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Vietnam and the American Presidency from Ford to Obama
Brookings Institution Press
June 2011
On Sale: May 26, 2011
355 pages
ISBN: 0815721315
EAN: 9780815721314
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
"'By God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome,' crowed
President George H. W. Bush when he repelled Iraq's invasion
of Kuwait in 1991. He was wrong. The Vietnam debacle
continues to haunt America's political leaders, military
men, and population. Marvin Kalb and Deborah Kalb's account
of this phenomenon is studiously researched, vividly
narrated, and, above all, highly readable. It will stand as
a major contribution to the subject."—Stanley Karnow, author
of Vietnam: A History, winner of the Pulitzer Prize The United States had never lost a war—that is, until 1975,
when it was forced to flee Saigon in humiliation after
losing to what Lyndon Johnson called a "raggedy-ass little
fourth-rate country." The legacy of this first defeat has
haunted every president since, especially on the decision of
whether to put "boots on the ground" and commit troops to war. In Haunting Legacy, the father-daughter journalist team of
Marvin Kalb and Deborah Kalb presents a compelling,
accessible, and hugely important history of presidential
decisionmaking on one crucial issue: in light of the Vietnam
debacle, under what circumstances should the United States
go to war? The sobering lesson of Vietnam is that the United States is
not invincible—it can lose a war—and thus it must be more
discriminating about the use of American power. Every
president has faced the ghosts of Vietnam in his own way,
though each has been wary of being sucked into another
unpopular war. Ford (during the Mayaguez crisis) and both
Bushes (Persian Gulf, Iraq, Afghanistan) deployed massive
force, as if to say, "Vietnam, be damned." On the other
hand, Carter, Clinton, and Reagan (to the surprise of many)
acted with extreme caution, mindful of the Vietnam
experience. Obama has also wrestled with the Vietnam legacy,
using doses of American firepower in Libya while still
engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan. The authors spent five years interviewing hundreds of
officials from every postwar administration and conducting
extensive research in presidential libraries and archives,
and they've produced insight and information never before
published. Equal parts taut history, revealing biography,
and cautionary tale, Haunting Legacy is must reading for
anyone trying to understand the power of the past to
influence war-and-peace decisions of the present, and of the
future.
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