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The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War. By Ilya V. Gaiduk. Chicago: Ivan R Dee, 1996. ISBN 1-56663-103-3. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xx, 299. $28.50.
The primary interest of Gaiduk's carefully researched and persuasive study lies in its unprecedented and exclusive access to previously unseen documents concerning the USSR's involvement in the Vietnam conflict: reports from the Soviet embassy in Hanoi, records of official conversations, and a variety of intelligence reports and Central Committee memoranda. The author concentrates on the period from 1964 and the initial involvement of the Johnson administration to the signing of the January 1973 Paris peace agreements, although the bulk of the analysis is devoted to the years leading up to Nixon's 1968 election. Gaiduk's interpretive...