Nixon, Kissinger found Vietnam unwinnable

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WASHINGTON, April 3 (UPI) -- A new book on former U.S. President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said the two men thought the Vietnam War was "impossible" to win.

But while admitting to each other that the war was not possible to win, Nixon and Kissinger also agreed to label the Democrats "the party of surrender" for wanting to pull out of Vietnam, said historian Robert Dallek in "Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power," the New York Daily News reported.

"In Saigon the tendency is to fight the war to victory," Nixon told Kissinger as early as 1969, Dallek wrote, "but you and I know it won't happen -- it is impossible."

Excerpts from the book appear in the May issue of Vanity Fair.

The Daily News said that other revelations in the book include Nixon telling another aide that Kissinger might need "psychiatric help," and that Kissinger often tried to keep Nixon from major foreign affairs decisions because he feared Nixon was drunk.