{"product_id":"fatal-politics-the-nixon-tapes-the-vietnam-war-and-the-casualties-of-reelection-9780813939353","title":"Fatal Politics: The Nixon Tapes, the Vietnam War, and the Casualties of Reelection","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn his widely acclaimed \u003ci\u003eChasing Shadows\u003c\/i\u003e (\"the best account yet of Nixon's devious interference with Lyndon Johnson's 1968 Vietnam War negotiations\"-- \u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e), Ken Hughes revealed the roots of the covert activity that culminated in Watergate. In \u003ci\u003eFatal Politics, \u003c\/i\u003e Hughes turns to the final years of the war and Nixon's reelection bid of 1972 to expose the president's darkest secret.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhile Nixon publicly promised to keep American troops in Vietnam only until the South Vietnamese could take their place, he privately agreed with his top military, diplomatic, and intelligence advisers that Saigon could never survive without American boots on the ground. Afraid that a preelection fall of Saigon would scuttle his chances for a second term, Nixon put his reelection above the lives of American soldiers. Postponing the inevitable, he kept America in the war into the fourth year of his presidency. At the same time, Nixon negotiated a \"decent interval\" deal with the Communists to put a face-saving year or two between his final withdrawal and Saigon's collapse. If they waited that long, Nixon secretly assured North Vietnam's chief sponsors in Moscow and Beijing, the North could conquer the South without any fear that the United States would intervene to save it. The humiliating defeat that haunts Americans to this day was built into Nixon's exit strategy. Worse, the myth that Nixon was winning the war before Congress \"tied his hands\" has led policy makers to adapt tactics from America's final years in Vietnam to the twenty-first-century conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, prolonging both wars without winning either.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eForty years after the fall of Saigon, and drawing on more than a decade spent studying Nixon's secretly recorded Oval Office tapes--the most comprehensive, accurate, and illuminating record of any presidency in history, much of it never transcribed until now-- \u003ci\u003eFatal Politics\u003c\/i\u003e tells a story of political manipulation and betrayal that will change how Americans remember Vietnam. \u003ci\u003eFatal Politics\u003c\/i\u003e is also available as a special e-book that allows the reader to move seamlessly from the book to transcripts and audio files of these historic conversations.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eKen Hughes, researcher at the University of Virginia's Miller Center Presidential Recordings Program, is the author of \u003ci\u003eChasing Shadows: The Nixon Tapes, the Chennault Affair, and the Origins of Watergate\u003c\/i\u003e (Virginia). His work as a journalist has appeared in the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times Magazine, \u003c\/i\u003e the \u003ci\u003eWashington Post, \u003c\/i\u003e the \u003ci\u003eBoston Globe Magazine, \u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eSalon.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of Virginia Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50527342625042,"sku":"9780813939353","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_03719ac3-36ce-4e64-ab48-bc2f1dfc6481.jpg?v=1731298708","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/fatal-politics-the-nixon-tapes-the-vietnam-war-and-the-casualties-of-reelection-9780813939353","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}