Kissinger's Betrayal: How America Lost the Vietnam War

The current travails of Americans—here at home and overseas—arose from the failure of our effort to make good on our promise to the people of South Vietnam to defend them from Communist aggression.The loss of the Vietnam War brought us the shame of dishonor and a loss of self-confidence.Defeat broke our morale, unnerved us, and caused us to turn against our traditions, ideals, and our trust in ourselves and in each other.Our veterans were ostracized, which caused them a vicious kind of posttraumatic stressdisorder, one not experienced in combat but only after they returned home to rejection and stigma.Many then self-victimized, blaming their government for exposing them to Agent Orangeherbicides or not seeking the return of our prisoners of war.The unwritten foundational contract of America to honor those citizens who served in its wars was abandoned after our loss in Vietnam. It was a contract that began with the Revolution and was honored through the Civil War, two World Wars, and the Korean War.To this day, the greeting of one Vietnam veteran to another has been “Welcome home!” Yet it rings hollow.Filling the cultural vacuum left by the collapse of confidence in ourselves, our leaders, and our cause was the narrative of those opposed to the war in Vietnam—a divisive repudiation of America as a moral exemplar, the “city upon a hill.”This was the first time that the professoriat, supported by journalists and other intellectuals, came up with its own narrative about what America was doing wrong in a foreign war, a false story about the Vietnamese and the origins of the war. Then they imposed it upon the American people through control of critical elite cultural institutions. It would not be the last time that this would happen. What really happened in Vietnam? For five decades, conventional wisdom about the Vietnam War has been that it was lost because it never could have been won. South Vietnam was doomed to defeat. The American effort was a foreign intrusion forever incapable of winning the hearts and minds of the South Vietnamese people. But what if South Vietnam was defeated not because of its own shortcomings but because it was betrayed by a secret deal made behind its back?Deeply researched and compellingly argued, Kissingers Betrayal uses once-secret files of the American ambassador to South Vietnam and long-overlooked documents from official government archivesincluding the foreign ministry of the Soviet Unionto reveal for the first time how Henry Kissinger personally and secretly schemed to irrevocably compromise South Vietnams chances for survival. Without informing his president, other American leaders, or US allies in South Vietnam, Kissinger unilaterally made a horrendousand ultimately completely unnecessarydiplomatic concession that allowed Communist North Vietnam to leave its army inside South Vietnam and then freely resume its war of invasion and conquest at a time of its own choosing. In an unprecedented account, historian and global executive director of the Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism Stephen B. Young provides new insight into both genuine Vietnamese Nationalism and the French colonialism that marginalized and decentered the right of the Vietnamese people to live freely in an independent country of their own choosing. Kissingers Betrayal reveals a fresh and more truthful history of the Vietnam War that restores dignity to America as well as the people of Vietnam.