Madman Diplomacy, Nixon to Trump

Summary

History As It Happens – "Madman Diplomacy, Nixon to Trump"

Host: Martin Di Caro
Guest: Carolyn Eisenberg
Date: May 1, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the concept of "madman diplomacy" as practiced by President Richard Nixon during the Vietnam War and draws explicit parallels to President Donald Trump’s recent approach to the crisis with Iran. Leveraging historian Carolyn Eisenberg’s expertise, the episode examines the interplay of political pressure, personal psychology, and strategic calculations behind coercive U.S. foreign policy—past and present.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining Madman Diplomacy

• Nixon’s Madman Theory: Nixon aimed to convince adversaries, especially North Vietnam, that he was unpredictable and capable of extreme action—including potentially using nuclear weapons. "I call it the madman theory, Bob," Nixon told his aide Haldeman. (04:01)
• Contrast with Trump: Eisenberg contends that, in contrast to Nixon’s calculated unpredictability, Trump is "arguably a madman" in a more literal sense—driven by psychological needs and lacking expert advisors. (17:26)

2. Vietnam War Context

• Nixon’s Inheritance: Nixon entered office with the Vietnam War stalled, 550,000 American troops in country, and a strong national security consensus opposed to losing the war. No one significant in government was suggesting withdrawal. (11:48, 14:21)
• Early Moves: Nixon began the process of “Vietnamization”—withdrawing U.S. troops while escalating bombing campaigns (notably in Cambodia) and seeking diplomatic resolution without appearing weak. (03:37, 15:38, 19:51)

3. Madman Diplomacy in Action: Duck Hook and Cambodia

• Operation Duck Hook: Secretly planned as an intense escalation, including mining and bombing North Vietnam (and with some nuclear options discussed, though never seriously considered). Ultimately aborted due to growing antiwar sentiment at home. (19:33, 26:31)
• Bombing of Cambodia: Conducted without congressional notification, aimed at both military and psychological objectives—killing enemy troops and signaling seriousness to Hanoi. (21:45)

4. Limits and Consequences of Coercive Power

• Antiwar Movement Impact: The Vietnam Moratorium demonstrations forced Nixon’s hand, showing how domestic opinion could constrain military escalation. (22:50, 24:29)
• Decent Interval Strategy: Nixon and Kissinger ultimately sought to preserve South Vietnam’s government long enough ("a decent interval") after U.S. departure to avoid blame for its collapse. But Eisenberg cautions against portraying this as wholly cynical—denial and self-deception also played roles. (06:36, 27:46, 32:32)

5. Drawing Parallels: Trump’s Iran Crisis

• Similar Tactics: Trump’s reliance on threats, "maximum pressure," and unpredictable rhetoric echoes Nixon’s methods, but differs in its actual unpredictability, lack of expert guidance, and greater impulsivity. (16:19, 18:01, 19:33)
• Iran’s Response: Just as the North Vietnamese often called Nixon’s bluff, Iran repeatedly resisted Trump’s coercive attempts—leaving Trump unable to secure a face-saving "peace with honor." (30:12)
• Economic Pressure as Public Opinion: Today, the peace movement is less visible; instead, economic factors like the stock market and gas prices create pressure on the administration. (44:52)

6. Moral Cost and Lessons Unheeded

• Disregard for Civilian Suffering: Both Nixon and Trump administrations displayed "callousness about what you’re doing to people," focusing on political optics over human cost. Recent bombings, including the destruction of an Iranian girls’ school, echo past tragedies. (36:05)
• Limits of American Power: The U.S. can inflict massive harm but cannot always dictate political outcomes—an enduring, frustrating lesson not fully internalized. (48:20)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Madman Theory:

  "He said, 'We’ll get the word to them that this guy is unpredictable, crazy, we can’t control him, and he has his finger on the nuclear button...I call it the madman theory, Bob.'"
  — Daniel Ellsberg, recalling Nixon’s strategy (04:01)

• Eisenberg on Nixon vs. Trump:

  "Nixon was not a madman... Trump, who is arguably a madman in the sense that his psychological needs and personal qualities he’s unleashed to some degree in a way that Nixon never was."
  (17:26)

• Kissinger on Decent Interval:

  "We've gotta find some formula that holds the thing together a year or two, after which, after a year, Mr. President, Vietnam will be a backwater. If we settle, let’s say this October, by January ’74 no one will give a damn."
  — Henry Kissinger (32:14)

• Eisenberg on Internal Delusion:

  "It’s not just like [Nixon/Kissinger are] big liars...they are tricking themselves. They can’t really ever psychologically acknowledge that the deal they’re getting is going to doom their ally."
  (32:32)

• On Callousness and Strategy:

  "One of the things that underpins, I think, all the decision making at the top of the Nixon administration and what’s happening right now is a callousness about what you’re doing to people. That counts not at all."
  — Carolyn Eisenberg (36:05)

• Comparing Peace Movements:

  "You could argue that the peace movement is the stock market and the price of oil, because that is as much as anything is the countervailing force here."
  — Carolyn Eisenberg (44:52)

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Chronological Breakdown (with Timestamps)

• 01:37–04:24 — Introduction to Nixon’s “madman diplomacy,” archival audio, and summary of early Vietnam years.
• 11:08–15:38 — Eisenberg discusses Nixon’s inheritance of the Vietnam War, the limits on increasing troops, and the unified security establishment behind continuation.
• 17:26–19:33 — Eisenberg clarifies myth vs. reality of "madman" diplomacy; differs from Trump’s actual unpredictability.
• 19:33–22:41 — Description of Operation Duck Hook and the bombing of Cambodia as signals to Hanoi.
• 22:41–26:51 — The role of the antiwar moratorium and the eventual abandonment of Duck Hook, domestic opinion’s constraining effect.
• 27:46–32:32 — The search for a “decent interval,” denial and wishful thinking among leaders, unsuccessful attempts at stage-managing outcomes.
• 36:05 — Stark reminder of the disregard for civilian lives in both eras.
• 44:52–46:15 — The role of the economy in shaping modern political pressure, implications for Trump’s decision-making.
• 48:20–49:11 — Broader lessons on the limitations of coercive power and the disappointment that those lessons must be relearned.

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Conclusion: Parallels, Contrasts, and Warnings

The episode ultimately argues that while Nixon’s "madman diplomacy" was calculated and rooted in a broader bureaucratic consensus, Trump’s approach is more impulsive and isolated from expert advice—yet both strategies reveal the limits of American military power and the political imperative to save face. Eisenberg warns of the tragic human costs of such policies and the dangers posed by leaders operating within self-serving delusions or emotional impulses.

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For Further Listening

• Dive deeper into the Vietnam War and more contemporary crises in international diplomacy in upcoming and archived episodes of History As It Happens.

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Transcript

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[Richard Nixon]

than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate when it comes to maintaining peace. Prestige is not an empty word, as we know. We couldn't do it with anything for B52s because God damn it, there's nothing else that can fly at this time of year. Chicago Civic center, the scene of other protests in recent days. A huge crowd assembled during the lunch hour. So tonight, to the great silent majority of my fellow Americans, I ask for your support.

[Martin DeCaro]

Richard Nixon tried to scare the enemy in the Vietnam War that he might be so unrestrained he'd resort to nuclear weapons. Until the end of 1972, Nixon and Kissinger hoped they could bomb concessions out of North Vietnam to achieve their phony peace with honor. Today, President Trump has blustered and bluffed about destroying Iran, but is yet to find a face saving way out of the crisis he himself created. The parallels between past and present. Next, as we report history as it happens, I'm Martin DeCaro.

[Henry Kissinger]

Now they have to cry uncle. That's all they have to do. Just say we give up.

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

You get to a place where the only thing that is actually at stake for an administration is how they look once upon a time. You know, and I still see this in my classes when I have come conversations with students. Once upon a time, the whole Vietnam War was in the framework of a cold war that we are waging with the Russians and the Chinese and they are potentially going to take over everything, right? And then that's out the window. That's like so irrelevant to how Kissinger and Nixon are thinking. And so what is the state? You know, why was it so important to keep fighting and killing?

[Henry Kissinger]

The entire country could be taken out in one night.

[Martin DeCaro]

In his first televised address to the American people about the war he inherited in May 1969, President Richard Nixon promised he wanted peace in Vietnam, but not at the cost of humiliating the United States. There would be no unilateral U.S. withdrawal.

[Richard Nixon]

When we assume the burden of helping defend South Vietnam, millions of South Vietnamese men, women and children place their trust in us. To abandon them now would risk a massacre that would shock and dismay everyone in the world who values human life. Abandoning the South Vietnamese people, however, would jeopardize more than lives in South Vietnam. It would threaten our long term hopes for peace in the world.

[Martin DeCaro]

By the middle of 1969, Nixon started pulling out US troops as part of his Vietnamization plan. But he and Henry Kissinger were wary of appearing weak as they sought a diplomatic resolution on terms favorable to the United States. United States. This is from the PBS American Experience documentary on Nixon's madman diplomacy. The voice of Daniel Ellsberg.

[Henry Kissinger]

He said we'll get the word to them that this guy is unpredictable, crazy, we can't control him and he has his finger on the nuclear button. And Nixon said to Haldeman, OG men will be in Paris the next day to negotiate. And in his own mind the word was used madman. He said, I call it the madman theory, Bob.

[Martin DeCaro]

Now according to the National Security Archive, a private research group that obtains declassified documents, Nixon had the military come up with something called the Duck Hook operation. Initially drafted in July 1969 as a mining only operation, it soon evolved into a mining and bombing shock. And all plans scheduled to be launched in early November, but which Nixon aborted in October. Faced with mounting anti war anger that would culminate in the moratorium of mid October and then again in mid November.

[Richard Nixon]

It is October 15th, Vietnam Moratorium Day. I think that the people in Vietnam do not want us in there. Most of the people, people who know even the farmers.

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

I suggest to the President of the

[Henry Kissinger]

United States, if he want to know

[Martin DeCaro]

how much effect you youngsters can have

[Henry Kissinger]

on the President, he should make one

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

long distance phone call to the LBJ ranch and ask that boy how much

[Martin DeCaro]

effect you can have. The National Security Archive goes on to say that the failure of Nixon and Kissinger's madman diplomacy marked a turning point in their initial exit strategy of winning a favorable armistice agreement by the end of 1969. Subsequently, they would follow a so called long route strategy of withdrawing U.S. troops while attempting to strengthen South Vietnam's armed forces, Although not necessarily counting on Saigon long term survival. It was in November of 1969 when Nixon updated the American people on his peace plan, the so called silent majority speech.

[Richard Nixon]

A nation cannot remain great if it betrays its allies and lets down its friends. Our defeat and humiliation in South Vietnam without question would promote recklessness in the councils of those great powers who have not yet abandoned their goals of world conquest.

[Martin DeCaro]

1969 turned to 1970 to 1971 and then 1972 and still no face saving negotiated settlement to get out of Vietnam without looking like you were abandoning Saigon to the North Vietnamese communists. At least not right away. Nixon and Kissinger were looking for a decent interval.

[Henry Kissinger]

If we now sell out in such a way and say within a three to four months period, we have pushed few over the franc we ourselves, I think that is going to speed even the Chinese ones like that means they'll pay brutal vertically they're like worrying. But it will worry everybody. And domestically in the long run it won't help us all that much because our opponent will say we should have done it three years ago. So we've got to find some formula that holds the thing together a year or two after which after a year, Mr. President, Vietnam will be a backwater. If we settle at 38 October by January 74, no one would give it to him.

[Martin DeCaro]

Now. It is important to remember that in October 1972 a draft deal was reached in Paris to end the war. And then in November, Nixon won a landslide victory for re election. And then, as historian Max Hastings writes in Vietnam An Epic Tragedy, the story of Vietnam diplomacy through the months that followed was dominated by the administration's continuing efforts to shake the recalcitrants of Saigon. To persuade Saigon to accept the draft deal struck in Paris again, Saigon, not North Vietnam. The South Vietnamese government understood the deal would leave them exposed. Hastings goes on to say the contradiction about what followed was that the Nixon administration focused its public wrath on Hanoi while privately deploying a barrage of promises and threats in order to secure a change of heart in Saigon. What followed, says Hastings, was among the most grotesque twists of the war. President Nixon mandated an intensive new bombing campaign, supposedly in response to the Communists obduracy and explicitly for their failure to return American POWs.

[Richard Nixon]

One source told the AP, it appears President Nixon may be trying to crank up the peace talks again.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yet North Vietnam's position in December was not significantly changed from that of October. All that was different was that South Vietnam had declined to endorse the proposed settlement. The most plausible explanation of what became known as Nixon's Christmas bombing campaign, Operation Linebacker 2, is that it was designed as a show of strength to convince Saigon and the American people of the might and resolve underpinning the US Commitment to South Vietnam and to punish the north for four years resistance to the will of Richard Nixon. The devastation, concludes Hastings, changed nothing of diplomatic significance.

[Richard Nixon]

United States Military Command has acknowledged the loss of two more B52s in the North Vietnam bombing missions. This brings to 10 the number of the giant bombers downed by North Vietnamese anti aircraft fire since Monday.

[Martin DeCaro]

And as historian Carolyn Eisenberg writes in her Bancroft Prize winning book Fire and Rain, from the inception of Linebacker 2, criticism of the imminent administration was sharp and quick. However, Kissinger remained adamant that having crossed the Rubicon, the only thing we can do is total brutality. Nixon concurred. Although they had chosen to bomb North Vietnam, both men privately understood the real culprit was Thu. That was the President of South Vietnam. What's killing us now, kissinger lamented, is that we have neither a settlement with Hanoi nor a settlement with Thu. This was happening because the South Vietnamese president was an unmitigated, selfish, psychopathic person. Son of a bitch, said Kissinger. So the parallels to today's crisis may jump off the page. Donald Trump, sounding like a madman, has tried and failed to bomb Iran into making concessions to surrender the entire country

[Henry Kissinger]

could be taken out in one night.

[Martin DeCaro]

Trump threatened to destroy Iranian civilization and now he's going with a naval blockade, hoping, like Nixon and Kissinger before him, that coercion will produce results at the negotiating table, such as it is.

[Henry Kissinger]

Well, the blockade is genius. Okay? The blockade has 100% foolproof. It shows how good our Navy is, I can tell you that. Nobody's gonna play games.

[Martin DeCaro]

Historian Carolyn Eisenberg teaches at Hofstra University. She is an expert on the Vietnam War. Decades ago she was an anti war activist and she's the author of the aforementioned Fire and Rain, Nixon, Kissinger and the wars in Southeast Asia. Tap subscribe now in the show Notes for ad free listening, early access and all of our bonus content or go to historyasithappens.com Carolyn Eisenberg it's great to have you back.

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

Great to be back. I really like your podcast.

[Martin DeCaro]

Well, thank you. And you know, it's been almost a year because you were last on when I did a three part series about the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon in 2025, that took place in April. So we are in a new ward to discuss today and we'll discuss whether there are any parallels between what Donald Trump is doing, his approach to this war, and Nixon in 1969. What was the state of the Vietnam War on the battlefields? There had been a bombing pause, I believe by LBJ late in 68. So Nixon takes office and the state of the battlefield is what?

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

Well, the state of the battlefield is that they're still failing to have any Progress. There are 550,000American troops on the ground. And this is, of course, the aftermath of the Tet offensive. General Westmoreland had requested an additional 200,000 and that wasn't happening. But I think the relevant point is that the US Wasn't winning, South Vietnam wasn't winning, that we kept adding people and, you know, and increasing the bombing up until the spring. And nothing seemed to be working very well. So Nixon comes in with a war that's not going well, with many, many American troops already. One of the things that's right in front of his eyes is Lyndon Johnson, right? He watched Lyndon Johnson get wrecked by the war. If you'd gone back a year, it had seemed as though Johnson was a shoo in. He was going to be a successful second term presidency or almost second term. And then he was ruined by Ted.

[Henry Kissinger]

Accordingly, I shall not seek and I

[Richard Nixon]

will not accept the nomination of my

[Henry Kissinger]

party for another term as your president.

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

So one of the things that's very important in terms of what is Nixon walking into, he's walking into a war that's not going well. He is also walking into a situation where there's virtually no chance he's going to get more troops. And he had won very narrowly. And he's very mindful of, you know, am I going to be a one term president? So all that's really present from very early.

[Martin DeCaro]

And his first televised address to the American people after taking office comes in May, May 14, 1969.

[Richard Nixon]

From the review, it became clear at once that the new administration faced a set of immediate operational problems. The other side was preparing for a new offensive. There was a wide gulf of distrust between Washington and Saigon. In eight months of talks in Paris, there had been no negotiations directly concerned with the final settlement.

[Martin DeCaro]

And this is where he outlines how he's going to do things differently and prevail in Vietnam. At this point, he's not thinking about losing the war, although it may have been lost. I guess it depends on how you define victory? Right.

[Richard Nixon]

Reports from Hanoi indicate that the enemy has given up hope for a military victory in South Vietnam, but is counting on a collapse of American will in the United States. There could be no greater error in judgment.

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

I think your basic point is correct. He's not ready to lose the war. And one thing that is very important to include about Nixon's situation, and as the years go by and I even forget my book, this one thing really is very important, is that the national security bureaucracy, so people who are experts, quote, who've been hanging around for a long time, they don't want to lose the war. There's almost nobody that is in those bureaucracies, whether it's CIA or State Department or military or the Joint Chiefs or any of these people, none of them are ready to lose the war. So that's somewhat what Nixon inherits. And one interesting, long forgotten fact is when Henry Kissinger begins his job, one of the first things that he does is he surveys all those national security bureaucracies. He actually, ironically enough, has Daniel Ellsberg as the person to devise the questionnaire. So very, very detailed questionnaire that gets sent to all sorts of people. And what's interesting is that no one is saying or nobody significant is saying, you know what? This is a loser. We have to figure out a way to get out of it. And that's the end of it. Nobody's saying that. So that's also part of what Nixon is inheriting is consensus to continue.

[Martin DeCaro]

He was very skillful at portraying himself as a reasonable person seeking peace. That's a major argument of your book. While behind the scenes, he's planning to escalate the bombing of Cambodia as a tactic to try to get the North Vietnamese to make more concessions at the negotiating table. And I think people might hear a parallel today with the way Donald Trump, although he's not consistent, changes his mind every 45 seconds. But still, I mean, Donald Trump is sticking to this idea that he'll get Iran to submit if we just crank up the pressure a little bit more. Now it's a naval blockade. A couple of weeks ago it was, we'll destroy your civilization. He backed away from that.

[Henry Kissinger]

The fact that they will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran, you're marking it down. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And we agreed to a lot of things, but they didn't agree to that. And I think they will agree to it. I'm almost sure of it. In fact, I am sure of it. If they don't agree, there's no deal. There'll never be a deal.

[Martin DeCaro]

But as you say here, Carolyn, on page 41 of your book, however uncompromising the administration's approach, it reflected the conflict, conflicting pressures Nixon faced. On the one hand, a mobilized peace movement and a war weary public. On the other, as you said, a sprawling military establishment and national security apparatus led by people for whom defeat was unthinkable. And there was Richard Nixon himself, whose entire career had featured themes of crises overcome and enemies vanquished. So I mentioned his May 14 speech to the American public. But already by this point, he is sending signals to North Vietnam, to Moscow, and what is often called madman diplomacy. When do you see madman diplomacy developing in 1969? And what does that even mean?

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

Well, that's a question. No, I think I sent you a message saying Nixon was not a madman. It's actually important to really appreciate that which is clear watching Donald Trump, who is arguably a madman in the sense that his psychological needs and personal qualities he's unleashed to some degree in a way that Nixon never was. And he's not particularly rational and he doesn't have people around him giving him decent advice. You know, I'm straying for a moment, but I think it's really important.

[Martin DeCaro]

No, I think it's a good point,

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

you know, to see that one of my little exercises for my class was that I asked them if they could find, you know, however, any Iran experts that Donald Trump is listening to. But there are no Iran experts because part of it is that the Foreign Service was cleared out. In addition to which Trump doesn't really listen to the established people. He thinks that's all the deep state. So he's getting his advice in a very closed circle of people, many of whom don't know anything. So that's a very different situation than Nixon was. I mean, Trump is, I think, truly unpredictable about what he's going to do. I don't think Nixon was unpredictable. I think what is true is that he definitely wanted to convey mainly to the North Vietnamese that he was very serious and that he could be unpredictable in things that he might do that would hurt them. That's it. I mean, the madman comes in because at some point he has a conversation with Haldeman and he says to Haldeman, I call this the madman theory, Bob. Right. But it isn't exactly madman. It's that what you are trying to do is convey to the enemy that you are unpredictable in what you might do and thinking that if you could communicate that. And I think again, Hanoi was The prime auditor that he was thinking about. You could convince them that you were going to do some horrible things. Maybe they would change. I think that's the calculation.

[Martin DeCaro]

And they did come up with a plan called Duck Hook, prepared secretly for Nixon and Kissinger in July of 1969, initially to mine Haiphong Harbor. Mining a harbor is an act of war, a serious act of war. There were other aspects to Duck Hook as well.

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

What he was thinking is that there had been a bombing halt, certainly, you know, with respect to North Vietnam, he's going to get rid of that. Duck Hook would have been a very intensive bombing campaign on North Vietnamese cities, especially Hanoi and Haiphong. I mean, that's what he was thinking about, is that he would escalate from the skies and that would be intimidating to intimidate them. Right, right. But, you know, again, you have to think about the dilemma Nixon has. He wants to win the war. He has enormous domestic pressure to bring the troops home. Not to just. Just have it be static, but to bring them all. That's a real pressure on him. So he's looking for things to do that could coexist with bringing troops home. He hopes slowly, what are the things you could do? So actually, the first thing is bombing Cambodia just sequentially pre Duck Hook in the spring of 69, he agrees or decides that the US is going to bomb Cambodia, and that that would be a very intense campaign. And the thinking there, you know, sometimes people say, oh, well, that was him being crazy. It wasn't him being crazy. North Vietnamese troops were in Cambodia. Because that's the other thing. In the aftermath of Tet, a lot of the North Vietnamese troops have actually left South Vietnam. They're in Cambodia, they're in Laos. They're just over the dmz. So this idea of bombing Cambodia, it has a double floor advantage from Nixon's point of view. One advantage is that you could kill a lot of soldiers, which is not, for him, a small thing. And the other advantage is you are signaling again, That's. That is another way to signal Hanoi that you are really serious and that you can be escalating in unpredictable ways. Duck Hook is part of that whole approach.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yeah, we're going to return to Duck Hook and how it also had a nuclear tactical nuclear weapon threat in there and a deadline as well. I hear some echoes today, but as you say about the bombing of Cambodia in your book, by ordering the bombing of an officially neutral sovereign country without notifying the relevant congressional committees or allowing for public discussion. Hello, Donald Trump bombing Iran, no public discussion. Nixon and Kissinger had crossed a line. But you say still lacking a larger strategy. They somehow assumed that by upping the level of violence, they were more likely to gain concessions in negotiations. So Duck Hook also had a nuclear alert. There are some military exercises that were performed in a certain part of the world to try to signal to not only Hanoi but Moscow as well that there needs to be a diplomatic solution to the war by November 1st.

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

Right. They don't get it.

[Henry Kissinger]

Yeah.

[Martin DeCaro]

And a big part of that, big part of the reason why was the anti war movement and the moratorium. Pick it up from there.

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

Well, right. I mean, so just they're very frustrated in this summer of 69. I think that needs to be put into the story. And this is where Kissinger also becomes very important. You know, Kissinger really thinks he's going to go. He's such a brilliant negotiator, he's going to get a good deal. They're not going to decisively defeat the enemy, but they're going to get a good deal. And that's why you keep looking for ways to escalate, you know, to signal the enemy, but also to make real gains like kill a lot of the enemy. Right. That's not a small part. But then the moratorium comes. And that's a very, almost surprisingly effective anti war activity. It was really organized by, I would say, the more moderate part of the peace movement at that time. But the basic concept is that people around the country would stop what they were doing, even only for a few hours, and do something in the service of peace. And it was very important in that particular activity that people could do a lot of things. People could do convenient things. You could have a candlelight vigil, you could stop your work and have a discussion. You could march down the main street of your town. So it was really set up as a structure to be user friendly. And that turns out to be enormously successful. Much more successful maybe than the organizers realized. But this is a bad signal for Nixon. He's not, this is not the moment where he's going to escalate or if he is, he's not going to tell anybody about it.

[Martin DeCaro]

Citing an article here from the National Security Archive, which is a private group that gets declassified documents. It sounds like a government organization. National Security Archive, a Kissinger telephone conversation in which Nixon worried that the Nov. 1 deadline for a diplomatic solution to end the war, of course, one that would be favorable to the United States, that the deadline approaching a major anti Vietnam War demonstration scheduled for both mid October and mid November, that escalating the war might produce horrible results by the buildup of a massive adverse reaction among demonstrators. So clearly it was affecting him. We're talking about man, man diplomacy, creating in the mind of the enemy the idea that you might escalate so severely that they have no choice but to make concessions. There was talk in the Duck Hook planning about maybe even dropping a small tactical nuclear weapon on the Ho Chi Minh trail. I mean, how seriously did Nixon come to doing something like that?

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

Not seriously. I know Daniel Ellsberg has argued that this was very serious. I just don't think so. I think this was like a list of things. Nixon was very worried about. Anything that would precipitate a nuclear conflict of any kind. He was very cautious. And he does have these bottom lines. I mean, that's. Again, when you think about Trump, you don't really know exactly what his bottom line is. You know, he seems to be very impulsive and subject to different moods at different times. But Nixon wasn't like that. And Nixon had thought a lot about nuclear weapons, and I think he absolutely did not want to get near that. So I think it's listed by, I can't remember the document whether that was the Joint Chiefs of Staff who had included it. I mean, there's actually two different planning groups that are doing it. There's a Kissinger planning group and then there's a JCS planning group. I don't think that that was a major thing, but I think that they wanted to kill a lot of people. I mean, that they did that. That was. That was an objective affair.

[Martin DeCaro]

Sure. So the November 1st deadline comes and goes. Duck Hook was never put into practice. Right. It was just dropped.

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

Right? Well, you could say it later. You could say it was like when you got to 1972 and they're getting more frustrated. They start doing some of the things that they had planned with Duck Cook for a long time.

[Martin DeCaro]

They renewed the bombing of North Vietnam again to try to get concession. So it seems that Nixon and Kissinger, who eventually adopt the decent interval approach, they're not going to get a surrender from North Vietnam in the first year of Nixon's administration. So they have to do something so the South Vietnamese don't collapse prior to the 1972 election. So it looks like they're responsible for North Vietnam's victory. So they're seeking a decent interval. While they're withdrawing ground forces from Vietnam, they're escalating the bombing elsewhere. Still trying to use bombing as a way to get the North Vietnamese to make concessions, because that's kind of what I'm trying to get at here as we think about Iran and Trump, the limits of power, the folly of making threats or bluffs that you're not going to follow through on. I mean, the Iranians have called Trump's bluff five or six times the last several weeks. Right.

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

You know, there's a number of things

[Martin DeCaro]

that was a long question. I'm sorry.

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

You know, one other thing I want to just emphasize here. And again, this is different from what some other historians will tell you about, that they were settling for the decent interval. You know, you don't want to underestimate the extent to which people in power lie to themselves. So it isn't like it's just super clear that that's all they're doing, is getting a decent interval. That even going right up to the Paris Agreement In January of 1973, certainly the South Vietnamese officials said was a terrible deal. And they left them really exposed. Right. Because they signed an agreement that left 140,000 North Vietnamese troops in the South. So other people could say it was decent interval. I don't think that they exactly got there. I think at different moments, they convinced themselves that this could still work. So you want to leave a little bit of room for that wishful thinking.

[Martin DeCaro]

Sure. Nixon was actually more frustrated with the south at the end than he was in the north because they didn't want to take the deal and end the war.

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

I mean, that's part of the irony about this whole thing, which is by the end, they hate the South Vietnamese government. They hate both do. Kissinger just hates them. You know, he just says things like, oh, she was a dope. Nixon goes on and on about that. These are such ungrateful people, and look what they've done. And why don't they understand our political situation? Right. They are, like, really negative about the south, but that's irrelevant to them, too. And I think just as a link to where we are right now, you know, for them, as for Donald Trump, the critical thing is to look good, they need to have an end to the conflict, or at least an end to the US Role in the conflict that actually makes it look like we achieved something. And when they sign that peace agreement, although many, many, lots of people looked at that agreement and they said this is like dooming South Vietnam, that isn't exactly what they think. But in any event, they have accomplished something that they wanted all along, which is that the US Is getting out of South Vietnam and the South Vietnamese government is still in place. I think when we leave, South Vietnamese government should be there. That was kind of like their bottom line. So in one sense, they're like Trump. But Trump is desperate to find a way to make it look like he's had a success.

[Martin DeCaro]

I mean, the easiest thing to do is just get out, which is ultimately what the United States does in Vietnam. It withdraws from the South. The north does not. Whether the interval was decent or not, some have argued that that was the deal they may have gotten, you know, years earlier without prolong the war to make themselves look good or some type of face saving delay. Right. But that aside, you can see similarities both situations. Neither president wants to look like they've lost a war or have egg dripping down their face. In Trump's situation, we can see the contours of a deal. It would involve Iran getting sanctions relief and potentially keeping its right to enrich. And that's close to the jcpoa. But Trump got rid of the jcpoa. So. So what was the whole point of the war then?

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

Well, right. I mean, that's a very big problem for Trump right now. And it's partly why it's very frightening to have a person this emotionally unstable and not very knowledgeable, you know, with his hands on the wheel. There is a level of unpredictability now, I think that's more serious. There is a way for Nixon to leave the war. Even if they're North Vietnamese troops in the south, the government in Saigon is still standing. And that is part of Trump's problem. He doesn't have right now anything comparable that would enable him to say we really accomplished a lot.

[Martin DeCaro]

Peace with honor. There is no peace with honor here. So you have warned me about over interpreting a single phone call in the Nixon Kissinger pantheon, but it was in August of 1972. So just a couple of months before the election where Nixon and Kissinger are talking about a decent interval and Kissinger says we've got to find some formula that holds the thing together for a year or two, after Which. After year, Mr. President, Vietnam will be a backwater. If we settle it, say this October, meaning before the election, by January of 74. So a year and a half later, no one will give a damn.

[Henry Kissinger]

We've gotta find some form of. They hold the thing together a year or two, after which, after a year, Mr. President, Vietnam will be a backwater. If we settle, let's say this October, by January 74, no one will give a damn.

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

But does he actually ever Say that we know that the south is going to collapse. No, no, right. A little trivia because, I mean, that's a little bit, you know, what I'm saying about they have to. It's not just like they're big liars and they're tricking the American public. It's that they are tricking themselves. Right. That they can't really ever psychologically acknowledge that the deal that they're getting is going to doom their ally. They can't. It's not what they're saying to the public, it's even what they're saying to themselves. And I really want to emphasize that because that's part of what Trump's problem is right now. How is he going to make this look like it was worth it? And there's no obvious way. I mean, it may be that the Iranians are smart enough in the nuclear area that would make it look like they accomplished something. Right. That maybe there's some language, maybe there's some formulation that will enable Trump to say, you know, oh, wow, we're so lucky, and I did so much more than Obama. I mean, that's partly what's in this all around the.

[Martin DeCaro]

I mean, there's no way for him to stage manage this the way Nixon and Kissinger tried to stage manage it. There's really no way for Trump to do it. Because just as with the North Vietnamese, the Iranians get a vote here. They are an agent, they get a say in how this ends. But they, of course, could also overplay their hands back to Vietnam. Carolyn, in the end, after four years of managing the war, taking the US Soldiers out, Vietnamization, but getting the American soldiers out while also escalating the bombing in Cambodia and Laos, et cetera, did anything Nixon and Kissinger do, madman or not, produce concessions? Seems like the north pretty much got what they wanted.

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

No, it did produce a concession because North Vietnam look In as of 1969, North Vietnam is insisting that the Saigon government either be erased or in any event, minimally, that the Saigon government has to have a different composition than it has and that they're not stopping the war unless that's the case. They need something to happen politically that will make this whole thing worth it for them. So that's, in a way, the thing that they give up. Right. And that's what Kissinger is ecstatic about in October of 72 when he comes rushing back to Nixon to say, oh, we've got it, we've got it. You know, what is it that they got? What they got was the willingness of the North Vietnamese to accept a political compromise that was kind of meaningless. That's what they wanted, and so they got it.

[Martin DeCaro]

Because Nixon had toyed with the idea of a neutral government in South Vietnam, or even at one point he said, it doesn't really matter to me what the makeup of the government in South Vietnam was, but it was important that it didn't go communist. I guess North Vietnamese decided they'll fight for that. But. So that is a concession. Whether that was worth another four years of war. I mean, I don't know. They did get something then for their efforts. The most important matter of all, though, was that the US Withdrew and the north did not.

[Richard Nixon]

To the leaders of North Vietnam, as we have ended the war through negotiations, let us now build a piece of reconciliation. For our part, we are prepared to make a major effort to help achieve that goal. But just. Just as reciprocity was needed to end the war, so too will it be needed to build and strengthen the peace

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

that the US Withdrew in the North. You know, I think one thing in terms of, like, linking, you know, what happened back then and now, there are certain parallels, like, why are we in this war? Either place. Right. Both cases, this is totally useless. But, you know, one of the things that underpins, I think, all the decision making at the top of the Nixon administration and what's happening right now is a callousness about what you're doing to people. That counts. Not at all. And, you know, even if you think about this massive bombing that just went on in Iran, well, the story of the elementary school where they managed to kill, I don't know, 170 people in the school, mostly children, that got publicity. Right. But not much. I mean, we dropped thousands of bombs into a city. I see the New York Times, you know, did an effort to look at what was happening to schools and hospitals in Iran. All of that is. And the damage that's done. And even if our planes are shot down, this is irrelevant to the Trump administration missile strike.

[Martin DeCaro]

And a Tomahawk missile likely destroyed that Iranian girls school. So will the Americans, will the US Accept any responsibility?

[Henry Kissinger]

Well, I haven't seen, and I will say that the Tomahawk, which is one of the most powerful weapons around, is used by, you know, is sold and used by other countries. You know, that. And whether it's Iran, who also has some Tomahawks, they wish they had more. But whether it's Iran or somebody else, the fact that a Tomahawk. A Tomahawk is very generic. It's sold to other countries, but that's being investigated right now.

[Martin DeCaro]

They did not care about the people they were killing. They were using bombing to try to get the North Vietnamese to give up. They also thought that it would be useful. And there's no parallel here because the United States is not trying to convince Moscow to lean on Tehran, as far as I know today. But another one of their tactics that doesn't seem to have worked was trying to convince the USSR to push Hanoi at the negotiating table.

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

One of the biggest fines when I, because I spent like more time reading declassified documents in the archives than any normal person should ever do. So one of the things that I did was I, you know, I read, you know, the diplomacy of Kissinger with the Russians and also with the Chinese because while I was working on my project, all that became declassified so you could read them. And it is simply astonishing the extent to which, first of all, Kissinger is buttering up the Russian leadership and the Chinese leadership just in general. He's fawning all over them, number one, and also making various concessions about lots of different things, number two. But number three is that he is trying to get them not just Russia, but China as well, to put pressure on North Vietnam. And as you were just saying, they don't really buy that. But if you think about what was the rationale for the war in the first place, why did you, by the way, have 550,000American troops there? That was theoretically about a cold war and about Moscow and Beijing taking over the world. And yet here you have Kissinger, not for five seconds but day after day when he talks with Brezhne, for example, Zhou Enlais over and over, you know, being as agreeable as he possibly can and asking for their help, which makes the whole project absolutely absurd.

[Martin DeCaro]

The conversation continues. Tap. Subscribe now in the show notes to skip ads. When Mother's Day means celebrating your mom, your wife, maybe even your daughter as a new mom. Trust 1-800-FLOWERS to help you celebrate every important woman in your life with double blooms from 1-800-Flowers. Order one dozen roses and get another dozen for free. It's a simple way to give beautifully with colorful blooms that make Mother's Day feel meaningful for every mom you're celebrating. Order with confidence and get Double blooms at 1-800-FLowers.com podcast. That's 1-800-FLowers.COM podcast. The stated purpose of the Vietnam War was to preserve a non communist government in the South. The South Vietnamese government was never legitimate in the eyes of the people there. Not as long as there'd be 500,000American troops holding it up. You know, I've been talking a lot on the podcast lately about the limits of power. I mentioned it earlier. Madman diplomacy or just coercive diplomacy, how it's a trap. You paint yourself into a corner, we're gonna destroy you unless you do this. And if the other side doesn't do this, well, now you have to follow through or you lose face. I guess to his credit, Donald Trump doesn't care about how many times he's lost face.

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

I think in that sense there's a similarity between the two situations in that you get to a place where the only thing that is actually at stake for an administration is how they look once upon a time. You know, and I still see this in my classes when I have conversations with students. Once upon a time, the whole Vietnam War was in the framework of a cold war that we are waging with the Russians and the Chinese and they are potentially going to take over everything, right? And then that's out the window. That's like so irrelevant to how Kissinger and Nixon are thinking. And so what is the state? You know, why was it so important to keep fighting and killing to make sure that when you left Vietnam, the South Vietnamese government would still be there? Why was that even valuable? I mean, it really becomes just saving the face of the administration.

[Martin DeCaro]

And a 72 election too, right?

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

Well, right. Although, I mean, I sometimes think we don't really appreciate in the 72 election how important it was that Nixon by then had brought home 500,000American troops. You know, if you were in the peace movement back then, you said, why are people voting for that warmonger? Well, actually, because the soldiers came home. Presidents can use unimaginable violence against the foreign people, even when there are no significant national stakes, which there weren't. By the time that you got to 1969 in Vietnam, there weren't very many important things that would have been concern to most Americans. And that's a little bit what we're in now. Right. And we don't know. I mean, because I do think that this is a president much more ignorant, much more irrational in lashing out. So we don't know how he's going to be. But I mean, essentially we're back down to something very simple. And it's not the lie that he's telling is it's about a nuclear threat from Iran. Right. That's what he's telling the American public. But that's not real. You know, like in my class they say, oh, don't they just want Iran to say they're not making a nuclear weapon? Well, actually, Iran has been saying that for 25 years. Right. But most Americans don't know that. So the President is trying to convince the public that our safety is at stake because of Iran's nuclear program. Right. That's what he's doing. But that's not true. It's not based on anything. What is at stake right now is that he thought he was going to be able to do this thing very quickly and it didn't happen. And now really what's at stake is his own prestige and standing in our country. That's what is happening. And people are dying every day because Donald Trump wants to save face, as does Netanyahu. And I mean, we haven't even talked about Lebanon and what's happened there. But it's the biggest similarity.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yeah, the global economy is in turmoil because he just can't do the easiest thing. Same scenario that confronted Nixon. The easiest thing would just to be get out. But then all the political consequences of doing that would be too severe. Although in this case, I think Americans would just simply say thank you for ending the blockade and admitting that this was not a great idea because we didn't want this war to begin with. There is no decades long commitment to preserving, you know, a communist free south Iran as their one year. The Vietnam War mattered more in that respect. Historically, going back decades through many presidential administrations, a commitment to South Vietnam, going back to Eisenhower and the French war there, and then not allowing an election after 1954 because Ho Chi Minh was the most popular politician in the country. He was a communist. But today, where's the peace movement? I mean, Donald Trump doesn't care apparently about public opinion. Or maybe he does. Maybe he is thinking about the midterm elections today.

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

You could argue that the peace movement is the stock market and the price of oil, because that is as much as anything is the countervailing force here. So he's got a plan which also could evaporate that he is going to blockade Iran. And then the Iranian government, which has suffered from our thousands of bomb attacks, it's not in phenomenal shape that they're going to crumble first. That's his calculation. But if they don't crumble pretty quickly, which doesn't look like it's going to happen, then this has very significant economic effects here, which is a different set of things. Both it's already hurting economies in Asia. He didn't care about that. The stock market has been going up and down, but it's going up and down, sort of when it seems like the war is going to end. Right. And then people get excited and it's going to happen. But what happens if we have a prolonged decline in the stock market? I think that's an issue. And gas?

[Martin DeCaro]

Yes.

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

I mean, in my classes, in terms of what are my students thinking about this, their gas is expensive and it's going up all the time. And other things, the inflation is increasing. So these are some of the things that really weigh on Trump. Now, whether that actually causes Trump to do something even more irrational is something to worry about.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yeah. As you say, it's not clear he's getting good information. Listening to people really understand the dimensions of the problems he has created, he has himself created here. Straight of Hormuz. I want to interject earlier about the unintended consequences of this stupid war, that Iran now might be more apt to go nuclear than it had been before, that it could be the only deterrent to stopping a future attack and how it can choke off the Strait of Hormuz whenever it wishes. And it has that card to play. You know, if you follow the President's social media posts, you wouldn't know that. Again, what he's getting, information he's getting behind the scenes from his advisors, who knows?

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

I mean, one other thing that is, you know, relevant is that Witkoff, Kushner, they are not Henry Kissinger. Although I think in the end, Henry Kissinger's own grandiosity actually produced a lot of negative effects. But he's got these two people negotiating. One point, going back a couple of months, they were negotiating with Iran, negotiating with Putin. Here are these people that are completely inappropriate. Wyckoff does real estate. Trump is putting them in charge. You know, and there is a lot of discussion about whether Wyckoff and Kushner even under properly understood what the Iranians were saying they would do in the nuclear area. I was in an event maybe a week or two ago that Rob Malley was speaking at, and he's a person that negotiated the nuclear treaty with John Kerry, jcpoa. You know, I was asking him about Witkoff and Kushner. You know, his point was that it wasn't that he or Kerry were like nuclear experts, but all the time they were negotiating, they had nuclear experts. They didn't feel, you know, the different issues were coming up, and they needed people who are scientists and who could advise them. And you have a situation now where you have these two guys who are focused on real Estate settling questions about. About nuclear weapons. So it's a. I mean, again, this

[Martin DeCaro]

is really crazy, highly technical situation dealing with enrichment levels, centrifuges, the types of labs, inspections, etc. I don't get it because I'm not a scientific person, but I'm smart enough to know that I couldn't negotiate it. In my meandering point before, about Trump, I just wanted to say, as of this moment, it still looks like he's trying to use coercion to get the other side to make concessions. This speaks to the painful lessons we, we were supposed to have learned from Vietnam. It speaks to the limits of power that we can't seem to learn. The American way of war, sophisticated technology, the power to blow up almost anything you want and kill thousands of people, not producing the outcomes you want. Politically, there is the echo, and it's very depressing that we're having this discussion again.

[Carolyn Eisenberg]

Well, let's hope something changes. One thing we haven't gotten into, and it's a whole longer conversation. There is a peace movement now. Now, it's not that there's nothing. There is a peace movement. It's not strong. But on the other hand, you also have an economic crisis that is also influencing the American public in a way that the Vietnam War didn't really. So we're dealing with something complex, but we need to find ways to stop this president who doesn't know anything and who acts on the basis of his emotions and need for people to love him and think he's the biggest genius there ever was. This is a very scary personality, you know, so it's made me a Nixon appreciator, which I thought would never happen.

[Richard Nixon]

Now, let me begin by describing the situation I found when I was inaugurated on January 20. The war had been going on for four years. 31,000Americans had been killed in action. The training program for the South Vietnamese was beyond schedule. 540,000Americans were in Vietnam with no plans to reduce the number. No progress had been made at the negotiations in Paris, and the United States had not put forth a comprehensive peace proposal. The war was causing deep division at home and criticism from many of our friends as well as our enemies abroad. In view of these surprises circumstances, there were some who urged that I end the war at once by ordering the immediate withdrawal of all American forces. From a political standpoint, this would have been a popular and easy course to follow. After all, we became involved in the war while my predecessor was in office. I could blame the defeat, which would be the result of my action on him and come out as the peacemaker. Some put it to me quite bluntly, this was the only way to avoid allowing Johnson's war to become Nixon's war. But I had a greater obligation than to think only of the years of my administration and of the next election. I had to think of the effect of my decision on the next generation and on the future of peace and freedom in America and in the world. Let us all understand that the question before us is not whether some Americans are for peace and some Americans are against peace. The question at issue is not whether Johnson's war becomes Nixon's war. The great question is how can we win America's peace?

[Martin DeCaro]

On the next next episode of History As It Happens. We're going to talk about a Kennedy. No, not John Kennedy or Ted Kennedy or Bobby Kennedy. Paul Kennedy, not related to the political family and his prophecy written in a book decades ago about the rise and fall of great powers. That is next. As we report History As It Happens, make sure to sign up for my free newsletter. Just go to Substack and search for History As It Happens. The right window treatments change everything. Your sleep, your privacy, the way every room looks and feels. @blinds.com, we've spent 30 years making it surprisingly simple to get exactly what your home needs. We've covered over 25 million windows and have 50,000 five star reviews to prove we deliver. Whether you DIY it or want a pro to handle everything from measure to install, we have you covered. Real design professionals, free samples, zero pressure right now. Get up to 50% off with minimum purchase plus get a free professional [e-mail] rules and restrictions apply.