Elusive Victories_ The American Presidency at War-Oxford University Press (2012)

(Axel Boer) #1

410 notes to pages 253‒260



  1. Sorley, Better War , 38–40, 112–13, 115–16.

  2. Hoff , Nixon Reconsidered , 163–65.

  3. Hoff , Nixon Reconsidered , 212; Sorley, Better War , 128–29.

  4. On the other hand, the Americans did claim that the North Vietnamese
    violated understandings dating back to the 1968 bombing halt not to take
    advantage of the situation to launch major off ensive operations. Hanoi
    consistently denied that any such understandings existed.

  5. Kissinger later acknowledged this conundrum. Berman, No Peace, No
    Honor , 80.

  6. Sorley, Better War , 176–77. Sorley off ers an excellent account of Abrams’s
    tenure as MACV commander.

  7. Langguth, Our Vietnam , 538.

  8. Sorley, Better War.

  9. Sorley, Better War , 160–61, 186–87, 331.

  10. Sorley, Better War , 254ff.

  11. Sorley, Better War , 321ff.

  12. Sorley, Better War , 166. But on the matter of a residual American force,
    Laird evidently went back and forth. He suggested privately in late 1971
    that some American troops would likely remain in Vietnam for decades.
    Sorley, Better War , 282.

  13. Sorley, Better War , 117.

  14. Berman, No Peace, No Honor , 55–58.

  15. Later the president and others off ered various rationales for the secrecy,
    such as a desire to avoid forcing Cambodia’s head of state, Prince
    Norodom Sihanouk, to acknowledge the attacks. Th e record of internal
    administration discussions, though, makes it clear that domestic political
    considerations were the key factors.

  16. Hoff , Nixon Reconsidered , 212–13, 217; Sorley, Better War , 117–19; Berman,
    No Peace, No Honor , 50–51.

  17. Langguth, Our Vietnam , 557ff ., 564.

  18. Berman, No Peace, No Honor , 58–59; Sorley, Better War , 169; Hoff , Nixon
    Reconsidered , 229.

  19. Th is interpretation is developed at length in Belma S. Steinberg, Shame
    and Humiliation: Presidential Decision Making on Vietnam (Pittsburgh:
    University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996) , chap. 5. See also Langguth, Our
    Vietnam , 544–45.

  20. Langguth, Our Vietnam , 566; Sorley, Better War , 116, 202.

  21. Langguth, Our Vietnam , 568.

  22. Sorley, Better War , 203–5.

  23. Hoff , Nixon Reconsidered , 229; Sorley, Better War , 210; Langguth, Our
    Vietnam , 571.

  24. Sorley, Better War , 213–14; Langguth, Our Vietnam , 568.

  25. Sorley, Better War , 228, 230, 233, 262–63; Langguth, Our Vietnam ,
    578–79.

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