	Memorandum of Conversation
MFN	Most Favored Nation
n.d.	No Date
NLF	National Liberation Front
NPMS	Nixon Presidential Materials Staff
NSC	National Security Council
NSDM	National Security Decision Memorandum
NSSM	National Security Study Memorandum
NVA	North Vietnamese Army
NVN	North Vietnam
PDB	President’s Daily Briefings
POF	President’s Office Files
PPF	President’s Personal Files
PPP: RN	Public Papers of the Presidents: Richard Nixon
RN	Richard Nixon
SAG	Special Action Group
SALT	Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
SF	Subject File
SRG	Senior Review Group
SVN	South Vietnam
TC(s)	Telephone Conversation(s)
USG	United States Government
VSSG	Vietnam Special Study Group
WHSF	White House Special Files
WHY	White House Years
WSAG	Washington Special Actions Group
YOU	Years of Upheaval