Word: saigon
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...begin with, there was the survival of the regime in Saigon. It was a regime that past American policy-makers had installed and then sworn to uphold, and though the new American leaders probably had little real use for General Thieu-and were suffering the domestic consequences of what little use they had-they also felt it essential that no American policy precipitate the collapse of the South Vietnamese regime. For that would impugn their honor and damage their credibility, and those were concepts that did not come cheap to them. And in the absence of the regime's guaranteed...
...assumption that the overpowering weight of the U. S. military stood behind America's negotiators at every step of the way. And in a situation of fixed objectives-that of the NLF and Hanoi, to bring about a revolution in their country, and that of Washington, to uphold the Saigon regime-the use of force would be bound to increase...
...determined then that any American withdrawal would have to meet two requirements: first, that it not cause the collapse of the Saigon regime soon after withdrawal, for otherwise, America's international (and domestic) standing would lose; and second, that the withdrawal have as little adverse effect as possible on the decision-making structure of this country, that particularly the Presidency must be preserved as the leading formulator of foreign policy. In concrete terms, that meant that neither Congress nor public opinion could be allowed to coerce the United States out of Vietnam...
...Kissinger's accession, because in 1967 and 1968 he had privately put forward a position on the war that made him look far more dovish than anyone in academia, let alone government: the notion of the "decent interval." According to this scheme, an agreement permitting the collapse of the Saigon regime would be negotiated privately with the North Vietnamese. The plan was for the United States to begin removing forces at a rapid rate; after all of them had finally departed, the rebel forces would sit tight for a previously agreed-on period of time. Finally, after this "decent interval...
...decent interval" approach would yield startling insight into Kissinger's later policy recommendations on the war. To begin with, the Saigon regime was not being defended out of any real sense of principle. Kissinger was willing and eager to uphold a corrupt totalitarian government with the most brutal possible methods for the mere sake of diplomatic gain. Thousands of lives could be sacrificed and whole civilizations destroyed in the name of opposing a takeover which Kissinger had earlier been prepared-and was probably still prepared-to accept...