Volume 20, Number 13 · August 9, 1973
Story Without End
By Simon Head
For Reasons of State
by Noam Chomsky
Pantheon, 440 pp., $3.45 (paper)
Critical Essays and an Index to Vols. 1-4 of the Senator Gravel Edition of the Pentagon Papers
edited by Noam Chomsky, edited by Howard Zinn
Beacon, 70 pp. of index pp., $5.00 (paper)
The more sophisticated among Mr. Nixon's Vietnam supporters have often tried to draw flattering parallels with de Gaulle's skillful withdrawal from Algeria. They argue that the kinds of calculations and judgments which have governed Nixon's withdrawal from Vietnam during the past four years are precisely those which lay behind de Gaulle's Algeria policy after 1958. Both realized from the start that their respective wars could not be 'won' because in neither case would public opinion tolerate the sacrifices that victory entailed; both concluded that withdrawal was the only remaining choice, even if it meant abandoning causes for which both nations had made enormous sacrifices.
Review, 4400 words
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