Kissinger, Vietnam, Golda,Thieu, and 1973

An interesting piece in this morning's Ha'aretz (at least to those of my vintage) quotes recently released conversations of Henry Kissinger in which he reportedly wished, both to his own team and to a South Vietnamese interlocutor, that Golda Meir might negotiate with truculent South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu. The Israeli article links the revelations with the recently declassified Israeli inner Cabinet minutes from the 1973 War, suggesting that Israel never fully understood the various constraints under which the US labored. It makes a number of comparison between Israel and Vietnam in that era.

It's an interesting argument, but it doesn't quite hold up; as the author himself notes, Israel was not dependent on the Administration alone, having (then as now) the staunch support of Congress. Nguyen Van Thieu and the Republic of South Viet Nam (as it was then officially spelled) were in an opposite situation: the Nixon and later Ford Administrations were seeking to enforce the Paris Peace Accords, but Congress wanted nothing of it, while it was ready to offer Israel a great deal.

I know that the Baby Boomer Generation, of which I am one, tends to compare everything to Vietnam, and so will find the Israeli parallels interesting. But whatever quips Kissinger may have made (and as the first Jewish Secretary of State he could get away with more than his predecessors), Golda Meir was never really in an analogous position to Nguyen Van Thieu,who, according to Wikipedia:

In the early 1990s, Thieu took up residence in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Thieu lived reclusively in Massachusetts, and took his secrets with him in death. He never produced an autobiography, and rarely assented to interviews and shunned visitors. Neighbors had little contact or knowledge of him, aside from seeing him walking his dog.

Golda is buried on Mount Herzl, has a major boulevard in Jerusalem and streets in most Israeli towns, and a major performing arts center in Tel Aviv, named for her, not to mention several things in the US,.and has appeared on Israeli currency.

So an interesting story, but not a very solid parallel.

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