CONTENTS

Introduction

Fatal Politics

Vietnamization

“A Nightmare of Recrimination”

“A Hell of a Shift”

How to Kill a Withdrawal Deadline

“I’m Being Perfectly Cynical”

“We Want a Decent Interval”

Meeting Zhou

“Old Friends”

“He Deserves Our Confidence”

JFK v. Nixon

The Kennedy Critique

The Liberal Mistake

“Super Secret Agent”

Sixty-Six Percent for Six Months

“One Arm Tied Behind”

“Why Does the Air Force Constantly Undercut Us?”

The Appearance of Success

“Any Means Necessary”

“A Russian Game, a Chinese Game and an Election Game”

“It Could Be a Bit Longer”

The Democrats

“No One Will Give a Damn”

“Idealism with Integrity”

“Our Terms Will Eventually Destroy Him”

Blowup 1968

“We’re behind the Trees!”

“Saving Face or Saving Lives”

“Brutalize Him”

Kissinger v. Thieu

“No Possibility Whatever”

“The Man Who Should Cry Is I”

“The Fellow Is Off His Head”

No Coalition Government

“Peace Is at Hand”

“A Little Bit Diabolically”

The Chennault Affair

“The Clearest Choice”

Election Day 1972

Promises and Threats

Christmas Bombing

“Let Us Be Proud”

The Prisoners Dilemma

The Final Cutoff

Stabbed in the Back

“We Can Blame Them for the Whole Thing”

Nixon’s Dolchstoßlegende

Unearthing Nixon’s Strategy

The University of Virginia’s Miller Center

Decision Points

The Nixon Tapes

Interpretive Inertia

Last Days in Vietnam

A Better War

The Aid-Cutoff Myth

How Wars Don’t End

Questions Unasked

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index


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