Nixon, Ford, and the Abandonment of South Vietnam,

Historian Lee and retired business professor Haynsworth (both Winthrop Univ.) strike the basic theme that as early as March 1969, when Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird visited General Creighton Abrams in Vietnam to explain Vietnamization, the abandonment of Vietnam had commenced. Nixon and Ford, as well as Henry Kissinger, are clearly the culprits in the abandonment that culminated in South Vietnam's fall in April 1975. The assessment proceeds on two levels. First, the two presidents faced other international priorities--China, the USSR, and crisis in the Middle East--as well as domestic pressures, protests, and political opposition. Second, and more uniquely, there is an excellent account of events in-country from 1973 until the final evacuation, which includes detailed recognition by name of the many Vietnamese and US military personnel and civilians who made exceptional contributions over the final years. Others appear in a less flattering light, including President Thieu, who during 1975 made what the authors euphemistically call "sub optimal decisions." Historians might take exception to the simple revisionist conclusion in the final chapter that Presidents Nixon and Ford "lost" Vietnam if only because Vietnam's indigenous revolution, like Russia's in 1917 and China's in 1949, appeared beyond the power of the US to control. Summing Up: