Henry Kissinger và Chiến tranh Việt Nam

Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger played a key role in escalating the Vietnam War. After, he said, there were 'not very many lessons'

By Brianna Morris-Grant
Posted Thu 30 Nov 2023 at 3:44pm

Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger once described himself as "drawn into the vortex" of the Vietnam War.

In reality, the diplomatic powerhouse, who died this week aged 100, played a controversial role in both the escalation and the ending of the conflict.

A German-born Jewish refugee, Mr Kissinger — born Heinz Alfred Kissinger — became a US citizen in 1943, served in World War II and was on Harvard's faculty for almost two decades after earning a master's degree and doctorate.

He initially acted as an intermediary for the State Department in Vietnam in 1967, ultimately achieving objectively unchallenged authority in foreign affairs as secretary of state just a few years later.'High expectations' and 'Vietnamisation'

"It all began with high expectations", Mr Kissinger wrote in his 2003 book, Ending the Vietnam War.

The conflict had broken out under president John F Kennedy as a way to stem the spread of communism in south-east Asia.

Criticism of the war had "started out fairly conventionally", Mr Kissinger wrote, citing television as one of the driving forces behind a rapid indictment of a policy which, he claimed "enjoyed nearly universal support"

Americans were tired. Mr Kissinger's predecessor, secretary Robert McNamara, "repeatedly implored" him to negotiate an outcome.

By the time president Richard Nixon came into power, with Mr Kissinger acting as his national security advisor and secretary of state, hundreds of soldiers were dying each week.

The ongoing war presented an annual taxpayer bill in the billions of dollars.

It was a pledge to end the Vietnam War that had won the election for the Republican president, but the process of "Vietnamisation" — shifting the burden of war onto South Vietnam — proved long and bloody.

Mr Kissinger had been ordered to negotiate with China and the Soviet Union, which were proving a higher priority than the situation in South Vietnam.

Given a list of policy options, both the president and his secretary of state were told: "I don't believe there is a win option in Vietnam."

Mr Kissinger was given permission to begin secret peace talks with North Vietnam. He boarded a plane to France.

Doomed peace agreement forged at Paris villa
At a villa outside Paris, Mr Kissinger met with North Vietnamese representative Le Duc Tho, and within 10 days of their meeting the pair had written a final draft.

"We believe peace is at hand," Mr Kissinger said in a press conference in Washington announcing the news.

"For the first time, (the North Vietnamese) made a proposal which made it possible to negotiate concretely at all.

"It proposed that the United States and Hanoi, in the first instance, concentrate on bringing an end to the military aspects of the war … They dropped their demand for a coalition government which would absorb all existing authorities.

"They dropped their demand for a veto over the personalities and the structure of the existing government.

"And we spent four days — sometimes working 16 hours a day — in order to complete this draft agreement."

In early 1973, then-secretary of state Henry Kissinger announced the conclusion of the Vietnam Peace Agreement.

The official agreement set in place a ceasefire on January 27, 1973, and the negotiation effort earned Mr Kissinger a Nobel Peace Prize the same year, awarded to him jointly with Mr Tho, who declined it.

Fighting in Vietnam had resumed before US forces even left the country. In 1975, the South Vietnamese government collapsed.

'We paid a high price'

Mr Kissinger's reign as an architect of US foreign policy began to wane with Mr Nixon's post-Watergate resignation in 1974, but he continued to speak publicly about foreign policy for the rest of his life.

In later years, visits to other countries were restricted by efforts by other nations to arrest or question him about past US foreign policy.

In a memo to then-president Gerald Ford in 1975, Mr Kissinger wrote it was "remarkable", given how long the war lasted, there were "not very many lessons".

"Vietnam represented a unique situation, geographically, ethnically, politically, militarily and diplomatically," he wrote in the memorandum, which was declassified in 1998.

"[In] our public statements, I believe we can honourably avoid self-flagellation and that we should not characterise our role in the conflict as a disgraceful disaster.

"I believe our efforts, militarily, diplomatically and politically, were not in vain.

"We paid a high price but we gained ten years of time … I don't believe our soldiers or our people need to be ashamed."

Political experts have estimated more than 282,000 US and allied military forces died in the Vietnam War.

The total death toll has been estimated to be around 1,353,000.

A post-White House life of book tours and vocal opinions

Mr Ford called Mr Kissinger a "super secretary of state" but also noted his prickliness and self assurance, which critics were more likely to call paranoia and egotism.

Mr Ford said: "Henry in his mind never made a mistake. He had the thinnest skin of any public figure I ever knew."

When Mr Ford lost to Jimmy Carter in 1976, Mr Kissinger's days in the suites of government power were largely over.

The next Republican in the White House, Ronald Reagan, distanced himself from Mr Kissinger, who he viewed as out of step with his conservative constituency.

He went on to set up a high-priced and high-powered consulting firm for the world's corporate elite, writing books, giving media commentary, and serving on various boards and forums.

At age 99, he was still taking on a book tour, hinting in interviews he retained mixed feelings about his legacy and life decisions.

"I’ve been thinking about these problems all my life. It’s my hobby as well as my occupation," he told ABC.

"And so the recommendations I made were the best of which I was then capable.”

Earlier this year, Mr Kissinger sat down with Bloomberg ahead of his 100th birthday.

In the lead up to his 100th birthday he was asked during a CBS interview about those who viewed his foreign policy as its own kind of "criminality".

"That’s a reflection of their ignorance,” he said. “It wasn’t conceived that way. It wasn’t conducted that way.”

He leaves behind two children, Elizabeth and David, from his first marriage.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-30/henry-kissinger-vietnam-war-legacy/103172192