The first author served as an adviser on the United States and as a South Vietnamese cabinet member in the closing years of the government of President Thieu; the second is an experienced American journalist. The book is overbuilt around a file of letters, principally from President Nixon, which provide some additional details to our knowledge of how the United States pressured and often misled the South Vietnamese before, during and after the negotiations with Hanoi that led to the American withdrawal from Vietnam.