Why did Nixon risk the prospect of dtente and an arms control summit at this late stage in Vietnam? Nixon still believed in his core that regardless of the warning of relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, America could not afford to look weak in the face of communist aggression. As he said himself, Both Halderman and Henry seem to have an idea which I think is mistaken that even if we fail in Vietnam we can still politically. I have no illusions whatever on that score, however. The U.S. will not have a credible foreign policy if we fail, and I will have to assure the responsibility for that development. (p. 129)Historians always have the luxury of looking at events in hindsight. There is no urgency in their analysis, no decisions to be made. This one can easily conclude that the Unites States tragic involvement in Vietnam could have been avoided had policy makers not formulated and then stuck to incorrect assumptions about Vietnam and its role in the overall strategic interests of the United States. The one sighted most often is the domino theory. All those premonitions of doom, that would befall the United States if Vietnam were lost, never occurred. Communism did not spread much further in Southeast Asia and Americas position in the world did not suffer for long. This is too facile of an analysis though. After Vietnam, Cambodia fell to the Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot. His reign of terror was so grotesque that Vietnam itself had to intervene and expel them from power. The Soviet Union and China also refrained from too actively supporting communist insurgencies around the world. (Afghanistan excluded) The Soviets relied more on proxies such as the Cubans. Thus one can say that at the height of the Cold War, the United States put its own forces in battle to protect what it felt was a national interest, and even if it was not ultimately successful, showed a resolve that was not to be taken lightly.Perhaps t...
