Kissinger's Betrayal: How America Lost the Vietnam War

Thank you Dr Young for your book. By the years you worked in Vietnam, and through the US declassified documents you have exposed the malicious tricks and pressures that Kissinger applied to force the South Vietnam president Nguyễn văn Thiệu to sign the 1973 Paris accord in which it allowed the North VN communist forces to stay in South VN after the American forces withdrew from South VN. This allowed condition had killed the South VN. Kissinger cheated the president Nixon to gain what he wanted and became a brilliant diplomatist of America! Your book unveiled the true face of Kissinger and helped the readers understanding the truth why the South VN people lost their country in the US contemporary history. After reading this book, I bought two more as gifts to my friends who were a former airborn officer of ARVN and other was a PhD professor . Dr Young, people of South VN would not forget your lenient heart .

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The book is well researched. Professor Young did an excellent job explaining how Henry Kissinger and the anti-war movement --which included Hanoi John and Hanoi Jane -- helped the north Vietnamese communists conquered South Vietnam. As Professor Young pointed out the book, Henry Kissinger has never shown any remorse for what he did to the people of South Vietnamese; neither did Hanoi John and Hanoi Jane. As for Hanoi John and Hanoi Jane, these two should have been charged with treason and deported to Hanoi along time ago. This book also covers a lot of meetings between 1968-1972 and how the decisions made at these meetings led to the fall of Saigon.

Kissinger's Betrayal: How America Lost the Vietnam War. Stephen A. Young. RealClear Publishing, 2023. 432 pages. Henry Kissinger's recent death at age 100 marked the end of a roughly 70 year career as academic historian, National Security Advisor, Secretary of State, and advisor to a dozen presidents. He shaped much of America's Cold War policy and history, and he became one of the most powerful and influential men in all of American history, credited with overseeing detente with both the USSR and the People's Republic of China and negotiating the Paris Peace Accords that ended US involvement in Vietnam. His legacy is incredibly complicated, and historians will be struggling to unpack it and sort it out for decades. Was he a genius diplomat who worked tirelessly to achieve peace or was he a war criminal whose actions brought death and suffering on a huge scale, ultimately thwarting peace and stability? Author Stephen A. Young's book tackles this question of legacy head-on, and one can correctly infer from the title what his opinion is. Young was on the ground during the Vietnam War, tasked with building support for South Vietnam's government amongst the local populations as part of the US-sponsored CORDS program. He went on to become an academic and think tank director. Here, he relies on formerly classified documents in American, Vietnamese, and Russian archives, numerous interviews, and especially the personal papers of U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam, Ellsworth Bunker to accuse Kissinger of turning his back on the people of South Vietnam, deceiving President Nixon and other Cabinet members, along with the South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu, causing the collapse of South Vietnam when it could have survived otherwise. He makes a compelling case, and the background and history of the Vietnam conflict are phenomenally presented. However, it is obvious that Young does have a particular agenda, and his interpretations differ from the accepted view. For example, while conventional wisdom often portrays Nguyen Van Thieu as extremely corrupt and incompetent, I think Young portrays him almost as admirable, even heroic. And, of course, we will never know for sure if South Vietnam could have survived American withdrawal under different conditions. Biased as the author as, I still think the book adds to the history of the Vietnam War.

excellent read with clear backup and references.

Most people don't know that North Vietnam's eight divisions and four independent infantry regiments (et al) in I Corps were thrown back by ARVN, South Vietnamese Marine Corps, US Advisors, and the 571st Military Intelligence Detachment. Those pockets of enemy forces did not have to return across the DMZ, which they illegally crossed. Great read.

What great research and background information. its a very compelling book about real behind the scenes historical events. backed by now unclassified documents and recordings and in person interviews as well as personal experience. Well worth reading!

I did my research work on South Vietnamese defense policies in the 1980s during which time I had the opportunity to discuss with, and/or interview at least, 45 principal policy makers and former commanders from North/South Vietnam, the US, UK, Australia and France. I had known of Stephen Young because of his work as an assistant to Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker in Saigon. I finally got to meet him in New York at a conference on Vietnam, circa 2000. I was very impressed that he delivered his entire presentation in Vietnamese. I had concluded early on that Kissinger was no match for Lê Đức Thọ and that Thọ got a better deal from the Paris Peace Accords. To me, Nixon, Kissinger and the US Congress had sold out South Vietnam in exchange for the opening to China! However, I was not aware until now that Kissinger deceived even Nixon on the matter of allowing the North Vietnamese troops to remain inside South Vietnam after the Paris Accords had been signed! Young shares my view that Vietnamization was actually working (and as such, South Vietnam could have likely become another South Korea had the US Government not cut and run when North Vietnam launched their offensives in 1974).I find it amusing that so many people hold Kissinger in such high esteem. But this is not the place to critique his other foreign policies. While “Kissinger’s Betrayal” contains a number of new and useful details, it would have been more useful had it come out 4 decades ago when so many scholars were still scrambling to analyze what went wrong in Vietnam. It might have helped a number of them from reaching the conclusion that the Vietnam War was somehow “unwinnable ”. Nonetheless, this is still an important and useful addition to the vast ocean of books on Vietnam. BTW, an index would have been helpful!

I really struggled to get to the end of this book, it is nothing but wishful thinking by the author still wanting to believe that the war could have been won. I have read 100's of books visited Vietnam many times, even have a letter from RS McNamara stating the war effort was doomed. But yet this book is filled with directed phrases of the Vietnam Nationalists, used virtually on every page as a way to say it could have all been better if Kissinger negotiated better, it is total rubbish, KIssinger and the USA lied about this conflict well before the 65 build up, Sth Vietnam was never a true Nation as such and to say it was all lost only because of the Kissinger negotiations is just trying to deflect blame of the entire USA fault. All this so called statistics about how the South could have prevailed etc, total rubbish. The fact that there is a reference to German General Rommel shows that the author still does not and did not understand what this was all about. The South Vietnamese were let down and lied to by the US administration for many years not just the end part when they wanted out no matter who was the scarifice.