ABSTRACT
Both Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger believed at the outset that the Soviets could be an important element to solving the Vietnam problem. During the campaign Nixon mentioned the possibility of giving Kissinger the post of National Security Advisor to at least one reporter who brought it up with a shocked Kissinger. Operationalizing the concept Kissinger and Nixon had for wresting foreign policy decision-making from the established bureaucracy required far more than study memoranda (NSSMs) sent to the bureaucrats at state, defense, and Central Intelligence Agency. The NSSMs were largely intended to deflect the bureaucrats they saw as largely useless while creative minds at the National Security Council did their own analyses and crafted bold new solutions. Kissinger had become deeply engaged with the problem of the Vietnam war long before he entered the Nixon White House, both as a scholar and someone involved at least peripherally with the situation and prior negotiations.
