ABSTRACT
The United States abandoned the stalemate machine in Indochina only after Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger had carefully worked out the US rapprochement with Communist China. The disastrous effects of our presumed loss of China had hung over US politics like an evil-smelling but inescapable cloud for some twenty-three years as of 1972 when Nixon signed the Shanghai Communique. The rapprochement with China having been crowned by the Shanghai Communique, and detente in Europe having made significant gains, Nixon and Kissinger could at last bring their policy of disengagement from Indochina to its ultimate conclusion with the least possible fears of adverse domestic consequences. As the twelve long years of our involvement progressed, however, different perspectives of the war as seen from outside the United States came more and more to reinforce elements in the US proper opposing our continued engagement in Indochina.
