Henry Kissinger and the Vietnam War

"American diplomat Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) played an important and controversial role in the Vietnam War. Starting out as a supporter, Kissinger came to see it as a drag on American power. In 1968, Kissinger leaked information about the status of the peace talks in Paris to the Nixon campaign and was rewarded with being appointed National Security Adviser under Richard Nixon. As National Security Adviser, Kissinger sought initially to find a way to end the war on American terms. During his tenure, Kissinger came to differ with Nixon as Kissinger was more in favor of seeking an end to war as expeditiously as possible with minimum damage to American prestige. In October 1972, Kissinger reached a draft agreement that Nixon at first rejected, leading to the Christmas bombings of December 1972. The agreement that Kissinger signed in January 1973—which led to the American withdrawal from Vietnam in March of that year—was very similar to the draft agreement rejected the previous year. As National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, Kissinger favored continued American support for South Vietnam right until the collapse of that state in April 1975, which Kissinger blamed Congress for. ..."

W - Henry Kissinger and the Vietnam War 

Salon - They died for Henry Kissinger's "credibility": The real history of our Vietnam immorality 

Mother Jones - Henry Kissinger at 100: Still a War Criminal 

"Henry A. Kissinger’s decision to authorize the secret carpet bombing of Cambodia, his efforts to negotiate the American exit from the Vietnam War and his role in the U.S. rapprochement with China have rippled through Southeast Asia in the decades since. Mr. Kissinger, who died on Wednesday, shared the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the peace accords that ended American involvement in the Vietnam War. But some critics accused him of needlessly prolonging the war when a framework for peace had been available years earlier. The fighting between North Vietnam and U.S.-backed South Vietnam did not end until the North’s victory in 1975. Some observers have said that was the inevitable result of a cynical American policy intended to create space — “a decent interval,” as Mr. Kissinger put it — between the American withdrawal from the country in 1973 and the fall of Saigon two years later. ..."

NY Times: Kissinger’s Legacy Still Ripples Through Vietnam and Cambodia 

Jacobin - Henry Kissinger: To Die at the Right Time 

Rolling Stone - Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Beloved by America’s Ruling Class, Finally Dies 

Jacobin - The Verdict on Henry Kissinger

 

***NY Times: OPINION | Ask Brutalized Cambodians What They Think of Kissinger

The aftermath of a bombing in Snuol, Cambodia, during the Vietnam War, in May 1970.