Well my initial thoughts were that anybody associated with Nixon (who scuppered a piece deal in Vietnam in 1968 so he had more chance of winning the election) must be wrong. However, I did read up on him a bit after listening to a news article on Radio 4 about him. It is easy now (although becoming a bit harder recently) to forget the tensions of the Cold War that prevailed in the late 60s / early 1970s and to view the world as it was then without the prism of nuclear holocaust. He did do some things we wouldn't stand for now but he lived in harsher times and had a remit of stopping a nuclear war and clipping Russia's influence (in these he succeeded) Yes he was complicit in bombing Cambodia but the North Vietnamese were using it as a staging base to attack the south and US troops stationed there. The bombing was a reaction to them involving Cambodia by using the Ho Chi Minh trail. BUT: He inherited the war from LBJ and McNamarra and on his watch US troops were withdrawn and a peace (of sorts) achieved in 1973, after being prepared to use the Linebacker II bombings to bring them back to the negotiating table in Paris. Vietnam was probably the most absurd of all wars. The USA couldn't win in the way they fought it and teh cause was dubious at best. After the 1973 Yom Kippur war he got the Egyptians and the Israelis talking to each other and laid a framework that resulted in the 1981 Camp David accord which brought a peace between them which still holds. The Egyptians saw some sense in accepting Israel's right to exist and the Israelis saw that when not faced with an existential threat, they needn't overplay their military supremacy he played a big part in setting up SALT. Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty. The first nuclear arms treaty to hold back what had up to then been a race. It at least got the sides talking - that's not happening now He reached out to China. Probably to undermine Russia but at least they talked and started a thaw in relations Yes he was involved in numerous regime changes. But the USA, UK, France and moreover Russia had also been since the end of World War II. It was the name of the game back then. If you didn't do it, the other side would. Contrast Cameron in Libya, Bush in Iraq. no clue but to depose the leader and put nothing in its place, leaving a failed state behind. Obama in Syria where inactivity let the Russians in to prop up a tyrant because the geography suited them (whilst also noting how phlegmatic the West had become doubtless for their future intentions). Did he do bad things. Yep. Was he a Saint? No. But I no longer think he was an @3sehole either. What he was was effective at what he did and he sometimes got it right. We got through the Cold War and the planet survived. He was a leading figure in that period and for that alone, he gets a nod from me **Please remember it's just an opinion. You may disagree, but let's agree to disagree sensibly, like adults***
An unbalanced view on the internet. Does the writer want to beat Ho Chi Minh to death for involving Cambodia in the war by forcing them to have bases in their territory? You can't judge a couple of decades of 20th century history with someone venting their spleen on a single issue. Nixon had the final say in any event. I have started to wonder how much worse he would have been without Kissinger reigning him in
I guess that's one way of looking at it, but it ignores the fact that he only inherited the war from LBJ because he conspired with Nixon to ensure that peace talks ahead of the election failed so that Nixon would win and his own status would be elevated. This was treason for personal gain and was directly responsible for an extraordinary amount of deaths - American, Vietnamese and Cambodian. On its own that's enough for me to condemn him as a ginormous arsehole. What's the Tom Lehrer quote? Something like "political satire died when Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize"
Always thought he missed a trick by not fronting that rock band with all the makeup. These are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy nights.
