--- Charles Brown <charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> wrote:
>> CB: Late in the war, the Chinese stopped supporting
> the Vietnamese; and
> even started a little fight with them. It was the
> Soviets who supported
> the Vietnamese all the way through.
>
[WS:} Yes, you are absolutely right on this. The Sino Vietnamese war http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War was a direct reaction to Vietnam invasion of Cambodia against the Chinese puppet there, the Khmer Rouge. China supported Khmer Rouge to fight a proxy war against the Soviet influence in the region, and basically was in cahoots with the US on this. This was basically Nixon's exit strategy from Vietnam - fight a proxy war against the Soviets and exploiting the Sino-Soviet rift to that end.
The Khmer Rouge could challenge the Vietnam influence in Cambodia only when they started recieving Chinese weapons and support passed throgh them through Thailand ie. with the Thai and US tact support.
Claiming that Nixon intended to nuke Vietnam simply because he or his administration had such plans is silly and betrays the total lack of understanding how bureaucratic organizations (such as governments or thr military) operate. The main raison d'etre of these organizations is to make contingency plans to determine various possibole course of action. The existence of such plans does not meran that they have a "intent" to execute those plans. Oftentimes, they make plans to show the implausiblity of this particular scenario and to take an alternative approach.
AFAIK, Nixon's policy was that of Kissinger which was characterised by detente toward the major power, the USSR and also China. That policy changed only during the Reagan revolution when "hawks" (many of whome wre ex-Democrats, such as Kirkpatrick, but also Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Cheney and the gang ) managed to outmaneouver Kissinger's influence and embark on a more confrontational policy toward the USSR. So from that poiont of view, maintaining that Nixon "planned" to nuke Vietnam to "teach Ghina & the USSR a lesson" but was dissuaded by a bunch of hippies and freaks in the streeets is rather silly - it resembles stories told while passing a bong rather than a realistic account of history.
Wojtek
____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping